The World is not Enough

WE’RE PRETTY stupid, when you get down to it. An object in motion tends to be inconsiderate, and we tend not to consider the possible consequences of our actions when we are moving as quickly as possible. So let’s consider!

It’s obvious that death notes tend to get a lot more eyeballs than love letters (see: the internet). The conversations about the future, or lack thereof, of MoCCA the festival and museum, which happened in the comments of our blog (and offstage) were many and got the attention of several of our heroes in this comics world. We were thrilled about this. We were not thrilled that the only person voicing MoCCA’s positives (which exist) was a volunteer. The volunteers are the best constant of all things MoCCA. And no one speaking in any official capacity from the museum had a word to say. Clearly, we’re doing something wrong.

As for stupid us, we also took a jab at one of the big boy pants comics publishing houses. We may not be smart, but we’re a bit oversensitive, very overprotective and certainly smartasses, so when our feelings are hurt over any kind of perceived slight, we break out a zinger or two. Our reward for a lousy assumption was a long and fascinatingly honest conversation with someone we didn’t think knew we existed. Of course, this makes us even less likely to consider our words when we are miffed. To the target of our snarkiness: thank you for treating us like grownups; it’s more than we deserve.

Apologies should also be extended to Sean T. Collins and Tom Neely (of Sparkplug and Tom Neely fame), who tried to warn us that bringing a comic like Wayward Girls over the border for a Toronto Comic Arts Festival debut was maybe not a good idea. Last year, Tom and Sparkplug were held at the border and had their books confiscated for six months. The year before, Ryan Matheson was arrested and jailed for carrying manga over the border. None of these people were transporting anything remotely as provocative as Wayward Girls, the content of which stretches the limits of plausible deniability. Still, M.K. Reed, our ridemate (poor woman) didn’t try to stop us, either.

We can’t say we didn’t know. We can say we didn’t care, at least until we met a very unfriendly border guard. A fellow mumbler, we kept asking her to repeat herself until we were certain we were going to jail. Finally, she sent us to pay our taxes. As we were leaving, we saw a troop of men carrying machine guns heading over to check out the car that showed up after us. Only after we were pulling away did we start freaking out. Why are we so stupid?

Haunted by our idiocy, we didn’t get much sleep. We did have a hell of a view from the large balcony of our guest suite in a building that houses both Annie Koyama and the Toronto International Film Festival. With all those goodies, there was still no soap, because weren’t clever enough to remember to pick any up. We spent the entire weekend shrouded in the subtle bouquet of Nivea Cashmere Moments hand soap.

In this state we arrived at TCAF to find our table, which took us a while because it was in the middle of nowhere and behind a pillar. Mike Dawson immediately christened it Pete Campbell’s Office. We did, however, get everything we asked for from TCAF. We were next to the Sundays table (again, always and forever, we will be sitting with Chuck Forsman and Melissa Mendes) so Joseph Lambert could two-time us. Sundays was next to Beth Hetland, who was next to John Chad, all by request.

As you might expect, being out of the way and behind a pole didn’t do wonders for business. We asked to be relocated, which the TCAF folks set to work on and they immediately produced and handed out flyers to tell people know where our small press area was. It worked. There were other convention impressarios taking notes on TCAF’s organizational skills. As well they should because TCAF is untouchable. No one flips their lid when the hall is too hot, or there’s a video glitch at the Doug Wright Awards because bringing a problem to the attention of the TCAF gang is the same as getting a solution.

We had so much fun at TCAF last year that we’d have come back even if we’d lost money (which we didn’t). This year, we sold of out of almost everything, praise be to Annie Koyama, because sneaking Wayward Girls over the border twice would be pushing even our dumb luck. Major congratulations are in order for Michiel Budel aka Slechte Meisjes for a sellout debut. Sean Ford, on his way to selling out of Only Skin, had the thought that the crowded aisles may have worked against us last year. Our books are all over the map and it takes a little space to look them over, fondle them a bit, buy them a drink and get them in the mood before taking them home. We even had room for guest star Brendan Leach, selling his new and excellent mini, Ironbound, at the Acres table after selling out of his Pterodactyl Hunters at the Top Shelf stand.

Once again, we sold the vast majority of our wares to women. Generally, there was the sense that we were selling comics to civilians, not Comics People, which is the benefit of both free admission and to the scale of TCAF. It’s big enough to take over the uber-worldly supermetropolis of Toronto. Shocking as it was, the pathologically shy Mike Dawson was the only one who didn’t like Pete Campbell’s Office because he felt like he was missing the party.

There is no missing the TCAF party. We made an excellent new pal of Derf Backderf, who was there to sell out of My Friend Dahmer. Nate Bulmer should expect our company on the regular.  Josh Bayer was lurking at dinner time, which was a banquet every night. We got all blushy and toed the floor when Zak Sally came by to say hello. We saw our old pals, Alex Kim, L. Nichols (and lovely wife, Christina), Kevin Czap, Becca Lambert (yes, Joe is married), Robin Nishio, Laila Emir, Scoop MacDonald (no longer a TCAF virgin), Michael Deforge and still failed to so much as say hello to Tom Devlin for the second time in as many weeks.

Speaking of friends, our panel was really fun, especially for those of us on the panel, which were Annie Koyama, Pat Grant, Sarah Howell, Matthew Sheret, John Retallick and us. We learned a lot about comics in the UK and Australia (!) and how they’re developing the indie comics scenes over there. We’re fascinated by their community building efforts, which for the Aussies included renting a former communist youth camp and inviting the entire country’s comics population to hang out and just play, no show involved at all. TCAF brings you the world.

