She’s Like the Wind

UPDATED: The performance of Eamon Espey’s “Ishi’s Brain” is happening this FRIDAY, the 9th, at Tomato House at 8PM, not Saturday, as previously reported. There’s more about this below…

IT’S A DISASTER AREA, literally (and not in the way people who fry every other syllable say literally, but in the literal definition of the word), for several of the Acres gang after that motherfucker Sandy flew through here, and we don’t mean Duncan, for once. Our thoughts and prayers are with Mike Dawson and his clan. He’s been beset with desperate vibes at the Home Depot somewhere in the depths of New Jersey, but he has been brilliantly trained in the art of survival (see Troop 142). Anyhow, though we may be powerless, we are not exactly powerless. There’s a riot going on, so pay close attention. There will be a quiz.

First off, weather permitting, there is still a Short Run happening in sunny Seattle this weekend. We couldn’t get it together to attend the inaugural small press event, but it’s back, it’s bigger, it’s better and it’s got Sean Ford and Theo Ellsworth to boot. Those guys will have have Only Skin and the Understanding Monster and a host of our very finest books and things. Not to mention, Theo usually comes armed with irresistible prints and originals. You’ll count yourself lucky to get them even if you go broke at the Secret Acres table. But, really, spread the love, guys. Kill those cash machines. Like we did for MECAF, we will do our best to coerce our guys to write up the show on this here blog. (You did such a good job, Sean! Really!)

The following weekend, that’s November 10th, for those of you keeping up, is the big, bad Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival in, um, Brooklyn. The guest list is absurd. As usual, the programming is unbelievable. Just go click on that link and come back to us. Forget about Chris Ware, that guy is all over. Oliver Shrauwen is going to be there. Like that ever happens. Don’t forget we’ll be there, too, and we’re ganged up: Edie Fake, Sean Ford, Sam Gaskin, Joseph Lambert and, of course, Eamon Epsey will be at and around our setup.

More importantly, Eamon will be sporting his new book and our last book of the year, Songs of the Abyss. It’s a delightful tune of a book, featuring Santa Claus! It makes a wonderful holiday gift. Not only will this be the first book from Eamon since his much beloved Wormdye, it will be the first Secret Acres comic to have a live adaptation.

In collaboration with Lisa Krause, of Black Cherry Puppet Theatre (and Bread and Puppet) fame, Eamon’s brought his Songs of the Abyss story, “Ishi’s Brain,” into the third dimension, with an original score from Stephen Santillan, formerly of More Dogs (Thank You, Ghost Life). Playing host to such madness is none other than Matt Thurber, the god who birthed the legendary 1-800-MICE. Along with Lisa and Eamon’s performance, Dongery, the Norwegian comics collective, will be having a book release party, for a collection of their work. It’s 1,456 pages long. Yep. This all happens ahead of BCGF, this Friday the 9th at 8PM, at Matt Thurber’s gallery, Tomato House. We won’t say you have to go, because you’re not obligated, but if you miss this, you might never forgive yourself. Or us. But we warned you.

Meanwhile, there’s been a bunch of love going around for our crew. Ahead of the game, ahead of even the book itself, City Paper has the advanced word on Songs of the Abyss and the “Ishi’s Brain” show right here. The Understanding Monster has withstood and conquered the critical eyes of the Comics Journal (more to come from those guys), Bookslut (one of the more moving reviews ever written about one of our books, we thought), his hometown Missoula Independent, Page 45, Comics Books are Burning in Hell, Under the Radar (whose only complaint was the color being a tad dark, which you can hang right on us and consider this a review a 10/10) and Paste (who were iffy on the book but loved the color, which you can credit to Theo’s genius). Oh, and Theo had this rather phenomenal interview with Tom Spurgeon aka the Comics Reporter. Joe Lambert got his own interview from Robin McConnell, the man that is Inkstuds. There was a comics format review of Wayward Girls by Suzette Smith that we somehow missed the first time. We’re not even sure how to link to this, but one of our nation’s greatest writers, Victor LaValle tweeted this about Only Skin. We will never get over that one and we will never get over the loss of the Ink Panthers Show!, which: what the hell, guys? If you want to bring the show back, you need to write Alex Robinson an actual letter and send it to his actual home. We have his actual address and we will actually give it to you. Just ask us.

Okay, that’s enough. No, it isn’t. There’s new stuff in the Emporium from Brendan Leach, Dakota McFadzean and Sean Christensen among others. And we should tell you there are new Koyama Press books in there, too, from folks like Dustin Harbin. Have a look. We’re sure you’ll find something you like.

