{"id":3199,"date":"2014-06-11T05:14:08","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T05:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/?p=3199"},"modified":"2014-06-12T13:35:35","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T13:35:35","slug":"an-affair-to-remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/?p=3199","title":{"rendered":"An Affair to Remember"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blog-Header-06_11_14\"<\/a>CAKE<\/span><\/a> had us at hello. CAKE means never having to say you’re sorry. Here’s lookin’ at you, CAKE. To ruin the suspense off the bat, Secret Acres had a great<\/i> show at CAKE this year. Sales-wise, it was magnitudes better than our 2013 CAKE (like by 300%, for those of you looking for a number). It was also the first show, ever, where we ran out of stock of damn near everything. We do tend to overpack, yes, but for CAKE 2014, we sold out of almost every title that we brought. We ran out of Memory Palaces<\/i><\/a> so fast, we ended up begging local retailers for copies to sell. This never happens. We don’t get high on our own supply.<\/p>\n

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\"Thermos\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Obviously, it helps to have two new books from two hometown heroes, meaning\u00a0Memory Palaces<\/em> by Edie Fake<\/a> and Get Over It!<\/em><\/a> by Corinne Mucha<\/a>, obviously. Edie, a Special Guest of the Show, had a sliver of table space next to us, so we had two full days of access to him and his hillbilly thermos.\u00a0Corinne had her own table, too, but once she sold out of her Get Over It!<\/em>s, she came over and burned through our copies like a true show pro.\u00a0Mike Dawson<\/a>\u00a0didn\u2019t even join us at the table, but he was carving out his own space, hawking\u00a0Angie Bongiolatti<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Troop 142<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Freddie & Me<\/em>\u00a0and a small army of Heroclix. In short, we were running all the corners in the hood.<\/p>\n

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\"HeroClix\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Only three of our four boxes made it all the way to Chicago (and our table banners arrived\u2026 …yesterday), but all three boxes were waiting on our table when we rolled in Saturday morning, and the CAKE bakers threw in a swag bag, a sharpie and a sketchbook! There were house snacks and water and actual frosted cake. BOTH DAYS. Like our friends in the north beyond the Wall, meaning TCAF<\/a>,\u00a0CAKE helped us get our leftover books to local shops so we could skip the hassle carting everything back. The CAKE posse came up with some stuff we’d never seen before, like a CAKE Rewards Program. All the exhibitors got stickers, all the attendees got cards. Buy a comic, get a sticker. Fill the card, win a prize (a CAKE poster)! Great idea. It was new and innovative (and strange) for both the attendees and exhibitors, but maybe it\u2019ll become commonplace. Like at\u00a0MoCCA<\/a>\u00a0or something. (Are you listening, steering committee?) Kinda like MoCCA,\u00a0CAKE is also sponsoring a self-publishing award called the\u00a0Cupcake Award<\/a>, and it\u2019s being guest judged by the ever amazing\u00a0Annie Koyama<\/a>.\u00a0Speaking of amazing,\u00a0Neil Brideau<\/a> deserves special thanks for being so stupidly great and mailing us back our banners that we never got to use. Who even does that? Really, who does that? THANK YOU, NEIL BRIDEAU.<\/p>\n

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\"Card\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Of all the conventions we\u2019ve attended thus far, CAKE 2014 was probably the friendliest crowd. People seemed far less shy about stopping and chatting and asking about our books, our philosophy, our button downs. We are especially happy that Chad, an ardent Theo Ellsworth fan, stopped and chatted with us. Hi, Chad! Sadly, we were not so friendly outdoors in Chicago. We were terrible shut-ins for most of the convention. We’re old, with muscle pains and cardiac woes, but mostly we were just tuckered out from the travel, comics-slinging and day job drama. It’s three shows in eight weeks in two nations and two different time zones and we’re down one Casey Gonzalez. Remember when the Comics Year started in June? Of course not. You’re too young.\u00a0Or maybe it was because were without Annie,\u00a0Chris<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Matt<\/a>, our usual compadres, keeping us out, tearing the bark off the trees, howling at the dawn.<\/p>\n