It’s hard not to fall in love with everyone over a weekend like that, and we’re too foolish to protect our hearts. The one thing TCAF is missing, organizationally, is a helpline to deal with the massive separation anxiety after it’s over. Love hurts. That’s not hyperbole, it’s the truth. It hurt a little less when we got home to find a ton of messages from folks wondering if we were in jail.

Also, that little drawing up there of a plane flying in a pink sky? That’s a sliver from a new comic by the artist formerly known as Ken Dahl. We’ll have more on that when come back here to talk about CAKE. Right now, it’s time for more tears of loneliness.

Your Pals,

Leon and Barry

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

IF YOU CAN’T say anything nice, et cetera, et cetera. Well, we can say plenty of nice things and though it isn’t in the true spirit of the internet, we’ll start with the niceties:

We have never missed a MoCCA Fest. Ever. When we were fans and Secret Acres was not even a glimmer in our little eyes, we were there. When we were comics pros with a little something on the side with the Highwater Books gang, we were there. When we were stalking the artists who would make Secret Acres, we were there. We have never missed a MoCCA as Secret Acres and we have always had a debut, sometimes two, at MoCCA every year of our existence and we likely always will. Partly this is because we’re not stupid enough to leave money on the table, and largely this is because MoCCA is New York City’s premier art comics festival and we take pride in that, damn it. Please keep all this mind if you plan on reading any further.

For the last few years, the exhibitors and the audience have grown more and more uncomfortable with the MoCCA Festival. This isn’t up for debate. Since the move from the beloved Puck Building, things have changed and not for the better. There is no way to please all of the people all of the time, but never has the time come when anyone was heard to say they were thankful that MoCCA had moved to the Armory.

Everyone was thankful when MoCCA moved to April and away from New York’s more stifling and muggy warmer months. Beyond that obvious improvement, it would appear no one is listening, so let’s repeat ourselves. Here’s what we suggested a couple years back: Lower the table fees. Let people in free. Have a sliding scale for exhibitors. Consider a curated festival. Turn it into an arts festival proper.

That post was re-blogged and retweeted more than anything else we have written on here. Other ideas were thrown into the mix along the way, like giving every exhibitor a year’s membership to the museum to remind folks it exists. We’d thought with attendance visibly down last year, that maybe the museum and the festival organizers might start paying attention. This year’s response? Silence and higher admissions prices for members and non-members alike, to the tune of $15. Per day.

Once upon a time, people would talk about who was at MoCCA. Now we talk about who isn’t there. We, meaning tiny, little Secret Acres got some odd, competitive jabs from some of the big boys who sit at the front of the Armory, apologizing for what they saw as poaching our gang while proudly admitting that their rather large staff doesn’t edit the books they publish. Hey, with the sheer volume of what they produce, we’d be surprised if anyone up there even remembers what they publish. But why us? Maybe it was because there was no Koyama Press, no Sparkplug, no Adhouse, no Picturebox and they had to pick on somebody.

Thinking about Picturebox being absent from MoCCA was interesting in itself. We wondered why, exactly, the biggest art comics publisher in the city wouldn’t show up for MoCCA. Was it because of the dustup after the museum didn’t credit creators at its Archie exhibit? Was it because the Picturebox co-production, the Brooklyn Comic and Graphics Festival, does just about everything right and has slurped up what used to be the lifeblood of the MoCCA Fest? Was Dan Nadel, the Picturebox captain, fed up with the name calling and bullshit from folks angry over MoCCA being criticized by the Comics Journal, which he edits? Any of those would be reason enough.

Maybe Picturebox doesn’t want to play to an empty house. Attendance was down last year. One might argue that is was flat, but it was down. This year, attendance was down by at least a third, and that’s a conservative estimate. If we were told attendance was down by 1,000 people, that would be suspicious. The story that attendance was up by 1,000 people is laughable. No one who was there could believe that. Which is more depressing, that attendance is dropping like a stone or that this fact can’t even be acknowledged by the festival’s organizers?

The real problem is the disconnect between the museum and the festival. This was never more evident than in the absurd, defensive comments following that TCJ article on the museum. Some anonymous but ardent supporter of the museum took it upon himself to lay the responsibility at the feet of us “indies,” claiming that we complain about the festival and the museum, but don’t support it. By the museum’s own admission, the festival is the sole fundraiser that keeps the struggling Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art alive. Guess who all of the exhibitors are? They’re us indies. That includes the bigger houses at the front of the room, too. The publishers at the front of the Diamond Previews catalog aren’t showing up at all, but the museum’s programming caters mostly to their fans. We like Archie, too, but that’s not going to get the folks on the floor of the MoCCA fest to feel any kind of ownership of the museum, which should be supporting them as much as the festival exhibitors support the museum.

The irony here is that we had a blast at MoCCA. The volunteers were their usual wonderful selves, and even included our pals from [insertgeekhere] who wound up interviewing our own Sean Ford about Only Skin on Sunday. Saturday started off so dead that we had plenty of time to meet and greet the cartoonists behind the tables, pick up new books to carry in our distro (coming soon) from Anuj Shrestha and Sean K, and we even discovered a brand new and very promising indie publisher in Hic and Hoc. Our sales did not stink and it was not our Worst MoCCA Ever, though it was our first step back at MoCCA.

Our big debut, Only Skin, got off to a nice start. We had Eamon Espey with us and we talked about his new book (coming later this year). We got to hang out with Charles Forsman (the guy behind the best ongoing series out there, The End of the Fucking World) and Melissa Mendes (she of Freddy Stories fame) all day and night. We got to eat dinner with the Dongery guys (an easy pick for Stars of the Show). We have one hell of a haul from MoCCA, thanks to folks like Domino Books, Closed Caption Comics and the Secret Prison/Suspect Device/Retrofit unholy trinity.