We know we promised a sneak at next year’s books, but the lawyers said we couldn’t. Really. See you next time, hopefully, for some guest blogging and a wrap-up of Short Run. That’s where all the dirt is, anyway.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

Thank U

BEST EVER is a bold statement, yes, but there’s a lot to back up the claims that this was the year to beat for the Small Press Expo. However, before we go there, we need to give folks many thanks for showing up on a school night for Theo Ellsworth‘s signing party at ye olde Bergen Street Comics. Not that Bergen Street is in any way old, but when you know them as well as we do, it’s hard to remember what life was like before we had a pull list. It was a swell crowd, with lots of Acres represented. Of course, we have no evidence of this, because we forgot our cameras, and worse, we forgot the Cubeecraft paper pals that Theo went to all that trouble to draw. They’re very cute. Luckily for us, everyone else seemed too wrapped up in the glow of Theo and The Understanding Monster (and the awesome Theo-drawn Bergen tote bags), that they seemed to forget about them, too.

We went into the weekend fairly hobbled, with multiple, simultaneous and unrelated personal apocalypses rocking our worlds, so it’s no surprise that we forgot our cameras again when we were packing up for the ride down. We didn’t even remember a sales sheet. To be fair, we did stop to fill a decent Diamond order on the way, and we got Theo and Sean Ford to Bethesda without getting lost and in obscenely good time. Not that it made any difference, since on arrival we were surprised to discover that each of our rooms only had a single king bed in them, for six people. At least one of us is good at pitching an epic fit about stuff like this, but we had to make do because the place was truly booked all the way.

When we registered, it turned out Theo had no badge and wasn’t listed in the program, but was somehow considered a VIP. At least Gabby Schulz (aka Ken Dahl), Eamon Espey and Mike Dawson made it to the show in one piece. Stress relief was provided via an enormous bar bill (like more than our rooms cost us kind of enormous) on Friday night, which left most of our crew hung over heading into Saturday. The cherry on the cake was that all Ignatz nominees got a little balloon to tie to their tables so people would know where to find their books – all except Mike, whose Troop 142 was nominated for Outstanding Graphic Novel. But, hey, even we forgot to mention this via anything before we hit the road. Long story short: we got off to a shitty start.

Then all hell broke loose. Someone decided to open the doors and let people in. After that, it all becomes a blur. There are vague memories of us all happily picking at the Acres snack bag, which was stocked with some serious goodies in anticipation of Snack Wars with our friends and neighbors, Koyama Press and AdHouse. We wandered over to be the first people to get a copy of Noah Van Sciver‘s the Hypo (because everyone loves Noah (and we should have bought that Little Heart fundraiser date with him to stare into his pretty, little eyes)). There was whining about the balloon. Then there was bedlam.

Normally, there’s a rhythm to the show. While it didn’t have the assaultive, sudden crowds of years past, there were no lulls at all, ever, the whole time. It was almost a relief to head down to our panel, Publishing During the Apocalypse, the title of which couldn’t possibly have been more absurd. We were hosted by Heidi MacDonald and sat there with Annie Koyama, Box Brown and John Porcellino, while upstairs there were people like Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, both Hernandezes, Michael DeForge and, well, everyone. There was a moment when two people came to the table to pick up some books and those two people were Renee French and Charles Burns (who purchased several copies of Wayward Girls, much to our delight), and it was no big deal. Renee and Charles are gods to us, but we’d grown numb to it all so quickly.

So what about the apocalypse, exactly? This show was proof of the fact that comics has never been stronger, which was what we all said to a standing-room only audience. Yeah, we said some semi-provocative things (no offense to Diamond/Amazon/TopatoCo), but remember Secret Acres is a hive mind. If you want the whole story, you need us both in front of the mic. Plus that way, one of us can tell the other to STFU.

Our annual traditions at SPX include a pizza and Old Fashioned party in our rooms for all the Ignatz nominees on Saturday. Generally, everybody who shows up wins. This would include our pal, Brendan Leach, who ran off with a brick for Outstanding Comic. The doors were open wide to our little room and we had most of the Sparkplug, Adhouse and Koyama gangs squeezed in there, too. Chris Pitzer and Annie and those guys are family to us, but even that was overwhelming in a way. Usually, it’s a nice contemplative moment between the floor and the awards. This year could have been a reunion barbecue. It was better, sure, but it was way bigger. Also, since we all crashed on top of leftover pizza and open beer bottles, three men in the bed, one on the floor,the stench of dude on Sunday was so powerful that if there’s any truth to pheromones, all creatures possessed of a uterus within a fifty foot radius probably started ovulating on the spot.

