Salad Days by Minty Lewis

Finally, we are hitting the asphalt for our first road trip of the year. It's a long drive to the Toronto Comics Arts Festival and we are carrying some precious cargo as usual. Theo Ellsworth is being delivered via airmail, with fellow Acres Brendan Leach, Joe Lambert and Edie Fake meeting us there. Sean Ford has called shotgun, and Capacity 8 is in the boot. Capacity 8 is one of those surprise births with which we are regularly blessed here at Secret Acres. It's also the first time anyone in our gang has dropped a new story for a series that we've collected. Capacity, Theo's big, fat book, is a complete thing, for sure. The eighth issue is all new territory, but it's still all true. In a way. In that Capacity way. Oh, and we'll be kicking off first thing Saturday with a small press panel featuring pals and heroes, Koyama Press, Rebus Books and Grimalkin Press, too. This year's Acresmobile comic mule is the legendary Dash Shaw. Alas, last year's hitcher, MK Reed, is too lazy to make it to TCAF. Everyone else better be heading up - or catching Eamon Espey's Ishi's Brain show in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Yeah, we're looking at you. We're standing right behind you. No, the other way. Anyhow, there's explicit instructions up on Scuttlebutt.

PEOPLE OF THE SEATTLE: Tonight's the night! Go watch Eamon Espey and Lisa Krause as they bring their show, Ishi's Brain, to Hugo House. Which is in Seattle. Ishi's Brain is based on Eamon's story of the same name from his Secret Acres collection, Songs of the Abyss. Lisa Krause is an artist and puppeteer of Bread and Puppet fame, among other things. It's quite a unique experience and pretty much beats the hell of out any old, regular reading. They are on tour all over the country, but there's something fitting about performing Ishi in Seattle. You know, because Seattle is strange and dark and there are scary woodlands and coffee. The Richard Hugo House is also something to see in itself. They have a writers' residence for zinesters (currently held by ZAPP), classes on seemingly everything, a focus on a local writing community and, of course, performances. Go. Have fun. Report back to us. Even the Stranger says to check it out. See...

The Stranger Suggests: Eamon Espey

http://www.thestranger.com

It’s tough for authors to figure out what to do at a graphic-novel reading: Do you show slides?

Stranger things have certainly happened, but it would appear our man, Theo Ellsworth, will have not one, but two debuts at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival. Yes, we will have the eighth issue of his ongoing Capacity (the first since our enormous collection of that title), but we'll tell you more about that later. Meanwhile, we knew Theo was working on a comic for an anthology, but we didn't realize it was the fourth Alternative Comics anthology. You may or may not be aware, but Alternative Comics published some truly amazing things, like Jeff Lewis' True Swamp and Steven Weissman's Yikes (yes, this was before Fantagraphics took over). Then they took some time off. Now they're back. Also included in this anthology are Alternative Comics graduate James Kochalka, this guy named Craig Thompson, the adorable Noah Van Sciver and #cybergang leader, Alex Schubert, to name a few. Get up to TCAF because it's amazing, and Theo and most of the Alternative Comics crew will be there to sign the thing. Collect them all!

Alternative Comics: Publisher of cool comic books & graphic novels

indyworld.com

Alternative Comics, publishers of cool comic books, releases some of the most original and intelligent titles being created today

On a more important note than usual: 282 Broadway is where the party has been for, well, seems like forever now. What the hell is that, you ask? It's the home address for Domino Books and Revival House and Rebus. It's known sometimes as Bill K's Place, as in Bill Kartalopoulos. Just about everyone who has ever attended or exhibited at a comics event in New York City or, hell, ever drawn a comic while in city limits, has been exhausted, high, drunk or lost in that apartment while rubbing elbows with their heroes. We've written plenty on our blog, about their comics and their parties, too. Now they're moving out. We're telling you this because these guys need a new home. Go buy some comics from them. Forget the good cause, their books are amazing and we've been seethingly jealous of their good work, so if you like us, help them and get some great stuff for yourself. Everybody wins!

282 BROADWAY/Cartoon House

dominobooksnews.com

Hey everyone! A lot of you may have heard about this already, but DOMINO is losing our headquarters, 282 Broadway/Cartoon House (also the place that I and many other people in the arts/comics comm...

Not a joke! Not a dream! Our man Edie Fake has gone Ivy League at last, in a duel with Gil Kane - to the death! Well, not exactly. It's the Illustration, Comics and Animation Conference at Dartmouth College and it's happening right now this weekend. You might be wondering what, exactly, Edie Fake, author of the superduper, super queer Gaylord Phoenix, and Gil Kane, artist and co-creator of Green Lantern and Iron Fist, might have in common. So did we. We'd paraphrase, but we're very stupid, so here's a quote from a study by Brian Cremins, who has a Ph.D. and stuff: "Fake’s emphasis on the “cross-pollination” of ideas informs my reading of Gaylord Phoenix and of Sweetmeats, which, in this paper, I will place in dialogue with the work of the Gil Kane, an early innovator in the graphic novel form who produced his best known work on superhero titles published by DC and Marvel Comics in the 1960s and 1970s. Both Edie Fake and Gil Kane are fascinated with the transmogrification of the body." Yep. You heard it here, folks. We typed transmogrification. Cremins is fleshing this out (no pun intended, kind of) into a full-fledged article, coming soon to very smart people everywhere. There's more on the conference at the link. Get there if you can, and report back to us, please!

Illustration, Comics, and Animation Conference | Dartmouth College April 19 – 21 2013

sites.dartmouth.edu

Conference ScheduleIllustration, Comics, and Animation Conference at Dartmouth College April 19 – 21 2013Friday April 19 4:30-6 Haldeman 041 Registration and Check-In 6-7:40 Haldeman 041 Roundtable and presentations by acclaimed artists Milton Knight & Jeremy Love 7:45-9:00 Informal drinks/late dinn...