It’s Getting Hot in Here

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

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