Yes, we’re miffed that Mike Dawson didn’t get to cry over an(other) Ignatz for Troop 142, but the Hernandez brothers pretty much won everything, which felt like a moment far too long in coming. There’s no good way to describe the impact these guys have had on us, our friends, generations of cartoonists and readers. There will likely never be a better SPX, so if los Bros were going to clean up, it should’ve been this year and at these Ignatz Awards. That said, we had no idea who any of the presenters were. They were very strange. This, of course, excludes Tom Spurgeon, breaking out the first ever Golden Brick for Richard Thompson. Poor Tom would be assaulted with love and praise by our shockingly drunk crew the minute the ceremony was over. It’s true, Tom, we all love you. If what you said was true, that moments before our drunken proclamations someone had come up and said lousy things to you, just give us a name. We prefer to think you were being modest.

As wondrous as this SPX was, we got to see almost none of it. We managed to get over to PictureBox to pick up Bjornstrand and giggle while Dan Nadel looked over our copy of SP7 with what appeared to be approval. Other than that, we saw nothing of that half of the room. We missed Eleanor Davis‘ zine. We didn’t get to hang out with Eric Reynolds or Alec Longstreth or Kevin Czap. We never got a copy of Blacklung. There was nothing left of Drawn and Quarterly. While we did get to see Drawing Energy (the superpanel with Theo, Michael DeForge, Hellen Jo and Katie Skelly, moderated so smoothly by Jim Rugg you’d think he was running for office) we completely missed Mike’s panel. Supposedly, Derf Backderf was there someplace. We hardly saw Joe, as in Joseph Lambert, our guy, and he was at the table next to us.

And what about sales, you ask? We made more money on Sunday at SPX than we had at any entire show ever. We made way more money on Saturday than we did on Sunday. We took home maybe a dozen books, a ton of cash and Lisa Hanawalt. It was a relief to bring Lisa back to Brooklyn, because we adore her and we got to spend time with her, whether she liked it or not.

There was too much of everything and we missed more. And we missed Dylan Williams. It’s been a year since we lost him. We overheard someone talking about him and how they keep reaching for the phone now and then to call him, because they can never remember that he won’t pick up. Can you imagine what Dylan would have thought of this show? He was right all along. There are a lot of us comics weirdos out there and we can take care of each other. There’s no need to look for proof anymore. We may be back home, overcome by separation anxiety and back to licking our emotional wounds, but this comics thing is huge, beautiful and here to stay.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

P.S. – So we didn’t have cameras, because we’re a hot mess, but we borrowed images from Yumcha Studios, Chris Pitzer’s flickr and the Comics Reporter. Sorry, guys. We’re desperate, but if you want them taken down, just holler at us. Thanks!

Since U Been Gone

IT FEELS LIKE it’s been a thousand years since we last spoke. This is probably because so much has been going on. Worlds have changed. Universes have collided. We’ve got a ton of stuff to tell you, so there won’t be much editorializing (since we kind of blew our bitchy wad on the last post). Besides, you know we’ll deliver the dirt after the Big Show.

Speaking of the Big Show, it’s the most wonderful time of the year for us artsy comics folk. Yes, it is the Small Press Expo once again. If you want to see what the comics community looks like, get yourself down to Bethesda this weekend. Bethesda is definitely not the most obvious locale for the spiritual pursuit of comics, but it is home to the Marriott, aka Comics Camp. Once you’re there, there is no escaping. This will be our fifth SPX. Our fourth was both our most glorious moment as publishers and our most harrowing. Who can say what this one will bring?

Well, we can say. We’re bringing The Understanding Monster, the new book from Theo Ellsworth. It’s a departure for just about everybody. If you’ve never experienced Theo’s work before, you’re in for a shock. You’re in for a shock even if you’ve read everything he’s done. This will be the first full-length fiction comic from Theo. It’s also the first volume of three. You’ll be getting one a year. We’re breaking new ground here, as  well. It’s our first hardcover and our first full-color book. Did we mention how big this thing is? It’s big. It will take you a while to get everything that’s in it out of it. The Understanding Monster is a trip.

Also making the trip to SPX will be Wayward Girls 2. Michiel Budel has been pushing the limits with his comic since he got started. The first issue nearly got us jail time. In this second installment of Wayward Girls, the stories have gotten a little longer and more developed, but no less dangerous. We’re grateful that we don’t need to stop at customs to bring this to you.

While we did okay at SPX’s Ignatz Awards last year (meaning we cleaned the fuck up), we are extremely proud that our resident All-American Boy Scout, Mike Dawson, has gotten yet another nod, this time for Outstanding Graphic Novel, for his rightfully ubiquitous Troop 142. We need your vote, fellow countrymen. Stuff those ballot boxes. Vote early and often. Disenfranchise the competition if you have to, because if Mike wins this one, he has personally guaranteed he will cry. Okay, he didn’t cry the last time Troop 142 won an Ignatz, but we promise to wax his nipples if he fails to squirt a few on this go. Besides, this book deserves it. For full disclosure, our lady of the Acres, Minty Lewis, and our man with a plan, Edie Fake, were on the nominating committee. We’re extra proud of them, too, because all the nominations are pretty badass.

