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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

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

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

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

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

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

Your Pals,

Bary and Leon

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

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

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

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

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

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

Your Pals,

Barry and Leon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Pals,

Barry & Leon

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

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

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

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