Return of the Living Dead

WE’RE not dead yet. In fact, we’re very much alive. We have a history of behaving like bears, though we are bears of neither kind. We do need to take a break every once in a while, and do our spring cleaning and the like. You may have noticed some additions to this, our overly robust site. There are new members of the Acres gang, but we’ll get to them in a minute.

Don’t think we’ve been sitting around getting fat this whole time. At least not the whole time. As we have written here, we were drafted into the steering committee for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival, aka MoCCA, now under new management, that of the Society of Illustrators.

There are several reasons why we agreed to sign on. We have done nothing but bash MoCCA for a few years running. There were suggestions made left and right, here on this very blog. Promises were made, too, that if anyone ever thought to listen to us, we’d happily pitch in to clean MoCCA up. If we’d said no when Tucker Stone, of Bergen Street Comics and Factual Opinion fame (and the husband of our beloved Nina Stone), came to us with this proposition, we’d have been the biggest hypocrites in the business. It was not an easy decision, but it was the only decision.

You might wonder why they’d invite us to the table. We certainly did. We can think of several possible reasons. Having our mircopublisher name on the menu is a sign that MoCCA, as we knew it, is dead – and long live the new MoCCA. Trust us. Ye olde MoCCA never paid much attention to us. This was the heart of the problem. The museum did not focus on what the festival exhibitors were doing, which was a dick move if ever there were, because the festival was the sole fundraiser for the museum.

So does that make us bait for other publishers of our ilk? It might. Truth be told, our job on the committee really did seem to be convincing everyone else it was safe to get back in the water. We had to eat no small amount of crow, from several folks who were disappointed in us for agreeing to return to MoCCA, let alone lend ourselves to the steering committee. Everyone else had to make their own decisions. We didn’t convince anyone of anything. We are happy to tell you that AdHouse, Picturebox, Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics and, for the first time, Koyama Press are all going to be at the show this weekend. It’s not fun having your choices challenged by people you respect in your chosen field. It does, however, force you to clarify your position.

 

 

How is this MoCCA different from all others? For starters, this administration is way more transparent than the exiting one. We’ve seen the numbers. What may have been a cash cow for a museum that didn’t give a damn about us is now what it’s meant to be: a festival, not a fundraiser. Every anticipated dime is being poured back into the show. The committee isn’t any more fond of the Lexington Armory digs than we are, but it’s going to look a hell of a lot better this year, and there has to be a this year if there’s going to be a next year. The Society of Illustrators knows what it’s doing. Consider the artists drawing posters and badges. These are folks like Jillian Tamaki, Brandon Graham and Michael DeForge. We’re even moderating a panel, featuring Mickey Z, Zack Hazard and Heather Benjamin. Look us in the eye and say that would have happened at ye olde MoCCA. Thought so.

There’s another reason why we’re back at MoCCA. It was the only local show for the likes of us for a while. We discovered a ton folks there, including Jamie Tanner, who got us thinking about starting this little company of ours, and Minty Lewis, whom we followed across the country trying to convince her to let us publish her comics. It was the first show at which Secret Acres ever exhibited. It was five years ago that we dropped our first books at MoCCA, Fatal Faux-Pas and Wormdye. It has pretty much sucked for a few years running. And it is still worth saving in our book.

So. For our sixth MoCCA, and in celebration of our fifth anniversary as publishers, we’ll be debuting Eschew 3. We have a history with Eschew and Robert Sergel, too. Eschew was a Sparkplug comic for its second issue. We fell in love with it after Dylan Williams (founder of Sparkplug and beloved friend and trailblazer who will be eternally missed) showed us the first issue.

We’ve written about Dylan’s weird way of reverse poaching his artists. His thinking was that it would make room for him to publish someone new who needed a hand. Dylan was, however, always trying to pry our own Eamon Espey from us, at one point offering up several of the folks on his roster in a trade for Eamon. It hurt to say no when he threw in Robert Sergel and Eschew, but we bit our lips and shook our heads (because we would NEVER give up our guys EVER). Yes, Eschew is that good.

What else is going on? The Ink Panthers Show! is back! Mike and Alex have not missed a beat. Actually, we were on hold about as long as they were, so we can’t say anything, as much as we would like to. There have been a million, Brazilian reviews of our books, but you can go get caught up on all that on the artist pages if you like, which are being updated as we type. Speaking of artist pages, check out the new guys, the aforementioned Robert Sergel, Sar Shahar, the guy who makes those amazing Sequential Vacation comics (which we are now publishing, thanks) and Brendan Leach, creator of the Xeric-funded, Ignatz Award winning Pterodactyl Hunters and the forthcoming big, fat Secret Acres book (and record), Ironbound. Also, that Joe Lambert guy? Who did that I Will Bite You! book? He got nominated for a Reuben Award, which he is going to win, and for which we will feed him a reuben. Best news: we’re no longer a duo, nor are we a sausage party. For the past couple weeks we’ve had a new Lady of the Acres pitching in, namely Casey Gonzalez. She can speak for herself, so we’ll pass the mic’ when the time comes.

Obviously we really missed you guys, since we can’t shut up. We’ll be back here after MoCCA, with a rundown on the relaunch of the show.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

 

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