We had the good fortune of connecting with Elisa Sargent & Daniel Crosier and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Elisa & Daniel, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Starting Four Color Cake came after Elisa Sargent wrote her comic book ‘When Baked Things Attack’. She had developed it with a rich backdrop of characters and windows into other possibilities. That is how Daniel Crosier was able to jump in with the ‘Stanley Kaiju and the Subterranean Bunny Defenders’ by illustrating that book. After strips like ‘For Eugenia, even, as delightfully weird as that was, Elisa and Daniel jumped into their first children’s book together, ‘The Earl of Elm & the Countess of Conifer’.
When it comes to world-building, you just don’t want to stop. You want to see where the story guides not only the audience, but also the writer and artist as they are creating it. That is what Four Color Cake wants to do, bring fantasy and fun to life for kids and their families.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Elisa was in film school more than ten years ago when she conceived ‘When Baked Things Attack’, about possessed pastries that attack a wedding party. She collaborated with artist, Laurissa Hughes as was able to self-publish it in 2018. During COVID, Elisa and Daniel collaborated on ‘For Eugenia’ a strip depicting octopi seeking justice for their friend at a sea food restaurant. This was being knocked out while working on the ‘Stanley Kaiju and the Subterranean Bunny Defenders’ based on a mural Sargent & Crosier worked on together at Mutiny Cafe. The book is about a creature in a bunny outfit that grows to giant size and eats an alien spaceship out the sky. With the release of ‘The Earl of Elm & the Countess of Conifer’, Elisa and Daniel dive into the realm of children’s books. This new one depicts a loving tree couple and their pet mushrooms going to town and then enjoying the seasonal festivities with woodland creatures.
Self-publishing is a tough racket, even with so many marketing tools, it is an uphill game. There are so many platforms and stores to try and get your works into the hands of an audience. At the same time because there are so many different platforms and stores, there are SO MANY opportunities. The key is not to give up. Economics certainly play into it and there is no reason to starve. Elisa and Daniel still maintain day jobs as they continue to chip away at the industry.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Elisa and Daniel love taking friends from out of town to Mutiny Comics and Coffee first to initiate them into our culture of coffee, comics, and a punk rock DIY ethos. The Denver Art Museum is always a must. Meow Wolf and Casa Bonita seems to be quite the welcomed experience. However, there is no substitute for catching a film at our local AMC or Denver SIE Film Center for a special event. Then it is off to the Denver Zoo to play with penguins and watch the vampire bats feed. In October, Anderson Farms is a must with the bonfires and Terror in the Corn haunt, over nearly two square miles of cornfield!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Elisa and Daniel love creating books for her grandchild Skylar, and his nieces and nephews, Grace, Finn, Noah, Elias and Brenna.

Website: https://www.whenbakedthingsattack.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whenbakedthingsattack

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Whenbakedthingsattack

Image Credits
Cover for Earl of Elm created by Daniel Crosier

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