To quote Matt Thurber, who wasn’t at the nonexistent Picturebox tables, “It’s a room full of people I love, so I’m going to be there.” We agree and we will be back at MoCCA. They may not let us back in after reading this, but that would assume that they’re reading anything on this site. We hope they are, because the problems with the museum and festival are real and need fixing before there’s no MoCCA to come back to.

The real good time for us was at Bergen Street Comics, which is kind of our home away from home these days. We have to admit that we were worried about folks showing up on MoCCA’s Saturday night, but those thoughts went right out the window from the get. The Only Skin release party was practically an all-nighter. We wound up having to say good night to Darryl Ayo twice, who left us once to go to another party, but stopped in again since were still rockin’. Bergen Street are the people who aren’t carrying the Before Watchmen comics – and good for them. Tucker Stone is the guy who made it fun for us to have a pull list again. They totally made our weekend. We can’t thank them enough and many, many thanks to all the folks who came by to pick up Only Skin and get their ghost balloons.

Next up for us is TCAF, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Everyone loves this show. It’s pretty much perfect. You may have heard that we’ve got another new comic to drop at TCAF called Wayward Girls. The smart move would be to keep quiet about it until we get across the border. This is convenient because it’s a little hard to describe. It is the English language print edition of the Dutch webcomic, Slechte Meisjes by Michiel Budel. It’s beautiful, it’s a little nasty and it’s a lot of fun. We keep using the phrase “barely legal” when we talk about it, which we will stop doing after we tell you that you can get some at TCAF this weekend and pre-order some from the Emporium right now.

Michiel is in Holland, but Joseph Lambert, Mike Dawson and Sean Ford will be at the Secret Acres table with their books. Neither Sean’s Only Skin nor Mike’s Troop 142 have made it across the border before, and Joe probably doesn’t remember much from last year’s TCAF, so this ought to be interesting.

On a more pressing note, Secret Acres will be representing the United States of America on a TCAF panel on comics of the Commonwealth of Nations (that would include Canada, England and Australia, apparently, which we didn’t know because we’re Americans). If you are a real American cartoonist, send us pictures of yourselves and your work. The Aussies have gone and escalated things a bit by bringing their own slideshow. It’s strange that we are debuting our first international comic and doing it Canada, but USA gotta represent. We need you!

See you on the other side if we don’t get jailed by mounties on the way.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

Apocalypse Now

SORRY WE’RE LATE, but traffic was a bitch. Welcome to the new Secret Acres site, everybody. Things had gotten sprawl-ish in the old joint, but it’s all under one roof here, which should surely make your lives a little easier.

You may have noticed that there’s a bunch of stuff gone AWOL, like the Ad Rem links page, the Critical Ends essays and Small Plates weekly snippets of our comics. Alas, some of those lovely features will not be joining us in the new world. If you were on our links page, we’re following you on Twitter and you never shut up. Instead of Small Plates, we will be adding chunky previews of everything Acres. There’s more treats in development, so if you’ve got any thoughts on what you’d like to see, let us know.

This being our first blog post of 2012, in April, is a little bit embarrassing and deserves an explanation. We go into hibernation after the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, which is usually our last show of the year. Still, we never even did a 2011 Year in Review type of thing, and for that, we blame Tom Spurgeon. If you didn’t read our Comics Reporter Holiday Interview, well, don’t. For the rest of you, thanks, seriously, for all your kind words about it, but after so much blather in one go, we were ready to enjoy the silence. Besides, we’ve been busy and love means never having to say you’re sorry. But we can make it up to you, to the tune of seven Secret Acres comics in the next seven months, and one rather large book in the next seven days.

It’s been a slow apocalypse indeed, but Only Skin has arrived. It is big in many ways, weighing in at nearly two pounds. That’s 272 oversized, creamy pages worth of Sean Ford‘s blood, sweat and tears. In what was maybe the most ambitious effort we’ve ever been associated with, Sean went back to the drawing board on his epic thriller that’s been five years in the making. There are several dozen new pages, a new (and vastly improved, if we say so ourselves (and we do)) ending and every page reflects what Sean can do now. We couldn’t be more proud if we made the thing ourselves, so we are celebrating the debut of Only Skin all weekend long, all over America.

This Saturday and Sunday, Sean will be defending the Secret Acres fort at MoCCA, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival, at the Lexington Avenue Armory in Manhattan. The first among you to pick up Only Skin will get your very own pet ghost (see below). When the show stops on Saturday, the party starts at Brooklyn’s own Bergen Street Comics, for a launch party complete with beer and bubbly, starting at eight. Because too much is never enough, the Acres MoCCA table will also play host to Sean’s fifth (!) installment of his Sundays anthology, co-edited with Chuck Forsman, Alex Kim and our very own Joseph Lambert, featuring not only their talents, but those of Michael Deforge, Malachi Ward, Brendan Leach and Acres artists John Brodowski and Minty Lewis. And that’s just to name a few. We’ll even be joining Box Brown and Craig Yoe on a MoCCA panel, “The State of Small Publishing,” moderated by the Beat herself, Heidi “Scoop” MacDonald. (If you are the Comic Guru aka Jonathan Lee von Strausberg III, please do stop by, and if the rest of you are also wondering who the hell Jonathan Lee von Strausberg III is, see the comments here.)

It is an action-packed weekend for Secret Acres on both sides of the country. Joe Lambert is still on his west coast tour that began with him taking his LA Time Book Prize nominated I Will Bite You! and Other Stories to the LA Times Festival of Books at USC. His journey continues this weekend with Joe joining our man (and godlike talent) Theo Ellsworth at the Secret Acres setup for the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon. Not only will Only Skin be making a simultaneous debut at Stumptown, but you can also pick up Joe’s first original graphic novel, Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller. It’s not one of ours, but we swear it’s good, and you really, truly, want to get Joe and Theo to draw something for you.

