Pit Pat's Chit Chat — Issue 11

Late September marks the shift from Summer to Fall, a welcome respite from the blazing heat waves that have toasted Portland in the last couple o’ months. What are we looking forward to in the new season? More art shows, publishing a few books, and hosting events in the shop again!

<3 Secret Room

From the depths of the underground…

Comix Thing returned to Portland! Shoutout to Re Pinter and Tim Goodyear for bringing back the city’s premier underground comix + art festival. There’s a great energy bubbling up from the underground scene(s) in Portland and this felt like a return-to-form for the comics folks here. We also got introduced to a couple cool artists from outta town and had a great time tabling between our pals Sean Christensen and Sophie Danner. Plus, we got to RISO print the flyers from Soph Franz’ beautiful gouache painting as well as new comics for Wren McSherry and Stephen Pelnat that debuted at the show. It was a killer event!

We’re lucky to have Portland Zine Symposium and Reed Zine Fest here but the closest comics-specific show for us freakazoids is Seattle’s fantastic Short Run. Maybe someday Linework Northwest will return (can we will this back into existence?) but hot damn if Comix Thing didn’t fill the void since last 2023’s surprise guest appearance by LA’s Permanent Damage (the animation showcase was a particular shot in the arm for our own creative direction). Worth noting there are lots of indie comix & illustration folks at GamJam, the group show that Gravy Toys’ Bwana Spoons puts together annually. Ah, I’m draggin’ on. We love tabling! It’s really important to get art folks into spaces together so we can all get off the computer and into REAL LIFE. It’s a better way to gauge the scene than just digging around online all the time.

Speaking of tabling events… we’ve got some Fall announcements to make!

Treviso Comic Book Festival - That’s right, international chums, we’re comin’ back to Italy! We visited TCBF back in 2023 when they graciously let us put some of our publications on the community table — this time we’re tablin’ with all the Secret Room Press books in print!

GamJam 4 - Gravy Toys sofubi maestro Bwana Spoons is at it again with the fourth installment of his Lloyd Center Mall multimedia art fair, a combination of sofubi, comics, art prints, and all sorts of other cool stuff!

Short Run - Seattle’s premier comix & arts festival, organized by some of the finest comic arts champions in the Pacific Northwest. We’ve been tabling at Short Run for years it’s a really incredible show with a killer lineup and a crucial backbone for the PNW comics scene. We’re releasing 3 books for this event!

Portland Zine Symposium - Oregon’s longest-running zine event, PZS started in 2001 and is still goin’ strong! We’ve tabled/attended PZS since before Secret Room existed. Cielle’s brother was at the very first PZS, handing out copies of his zine Sparks and Weasles. It’s a great show with a long legacy and impact on our city!

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In extremely exciting news… here’s a preview of the cover for Carlos B.’s Material Dimensions Part 2, coming November 1st from Secret Room Press! We’ll also be rereleasing Part 1 in the next week or so, an absolutely beautiful sci-fi socialist masterpiece we originally released in 2020! We did an Instagram livestream for the release party from the comfort of our print studio, where Carlos & friends read comics on the big screen. What a weird time.

We recently released Phoebe Mol’s Twin Story, an absolutely gorgeous addition to our shush series. “There are two soft red eternities that stretch before and after living.”

This is visual poetry at its finest, art that practically leaps off the page (all full bleed, in fact) and some of the most experimental an interesting work we’ve ever put out as publishers. We’re huge, huge fans of Phoebe’s work, it was a joy to put this book out and we’re so excited for what she’s doing both as an artist and as an organizer in the Portland arts community.

Look at this! Pick up a copy online or in person at anything either of us are tabling at.

We’re back, baby!

Okay, it’s true. We took August off from Secret Room shop events. A lot of folks have asked why and the answer is simple; we were enjoying some much-needed Summer fun! Cielle took a trip to New York and John James trekked around in Yosemite. Ross got married! It’s been busy. Plus, how the heck could we ask you to come hang out in our shop for a comix reading when you could be sitting by the river enjoying a picnic? No way!

But with cooler, darker weather on the way, we’re excited to kick events back off in October! Just a reminder, we’ll always post our events on Instagram + FreakScene.

10/12 - Buck-A-Bloo Movie Screening - Remember the Beatnik freakout movie filming event we had in our shop back in May? The movie is being edited now and we’re planning a small sneak preview screening in our shop!

10/18 - Art Show Opening Party - We have a new art show going up on the eighteenth, accompanied by a comix reading event — we’ll announce the project, artist, and readers very soon! We’re releasing a new book for this event, too!

10/26 - Over The Garden Wall Watch Party - Come hang out with us after the shop closes down and watch Pat McHale’s masterpiece in the shop! Magical, whimsical, and truly like no other animated piece. We’ll be screening the entire limited series with a brief intermission + extras.

10/30 - Galaxy Gateway Halloween Spectacular - The premier cultural exchange program between Kepler 224B and Earth returns for a live ensemble event the night before Halloween with all sorts of fun comics reading, music, and video performances. Lineup will drop in a couple weeks!

We love risograph machines

Our gallery wall is currently in RIS•O•RAMA mode, meaning that until the next art show (which debuts October 18th) we’ll have a rotating wall of RISO prints, starting with a whole bunch of brilliant work from Barcelona’s finest print shop JUMBO PRESS, alongside a handful of other amazing prints.

We’re always looking to keep our myriad print bins full of colorful, vibrant, interesting art! Who are the best RISO printers in the world? Let us know who you’d like to see represented in the Secret Room Super Shop and we’ll chat with ‘em!

💛 PEACE ON EARTH FOREVER 💛

What else? What else?

The Ignatz Awards get announced this coming weekend. Nice to see some friends and fellow riso-forward publishers in the running, including Them-Shaped Clouds by Max Huffman (CRAM Books), Big Gamble Rainbow Highway by Connie Meyers (CRAM Books), Jaz Hice by Szarlotka (Frog Farm), The Connoisseurs by Alex Swift (Frog Farm), The Mole by Arantza Peña Popo (Self-Published), and Big Apple Matinee by A.T. Pratt (Self-Published). Lots of other incredible work in there too, but it’s nice to see cool artists and fun publishers getting noticed in the wider comics community! Looking to read Ignatz nominees? We have a bunch of the nominated works at our shop!

Five albums we’ve been listening to in the shop a lot lately:

• Burnover - Greg Freeman (2025)

• Love is Overtaking Me - Arthur Russell (2024)

• Audio Drag for Ego Slops - Gustaf (2021)

• A Lighthouse with Silver Dog Eyes - Foot Ox (2025)

• Melanchólia - Matia Bazar (1985)

OKAY BYE