{"id":451,"date":"2011-04-11T07:21:20","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T14:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/blog\/?p=451"},"modified":"2012-04-15T03:18:40","modified_gmt":"2012-04-15T03:18:40","slug":"until-the-end-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/?p=451","title":{"rendered":"Until the End of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Blog-Header-04_11_111.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-454\" title=\"Blog-Header-04_11_11\" src=\"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Blog-Header-04_11_111.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"635\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Tahoma; font-size: medium;\">THESE DOGS ARE BARKING,<\/span> so we will attempt to keep this short and probably fail miserably. If you&#8217;re looking for a thumbs up\/thumbs down, short story version: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.moccany.org\/content\/mocca-festival\" target=\"_blank\">MoCCA<\/a> was good. Those of you looking for the details, feel free to continue reading.<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>There was a bizarre build up to our MoCCA debut of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.secretacres.com\/store\/index.php?act=viewProd&amp;productId=103\" target=\"_blank\">I Will Bite You!<\/a><\/em> with both the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comicsreporter.com\/index.php\/bundled_tossed_untied_and_stacked040611\/\" target=\"_blank\">Comics Reporter<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comicsbeat.com\/2011\/04\/08\/mocca-debuts-secret-acres-releases-i-will-bite-you-by-joe-lambert\/\" target=\"_blank\">Beat<\/a> pointing to this guy as the likely book of the show. This was a lot of pressure for us, though we have no idea if <a href=\"http:\/\/www.secretacres.com\/joseph.html\" target=\"_blank\">Joe<\/a> was sweating it or not. In any case, <em>I Will Bite You!<\/em> is off to the fastest start we have ever seen. The past week has put a major dent in the print run. No one here is disappointed in the least.<\/p>\n<p>As for the title of Book of Show, we wonder if such a thing is even possible these days. There are too many debuts from publishers major and boutique, at shows huge and indie, to pick a runaway winner. Publishing houses dominate MoCCA now. What was once the premier spot\u00a0for self-published comics has become something else.<\/p>\n<p>The Beatress herself asked us if we discovered anyone at MoCCA and the answer was that we found ourselves into exactly one new artist, whose work we&#8217;d never really seen much of before, namely <a href=\"http:\/\/johnmartz.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">John Martz<\/a>. Yes, we&#8217;d seen his <em><a href=\"http:\/\/johnmartz.com\/trexels\" target=\"_blank\">Trexels<\/a><\/em> print and some web posts of individual pages,\u00a0but the sequential stuff only got to us at MoCCA. He&#8217;s very good in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.drawnandquarterly.com\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">D&amp;Q<\/a> way (more on them in a minute). Anyhow, there ya go. It may be that we are too plugged in for folks to up and surprise us, but point taken, Heidi.<\/p>\n<p>The flipside is that we spent a ton of money picking stuff up, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.secretacres.com\/store\/index.php?act=viewCat&amp;catId=17\" target=\"_blank\">Leslie Anne Mackenzie Stein&#8217;s<\/a> <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fantagraphics.com\/index.php?page=shop.product_details&amp;flypage=shop.flypage&amp;product_id=1994&amp;option=com_virtuemart&amp;Itemid=62\" target=\"_blank\">Eye of the Majestic Creature<\/a><\/em> collection, some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.drawnandquarterly.com\/artStudio.php?artist=a4888e81a45bd7\" target=\"_blank\">Pascal Girard<\/a> stuff, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/nickbertozzi.com\/?p=560\" target=\"_blank\">Rubber Necker 5<\/a><\/em> (which we never, ever thought we&#8217;d live to see), the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparkplugcomicbooks.com\/books\/heavyhand\/pages\/heavyhand.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Heavy Hand<\/em><\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/sundays.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Sundays<\/em><\/a> and <a style=\"font-style: italic;\" href=\"http:\/\/kidsanthology.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kids<\/a><em> <\/em>anthologies, to name a few. Given our sales, which were good enough to be our best MoCCA ever, we were not the only ones coming to\u00a0MoCCA to get books. We mean books, specifically, as mini sales were barely there. We suspect that, like us, most people at the show knew exactly where they were headed before they set foot in the Armory.<\/p>\n<p>Organizationally, there was nothing wrong with the show, either, that we heard, anyway. MoCCA is very good at being MoCCA, but it&#8217;s not the MoCCA it was. Maybe it&#8217;s the location, or the rising costs of admission and table fees, but this is a show for fans. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.secretacres.com\/sean.html\" target=\"_blank\">Sean Ford<\/a>, who sat next to us selling\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.onlyskincomics.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Only Skin 7<\/a><\/em>, had the thought\u00a0that MoCCA has competition these days. It is no longer the one and only New York show and that may be changing things as well. In any case, it&#8217;s the best MoCCA it can be and it&#8217;s time for folks to evaluate the show in its current shape. MoCCA is dead. Long live MoCCA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>The big shocker for us is that cartoonists can get down. Yeah, there are always drunken antics at every show, and lots to be found at the Mad Hatter and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tcj.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">TCJ<\/a> party this MoCCA. After our extra fancy dinner (some place not on the usual lists of MoCCAcentric eats &#8211; but that&#8217;s all the specifics you get), our gang and a double digits deep contingent of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cartoonstudies.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">CCS<\/a> kids split for Williamsburg and took over <a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/listings\/bar\/royal_oak\/\" target=\"_blank\">Royal Oak<\/a>. We had no idea that these guys had moves. Dope moves. Player moves. Joe, in particular, was nonstop bodyrockin&#8217;. Many ladies even asked if he was straight (which he is, but he&#8217;s married, folks). Of course, the evening ended with our man, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.secretacres.com\/ken.html\" target=\"_blank\">Ken Dahl<\/a> aka Gabby, having a run-in with the law, the outcome of which is TBD in court. Fight the power, Gabby!<\/p>\n<p>Once again, we have to thank the folks that came by to tell us that they think Secret Acres is awesome. We mean it, guys. It&#8217;s moving to hear that. Peggy Burns, D&amp;Q publisher, said something that stuck with us. She said that the talent at D&amp;Q is more famous than the company,\u00a0that more people are familiar with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.drawnandquarterly.com\/artStudio.php?artist=a4b476dc1b0cf5\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Clowes<\/a> than Drawn &amp; Quarterly,\u00a0but the opposite was true for us. Maybe more folks are familiar with\u00a0Secret Acres than Joe Lambert at this point, which makes sense, as\u00a0everything we&#8217;ve published has been a debut. This will change when\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mikedawsoncomics.com\/category\/troop-142\/\" target=\"_blank\">Troop 142<\/a><\/em> hits the streets this fall. Now, that will be interesting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the meantime, we are hauling ass to have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.secretacres.com\/sam.html\" target=\"_blank\">Samuel C. Gaskin&#8217;s<\/a> <em>2012<\/em> ready to go for <a href=\"http:\/\/torontocomics.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">TCAF<\/a>. We swear will do everything possible to make\u00a0that happen, and it looks pretty good at the moment. We can say that\u00a0<em>2012<\/em> does indeed rock, so, if it&#8217;s a little late, it really won&#8217;t be\u00a0the end of the world. On that note, we need to rest these dogs.\u00a0They&#8217;re friggin&#8217; blue, for real.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Your Pals,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Leon and Barry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THESE DOGS ARE BARKING, so we will attempt to keep this short and probably fail miserably. If you&#8217;re looking for a thumbs up\/thumbs down, short story version: MoCCA was good. Those of you looking for the details, feel free to continue reading. There was a bizarre build up to our MoCCA debut of I Will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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\/451"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2422,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions\/2422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/secretacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}