Missing You

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ONCE upon a time, back in 2008, we sat on our very first panel. It happened at the Small Press Expo. The night before, we had celebrated the impending glory of our first SPX at the unfortunately-named “SPX-plosion” at Atomic Books in Baltimore. Atomic hosted the debut bash of Daybreak 3Goddess of WarBoy’s Club 2, the Hot Breath of War and Capacity, a rogue’s gallery of indie comics’ finest from Bodega DistributionPicturebox, Buenaventura Press, Sparkplug Comic Books and, of course, us.

 

SPX-PLOSION

At the panel, we sat with Randy Chang, Dylan Williams and Alvin Buenaventura for a Publisher’s Roundtable. Secret Acres leaned heavily on the expertise of Randy and Dylan when we started out, so we knew them well, but it was our first time getting to hang out with Alvin. We found him a little inscrutable, scary smart and weird beyond reason. The four of us ignored the large crowd assembled to hear us gab, and ended up gushing over each others’ books and bitching about distro issues the entire time. It felt to us that the future had arrived.

These days, that convivial panel feels like it happened a thousand years ago. Since then, Randy’s closed the shop and moved on to bigger and better things, ditto for Dan. We’ve already dropped plenty of words here about losing Dylan, and now, five years later, Sparkplug itself. Alvin shuttered Buenaventura, returned with Pigeon Press and has now left everyone behind with a pile of great comics and stunning art prints. Whatever era it was that began back in 2008 is inarguably over. Rather than lie, we’ll cop to being just a little terrified. For us, time tends to pass without notice, but, boy, did this past winter drive home the fact that Secret Acres has lived through a distinct comics lifecycle.

 

SPACE

 

When we say we’ve missed you, you beautiful people reading this, we mean it. Here’s to the start of the 2016 comics season.

It is fitting that our first book of the year comes from Robert Sergel. Welcome to SPACE: an Eschew Collection. Allow us some nostalgic musings here: when we read Eschew the first time and realized that we desperately wanted to publish Rob Sergel’s work, it turned out that Dylan was already working with Rob. Of course, Dylan had read Eschew first and said it was his favorite comic and that it would be our favorite comic, and he was right.

Now, Eschew can be your favorite comic, too. Rob worked hard polishing up the old Eschew stories for SPACE, and shoring up a ton of stuff you haven’t seen before. Nobody nails life’s awkward and absurd moments like Rob Sergel. If you wish you could forget the anxiety-filled stupidity of the things you’ve done to get from there to here, Rob’s comics will have you cuddling your inner child – just try not to laugh in its face.

Freaks like us count the seasons by their comics shows. Rob and SPACE will be coming to the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art Festival this weekend. Come by the table and try tricking Rob into drawing something for you. We expect great things from him.

We’re flying blind for MoCCA, though. While we remain on the steering committee with the fine folks at the Society of Illustrators. While life showered us with many blessings in the year that was 2015, it didn’t leave us too much time to help out with the steering. We did check out the Metropolitan West building and it’s gorgeous. We failed to get a look at Ink48, but with a name like that, it has to be damn fine. Between our pair of new day jobs, one new marriage, a toddler, a new home, some health scares and all that, well, in the Society we trust. Hey, we love an adventure, too.

 

The Boys at Marlborough

 

Speaking of big news and adventures, Edie Fake’s solo show at the Marlborough Chelsea is up until April 23rd. When you come out to MoCCA, you need to walk the High Line from Marlborough. Feel free to kick the tourists out of your way, but check out Edie’s show because it’s killer, like everything Edie. We squeezed through the crowd to get to opening night, which rocked and amazed us. We’ve spent a good decade watching Edie, and what looks like peaking is always just another step on the way up for him. No doubts allowed, we are the most proud of Edie and his prodigious talents!

If attending MoCCA requires crossing an ocean for you, or presents other logistical horrors, you can pick up SPACE in our Emporium, of course. You can even pre-order the new and improved, special edition of Ken Dahl’s Monsters. You can even pre-order Sick, by Gabby Schulz, the artist formerly known as Ken Dahl. You imagine correctly that there’s a story behind that one, but it’s a story for another time.

We’ll return with our post-show rundown of all things MoCCA next week! Come say hello to Rob and SPACE at MoCCA this weekend and be part of the great comics lifecycle that we’re all living right now.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

 

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