We Do It!

THE EARTH WILL MOVE, but that’s not going to stop SPX. There was some worry about the Bethesda Marriott, the hotel and event center that plays host to the Small Press Expo, otherwise known as Camp Comics. We’d been warned that they’d been hit hard by the earthquake and that the damage might have been bad enough to split the con up over two floors. This wouldn’t have been the end of the world, but there was even talk that the bar would be out of commission. If you’ve been deprived of an SPX experience, know that the bar and balconies are the hub of what is essentially a sleep-away camp for cartoonists. There’s plenty going on in the individual cabins, but you need the big campfire scene. A large cheer to all the Marriott folks for getting the job done and for quelling our qualms in advance. Apparently, Marriot Silver Elite status has its privileges, though we have no idea what that even means.

In addition to the earthquake, there was that whole hurricane thing. We were fine here in New York. Although we were disappointed that our local karaoke bar was closed, others had it even worse. In fact, the CCS Schulz Library was battered by a shipping container that went floating along the White River. While this was yet another weather-related comics catastrophe, the upshot of this story was pretty inspiring. Loads of volunteers saved every last book and mini. You can get more of the story here and you can donate to the library here.

If you want further evidence of comics people being the best people you can find, take a look at these Philip K. Dick cover illustrations here. Guided by Floating World Comics out in Portland, the proceeds from the sale of these guys (and two days’ worth of Floating World’s sales) will be headed toward paying off Dylan Williams’ medical bills. It’s amazing how easily bad news can turn into inspiration. We may be a silly bunch, but comics people should be proud.

Speaking of pride, we are sad to say that Mike Dawson was too shy to don his Boy Scout uniform for the Troop 142 release party at Bergen Street Comics. We also sold out of a couple dozen copies of Troop 142 in about as many minutes. That’s what we all get for being modest! However, we had a blast selling comics to people in an actual comics shop, which we haven’t had a chance to do in a while. Beyond our own books, we sold copies of Bulletproof Coffin, Wonton Soup, Ganges, Box Office Poison, the Incal and Zegas, to name a few.  We even heard back from one reader that he had fallen in love with Stephen Gaedel (on page 354 of Box Office Poison, to be specific) and that Glenn Ganges had reduced him to tears.

The crowd included a chunk of the Dawson family who had previously appeared in Freddie & Me and who were nice enough to sign copies of the book. We got to talk to Tucker Stone about the new(ish) DC Comics, which would appear to be both a guaranteed flop and a huge success. We met Matt Seneca, who didn’t seem quite as bloody-minded as his writing sometimes suggests. We met Michel Fiffe and picked up a Zegas or two of our own. We got to chat with MK Reed, Matt Madden, Jessica Abel and Dean Haspiel. It was largely packed with people hanging out until about midnight. Several very lucky customers went home with Troop 142 patches.

The rest of the patches will be dispersed at SPX, where we will have Troop 142 in much larger quantities. We will be missing Edie Fake, who is too kind and has to cover for his Quimby’s co-worker while that guy is off at SPX. Edie has not forgotten you SPX folks. In celebration of its Ignatz Award nomination for Outstanding Mini-Comic, there will be a new batch of Gaylord Phoenix 5 on hand for SPX. This is a beautiful, handmade thing that was originally produced in very limited numbers for the NY Art Book Fair (Edie will be at that one, if you’re around). To celebrate Gaylord Phoenix‘s nomination for Outstanding Graphic Novel and to offer proof that he is worthy of the title of Outstanding Artist, Edie’s also made a five-layered silkscreen print. There’s only going to be 25 of them and they will look something like this. SPX is likely to be your only shot at picking up Edie’s print, Gaylord Phoenix 5 and a Troop 142 patch. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. If you’re not going to be there, check out Mike’s Troop 142 trailer. That ought to tide you over until the book makes it way to you.

Surely, you’ve been sweating out your voting choices for the Ignatz Awards, but we’re here to make it easy. Vote for Gaylord Phoenix 5 for Outstanding Mini-Comic! Vote for Gaylord Phoenix for Outstanding Graphic Novel! Vote for I Will Bite You! for Outstanding Anthology or Collection! As for Outstanding Artist, you really only have two options in Joseph Lambert or Edie Fake. Don’t look at us. You’re on your own with that one.

See you at the show! We’ll be back to re-cap on the other side.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

I Can See Clearly Now

ALL THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS ASIDE, ever get the feeling somebody up there doesn’t like you? Our PACC trip had a crappy moment of foreshadowing when it was obvious Gabby Schulz aka Ken Dahl wasn’t going to make it. This was perfectly clear when there were panicked e-mails about coloring for web vs. print headed our way into the wee hours of the night, with us having to hit the road at dawn. The latest installment of “Sick” did go live on time at the very least, which was some consolation. The remaining three of us, Sean Ford included, were all ready to face the day. Mad genius Eamon Espey was on his way from points south. PACC was happening.