You can find the Acres gang on three different panels this year. Mike will be moderating “Drawing Out Childhood,” with guests (and old pals) Julia Wertz, Derf Backderf, John Porcellino and MariNaomi. Theo will be joined by Michael Deforge, Jim Rugg and Hellen Jo for “Drawing Energy.” Finally, yours truly will be under fire from Heidi MacDonald, aka the Beat, but at least we’ll be sitting with Box Brown, John Porcellino (he’s everywhere and all over) and the Greatest of All Time, Annie Koyama (she hates that kind of praise, but we love her, anyway) – and this thing is called “Publishing During the Apocalypse.” Not a joke.

There’s been plenty of other stuff happening in the meanwhile. Sean Ford has been feeling the love for his Only Skin from IndieReader‘s Sarah Morean (If you don’t know who she is, look her up. We’ll wait.). Edie got a shoutout from the awesome Bitch Magazine. Gabby Schulz, the former Ken Dahl, was the recipient of some seriously glowing praise from Comics Bulletin for Monsters (which has to be the longest wait for a review we’ve ever seen). Mike got in trouble with Trouble With Comics, and his Ink Panthers Show! had one of their best spots ever with episode 142 (no relation to Troop 142), “The Voyage Home.” Theo had himself a big exhibit at Giant Robot, an enormous interview at Newsarama, and you can even see a preview of the rather large The Understanding Monster on the Beat.

If you’re in New York City or somewhere else but have the means to get to Brooklyn, you owe it to yourself to make the trip this Thursday night. Theo’s going to be signing The Understanding Monster at Brooklyn’s own Bergen Street Comics. The beer and bubbly start flowing at 8PM, so make sure you eat first. Get there on time, and you just might get one of these Theo-drawn Cubeecraft dolls (Assembly required, but, come on, look at that thing.).

Here’s something we’ve been very quiet about: on September 7th, 2012, Secret Acres turned five years old. We owe all of you, badly, for carrying us this far. We will do our best to live up to your support for many more years to come.

Sometime before our fifth, we got the keys to our first office. Secret Acres, named after a house that is no longer with us, is a place again. We’ve got .00390266 acres to be precise. It’s nice to have a home. But we’ve got to hit the road. See you in a bit.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

The Kids Are All Right

THIS IS FOR YOU, Lisa Hanawalt… Like everyone else on our side of the comics fence, we read Dan Nadel’s blog post on the Comics Journal, “No Good Reason.” The post itself was a harshly critical assessment of Secret Prison 7, a comics anthology and an homage to Garo. The project is being edited by Box Brown, of Retrofit fame, and Ian Harker, who is one half of Secret Prison along with Pat Aulisio. SP7 is being funded via Kickstarter, and you can learn more about it there. There are several gauntlets, and boots, being thrown at issues great and small. A lot of this is a big deal to us and got us thinking about where we would locate ourselves within these arguments. If you haven’t read the post and the SP7 Kickstarter page, go ahead. We’ll wait here.

To begin, we should tell you that we know next to nothing about Garo and that we’re not exactly huge fans of manga. We don’t want to address that part of the critique here because, in all honesty, we’re not qualified to address it. That said, we’ll take Dan’s word for it that while manga has had a tremendous impact on younger, American cartoonists, Garo, specifically, does not have the same influence and in their description of the SP7 project, the publishers blur the line between Garo and manga. Garo certainly does not have the same influence that EC comics had on the Underground artists which followed them, though Dan refutes that influence only to retract it later.

Without adequately demonstrating a historical knowledge of the comics they claim have inspired them, the SP7 publishers have left the door open to charges of trend hopping, bending the comics community’s pre-existing interests to suit their needs. We’re not ready to convict them because they failed to show us that they’ve done their homework. In fact, this would have been easier if the publishers simply stated that they are putting together a Garo themed anthology because they think Garo is awesome, so please give them money because they’re broke. The comics that Secret Prison has produced have been too good to dismiss for their lack of historical context. They are often, however, fan art (see Rub the Blood,  another Secret Prison publication which was an homage of sorts to Rob Liefeld). By nature, fan art capitalizes on a pre-existing interest, which makes it difficult to get around the trendiness knock. Fan art can be fun, and even good, but the work can’t stand on its own, to use Dan’s words. He would also use the word sleazy, but that’s too strong for us, like making fun of someone who loves the band Interpol because they have never heard of Joy Division.