Joe won’t be coming home right away, either. He’ll be making a pitstop at camp Secret Acres for TCAF, the Toronto Comics and Art Festival. Yes, that’s Toronto as in Canada. Sean will be escorting Only Skin to the great north, along with Mike Dawson who might be bringing some Heroclix to play with while our Troop 142 makes its Canadian debut (and boy, wait till they find out what Canadian means in Troop 142).

We’ll have yet another brand new Secret Acres comic making its debut at TCAF, too. We’ll save the details for that one when we come back here for our MoCCA and Stumptown wrap-ups, but you can probably guess what it might be since there’s a new addition to the Acres gang. Meanwhile, it’d be a good idea to keep our mouths shut in case any  of those Royal Canadian Mounties are listening. This little comic’s barely legal.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

John Brodowski

BIO

D-D-Don’t Don’t Stop the Beat

ALL NIGHT PASSION got us through the day. It was a race to the finish line for BCGF. We haven’t pulled so many all-nighters since the last time we had finals.  Secretly, we were learning a new trick, which kinda sucks for old dogs like us. After getting so-so quotes from printers for Curio Cabinet 5, we came to the conclusion that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourselves (or call a librarian). As the man says, printin’ ain’t easy. We had major production assists from our very own Sean Ford and Paint Bucket Studio to get to the end. All in all, we figure it’s a big improvement on our other stitched books. You printers worry not. We won’t be getting into the binding business. Like ever. But, boy, did it feel good to get our hands dirty. This digital world is fun and all, but actually making something with your hands is satisfying in ways that no amount of hours spent in the Adobe suite could ever be. We may expand this operation. We shall see.

We were relieved to be able to bring an actual copy of Curio Cabinet 5 to our dinner with Anne Koyama on the Thursday before the big, bad Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest.  If ever you are hungry, or sober, Annie is there with a solution. She fed Edie Fake, Gabby Schulz, Sean and us a shocking amount of fat and beer – though Annie is no beer guy. It’s truly impossible to see enough of her. Every time we do get to hang out, we get a little more of her story and a lot more encouragement. She would be dropping a whopping three debut comics on BCGF, because she has limitless energy. If we were tired, she was wired. (There’s advantages to each.)

Sometime the following night, while we were cutting another batch of comics, nearly the entire Secret Acres gang had arrived in Brooklyn. We were missing our beloved lady of the Acres, Minty Lewis, kind of evil genius, Eamon Espey and Theo Ellsworth. However, Joseph Lambert and Sean were off checking out Jack Davis at the Scott Eder Gallery. John Brodowski, man of the hour, had dropped Sam Gaskin off to work the Extreme Animals show, where he would wrestle with Edie. Mike Dawson was probably home with his family where he belonged. Who knows where the hell Gabby was. The point is that we were, nearly all of us, in the same place. Of course, not one of these people actually helped load the ride at three in the morning, but whatever.

There were two huge tables with our name on them. We have never had so much real estate at a show. It was a necessary thing, with seven artists and their wares, a debut and, of course, dozens of mini-comics. We were between Koyama Press and Drawn & Quarterly, which meant Peggy Burns. We should apologize to Peggy. A nine hour stretch is a tough thing and no one wanted to leave the table, so pizza, beer and the snack packs were being raided in front of god and everybody and Peggy. We have a hard time coming up with outfits to please the D&Q gang, but, yes, we deserved all the finger wagging for feasting at the table. Sorry, Peggy!

It was difficult to find a good time to explore, because the rhythm of the show was so strange. With the panels moved off-site to Union Pool and the downstairs opened up, it created an odd lightning attack style of sales. People were snatching up Curio Cabinet 5 in numbers that left us 3 copies shy of a sellout, and we sold a chunk of everything else, but there were several times when someone at the table asked if sales were bad. They weren’t. It felt as if someone were dropping off a bus of customers every half hour or so. We were swamped, and then relative crickets, and then swamped again. Was it because panels were letting out? Was it a problem with the L train? We have no clue. We did very well and this shouldn’t be taken as a complaint. Compared to last year’s compact floor space, it never felt overwhelmingly crowded. Maybe that was it? In any case, BCGF remains one of our strongest shows. It may also be the best place on the planet for a book like Curio Cabinet 5.

We missed picking up Kramer’s Ergot 8 and Nobrow 6 and Night Business 4, which all seemed to be gunning for Book of Show. We barely even had time to waive at our hero, Chris Pitzer, but we pretty much have all his books, anyhow. We did clean up at the Electric Ant/Press Gang table, picking up the very impressive Study Group Magazine 1 and an original drawing from Johnny Negron for twenty bucks, which seems completely insane. There was Rub the Blood and Skin, Deep and Free Ice Cream. We finally bagged the Wolf and Danger Country. We stole Comics Class, Rivers Forgotten and the World of Gloria Badcock from our neighbor. We were gifted The End of the Fucking World part 2 and Hey, Fag! and the fantastic Vacuum Horror by some guy named Max Morris. At any other show, we’d be okay with this. At BCGF, it’s an embarrassment.

After a brief pit stop for some wings, beer and mixed martial arts fighting, we went to Bill Kartolopoulos’ house because that’s always where the party’s at. Practically the entire Lambiek Comiclopedia was there. We somehow missed Jesse Moynihan and Josh Simmons, whom we’ve always wanted to see because his comics scare the bejesus out of us. We did not miss out on our annual post-BCGF gossip fest with the Beat. (Heidi MacDonald does indeed know everyone and everything.) We got to see our old pal, Randy Chang, who’d been all buddy-buddy with Zack Soto all day. It’s good to see Randy lurking. It means he’s not out of the comics game just yet. People must have been waiting for us old comics dads to leave, because it was Brooklyn Canoodle and Groping Fest the minute we left. Like Caligula or SDCC, but cuter. We’d spill the deets, but what happens at BCGF stays at BCGF.