The forecast did call for rain, true. It may have called for the kind of blinding, driving torrents which sidelined several cars on the highway, but we missed that. Secret Acres fears not rain. We kept our chins up and played with our iPad, giggling over Dan Nadel’s TCJ blog post and arguing with each other over MK Reed’s Beat post and the value of Kickstarter. Then we saw Tom Spurgeon’s “All Of These Things That Have Made Us” and that ground us to a halt for a while. If you have no idea what we’re talking about, go read it. We’ll wait here.

We made good time. We got set up. We hardly even got wet. PACC did not get off so easily. The rain kept falling, outside and inside. The PACC gang are some hardcore troopers. Leaks on your table? Up and move. Walls falling down? Brush it off. We were on stage with AdHouse, and we mean on stage, looking out over the rest of the show. This was fun, because it gave us plenty of quality time with Chris Pitzer. It was a little odd, too. Like an out of body experience, we watched everything happen on the floor. We may have gone a bit bonkers as well, since both the Acres gang and the Pitzers (two of them, Mr. and Mrs.) were sitting on a loudspeaker each, emphasis on loud. This was cool when it was McLusky or the Muffs playing. Other times, it felt like a test. Was it too loud or were we too old? The best answer is both.

Attendance (and our take) was about a third of what it was last year, if we had to guess. This isn’t anything to cry about. It was impressive that people made it out in record rainfall at all. Not to mention that behind those tables, it was the strongest group of cartoonists we’ve seen in a while. If you don’t know Collective Stench, get to know them. We were already crushing on Zejian Shen (who is so gangsta, she made the trip from California), but her fellow Stench peeps in the Dimensions anthology are nothing at which to be sneezed. Another dope anthology, Puppyteeth, finally made it into our mitts after some near misses and we got chatty with Kevin Czapiewski, the Puppyteeth steward himself, while picking up his nasty/beautiful Waffle. Waffle is highly recommended for those who like ladies and men who may be suffering with erectile dysfunction issues. Kevin’s Comix Cube-mate, L. Nichols was on hand with an all new Jumbly Junkery, which is on issue 10 (!) and which we have been enjoying for quite some time even though “L.” will not give us a damn name. We got to talk to Ben Marra about Gary Panter and some other stuff, which was a real treat for us, if not Ben. We spent almost as much money as we did at BCGF. All told, PACC managed to squeak out another win.

Others were not so lucky. While we were plowing our way back home through some deep waters (thank heaven for tall cars) and having a measured, irony-free discussion of the worldwide apocalypse at hand, Hanley’s on Staten Island was drowning. Hanley’s is a comics mecca in Manhattan. It is the place that has everything for comics people. It’s where employees at the Big Two go after work and it’s where we found Capacity, Wormdye and Curio Cabinet in the mini-comics section. They were not having a good time before their sister store got soaked. If you happen to be around, go buy a comic from Hanley’s. You’d be doing comics a favor.

The rain and the bad news kept rolling into Monday. In the middle of drying our tears over Spurge’s essay, we got word that Dylan Williams wasn’t doing so well, either. To quote Tom Neely, Dylan is the toughest guy we know. He probably doesn’t need our positive thoughts, but please send some his way, anyway. As the Sparkplug captain, Dylan is the moral compass of indie comics. The guy does everything the right way even when it’s a pain in the ass. Plus he gave us Asthma, among many other beautiful things.

Finally, the sun came out. “Sick” was, as usual, great and getting better with each installment, but if you’re still greedy, there’s some of Ken Dahl’s Gordon Smalls comics on Jordan Crane’s What Things Do. Troop 142 got a nice, almost age appropriate shoutout from UGO. Mike Dawson made a lovely little invite to his Troop 142 party at Bergen, which you can see below. He’s also got a TCJ Talkies with Lisa Hanawalt and an Ink Panthers spot with Laura Park, both of whom the Acres worships. Graphic Eye put together an enormous interview with Joseph Lambert. The Comics Journal‘s Rob Clough got thoughtful on Joe’s I Will Bite You!

If you’re waiting for a happy ending to all this, you win: Joseph Lambert continued his efforts at world domination by snagging not one, but two Ignatz nominations for I Will Bite You! including Outstanding Anthology or Collection AND Outstanding Artist! He truly is an outstanding artist in every respect. But it does not stop there! In case you somehow missed it in the link, Edie Fake got three, count ’em, three Ignatz nominations for Outstanding Mini-Comic, Outstanding Graphic Novel and Outstanding Artist. We are floored, so we can’t even say how Joe and Edie are feeling. We were proud of Edie and Gaylord Phoenix before, and we’ve beaming about Joe and I Will Bite You! for a while. This is like being hit by lightning five times if lightning were just awesome and not lethal.

So turn off the dark, it’s time to celebrate all things comics and all comics people. Join us at Bergen Street. We’ll be the guys with the big smiles.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

P.A.C.C. it up, P.A.C.C. it in, let me Begin

WE’VE GOT P.A.C.C. MAN FEVER (It’s driving us crazy). Now the long, hot summer has an actual reason to exist. We often wind up going stir crazy in June and July, which are our deadish, showless months. If you happened to read our 2010 wrap-up (odd that this has come up in the last two Acres blog posts), we were losing our minds this time last year for several fancy reasons and it was P.A.C.C. that was the turning point for us. Rest assured, we’ve been having more fun this year, but, again, P.A.C.C. is sweet relief from this awful quiet. Maybe we should gather ourselves for an SDCC trip. At least then we’d be in mortal terror in July instead of just sitting around.