Publishing something with a built-in interest, or a viable something as Dan would say, makes the low-risk approach of Kickstarter funding that much more damning. So let’s talk about Kickstarter, hopefully for the last time. We are not threatened by Kickstarter. We are speaking for ourselves only, of course, but the idea that we would somehow be shaking in our boots (not for sale, by the way) because Kickstarter is coming to kill us publishers is absurd. We don’t like its focus on popularity ahead of everything else. We don’t like the way it lets the market decide, appealing to the lowest common denominator and cranking out transmedia-ready crap by the busload. We sure as hell don’t like it as a tool for publishers, and would never ever consider using it ourselves, but we’re not sitting here cursing its name.

The reverse is not true. Going all the way back to MK Reed‘s essay on Kickstarter, someone always feels compelled to make the argument that Kickstarter has created opportunities where there were none, that it has eliminated the need for publishers, who have been acting as gatekeepers for artists everywhere. This is a crock. No one who does what Secret Acres does has ever intended to stand in the way of a cartoonist’s success. We are well aware of the historical and continuing abuses perpetrated on creators by certain large comics companies and maybe that’s what’s stuck in people’s heads. This is akin to conflating superheroes with comics, which is really annoying, isn’t it? Can the argument that publishers are abusive corporations with no respect for creators be applied to Annie Koyama? Get over it. We are nobody’s enemy. We are not tastemakers. We are not gatekeepers. We have no idea what anyone means by “a very personal Batman graphic novel.”

We publish artists, not books. We’re less concerned about products and properties than we are supporting the people who make the comics that we love so much. As publishers, our job is to create opportunities and to find an audience for the artists who put their trust in us. It’s not easy to connect art so idiosyncratic and wonderful to the readers who will make something meaningful of it. It’s the fact that these voices are so idiosyncratic and wonderful that makes it worth the effort.

If Kickstarter can help them, we’re into it. If it gets one of our books into the hands of a reader, we’ll happily sell our books on Amazon, too. Amazon is an inevitability. The internet allows people to skip booksellers and skip paying a bookstore’s overhead, and if Amazon didn’t do it, someone else would. We believe there’s a cultural shift away from reading that is rarely addressed, that is a great part of the decline in a certain kind of bookstore. We suspect that a huge portion of Amazon’s book buyers are the book buying population that will switch to e-readers exclusively, and probably would have done so with or without Amazon. Those of us who prefer paper books will be more likely to get them in brick and mortar stores.

Does anyone really miss Borders? Amazon is a bigger threat to Barnes and Noble than it is to Bergen Street. We’ve seen bookstores revitalized as cultural and community centers, giving the advantage to independents. Despite the economy crashing, the advent of ebooks and the increased procurement of all goods online, Desert Island and Atomic Books are still here and the Beguiling is doing better than ever. You can’t go to Amazon to see an author read or hang out with comics glitterati at a book launch. No community will ever take ownership of Amazon, and Amazon gets books to people in remote areas that can’t support bookstores. It’s also worth noting that Amazon serves the long tail economy – you can buy every single Secret Acres book on Amazon, but not at any single retailer (other than Quimby’s, probably). The Amazon problem is far more nuanced than we’d like to admit.

So we don’t have Dylan Williams‘ backbone. But who does? We do whatever we can, because we owe it to the folks who sweat and sacrifice to work in dedication to the world’s slowest medium. They’re not doing it to sell something, they’re working to express something, and hopefully it’s something people need to hear, because that’s what art is. They have enough to handle without being judged by their ability to self-promote. We do the dirty work. That’s what being a publisher is all about for us.

As for Dan, he can speak for himself. “No Good Reason” is blazing angry and has been met with the wrath of 10,000 trolls. We grant you, you trolls, you, that it’s tough to argue that Dan is not a gatekeeper. Dan isn’t just Picturebox, he’s the Comics Journal. Dan isn’t just the Comics Journal, he’s BCGF. After reading “No Good Reason” we were left wondering if Dan wasn’t pissed off about something else. The world may never know. We hope he’s never mad at us.

If you’ve made it this far, you deserve a treat. So here’s a peek at our two SPX 2012 debuts, one above and one below. When you see them, you will plotz.

