Beware the Acorn Menace
Hello, I missed you!
Last weekend was the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD, which is simultaneously the most exciting and most stressful event of my year. Exciting: so many awesome people selling so many awesome books! Stressful: HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE IN A SINGLE ROOM AND I HAVE TO SPEAK TO A LARGE PERCENTAGE OF THEM PROBABLY. That sort of situation is…not my jam. But SPX is worth it, so I muddle through. Here I am looking suspicious with MDT, the SPX social media dude and all-around class act:
Despite appearances, a blast was had by all.
Notable Breakfast
Crumpets with butter and jam, applesauce.
Dog Thing
We love that pillow.
Mixed Media
SPX is the kind of show where professionally published hardcovers rest easily alongside minicomics someone cut out and stapled themselves the night before, and that’s honestly the best thing about it. Every year, I try to get a good mix of both things. Working at a comic store like I do, I have discounted access to books, but sometimes it’s worth waiting for SPX to pick something up from the person who made it (which I did this year with Rutabaga and Apocalyptigirl). I’m very conscious of how much of my dollars are going where.
Here were a few of my favourite things I picked up this year:
Towns 1 & 2 by Ben Sears The Towns zines showcase a fantasy town of Sears’ invention, and it’s full of interesting characters and architecture. It’s the latter that I really love–the buildings Sears invents are so much fun. Both zines are wordless, but you get a marvelous sense of place nevertheless.
Sister BFFs by Philippa Rice As delightful as Philippa Rice’s Soppy comics were (showing snippets of her relationship with illustrator Luke Pearson and collected into a hardcover book last year), I think I might like this look at her interactions with her sister even more. Rice is excellent at capturing both the sweet and snippy moments of her relationships.
Lost Haven by Carey Pietsch This was the thing I was most looking forward to this year. Part of the delightful trend of comics and zines about witches and magic, Lost Haven is about a healer who, when she loses her ability to see the future, loses her confidence in her healing ability, as well. Pietsch has done a few other comics about witches in what seems to be a shared magic universe, and they are all delightful.
Travelogue by Aatmaja Pandya Aatmaja Pandya’s Baker’s Dozen was one of my fave discoveries at last year’s SPX, so I was very excited to see her at this year’s. The Travelogue zine is actually the first 11 strips in an ongoing webcomic, about a little traveling mage. I loved it.
It was really hard to narrow this list down, so much was great this year! SPX is a gem of indie comics, and I highly recommend attending if you live near the DC area!
Also: Metric‘s new album, Pagans in Vegas (fave single), came out last week, and CHVRCHES new album, Every Open Eye (fave single), came out today, so it has been a VERY EXCITING MUSICAL TIME FOR ME. I read The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Water by Madeleine L’Engle, which were fairly enjoyable but VERY DATED and led to some critical thinking about the sorts of things I might have unthinkingly absorbed reading books like them as a kid. I finally, finally finished the first season of iZombie, which was excellent (but very stressful!). I saw Mad Max Fury Road during a limited IMAX 3D return to the cinema, and it was, you will be pleased to note, still the greatest movie of the year, if not ever.
I Read Comics for a Living
After all the SPX stuff, I’m going to limit this to a single book: The New Deal by Jonathan Case. It’s about a maid and a bellboy at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1930s New York City who get entangled with a series of robberies. The art is completely perfect (Case can do endless expressions on the same faces and never seems to run out), the story is retro and fun, but very mindful of the realities of being a person of color in 1936.
I wanted this book to keep going and going. I can’t recommend it highly enough!
Anxiety Pyjamas
ASOS His & Her Monster Pajamas
Fics I Shouted About
untitled by coyotequeens Teen Wolf, Sterek. Stiles keeps bringing home plants and they just don’t have the room anymore. I found this uncomfortably relatable.
the little ones are climbing up the walls by cashewdani Brooklyn 99, Jake/Amy. This was the first B99 fic I ever read, and I reread it this week because I still love it so. Amy’s brother dies, leaving her to care for her infant goddaughter. Fantastic characterization, across the board.
Lastly
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