We haven’t been doing nothing. We’ve been coding (hint, hint). We built a new, little home office that wouldn’t be lousy Shelf Porn material at all. We’ve added two new minis from gay genius Edie Fake, which are in the Emporium here and here. Ryan Cecil Smith’s minis are all in the store and ready to blow your minds. There’s been some brand new comics on Small Plates from Master of Horror, now Man of Action (Horror), John Brodowski. We’ve been terrorizing Sean Ford, who offers proof of such terror here. We’ve even got some nice Troop 142 patches all ready for mailing (see below) and handing to the early birds.

The rest of the Acres gang has been having a grand ol’ time. If you have not been reading the new Ken Dahl aka Gabby Schulz webcomic, Sick, do so immediately. You may be the last person you know to read them. He’s gotten shoutouts from Boing Boing (for ye olde In Which We Betray our Gender) and Meathaüs, among many others. Samuel C. Gaskin received perhaps the best review for a Secret Acres book that we will ever read from the Factual Opinion’s Virgin Reader for the wonderful 2012. Joseph Lambert was the recipient of another lovefest from Comix Cube’s Kevin Czap. Edie’s been feeling the love with interviews on Nothing Major and Bad at Sports a gorgeous contribution to the Hooded Utilitarian’s Illustrated Wallace Stevens project and a not-too-shabby-at-all review from the Gay Comics List, not to mention the Schulz blog. The Regular Show, employer of one Minty Lewis, got an Emmy nomination. A real Emmy. No kidding. There were some very complimentary thoughts on  Eamon Espey’s mini, Ishi’s Brain, from Rob Clough’s High-Low.  Shy guy Mike Dawson has not been able to shut up, either. He’s had Jason Lutes and Nick Abadzis in the TCJ (sigh) “Talkie Hut,” and just celebrated the 100th episode of Ink Panthers with his friend, Alex, which got a nice mention on Whitney Matheson’s Pop Candy on USA Today. A hundred anything is a lot these days, so congratulations to all you Panthers and Fanthers for making the best of a crap economy.

Speaking of Mike Dawson, while we are dying to drop Troop 142 on SPX, it seems someone, somehow, got a copy way soon. Troop 142 is available for pre-order on Amazon right now, emphasis on pre. Anyhow, congratulations to you, lucky person. Doubtless you will enjoy it. You New Yorkers will get your first shot at picking up Troop 142 ahead of the SPX crowd even. Save the date, for we will be throwing down at Bergen Street Comics on September 2nd at 8PM until dawn! You’ll wonder what the hell happened to your Labor Day weekend.

But that’s September. P.A.C.C. is happening this weekend. For the first time ever (unless we very drunk or something and don’t remember), P.A.C.C. will be having a pre-show party this Saturday, starting at 6PM at Cha-Cha’Razzi in Philly with bands playing music and everything. That sounds fun enough, but they’re upping the ante with the presentation of the inaugural Grawlix Awards. Oh, how we would love (and deserve!) to win one. We will not be in attendance, sadly, but we will be there bright and early with the entire gang from last year, namely Sean Ford, Eamon Espey and Ken Dahl of Gabby Schulz fame. The guest list appears to be expanding every minute, so these guys will have plenty of company.

We will return with the gory details of our lightning attack on P.A.C.C. and maybe we’ll even include a picture or two (though we hate pictures, so they have to be good). We’ll be skipping the Chicken of Doom on the way home this time and we promise Gabby won’t catch anything.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

It’s Getting Hot in Here

GUESS WHAT? (What?) We’re holding copies of Troop 142 in our fat little fingers right now. See? It looks fantastic. If you’re one of those people on our press list, you, too, will be holding a copy some time next month. The rest of the world will have to wait for SPX. Don’t worry, we can’t wait for SPX, either. If you’ve never been, you should find a way. It’s pretty much a weekend sleep-away camp for indie cartoonists.

This blog has been awful quiet for a while, but we haven’t managed to shut up on Twitter. In fact, we had one tweet about something so stupid it made the Twitter homepage. Thanks, folks, for the honor of your furious re-tweeting.

Otherwise, we have been very busy bees. Our surprise TCAF debut, Samuel C. Gaskin‘s 2012 is now available in unlimited quantities in the Emporium and in finer comic shops (hopefully) near you. There’s been some love for Joseph Lambert and his I Will Bite You! here and here, and he even makes an appearance on Mike Dawson‘s TCJ Talkies here (which is a little meta for us, really, what with it being about CCS as well). Speaking of podcasts, make sure you give a listen to the always entertaining Robin McConnell giving our own Edie Fake the royal Inkstuds treatment here. Ken Dahl managed to recover from TCAFever long enough to get a Spanish language Monsters together (hitting shelves all over Spain this fall from europowerhouse Ponent Mon) and he even started a new webcomic detailing his tragic illness here. Not to be outdone, Mike Dawson has been posting his new comic Ain’t No Power on his site here, and Sean Ford has his nose to the grindstone of the complete Only Skin (which might as well be Only Skin Redux with everything he has planned for it). So there’s that.