Yours Pals,

Barry and Leon

Eat It

WE JUST KNOW you’re reading this to find out how abysmal Chicago’s first annual CAKE convention really was, and it’s common knowledge that Secret Acres pulls no punches in its reportage. You want to hear about the table mix-ups, artists being forced to censor their book covers, prohibitive and unannounced entrance costs, food truck stomach viruses, and unbearable AC malfunctions. You need to hear that everything that could go wrong at an upstart comic convention, in fact, went horribly, horribly wrong, because it’s more thrilling to read a convention horror story, peppered with violent and often unintelligible comment threads. But the truth is that nothing went horribly wrong this past weekend in Chicago, and the CAKE gang are due some deep thanks and heartfelt congratulations from the comics world. For its inaugural weekend, CAKE was meticulously organized and executed, and pretty much everything that you’d hope for with a debut comics festival. Haters to the left.

Sales were soft. We’re not going to gloss over that one, so it might as well be the first thing we hash out in the blog. Some tables did well, but most people we talked to were at least mildly disappointed in their earnings. While traffic was generally steady over the course of the weekend, there were some major lulls in activity. We weren’t wowed by our own earnings, but we weren’t crushed, either. It was right in line with how we did at our first Stumptown or our first BCGF. Taking into account airfare, hotel, shipping books and table fees, we ended up a bit in the red, but it doesn’t sting much considering we went to Chicago with CAKE being a total unknown. We could have hedged our bets, waited for year two, or put all the chips on the table and treated CAKE like a proper festival. Because our guy Edie Fake was working on CAKE, this was a no-brainer for us. We’d follow him into hell. We debuted Gabby Schulz’s Weather, flew Sean Ford out to promote his Only Skin, and generally behaved as if we were going to SPX (minus the banners and our mini-comics ranch, which was a mistake on our part, but we’ll get to that). The fact that we didn’t come home with cash to spare strikes us as eminently tolerable given that this was the first CAKE ever and we were high rollin’ it a bit.

We heard some complaints from exhibitors tabling in breakout rooms that they felt removed from the show and subject to less foot traffic. Whenever we traveled to the side rooms, they did seem a little quieter than the rest of the show, so there may have been something to that.

Based on what we saw, CAKE was more of a mini-comic show than a big, fat graphic novel show. Attendees seemed to gravitate toward the floppies and newsprint comics. The crowd was a younger, more heavily inked incarnation of the folks we see at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival each year, and those BCGF kids are young. There was a smattering of people with strollers and a few solo olds, but most everyone was in the (well) under thirty demographic. Our sales could have been boosted significantly if we’d brought along the fine, fine minicomics that we distribute in our online Emporium.

All of the TCAF-ish components of a good comics show were in place at CAKE:

1)   helpful, friendly volunteers

2)   access to change for exhibitors

3)   a comfortable, temperature-controlled, easily accessible venue with an appropriate amount of space for panels and foot traffic

4)   water and snacks for volunteers and exhibitors (and actual cake!)

We felt right at home amidst the other exhibitors and completely overwhelmed by the density of comics talent all in one place. Friends like Chuck Forsman, Melissa Mendes, Dane Martin, Colleen Frakes, Penina Gal and Damien Jay were there, along with compatriot small press/distributors like Koyama Press, Tugboat, Sparkplug and Spit and a Half. We were happy to see the familiar faces of some of the former Pizza Islanders and the Closed Caption Comics gang. We got to meet and rub elbows with a whole mess of comics folks that we’ve only interacted with online or remotely: Angee Lennard, David King, Noah Berlatsky, Annie Murphy and Raighne Hogan amongst others. Nate Powell was just a few tables away from us, selling books to attendees by the armful. He let us in on some of the secrets of convention sales, and no, we are not sharing any of them. We were pleased as punch to say hello to Lark Pien, Rina Ayuyang, Grant Reynolds, Nate Beatty, Lilli Carré, Hellen Jo, Brian Ralph, Corinne Mucha, Jon Chad, Chad Sell, Ben Catmull, Zak Sally, Michael Deforge and Kevin Huizenga. Getting an idea of what an amazing crew of cartoonists were at CAKE now, aren’t you? That’s just a small sampling. Despite the fact that it was the first serving of CAKE, a shit ton of veterans were in attendance. Without much effort, we also had the honor of talking at length to two of the co-organizers of the convention: Grace Tran and Max Morris.

As a distraction to the comics extravaganza that was happening indoors, the Acres posse was treated to a little sexytime pool action at the hotel across the street from the convention that we could see from our table. It was blazing outside and the pool looked delicious. We wouldn’t blame anyone for taking full advantage of it.

Like most fledgling shows, we expect CAKE to get bigger each year. Just about everyone we spoke with intends to return. For us, it had the star power of SPX, the organizational mastery of TCAF and the vibe of BCGF. Without Fantagraphics, D&Q and the other Front of the Armory publishers in attendance, it also had an intimacy that made it unique among comic shows (with the exception, perhaps, of PACC and maybe Expozine). It’s not yet Everything You Want From a Comics Show, but it’s pretty damn close. We wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes as high profile as SPX or BCGF in a minute. We’ll never miss it. CAKE suits us just fine.

