Outbreak

Blog-Header-04_11_16TRIGGER WARNING: this post may contain painful, embarrassing truths and mentions of Gabby Schulz, the artist formerly known as Ken Dahl. Thanks for hanging out and continuing to read, the beautiful few of you who are left. This weekend, we at Secret Acres drop Sick on the formerly suspecting, but now likely unsuspecting, horde of the world’s biggest indie comics show, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, aka TCAF.

Those blessed with a freakish memory and a long history of reading this blog, may remember that, in 2011, we went to our first TCAF and partied way, way too hard. Someone brought pills, others gave us free pot, we washed it all down with booze. On TCAF Sunday, like, while the show was happening, we searched frantically to find at least one of our gang trashed in the garage across the street. We knew no better at the time, so we drove home, across the border and back to New York, USA, right after the doors closed. The last line of our TCAF 2001 blog wrap up reads that we were all “literally feverish.” Two of us fell violently ill. One of us went to the ER. Gabby decided to tough it out. For weeks. This birthed Sick.

 

Sick - Cover

 

Stating that Gabby decided to tough it out qualifies as an understatement. Like millions of Americans, Gabby took his chances with no insurance. He’d argue that he was left to die, friendless. To our recollection, though Gabby violently disputes this, all of Brooklyn was begging to drag him to a hospital. We could probably prove it if we had the kind of chops to storify Twitter. If you enjoyed Gabby’s graphic novel Monsters, and bless the many of you who have, you know a little bit about him. He chooses darkness, or truth, as he would say. As his publishers, we’re aware that Gabby creates only in the bleakest hours of his life. It’s a dilemma: do we want him to be happy or do we want him to make some comics? No surprise, Gabby returned from the dead with Sick, the Ignatz nominated webcomic, documenting his illness/madness.

We announced the completed and collected Sick would be coming to TCAF in 2013. We announced the completed and collected Sick would be coming to TCAF in 2014. Last year, we stopped announcing Sick. This failed to stop folks at TCAF from asking if Sick was out, or if Gabby was at the show. If you asked, you might wonder what the hell Gabby was doing the past couple of years. He moved. Thrice. He accompanied us down some terrible paths in our Wilderness Moments. He cycled through three different, equally hostile and infamous Twitter handles before quitting the scene. Believing he had successfully alienated everyone, but not us, never us, he took over our own Edie Fake‘s spot at the legendary Quimby’s. He freaked out because, shocker, the webcomic Sick needed to be redrawn, top to bottom, to fit in a book. He decided it would be easier and faster to watercolor the whole thing, which, amazingly, turned out not to be true at all. He suffered some serious nerve damage that completely killed his drawing arm when he was a couple pages shy of finishing. He was knocked out of action for months. He finally finished Sick, five years after getting sick.

Secret Acres is proud to announce that Gabby Schulz’s Sick is debuting at this weekend’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Keep it away from the kids and the delicate in nature. We tried to encourage Gabby to complete his magnificently rendered and watercolored masterwork, Sick, by allowing his perennial classic, Monsters, to disappear from print until it could be reissued in a special edition next to Sick. We keep our promises in these parts: we are pleased to announce the return of Gabby Schulz’s perennial classic, Monsters, written as Ken Dahl, now in a special, deluxe, flexibound edition. Christ almighty, what a long, strange trip it’s been.

 

Monsters - Cover

 

Meanwhile, since we last appeared on this blog, Hillary Brown over at Paste, wrote up Robert Sergel‘s SPACE: An Eschew Collection. In this age of people constantly wringing their hands over the state of comics journalism and comics criticism, count on Hillary. She understands comics, she’s incredibly thoughtful and even better, she can really write. Thank you, Hillary for all the kind words for our latest. Hillary has company in Rob Kirby, who picked SPACE as his pick of the week, and in Alex Hoffman, whose Sequential State discussed SPACE on their podcast. Who says comics criticism is dead? What better way to celebrate all this love than to bring Rob and SPACE with us to TCAF. Yes, we love you all.

Alas, MK Reed continues to shirk her sacred duties as our TCAF comics mule, but she will be at the show, Palefire in hand, so no complaints there. If you can’t make it up to Toronto, you can still get Sick (and SPACE and Palefire) in our Emporium. If you just want to sit around listening to more podcasts, you can check out Mike Dawson and Theo Ellsworth on  Comics Alternative. If you need more Theo in your life, and we all do, really, there’s some lovely thoughts on his latest, The Understanding Monster – Book Three, over at Foreword. It’s so nice, they hit it twice.

See you on the other side, and back here in a bit…

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

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