Though it’s not Acres related per se, there are many Acres pals involved in the Retrofit project. This is a long overdue plan to get saddle stitched, comic book type comics from indie creators back into bookstores. This was very much on the decline a few years back, as thoughtful comics by sole creators take a while to make. It’s been pretty much non-existent since Diamond implemented their order cut-offs, prompting even the larger indie comics houses to pull out of the game. The star-studded rotating cast of creators and the network of retailers that have signed on to Retrofit make this a no-lose proposition. Though we at Secret Acres have issues with Kickstarter, you might want to drop some money on this one. Think of it like a subscription.

Not to pat ourselves on the back, but we’ve done a good enough job of moving comic book type comics with Sleeper Car and 2012 to prove there’s a market out there. Nor have we forgotten our mini-comic roots. We’ve been going through a staggering number of mini-comic submissions of late. This has been a trying process. There are a lot of good comics out there, maybe too many. As is our duty, we will be distributing a boatload of them. Right now, you can pick up minis from Jon Allen, Max Mose, Andrew James Christensen and Sar Shahar. We’ve got Ryan Cecil Smith on deck, and over the next days and weeks and there will be many more. It wouldn’t surprise us if we crack a hundred titles in the Emporium before the year is up.

Regarding the rest of our publishing plans, we mentioned in our year-end wrap up for 2010 that we had a book market distributor, which we do (that’s Baker & Taylor for all you bookstore buyers), and we said we had a plan for digital distribution. The digital plans are evolving, but are still a bit of a moving target, like the digital book market itself. We still think we can get it up and running by the end of the year. We may be late, but we will be awesome. More on that soon.

The next full Acres appearance will be at the Philadelphia Alternative Comic Con, aka PACC. We had a grand old time last year, but this year figures to destroy last. Take a look at the guest list, and very nice poster, here. You can practically sit and watch this show grow and evolve.

Speaking of shows, we’ve got an addition to our schedule of MoCCA, Stumptown, TCAF, PACC, SPX, APE, King Con and BCGF (if they let us in!). We will be splitting up the Acres for one weekend in November. While half the gang covers the local bases at King Con, Mike Dawson and Eamon Espey will be doing their thing over in Minny at the Minneapolis Indie Expo, better known as MIX. You Minny people better be nice to them! Don’t make us come down there! Or maybe make us come down there. It does sound like a lot fun.

We’ll be back with more PACC details once we have our attendees nailed down. Though summer Fridays do rock, we miss you guys. Seriously, when does school start again?

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

A Supposedly Fun Thing

TO BEGIN WITH, there was more hype surrounding this year’s TCAF than we have ever witnessed for any comics event, up to and probably including the truly awful SDCC and NYCC type shows of the year (if you count those as comics events, which we do not). There was plenty of evidence to support this in our little world, as those who were unable to attend spent several weeks and countless tweets trying to figure out how they would recover from missing the show of the century. Any attempts to point to the fact that there’s another TCAF next year were met with complaints that this was the greatest TCAF that would be ever be – and this was before it even happened.

Maybe it was that video or maybe it was due to the fact that TCAF was following up the après-MoCCA complaint fest. As much talk as there was about everything MoCCA did wrong, there was even more discussion of everything that TCAF does right. TCAF is free to the public. TCAF’s space is a beautiful temple of reading. TCAF has ways of making tables affordable for self-publishing creators. TCAF is open to every conceivable genre and subgenre of the medium. TCAF has a green room. TCAF will make change for you. TCAF is run by Chris Butcher, arguably the most charismatic of impressarios, and the Beguiling, arguably the world’s greatest comics shop. TCAF, via the Beguiling, will pick up your remainders, if there are any, and send you back home a little less afraid of customs. In short, TCAF is everything you want it to be.

Obviously, our expectations were through the roof. More to the point, we expected a hell of a lot from ourselves and, hence, we went a little nuts all around this show. Secret Acres is a small outfit, so in theory, we should be able to move fast. Nonetheless, it was seriously down to the wire in getting 2012 together in time for the show. It happened, and we’re pleased, but we didn’t even have the time to announce the thing as we usually do.

Once we were packed, and rides had been assigned, we had a late night panic attack, ditched our banners and stands and heavy gear and managed to hide everything in the Acresmobile for fear that customs would kill us. Seeing as one of us was born in the Philippines and another had several warrants out for his arrest, we don’t think these fears were unreasonable at all. To make matters worse, we got several reports of pals’ books being confiscated on the way up and the material in question (Onsmith and Young Lions are dangerous?) made our own legitimately gay and porntastic stuff look like three keys of H. It may have dawned on us sooner that getting everyone safely to their rooms would be problematic without cell phones if we hadn’t been screaming at each other for hours about prostitution and the legalization thereof.