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\"Cat<\/a><\/p>\n

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We did, however, get to spend some quality time with Tucker Stone<\/a>, our favorite fashionista, and we got to say hi to other publishing distro peeps like Tom K<\/a>, Zak Sally<\/a>, Raighne Hogan<\/a>, Ed Kanerva and John P<\/a>. Zak Sally even gave us a rad print he made and is selling here<\/a>. We scored the 2D collection of the Holden brothers\u2019 zines, Detrimental Information<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0purchased solely on the basis of its excellent cover image. Brian Cremins\u2019 panel, \u201cMajikomix, Queer Comics and Visionary Cartooning\u201d with our man Edie, Elisha Lim<\/a> and Eric Kostiuk Williams<\/a> was a genial, well-attended affair, and genuinely fascinating. It was revealing to see the intersection of symbols, iconography and subject matter of all three cartoonists, but we\u2019re still not sure what \u201chungry bottom\u201d means (but LOLjk, srsly, we\u00a0know<\/em>).\u00a0We caught up with internet sensation, Canadian exile and recent MFA graduate,\u00a0Jessica Campbell<\/a>, who remains one of the funniest people alive – and how did we not know that she shared a house with Corinne Mucha?!? Comics people collect in dark corners, like dust bunnies or lost change. We made new friends (Elisha Lim!) and talked shop with grizzled veterans like\u00a0L. Nichols<\/a>, Grace Tran,\u00a0Kevin Czap<\/a>\u00a0(<3 that Czap), Michael DeForge<\/a>,\u00a0Greg Means<\/a>, Sean T. Collins<\/a>, Sean Christensen<\/a>,\u00a0MariNoami<\/a>, Caitlin McGurk<\/a> and\u00a0Marian Runk<\/a>\u00a0(who has a supercute new haircut, btw).\u00a0We copped zines from Anna Bongiovanni<\/a>, new Koyamas Cat Person<\/em><\/a> and 100 Crushes<\/em><\/a>, and \u201cDon\u2019t Try to Save Me\u201d by Grant Reynolds<\/a>.\u00a0Speaking of cats, it\u2019s not an indie comics show without gratuitous expressions of feline admiration, and holy shit, they’re not kidding with the Windy City Kitties. And when it was all over, we gathered on the breezy terrace for cocktails.<\/p>\n

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\"Cat<\/a><\/p>\n

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As much as we love Chicago, we do think it\u2019s weird that men in Chicago think it\u2019s okay to wear flip-flops everywhere. It is not okay to wear flip flops everywhere. Also, why is every bar a sports bar? Also, why do Chicago dog owners put their dogs inside the fenced green areas with fences meant specifically to keep dogs out? We saw this occur more than five times over the course of our stay. Cognitive lapse or arrogant disregard? We\u2019re just curious. But make no mistake, Chicago understands cinnamon rolls.<\/p>\n

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\"Cinnamon<\/a><\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, back in the real world,\u00a0at Bergen Street Comics<\/a> in Brooklyn this very Friday, Corinne Mucha arrives in New York City on her\u00a0Get Over It!<\/em>\u00a0book tour<\/a>. Let’s review for a minute, what Bergen Street had to say about our parties…<\/p>\n

\u201cAs it\u2019s a\u00a0Secret Acres\u00a0party, you can rest assured that the evening will be fun for most, embarrassing for some, and doused in the throes of romance for one lucky couple. (Every single Secret Acres party we\u2019ve ever had has resulted in at least one loving relationship, even if said relationship was relatively short termed. Numbers don\u2019t lie!)\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering the above, and the subject of Corinne’s book, namely, heartbreak and the long road out of it, we’d like to encourage some comics loving. If you are the lucky two who find one another while pouring the bubbly and pouring over\u00a0Get Over It!<\/em> and saying clever, impressive things and blushing this Friday, both of you can have your pick of a book or a print or a mini. We’ll hand one over to each of the first couplers to write us, so if it doesn’t last, there’s no fighting over who got what – and, yeah, pics or GTFO.<\/p>\n

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\"Cake\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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While you make yourself all pretty, give a listen to Comics for Grownups<\/em><\/a> where they discuss\u00a0Angie Bongiolatti<\/em> then you can just ape everything they say so you seem like you’re seriously plugged into our fine comics world.\u00a0We’ll back here in a bit with\u00a0plenty in store for you; don\u2019t worry. As a special treat, here is the glorious cover to Theo Ellsworth\u2019s forthcoming Understanding Monster Book Two<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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\"UM2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Your Pals,<\/p>\n

Barry and Leon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAKE had us at hello. CAKE means never having to say you’re sorry. Here’s lookin’ at you, CAKE. To ruin the suspense off the bat, Secret Acres had a great show at CAKE this year. Sales-wise, it was magnitudes better than our 2013 CAKE (like by 300%, for those of you looking for a number). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3199"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3271,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199\/revisions\/3271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}