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival is always a great way for us to end our comics year, but there was a lot of significance to this one for us. It was fitting that we were putting out Curio Cabinet 5, since the man behind it, John Brodowski, was the first person we ever talked to about Secret Acres. It was special because so many of the Secret Acres family were in the house. It really reminded us of how far we’ve come. Speaking of family, take a peek at Griffin Ellsworth. We missed you, Theo, but that’s a good excuse.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

Hasta la vista, baby!

THERE IS NO FATE but what we make for ourselves. Good thing then that John Brodowski has made Curio Cabinet 5. If his Curio Cabinet collection re-made the horror genre in John’s image, this foot-tall bad boy has a new genre all its own. Four alt-action tales follow our finest action hero icons on their bullet-ridden way to redemption.  It is big. It is bloody. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you get one. In fact, if you pre-oder it in the next 48 hours,we’ll send you a signed and sketched copy first thing Monday morning. Everyone wants a little action for the holidays, yes?

If you happen to be in New York City, you can get Curio Cabinet 5 from John himself at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. He will be joined by Mike Dawson, Samuel C. Gaskin, Joseph Lambert, Edie Fake (with the rare and elusive Gaylord Phoenix screen print in tow) and Gabby Schulz (the artist formerly known as Ken Dahl) with our very own Sean Ford across the way at the Sundays table, where he will have the last remaining copies of Only Skin – that is until his giant book comes out next year, courtesy of yours truly. It will indeed be the biggest gathering of Acres folks in a single room ever. Alas, Eamon Espey‘s wings are tired after his trip to the Minneapolis Indie Xpo, but this is okay because he’s also working on something big. Don’t let his absence stop you from going to BCGF, though. It is a uniquely amazing experience, it’s free and it’s overloaded with the very best comics has to offer. You can find our tables, numbers 18 and 19 on the BCGF map, right between Koyama Press and Drawn & Quarterly, which means we get to sit with the cool kids!

If you can’t make it to the show, you can always find your way to our Emporium. In addition to Curio Cabinet 5, we have new comics from from Alexis Frederick-Frost, Melissa Mendes, Leslie Stein, James Hindle and Anuj Shrestha with a new mini from one of our favorite people ever, Sean Christensen, on the way. Should you get carried away by the spirit of Christmas (that almost sounds scary), you will want to get yourselves these fantastic Christmas cards from Theo Ellsworth. You may also want to give something to the fine folks at the Center for Cartoon Studies, especially after you take a look at Gabby Schulz’s very appealing comic. Speaking of Gabby, In These Times has great article on the terrifying online bashing he got while being a woman. It would be funny if it weren’t true.

Before we start packing for the show, we wanted to thank the good folks at Midtown Comics for their Troop 142 Book Club. It was a really good time and we got a couple takes on Troop 142 from a couple of actual scouts, which was great and a first for us. Should anyone be missing Mike, you can catch him on Inkstuds and Ink Panthers. Better yet, all you Midtown Comics Book Club people should come and say hi to Mike at BCGF.

Tabling at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest is the best possible way to end the year – and what a year it’s been. We’ll be back after the show with our usual wrap-up. See you Saturday!

Your Pals,

Bary and Leon

Miuzi Weighs a Ton

BLAH! We are losing it a little bit. We are raging against the dying of the light, etc. In other words, there’s this thing that happens every once in a while when one of our little gang surprises us with a new comic. If you look at our comics, you can tell by the staples which ones were accidents, to use some pregnancy terminology. Like many parents will attest, the accidents are often the best of the litter. Such was the case with Sleeper Car and 2012, and is now the case with Curio Cabinet 5. See, we finally gave it a name!

We’ll maybe give you some more details about our latest addition in our pre-show post for the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, which will host nearly the entire Acres gang. Meanwhile, we’re moving, looking for apartments, shutting down the Queens warehouse and maildrop and hauling the entirety of Acres operations over to Brooklyn. If you know of any good sublets available by the first, please holler at us.

Speaking of shows, Mike Dawson and Eamon Espey did manage to return safely from the Minneapolis Indie Xpo. It seems to have been a real good time, as you can tell from Mike’s wrap-up post on his site. While it’s very nice of him to have taken a picture of his elephant cookie, he didn’t post any pics of our dear genius, Eamon, and to make things even worse, he got to visit Zak Sally‘s studio and skipped that photo opp, too. As if to remove all doubt that Mike meant to upset us, he even made nice to the terrible, awful Comix Claptrap people on that trip. Numbers-wise, it seems like everyone but Mike had softer sales. Hopefully, this has nothing to do with whether or not there will be another MIX. We missed this one, but the thought that we might never get to go is a little too much to bear.

Mike did get to record a TCJ Talkies panel at MIX, with two great talents, MariNaomi and Noah Van Sciver. You must listen, especially if you love Jizz. Of course, there’s also been an Ink Panthers podcast, in which the Panthers tell Hitler where he went wrong (hint: Adolf had a little taint). Mike’s Troop 142 got some love from the Stranger, on their Slog blog, prompting us to guess who will direct the yearning indie film of Troop 142 (no, not Ivan Reitman). Finally, there’s a big ole Troop 142 book group discussion of how awesome that book is at New York’s own Midtown Comics tomorrow. We will be there with everyone else, including you. It’s BYOB, so don’t be stingy. Also, we got to see the Midtown warehouse, which looks something like Santa’s workshop. They have everything, so get your consumer confidence up to speed fast.

We haven’t been ignoring the other Secret Acres folks, either. Theo Ellsworth got a cartoon shout out from the master, Kevin Huizenga. We’re going to take that as his approval of us, too, since that’s a Sleeper Car character. There’s a very strange and very rad interview with Theo up on Don’t Panic. Everyone should ask questions like this, but really only Theo could have answered them so well. You can see pictures of Theo’s new kids on his site (ain’t they cute?). Speaking of children, those wacky CCS kids gave the Comics Reporter an update on the state of their library after Hurricane Irene – and you can get a sneak peak at Gabby “Ken Dahl” Schulz’s art for the CCS appeal letter. It’s gorgeous, of course. You can practically hear the checks being written. Want more sneak peaks? There’s a look at some brand new Only Skin pages on Sean Ford‘s blog. That’s going to be one enormous book. Last, but not least, Edie Fake got a little love from It’s Nice That.

We’d love to stay and chat, but we have books to make and crap to pack. We’ll be back here before BCGF with a little pre-show rundown. See you tomorrow at Midtown downtown!

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

Mixed Up (Close To Me (Closer Mix))

IF you were wondering why we’re not going to King Con, well, then you’re deeply troubled. We, too, were troubled by the news of King Con’s indefinite postponement. There seems to be some confusion as to our true feelings on King Con because of an old post. We had fun because King Con was friggin’ weird. Maybe it was too weird? We hope the King Con folks, good people that they are, figure out where they’re taking this and soon. In fact, it would be really nice to have a local show sometime around Valentine’s Day (hint, hint). Though, please, not on Valentines’ Day. And, no, we’re not starting our own show because we’re recluses compared to the people who do these things. It’s a lot of work.

It was the case that King Con conflicted with our ability to attend MIX, the Minneapolis Indie Xpo. Fear not, there is a dynamic duo headed out to Minny to represent the Acres in Mike Dawson and Eamon Espey. They will sketch the hell out of your Troop 142 and Wormdye and they will have all the Acres books, a bunch of original art, many mini-comics and probably some more of Mike’s HeroClix (not ours). For even more Acres-related folks, Max Mose and Andrew Christensen will be in attendance as well. MIX may be a too far a haul for some of you, but you can pick up their comics in the Emporium. Speaking of Max and Andrew, Max has some work up on Paper Darts and Andrew’s interviewed by the lovely and outrageous Jen Vaughn here.

There were two Acres showings in the meanwhile, and we should give you a summary of those. Edie Fake completely killed it at the New York Art Book Fair, selling out of his prints, minis and Gaylord Phoenix in rather large numbers. That place was packed for four days straight, both indoors and outdoors, and stocked with astoundingly beautiful books and people (and some porn). We loved it. We’re considering turning this into a full Secret Acres extravaganza next year. It’s not a true comics show, but you know we can get artsy when we need to. While Edie was holding court at NYABF, Mike Dawson was off at APE. The Alternative Press Expo is usually a pretty soft show for us, but Mike and Troop 142 did very well (despite Mike’s appearance on that terrible Comix Claptrap panel). Mike, however, had rather a hard time of things, as you can read about here and listen to on the Ink Panthers Show! here (WARNING: the “Mattress Professionals” episode of Ink Panthers is a classic).  You don’t have to take our word for it that APE is a softy, since the SF Weekly agrees. We might go back. We probably will not.

The Acres gang has been all over since we last sat down to write. If you’ve been following us on Twitter or Facebook, you’re probably way ahead of the game. Mike and Troop 142 got some love from Fucked in Park Slope, Graphic Eye, Starving for Ink and YALSA, the Young Adult Library Service Assocation who nominated Troop 142 for their Great Graphic Novels for Teens list. We are equally humbled and surprised by that last one. You can watch the aforementioned Edie Fake reading at Brain Frame over here. Superstar Joseph Lambert of worldwide I Will Bite You! fame will be showing up in the next Nobrow anthology. Somehow, Flavorwire put Gabby “Ken Dahl” Schulz’s Monsters on a list of Disturbingly Brilliant Graphic Novels that reads like a list of the greatest of all time. Samuel C. Gaskin, the guy behind 2012, got a music write-up, of all things, from the Valley Advocate and his Hot Topic mini was brought to life for Halloween.

We also have some very big news and we thought we’d tell you first. John Brodowski, the Curio Cabinet guy, has been feverishly deconstructing every action hero in sight. You can check out two of these stories on Small Plates right now. It’s looking like a big, fat go for a super-sized, all new Curio Cabinet to drop right on BCGF, the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest. We are planning to have the largest assembly of Secret Acres artists for any show ever at BCGF in December. The seas will part and stuff.

Now go to MIX! You may never get another chance!

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

This shhh is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

GET READY to divide and conquer because this is a weekend for the comics jet set. Starting tonight, Edie Fake will be at the New York Art Book Fair. We’re not sure if this registers as a comics event, but it sure acts like a convention and you can find the likes of Drawn & Quarterly and PictureBox among the exhibitors. You can also find Edie’s beautiful five-layered silkscreen Gaylord Phoenix print that we had promised would be available at SPX, but that got held up in the mail. To refresh your memory, it will look something like this only much more awesome in person. Edie is a regular at NYABF, and you should be, too. It is one of the cooler art events of the year over here in New York City.

If you’re looking for an after party, we recommend checking out the Pegacorn Press Release Party which will be held at the City Reliquary museum over in Williamsburg, Brooklyn tomorrow night. They will be celebrating the releases of the Future Tense anthology and the 2012 Paquita Calendar, which features the work of Edie Fake himself. Williamsburg keeps the ball rolling the following day with Pete’s Mini Zine Fest, which has got Ignatz winner Darryl Ayo Braithwaite, booze and and indoor/outdoor vibe to boot. We will be hauling ass to make it to everything.

On the other side of the country, the Alternative Press Expo will be rocking it. Superstar Mike Dawson will be representing the Acres at the biggest indie comics show in San Francisco. He will have all our books and, of course, will be sketching and signing his own Troop 142. We are, sadly, all done with those pretty Troop 142 patches, but, take heart because Mike will continue to hand out those HeroClix. More fun than even that, he will be on a Comix Claptrap LIVE panel hosted by evil twins Rina Ayuyang and Thien Pham. Mike will have company in Scott Campbell, Levon Jihanian and Esther Pearl Watson – which is good considering all the bad blood between the Ink Panthers and the Claptrappers. The Claptrappers are quite war-like.

Speaking of those Panthers, they are back in the saddle again, following Mike’s trip to Scotland and they’ve got a new podcast up here. Meanwhile, there’s been some fun shoutouts for Troop 142 from New York Magazine’s Vulture blog, ForeWord and Under the Radar. Over at the Atlantic, Gaylord Phoenix got the spotlight as an alternative to the rampant sexism currently running through those superhero comics. This is probably the only time one of our books will be mentioned with Teen Titans in the same article. Which is weird, but also kind of awesome. Lest we forget, you can still help out Dylan Williams’ family and Sparkplug by picking up Sean Ford‘s cover to The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. We know that’s plenty of clicking for you, but you really should not miss Ken Dahl‘s (aka Gabby Schulz’s) latest installment of SICK, which has Ken making his first foray into furry comics. If you want a little more insight into his fuzzy soul, check this out.

Okay, that ought to keep you busy for a while. We can’t wait to see everyone everywhere! Phew.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

Rally the Troops

IT IS A RARE THING for Secret Acres to be publishing someone who has a car that does not double as a residence. Such was the case with Mike Dawson, whose Troop 142 was finally going to escape the warehouse. Mike was transporting a couple of Panthers to SPX this year, which left yours trulies to deliver Sean Ford and Ken Dahl (aka Gabby Schulz) to Bethesda. At last year’s SPX, our publishing schedule was out of whack and we were missing both books we had planned to debut, namely I Will Bite You! and Gaylord Phoenix. This time around, I Will Bite You! and Gaylord Phoenix were up for four Ignatz Awards between them. We met Mike at last year’s SPX, and had just started carrying his minis. This year, we were delivering the Troop 142 graphic novel to the show, buoyed by a couple of fantastic advance reviews.

The first night at SPX, we left napping Sean and Gabby behind and dined with Mike and the Panthers: Alex Robinson (at SPX to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his Box Office Poison) and Tony Consiglio (the guy behind 110Per¢). We consumed 3,020 calories worth of shrimp pasta (single portion!) that would take longer to get out than it would to feel at home with these guys. Later, we hit the hotel bar terrace and watched the place fill up with cartoonists we love and admire. Sean, Gabby and Joe Lambert all wandered out to join us. The other seats at our table were quickly filled by the likes of Chuck Forsman, Melissa Mendes, CCS librarian Caitlin McGurk (still reeling from efforts to save the Schulz Library from flooding) and Tom Neely. Tom’s an LA guy, so we don’t see him too often and when we do, we are grateful for his company and try to trick him into sitting next to us. We held off purchasing his stunning new book, The Wolf, until we could get it directly from him. We talked to Tom about his DJ nights spinning 80’s hair metal and he told us how much he loves Curio Cabinet (it’s a very metal book) and caught us up on Sparkplug publisher Dylan Williams’ recovery, which sounded like it was going great. We’d expected as much, as Dylan had beaten cancer before. Last year, missing Dylan, we’d missed Sparkplug entirely. Tom was running the Sparkplug table this year, so it was a little less weird to be at SPX without Dylan.

Saturday morning we set up next to our neighbors, Picturebox and Fantagraphics. We picked up 1-800-MICE and the final MOME, and stood in line to get them signed. Matthew Thurber informed us that we were the first people ever to purchase 1-800-MICE, which was extra-gratifying as Matthew was probably the first person to pick up Curio Cabinet. Taking turns signing MOME was the aforementioned Chuck Forsman, whom we met years ago at CCS, Jim Rugg, who gave Joe that lovely quote on the back of I Will Bite You! and Joe himself. Meanwhile, Eamon Espey had arrived and we thought we had everything ready to go until Mike broke out his surprise HeroClix figures, which he planned to give away with Troop 142. Amazingly, people were buying Troop 142 anyway. They were buying everything else, too. Having a second table seemed to open up sales considerably.  By the end of the day, we were busy filling empty spaces on the tables like it was a shell game. We were having our best show ever, by far. Strangely, we didn’t sell a single copy of Gaylord Phoenix.

Since Gabby and super genius cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt both won Ignatz Awards after sipping Old Fashioneds in our room last year, we decided that it would work again as a good luck, pre-Ignatz ceremony, so we broke out the bitters and bourbon and invited folks to join us for some pizza. By the time we got upstairs, everyone heard that Dylan had died. It was excruciating trying to keep ourselves together, but we were together. Gabby had known Dylan the longest. He’d been zine pals with Dylan nearly twenty years ago. He credits Dylan for first making him feel like a cartoonist. When we brought this up, Gabby looked around and said, “Boy, am I glad I’m not nominated for an Ignatz tonight.” The look on Ignatz-nominee Joe Lambert’s face got someone to laugh and the spell was temporarily broken. We ate and drank like it was going to make everything okay for just as long as there was pizza, which it did. There was a knock at the door. It was Chris Pitzer and his Adhouse folks asking if anyone was hungry.  He led us back to his room, where we found Jim Rugg again, sitting silently with Mr. Dangerous, Paul Hornschemeier. We stole their pizza. They didn’t seem to mind at all. Better yet, they seemed to understand.

As usual, there was no room at the Ignatz Awards. Dustin Harbin had the impossible task of getting us all through the ceremony, of honoring the work of cartoonists who had just moments before learned that Dylan had died. To his credit, and our gratitude, Dustin did the impossible.

We watched Joe accept his award for Outstanding Collection, and for the first time, someone thanked us in their Ignatz acceptance speech. We saw a replay of the thanks when he accepted his award for Outstanding Artist.

It was strangely fitting that Craig Thompson, at the show with his enormous Habibi, announced that Edie Fake had won Outstanding Graphic Novel for Gaylord Phoenix. It was Craig who gave Theo Ellsworth a remarkable blurb for Capacity, our first SPX debut book. Distracted by our knowledge of what Dylan meant to Theo, it took a minute to remember that in Edie’s absence, we had to go to the podium to accept his award. We shook Craig’s hand and mumbled something incoherent about encouragement. When we called Edie after the ceremony, it was obvious from his voice that he had heard about Dylan. Long before we came along, Dylan was buying up Edie’s extra Gaylord minis and distributing them, and trading comics with him. He was offering any kind of support he could, because that’s what Dylan did for cartoonists.

After the Ignatz awards, on the terrace, we were talking to Eamon about Dylan and how at every single show, Dylan would threaten to poach him. Dylan was incapable of being subtle about this. As much as Dylan ever loved Edie and Theo and Gabby, clearly Wormdye was his favorite of our books. He made it known that if we ever had any trouble publishing Eamon, he’d be happy to take on that responsibility. Dylan even let us crowd Eamon and Sam Gaskin into his event at Desert Island, in 2008, which was our very first signing ever. We had to be careful about admiring Sparkplug artists in front of Dylan. The way Dylan saw it, the right thing to do would be to hand them over to us, allowing him to help out somebody else.

Around this time, we were wishing more than anything that our pal and Bodega publisher, Randy Chang was there, and the wish was immediately granted. Our first year at SPX, when we were debuting Capacity, we were on a panel with Dylan, Randy and Alvin Buenaventura (formerly of Buenaventura Press and now Pigeon Press, home of Lisa Hanawalt) on the rise of the new indie comics publishers. It was less of a panel and more of a conversation between all of us, though the audience didn’t seem to mind. We clearly had very little idea what were doing back then. Thankfully, we had Randy and Dylan to hold our hands through the panel, though we will never forget the look of disdain on Dylan’s face when we explained how to make the most of Amazon. For us, Amazon was a necessity. To Dylan, Amazon was a sales channel he couldn’t employ to sell comics with a clear conscience. We learned fast that Dylan would only do the right thing the right way. We reminded Randy about the panel later on that night, trying to guilt him back into the comics game.

Sunday at SPX was just like Saturday, but with bigger sales. We snuck downstairs to watch Mike on a panel about comics publishing. The Beat herself, Heidi MacDonald, elbowed us hard when we grumbled nervously that he’d say terrible things about us. She was correct, of course. Mike would never do that. Mike is the host with the most, and probably should have been moderating since the panel proceeded to fly off the rails.

Not long ago, Mike talked about having Dylan on his TCJ Talkies podcast, which got our gears turning, thinking about Dylan and what we’d hope Mike would discuss with him. Dylan is a fixture in our memory of Secret Acres’ beginnings. Early on in our existence, we would periodically meet up for dinner with Randy and Shannon O’Leary, a Sparkplug lady if ever there was, and have absurd conversations and bitching sessions with Dylan on speakerphone from Portland. He was the Charlie to our Angels, instructing us to choose the vegan option. We bounced publishing ideas off of Dylan and asked him for business advice at every turn. Secret Acres and Sparkplug shared a love of distinct comic voices, and most of our challenges were identical. It was an exciting time for us and we were grateful that Dylan treated us as peers even though we had no track record as publishers.

While that might sound like Dylan, we are pretty sure that the way we see Dylan in our minds is not the way the cartoonists he fostered see him. Looking at our notes for Mike, almost every question has to do with how tough Dylan was. The man was staunch, inflexible, intractable and there was no end to any argument ever. Mocking us for our use of Amazon at that panel was nothing. He once bailed on a plan to consolidate wholesale online catalogs in the wake of the Diamond minimums that were driving indie comics out of shops – but he did it to protect our mutual sales agent, Tony Shenton, from being crushed trying to manage all those different discounts. As if to make up for it, Dylan then sold our books for us. He was planning on skipping out on shows that didn’t measure up to his ideas of what comics should be, regardless of the sales it would cost him. He hated the idea of comics desperately trying to find an audience in the lowest common, mass media denominator and believed that the weirdos like the ones at SPX were growing in numbers that would keep comics vibrant. He always had to check that his calves were bigger than ours (they were not, thank you). During those dinners with Randy, we used to joke that since making comics is so hard and publishing them is so easy, the most equitable thing would be to stage indie comics publisher cage matches at conventions, purely for the amusement of the artists. It was fun for us to imagine the match-ups and to gauge the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the other publishers. Ultimately, we deemed the indie publisher cage match concept to be untenable specifically because of Dylan Williams. None of us would ever be able to best him or match his combat prowess. He was too tough.

Dylan is too much to miss. The truth is that Gabby was wrong. It was a good night to be nominated for an Ignatz. The best place for us to be the night Dylan Williams died was at SPX. We were surrounded by the best people on earth and we didn’t need to explain our loss to anyone. We are eternally grateful to all of our friends who were there, old friends and the ones we just met, and we are equally grateful to Dylan for being a big part of what we were all doing there in the first place. He was right about us weirdos. There are plenty of us and we can take care of each other.

Your Pals,

Barry & Leon