If we are so small, we somehow had our largest crew ever heading into Toronto. That was a bit of logistical nightmare for our single table, and our original idea of playing it by ear gave way to a solid schedule almost immediately. Of course, upon arrival, Dylan Williams, who had called our usual, elaborate MoCCA setup postmodern (meaning inhumane in its style over comfort approach), pointed at our minimalist/ghetto TCAF setup and pronounced it old fashioned. Our D&Q pals, who previously had made fun of our business ties, gave us grief for wearing a t-shirt with a cardigan. Still, we were all ready to rock.

Then nothing happened. It was total crickets (and not of the Harkham variety). Not to say the show was quiet, but we were the eye of the storm. It was so quiet, we freaked, left the kids at the table and went shopping. Once we were broke, we walked over to the Beguiling. We had differing opinions on the place, ranging from wanting to move in to wanting to move in and reorganize the shelves. It is the most complete store we have ever seen. Whatever the Beguiling doesn’t have isn’t worth having. Being skeptical of the stories we’d heard of the Beguiling picking up TCAF leftovers, we spent the walk back to the show discussing damage control maneuvers. Given what we’d seen of the sales at that point, and the fact that we had doubled down to the tune of this being our most expensive show ever, it was not looking good for us.

Then there was a marijuana madness pot parade and we stopped giving a shit entirely. Everything else was going right. As far as our show shopping went, it was easily the best haul we have ever had. By now, you’re probably sick of hearing about Lose 3, but too bad. Every once in a great while, you pick up something that is obvious in its import and has a nearly electric charge to every line and Lose 3 is that; it’s another solid reason to love comics. If that book was our centerpiece, the rest of the pile is the stuff of fantasy: Even the Giants, Gay Genius, SF #1, The Life and Times of Eric Gunose, Team Society League Omnibus, Garden, Welcome to Oddville! and of course, Root Rot, which isn’t even the half of it.

We wanted to end on Root Rot because that was where we discovered Robin Nishio, who sent us off to the Black Hoof, where we tried as hard as we could to get gout. Then we ran over to the Gay Thing, as we called it, and sat outside with our own Edie Fake and his gang and watched as folks wandered in by the dozens and decided it wasn’t happening enough before turning right around. Maybe, fellow homos, if you’d hung around, there’d have been more to get excited about. As it was, our Gay Thing was the perfect chill interlude between the organ meat orgy and the calamity of the Paupers Bar TCAFette.

Paupers was our Twitter feed made flesh. We usually ditch the official parties for weirder, dancier fare, so it was strange to have something that was on the TCAF program be the place to be. We managed to scramble some seats at a table on the roof, where we dug in and waited for the world to come to us, which it did. Brandon Graham is really, really tall. Robin McConnell is the Robin McConnell we’d hoped he would be, but he also has a 37 inch vertical, which he demonstrated by way of jumping over a table and clawing his way up to the ledge of the deck on which we were perched before proceeding to explain the Canadian electoral system as promised (your stuff is way convoluted, Canada). Tom Neely, the most dangerous man in Canadian customs offices, was in rare form, giving us the follow-up on his seizures and Danzig death threats. Mickey Z, whom we’d first discovered via Sundays 4, had no voice left at all, which may have made her seem even more smolderingly enigmatic than she is in real life (since she claims to be a loudmouth and having no voice left does back her up on this). Then, of course, there was Annie Koyama.

We’re not totally sure how the hell to describe her. In his TCAF write-up, Tom Spurgeon noted that “you could float an ocean-liner on the love that Koyama’s cartoonists have for their publisher.” Frankly, those guys would be insane to have that much love for their publisher if Annie were simply that. We’re publishers, yes, but no one loves us as much we love Annie.

We call her the Peggy Guggenheim of comics. Her generosity is going a long way in developing the medium. We’re not talking about the books she’s publishing, which are across the board great. She’s supporting emerging artists in the way we fantasize about doing with Secret Acres, but while we are limited to what we do as a publishing company, Anne Koyama knows no bounds. We hear regularly from cartoonists we adore that Annie has shown up out of nowhere to keep them working and making comics. This isn’t about the money, either, as any idiot can write a check. Her encouragement and faith are what inspire people because she understands comics and what it is to be an artist about as well as is humanly possible and whatever she has to tell you is exactly what you need to hear. Santa Koyama may be a more appropriate nickname, for both meanings of the word Santa.

The rest of the night is something we will all of us remember well – except for Joseph Lambert. There’s photo evidence below for you, Joe. We think that’s Xanax that you’re being fed.

The rest of the show was fine, too. The sales were nowhere near as bad as we’d thought. It turned out to be true that the Beguiling does pick up leftovers. Customs didn’t care about us one way or the other. We’re all home and literally feverish. In short, TCAF was everything we wanted it to be.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

I Didn’t Steal Your Stupid Canadian!

