Dan Vado becomes an Unexpected Mentor in new podcast

CREATIVE CAREER ADVICE FROM SLG FOUNDER DAN VADO BECOMES AN UNEXPECTED MENTORSHIP


SLG’s new podcast “The Unexpected Mentor” offers traditional insights on building a creative career to a modern day social media-centric audience.

April 22, 2025, (San Jose, CA) — SLG Publishing’s founder and president Dan Vado is collaborating on a creative career podcast through which he hopes to empower the next generation of non-conventional artists and storytellers. Despite his reputation as a no-nonsense professional, he finds himself unexpectedly accompanied by an energetic and occasionally overconfident protégé in the form of indie writer and podcast producer Emily Parent.  

What starts as a harsh critique of Emily’s book quickly evolves into a candid, intergenerational dialogue about the struggles and satisfactions of pursuing a life as a creative professional. The podcast covers topics such as raising a family while pursuing a creative career, overcoming the obstacles of rejection and need for validation, and taking on brutally honest feedback while maintaining a sense of internal grounding. Each episode is a candid exchange between two people who are not only in different stages of their journeys as creative professionals but also vastly different parts of their lives. During the conversations Dan draws from his experience as both a controversial writer for DC Comics and a publisher for countless new and traditionally off-beat comic book writers and artists.

Dan Vado is an established figure in the independent comics scene and is best known for launching breakout titles like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez and Lenore, the Little Dead Girl by Roman Dirge. He also wrote for DC Comics and produced a line of comics based on Disney properties, including Gargoyles and The Haunted Mansion. Emily Parent is a former Silicon Valley social media manager on an undeterrable mission to understand how she can live and make a living as a self-made creative professional.

“I hope this podcast might serve as a guide to some of the other Emilys out there” says Vado. “The mediums through which we create and tell stories may be changing, but the basic foundations of creativity and dedication to your craft will never change.”
The Unexpected Mentor is a heartfelt conversation that meets at the intersection between looking back on a life of creative risk-taking and running blindly forward into one’s hopeful ambitions. While there may not be a one-size-fits-all approach to pursuing a creative career, Emily and Dan do their best each week to unravel the complications of building a career in the arts by talking through one obstacle at a time.
The first three episodes of The Unexpected Mentor launch on May 1st. Pre-save now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
For media inquiries, interviews, or more information, please contact:
Emily Parent
emily@slgpubs.com


www.unexpectedmentor.com