We haven’t heard a peep from reviewers on Gabby Schulz’s new comic yet, but the reviews for Sean Ford’s Only Skin continue to roll in, including some kind words from Greg McElhatton at Read About Comics.

Now that CAKE is past us, expect Secret Acres to be relatively quiet for a bit unless the aforementioned PACC returns this summer. Hopefully, those guys are listening. We’re not quite ready to make a formal announcement, but if you live in the U.S.A. and like those Koyama books, get ready to be happy. Meantime, we’ll be keeping our heads down and prepping four more new comics for you to devour this fall – including a very special, very big, very hard SPX debut. Because we’re total teases, there’s a teeny, tiny bit of the cover at the top of this post to keep you tantalized until September.

Your Pals,

Leon and Barry

L4yer Cake

ON A WING and a prayer, we are flying to the inaugural Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, aka CAKE. This marks the first occasion that Secret Acres has gone airborne since Stumptown of 2010, which seems both difficult to believe and fitting, considering the very nature of our CAKE debut, Weather. It’s a swift, beautiful, existentialist poop joke of a comic from Gabby Schulz, the artist formerly known as Ken Dahl, mostly taking place at 40,000 feet above the earth. It’s the return (and possibly end) of Gabby’s premier avatar, Gordon Smalls, and it’s the first print comic from Mr. Schulz since Monsters (which has won or been nominated for more awards than we care to count since its release way back in 2009).

Ironically, Gabby himself will be making the CAKE trip by car, while Sean Ford will flying in along with his Only Skin. Only Skin has been feeling the love lately, from Bleeding Cool, the Mindhut, Graphic Eye, Paste Magazine and kinda sorta (but mostly sorta) Dave Ex Machina. Not a bad haul at all. Believe it or not, Mike Dawson and his Troop 142 have gotten some shoutouts lately, from our favorite Optical Sloth and the monolith of comics criticism, the Comics Journal.

Speaking of the TCJ review, we had a little fun on Twitter telling everyone that the book was demolished by Rob Clough. For the record, Mike started it. People clicked on those links hard enough to break them. What is it about a fight that gets everyone running? A little while back on this here Scuttlebutt blog, we went after MoCCA a bit and got like a million hits from all over the world. We sang the praises of TCAF and got crickets. Perhaps it’s the Big Two fanning the troll flames with enormous, deformed tits, or maybe it’s big budget prequels messing with the fanboy canon, but boy are folks touchy these days! While there’s been lots of fun and valuable talk about creator rights sneaking into these flame wars, it’s making publisher into a dirty word. We’re on your side, we swear. Maybe we’ll we tear CAKE a new one in the wrap-up just to get your attention.

For full disclosure, our man, Mr. Gaylord Phoenix himself, Edie Fake is one of the folks running CAKE (Yes, there’s no k in comics. No, they did not call it the Chicago ACE. Yes, there might be cake there.). He’s got some new books, too, in a manner of speaking. Edie’s showing up in Fantagraphics’ No Straight Lines, which sounds fantastic and includes some stuff straight out of Gaylord Phoenix, and Seven Stories Press will have more Edie in The Graphic Canon. Though he will probably be too busy being the host with the most to hang out at the Acres CAKE table (number 36 on the map), Edie will be moderating the Comics in Chicago panel on Sunday.

We really have no idea what to expect of CAKE, but looking at the programming and guest list, it’s shaping up to be a monster. If you can’t make CAKE, we have some surprises in the Emporium for you. Now on the digital shelves is the latest from Jon Allen, Vactionland, new-ish pal Sean K.‘s Rust Belt,  Jumbly Junkery issues 9 and 10 from superstar L. Nichols, the second issue of the awesome Genus from Anuj Shrestha, The Complete Talamaroo by Alabaster (published by that upstart Hic & Hoc gang) and, if you just have to have more Edie, Gay Genius, from our friends at Sparkplug and Annie Murphy. See, that’s practically a con in itself.

We’ll be right back with a CAKE report, gunz blazin’ and knives out!

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

Beyond the Sea

HELLO, everyone! We’re sending you off on your Memorial Day weekend (all you non-Americans can remember whatever you like as we Americans have friggin’ amnesia when it comes to our own history, anyway) with a little treat. This is our very first guest blogger here on Scuttlebutt and it is none other than Sean Ford, he of Only Skin fame. Sean and fellow Acre, Joseph Lambert went all the way to the Maine Comics Arts Festival without us and volunteered to report on the scene. He even provides photographic evidence! Take it away, Sean:

MECAF RECAF

Last weekend, fellow Secret Acres artist Joseph Lambert and I went up to Maine for MECAF with good pals Charles Forsman, Melissa Mendes and Becca Lambert. Mosley Lambert stayed home to guard things. It was the third show in four weeks for some of our merry band, myself included, so road-weariness and poop jokes were in healthy supply.