YES, it’s true. Samuel C. Gaskin’s 2012 will indeed be up in your face this TCAF, albeit in somewhat limited numbers. We will have a pretty stacked little gang behind the table, no less than Sam, Joseph Lambert, Edie Fake, Sean Ford (whose Only Skin 7 is now in the Emporium) and Ken Dahl. This marks the first occasion that all of our books will actually be simultaneously available to those of the Canadian persuasion, outside of Librarie D+Q (and through the Emporium, of course, but that doesn’t count). This might seem odd, but there’s always been something in the way, Canada-wise. Monsters, for example, was classified as porn by a certain distributor and thus not allowed in the gentler lands to our north. Perhaps Ken Dahl won’t make it past customs, either? Though who knows which names “Ken” is using on his IDs, anyway? We don’t. Seriously.

2012 will be the most Acres of the books debuting at TCAF, however, you can find new stuff from Secret Acres’ own Joe Lambert, of I Will Bite You! fame, in the Root Rot anthology from Koyama Press and there’s Edie Fake’s first (we believe) new comics work since his Gaylord Phoenix in the long-awaited Gay Genius from Sparkplug Comic Books. Joe and Edie will both be on a few TCAF panels as well, which you can check out here.

American Mike Dawson will not be joining us for TCAF this year, but he has been a busy bee. If you have not done so yet, you should lend an ear to his latest foray into the podcasting wilds, TCJ Talkies (that’s TCJ as in The Comics Journal), which features an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink conversation with none other than Evan Dorkin. Furthermore, Mike has some very adult new comics on his site here (and we mean adult as in there’s big words, not porntastic action like Monsters). Even more exciting for us is that Troop 142, the final version not yet seen anywhere ever, is done. It’s so done, we may even be signing off on the printer order before we set off for TCAF.

We know not everyone can go to TCAF (and if you can’t go to TCAF and you are in LA, go here; that Malachi Ward guy is real good). If you are feeling sad about not making it to TCAF, you should watch this video spot at least one hundred times a day until you are compelled to go. Of course, Secret Acres has never been to TCAF so we are just as curious as you other TCAF virgins. Rest assured, we will have a TCAF review to beat the band upon our return – assuming our poutine cleanse doesn’t kill us.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

Until the End of the World

In the meantime, we are hauling ass to have Samuel C. Gaskin’s 2012 ready to go for TCAF. We swear will do everything possible to make that happen, and it looks pretty good at the moment. We can say that 2012 does indeed rock, so, if it’s a little late, it really won’t be the end of the world. On that note, we need to rest these dogs. They’re friggin’ blue, for real.

Leon and Barry

Comic Youth

Things happened fast on Industry Day at CCS. We barely managed to finish our coffees before the fun started. Being on a panel moderated by Tom Spurgeon was an intimidating prospect for us. Tom is our pick for most considered and patient comics critic and reporter. Where others rush to get the scoop, Tom picks his shots. This means you have to consider his every word because he does.

This would have been pressure enough, but sitting between Bernadette Baker-Baughman, agent to the stars (including Acre fave Farel Dalrymple), and former co-worker Charlie Kochman, the head honcho at Abrams ComicArts and the man behind the men who brought you Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Meanwhile, made it a little worse. If the stakes needed to be higher, there was Sturm, Bissette and CCS co-founder Michelle Ollie in the audience, otherwise comprised of a few dozen cartoonists who were all better educated than us biding their time until they sat down for some portfolio reviews courtesy of the Acres.

This all happened by ten in the morning. No wonder Tom was worried we might be terrible panelists. These were the major panel takeaways for us:

– We are not the only folks wondering what the hell is going on with the Direct Market. Small as we are, we’d expect Diamond and company to pay us little mind, but to hear that we share the same sales guy as Abrams and Scholastic (the legendary Tony Shenton) was a surprise. Like us, the big guys hired Tony to sort out the messy process of selling books to comic shops.

– It’s tough to find where the villains are in the Direct Market disaster, per the panelists, but everyone seemed to agree that most comic shops (not the new jack ones that are sporting nicely curated stock, like Desert Island or The Beguiling or Floating World) are depending on a system that doesn’t really support them and have alienated a large part of their potential customer base by not looking beyond the Diamond Previews catalog offerings. It was Bernadette who wondered aloud how many environments could support the kinds of stores that do seem to have it figured out. It doesn’t look good.

Speaking of Sean, he might have been better off getting some sleep, sweet as Only Skin is. We all got in the Acresmobile at the crack of dawn on Saturday to make it to Mike Dawson’s “Mike is an American” party. To celebrate no longer being an alien, Mike had a six-hour shindig complete with American pies, ice creams, beers, and fifteen children in close proximity to the creators of Monsters, Petey & Pussy, Gabagool! and other kid-friendly fare. To think, Steve Bissette was worried that today’s over-protected kids don’t have access to comics anymore. Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Bissette.

We’ll see you on Saturday, we hope, if not sooner. When you get to MoCCA, just head right over to row H. The rest of the show is crap, pretty much.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

SEND A HEARTBEAT to the void that cries through Sean Ford, because he is done with Only Skin, and because he is a closet Smashing Pumpkins fan. Or he was until now. You can pre-order Only Skin 7 here, or wait and grab them from Sean directly at MoCCA (which is less than two weeks away!) or you can get them right here at the Emporium (soon-ish). We can’t wait to put the whole Only Skin enchilada together!

