🚨 Friday @ Secret Room 🚨
The last comics reading of 2025 and more!
This is just a quick email to let ya know what’s going on for the rest of this month. We’ve got a bunch of fun stuff planned for 2026 but we’ll talk about all that later!
<3 Secret Room <3
FRIDAY 12/12 - Dame Darcy & Friends
A tarot & comics special event
THIS FRIDAY, we have Dame Darcy, Lily O’Donnell, and Kris Evans reading comics at Secret Room! Dame Darcy will also be doing tarot readings from her own beautiful decks 5:30-6:45(ish) and we’ll kick off comics readings right around 7:00pm.
This is a really incredible event that we’re super excited about and an apt one to close out the year for us.
Dame Darcy is probably best known for her alternative neo-Victorian comic Meat Cake, which ran from 1992-2008. There’s an out-of-print Fantagraphics collection The Meat Cake Bible that’s available through the Multomah County Library that you should check out sometime. Her work is superb, truly beautiful, intricate, and singular stuff. She’s published a bunch of other work as well, including a couple of stunning tarot decks.
I was first introduced to Dame Darcy’s comics by Kris Evans, who was one of the instructors when I went through the IPRC’s Comics & Publishing Certificate Program in 2016. This is Kris’ first time reading at Secret Room. She’s been a huge influence on my own art and art practice and a large part of why I took the IPRC’s course was so that I could be taught by her and we’ve been friends ever since. We have so much Kris ephemera around our house that we’ve collected over the years; art prints, comics, paper mâche pumpkins, illustrated plates, all sorts of beautiful objects! A true inspiration in life and art.
Lily O’Donnell is the one who pulled this reading out of thin air and into existence. She’s also an IPRC comics program grad, and I met her through the comics community here in Portland. She put out Bluebeard And Me (2025) earlier this year, an intertwining of fable and storytelling and self-exploration/diary comic. It’s easily one of my favorite comics of the year. It’s beautiful and sweet and sad and brilliantly told.
Anyway, this reading is gonna be good. It’s a beautiful group of people coming together to ring out the year (comics-wise) and we hope to see you here.
Live Comix at Secret Room
5:30-6:45p — Dame Darcy reads tarot
7:00-8:30p — comics reading!
3225 SE Division Street in Portland, OregonHoliday Market Madness
Portland Art Book Fair 2025 (12/13+14/25 | 11-4p)
First up is the 4th annual Portland Art Book Fair, co-organized by the folks at Landdd, Chess Club, and Stelo Arts. Dozens of small press publishers and booksellers all hanging out with a bunch of cool, interesting stuff for two days on the West side of the river. Rare for Secret Room! Very excite to table alongside a bunch of these small presses and friends.
Mall Rats 2025 (12/20/25 | 11-6p)
Is it the final installment of Mall Rats?! Hope not! We’ve been tabling at Mall Rats since its first installment in December 2022 when Nathan McKee reached out to us about joining 24 other artists, publishers, and craftspeople for a day at the mall. Since then it’s become a bit of an institution in Portland but there’s a lot of talk about the Lloyd Center Mall potentially being razed to make room for who knows what. SAVE LLOYD! Cannot wait for this one day event with 40+ local artists, it’s always a blast and just down the hall from our pals at Floating World Comics.
And in January, we rest.
💛 PEACE ON EARTH FOREVER 💛
What else? What else?
2025 recap coming soon, more fun upcoming news & announcements, and at the moment I just say thanks as always for everything.
Listening recommendation for an overcast morning:
OKAY BYE