My first stop on a whirlwind weekend tour of New England was to Chuck and Melissa’s idyllic Hancock, MA home. There I saw the amazing drawing studio they’ve set up and met Bruce, the chillest cat in the land. They have an amazing house that seems like the perfect place to draw and create awesome comics. And, of course, that’s just what they do. It makes sense. I also learned that Chuck’s cartooning prowess is matched only by his tortilla-making abilities. I didn’t take any pictures of this wonderful place and pictures wouldn’t do it justice anyway.

The next day, after a short morning walk in the woods, we drove up to White River Junction to meet the Lamberts. We took some windy back roads that I’d never taken before, driving through some beautiful Massachusetts and Vermont country with the windows down. We drove pretty close to the Bennington Triangle, which made me happy. We arrived in Vermont mid-afternoon and after sharing some smells with Mosley (Joe and Becca’s charming wolfboydog) we set out for Maine. The drive to Maine was uneventful, unless you count singing songs and fixing cars with gaffer’s tape.

On arriving in Maine, after deciding not to spend too much time in our uh… modestly outfitted (read: ‘a mix of dog and human pee and hair smell’) Motel 6 room we decided to investigate downtown Portland, Maine. We knew there had to be a MECAF-related party going on, we were just really bad about finding it. We got beers and nachos and ice cream instead.

The next day was MECAF. The show takes place in a wonderful building that is all glass and views of the harbor. Everything about the show was top notch – a beautiful, well organized space, cool panels, and friendly, helpful volunteers – they even had the option to order sandwiches for lunch that were hand-delivered by show-organizer and Casablanca Comics owner Rick Lowell. I missed that particular sammie boat, but that just seems really thoughtful. The show never felt particularly crowded (though Kate Beaton definitely had a long line), but it never felt empty, either. As people have said, it certainly felt like a kids-friendly show; there was even a 10-yr old selling his own drawings at his own table – and he was busy! And good! But there were certainly people interested in Secret Acres books, Sundays, Joe’s prints, Chuck’s The End of The Fucking World and Melissa’s Freddy Stories and Lou comics.

And that’s where it got interesting for me. I don’t know if this was the case, so forgive the speculation, but my sense was that most of the people who stopped by the SA table hadn’t heard of Secret Acres before and were willing to try out something new. Capacity caught a lot of eyes. As did PS Comics, I Will Bite You! and Only Skin. It seemed like the crowd at MECAF often didn’t come expecting to lay out money for bigger books, at least not past Hark! a Vagrant and the Amulet books, and so were caught off guard by the presence of Secret Acres and a $20 book like Capacity. But there were several distinct occasions where people found a book on the table, flipped through it for a while, put it down, picked it back up and then said “I have to get this, I’m going to find an ATM.” Usually someone saying they need to find an ATM at a comics show is code for “thanks, but no thanks,” but a lot of these folks actually came back with money in hand and picked up the books that had caught their eye. It is a really cool and rewarding feeling to help someone discover a book they knew nothing about. It felt like finding some of that Blue Ocean we talked about after TCAF. It also reminded me of Dylan Williams’ call for building communities at smaller regional shows. That’s exactly what MECAF was. And I think there is a potential to build something there for anyone willing to put in the time. Joe has been to three out of four MECAF shows over the years and has clearly built up an audience at the show. He wasn’t selling like gangbusters or anything, but he seemed to do quite well and run into a bunch of people who knew his work and were happy to see him again.

That’s what MECAF felt like – a small, smartly run show that can act as a platform for individual artists or small publishers to build an audience, helped by a beautiful location and good organization. It might be the sort of show an artist or small publisher needs to help carve out their place within, but that’s an exciting place to be in comics.

After the show we grabbed some pizza with the amazing Jose Luis Olivares, who had taken the bus up from Boston to say hi (sadly he didn’t bring his comics!) and then hit the road back to Vermont, Massachusetts and New York, having found some Blue Ocean and sung some Billy Ocean. We sing when we’re happy and MECAF had us singing. Thanks to everyone who made it a great weekend, from Rick Lowell’s awesome crew to intrepid customers willing to take a chance on something new to great great great old pals.

– Sean Ford

Now go and remember something! We’ll be back shortly with Emporium delirium, a CAKE recipe and a Weather report.

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon and Sean