Major props to Secret Acres ourselves for having finally gotten through our website spring cleaning. We have an actual Facebook page for you to “like” (h/t to Rina A) and one of those goddamn Twitter things, for briefer musings than the novelizations which happen here.  We’ve got the ever lovin’ Mike Dawson all set up with his own artist page, and we have an Only Skin screensaver ready to download for Gratis (yes, it’s Windows only for now). Everything is brand spanking new on Small Plates, including some stuff you have never seen before anywhere from mastermind John Brodowski. We fixed all the stupid links (thank you, newly reloaded Comics Comics Journal for rendering a whole bunch of them redundant; it’s totally worth it, but still).

Not good enough? We made a couple additions to the Emporium, too: you can now pre-order I Will Bite You! Yes, that’s right. Holy friggin’ sweet baby cats, we’ve been waiting to write that for thousands of years. In fact, one more time: you can now pre-order I Will Bite You! Really, it’s happened. Go. Click. And while you’re there, you may order Hot Topic from evil twins Samuel C. Gaskin and Matt Furie. Buy it or you will miss out on some Insane Clown Titties and that’s for serious. These things were gone in sixty seconds at BCGF; they’re not going to last much longer here.

More still? We’ll have a new comic-style over-sized comic from the aforementioned Sam for TCAF. 2012 happens then, in 2011, which is like Christmas in July. If you’re wondering, 2012, the comic, is truly the end of the world and it features Jackie Chan and vampire sexing, which all the kids are into these days. There will be a teaser of this guy in Conor Stechschulte’s sexy anthology (we’re quoting here) at the Closed Caption Comics table at MoCCA. The Mayans were right.

There have been a ton of shoutouts while we were sprucing up a bit. Edie Fake got his at Under the Radar, the Daily Crosshatch, Read About Comics, Newcity Art and threw down with none other than Eamon Espey for Mildred Pierce #4.  If you happen to be round Chicago way, Edie and underground forefather George Hansen will be conversing and watching cartoons at the Hungry Brain on April the 12th. If Chicago is not happening, you can still maybe pick up an awesome Edie print from the good folks at Cinders here.

Meanwhile, Mike, Joe Lambert and Theo Ellsworth got their Best American Notables noted here, here and here, and our man Ken Dahl was digitally molested (that’s pixels, not fingers, pervert) by Robin Bougie here. Finally, the smartest guy in the room, Dan Nadel, put Curio Cabinet in his top five for the Economist’s More Intelligent Life. If you want to know why Dan likes it so much, Rob Clough explains for you on ye olde Comics Journal here.

Phew.

But what will we do for you lately? We are hitting the road to go examine the wacky kids and their doings at the Center for Cartoon Studies’ Industry Day. We’ll be reviewing portfolios and torturing the students with horrible personal questions about their hygiene and reading habits, and, no, folks, we aren’t kidding. If you take a close look at our Gesamtkunstwerkers pages, you’ll note that we have raided that place pretty viciously, so our expectations are through the roof. Tom Spurgeon will be making the trip as well. Poor Spurge. Thought you could escape us forever?

Then there’s MoCCA. After that, we’ll be at Dan Nadel’s SVA class, where we might drop our thoughts on the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Cartoonists, or we might not (there is an Eighth Habit, but that one’s Marry a Nurse and it doesn’t count – and before we get into one of those Dilbert moments, there are male nurses, folks, and they are awesome, too, if you prefer marrying a man and are planning on practicing the Eighth Habit). More on those last two later, because that’s enough for a late night blog post. We almost don’t even feel bad for being away for so long now.

Your Pals,

Leon and Barry

The Phoenix Saga

ABOUT LAST YEAR:

Recently, we got an e-mail from a couple of guys currently in the Navy, who are interested in publishing comics. We responded that they should be prepared to flush a down payment on a house right down the toilet. Having spent some time hanging around the (sort of) ill-fated Highwater Books in our youth, there were some things we learned, that we share with people who have asked us about publishing comics:

Never publish anything without the cash in hand to pay the printers.

Don’t get into contracts on books that won’t fit the schedule, let alone your budget.

Keeping prices low is great, but too low and you’ll never get the money back to print anything else.

Funny that we couldn’t always follow our own advice. We initially underpriced our books and gave ourselves such razor thin margins that we occasionally lost money on sales because of shipping costs. Secret Acres originally intended to put out a book a quarter, which sounds like a plan, until you consider that we don’t have investors. We had to cut three books from our schedule, which kept us awake at night for months. As for cash in hand, well, throw in a divorce and a move and it was borrow or fold.

Yet we did not fold. We got picked up by a bunch of stores, Diamond be damned. Our guys were starting to show up in Best American, and on way more than a few end-of-year “Best of” lists. We were rolling full steam ahead through 2009. In 2010, we wised up and started this blog, which got us a lot closer to you than Facebook ever did. A book with our logo on it got an Eisner nomination. The future was bright, and then 2010 caught up to us.

Somehow, we’ve always had more mainstream press than comic blog hits. Chicago Tribune was no problem, but CBR? That all changed with Monsters. So beloved was this book that two people who never before noticed Secret Acres stepped up to review our next book, Curio Cabinet. Needless to say, they didn’t like it. They were quick to dislike it, and being the first to review it, they were picked up on the more popular linkblog sites.

We don’t need everybody to like everything we put out, and we aren’t in this to get rich, but we can’t really afford these beatdowns from the guys who think of Warren Ellis as “alternative.” We love everything we publish, but we’re not doing our jobs if we can’t get these comics into the hands of readers, and that doesn’t happen without reviews – and after those first two, there were no reviews of Curio Cabinet for months.

Then our best-selling book sold so well that it sold out. This was a nice moment for us, until our sales agent stopped sending us any orders for any our of books, pretty much. Stores were waiting, we were told, until Capacity was back in print to order anything. This was very interesting to us as we had a big, fat book to print at the end of the year in Gaylord Phoenix and we had to go back to press on Capacity, another big, fat book if we wanted to pay those bills. Suddenly, we were no longer immune to stories of a comics industry sales catastrophe in Q3.

So we hit the road. Apparently, all those comics news stories about 2010 being the “Year of the Show” were also correct. It was a bit a of a lonely road at times without our pals Bodega, Sparkplug and Buenaventura, but the shows saved us from the brink of disaster, and not just by putting money back in the Acres accounts.

We probably should have told the Navy guys that there’s nothing quite like having fans of the house. If Kevin Huizenga walks up to your table to thank you for publishing Curio Cabinet, you don’t go home and feel bad. If Lisa Hanawalt needs a place to sit at SPX, you blush when she asks you. When Mike Dawson asks if you’ll carry his mini-comics, you get a little weak in the knees. Watching someone pick up an Ignatz for a book you’ve published, you start to feel like it’s all going to be just fine – even if he never thanks you in his stupid little acceptance speech after whining for an entire day that he’s not going to win anything.

We did get Capacity back in print. We did get orders again, and lots of them, for lots of our books. We did get some actual book market distribution going, finally.  We did get a digital plan together, sort of. We did launch our big, fat, gay book, Gaylord Phoenix (which was particularly great for us as gay guys). We did find it fitting that our last review of 2010 was from Sean Collins, the guy who chewed us out, back in the very beginning, for publishing cat torture books like Wormdye – only this time he was calling Curio Cabinet a Book of the Year.

Even better, this Christmas, all the little Secret Elves who write and draw all the little Secret Acres books got together and made us these nesting dolls. There’s a doll from every artist we have published or are about to publish. We nearly passed out opening these. We are the luckiest publishers in the world. (Thanks to a certain friend for organizing all of these guys for such an incredible gift.)

God bless you, Q4 2010.

2011 will be an all-new, all-different story for Secret Acres.

First, the meh news – Only Skin is moving to 2012, assuming the world doesn’t end. Before you go freaking out, there will be a final issue of Only Skin for MoCCA in a couple of months, so you’ll get the ending, before curiosity gets to you. Or should we say you’ll get an ending? Trust us; Sean has some serious trickery up his sleeves for the over-sized book that Only Skin will be.

We know we said you’d be getting bit by I Will Bite You! in 2010 and this did not happen and it was part of the not so fun Q3 for us. Well, it’s happening right now. In fact, we just sent it off to the printers a couple of hours ago. You’ll forget all about the wait when you see all the pretty colors. Yes, there are colors and they are very pretty. You can check them out at MoCCA in person, but we may not be able to wait that long, either, as we are talking about an exclusive preview on a certain website.

Now we’ve already spilled the beans about our other 2011 book, but we’re going to clean up all those beans right now. Yes, it’s true, Secret Acres will be delivering Mike Dawson‘s Troop 142 to you at SPX. Now, we know what you’re thinking, and no, Secret Acres has never worked with an artist who has such a, um, history.

For the record, we didn’t poach anybody. In fact, Mike sent us his minis in the mail, like a normal person. One of us here at Acres, who shall remain nameless, checked the mail and spent a good couple days giggling at Troop 142. This one of us never made the connection that it was Mike Dawson of Mike Dawson fame – and clearly this one of us never clicked on any of the goddamn links to Troop 142 that the other of us sent him like at least ten times. Miraculously, we were all in the same room at the same time at SPX and, obviously, it all went well from there.

Furthermore, we’re going to be back on the road shortly, heading up to CCS in March to talk to the all kids at “Industry Day.” Hopefully, they will behave themselves or they won’t be getting any cookies. If getting going got us going last year, we’re going to be going from the go this year. Per our plans, you will be able to find us at MoCCA, Stumptown (if they let us in!), TCAF, PACC, SPX, APE, King Con and BCGF (if they let us in!). There may be a half dozen or so more. What can we say? We miss you guys.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon