My Finnish friend once told me of his friend who, while perusing through his local bookstore, decided to buy a copy of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa. (Apparently, Donald Duck is a much-beloved character in Finland, where he is called Aku Ankka and as a matter of tradition, is one of the nominees for President everytime there is an election. ) Right, so the guy takes the book home and opens it, and inside there is a line saying something like “Thank you for buying this book. Hope you enjoy it, – Don Rosa.” And it turns out that Don Rosa was indeed in Finland sometime back, and had visited that bookshop – apparently he had signed random copies of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck and put them back on the shelves.

Something like that happened to me recently. Stop groaning, you pack of lily-livered…um…groaners, and listen. I did the Abids Sunday book crawl this weekend, after a very, very, very ( those three “very”s were necessary, just in case you didn’t get the emphasis. Feel free to add another “very” somewhere) long time, nearly a year and a half, to be precise. Popped into MR, found a load of comic-books, and overshot the 500 Rs personal limit I had set for myself within about three minutes. Among the good ones, Swamp Thing# 37, the issue in which John Constantine makes his debut in the DC Universe. ( One thing I have to thank eBay for, because had I already not owned a perfect copy of this, I would have probably begun frothing at the mouth and collapsed right there.), a news-stand copy of Batman: Mad Love ( you might want to do some research and figure out what’s so special about that comic), lots of Blue Devil issues, including the hard-to-find Crisis crossovers, loads of Firestorm, duly picked up for a friend who’s OD-ing on eighties comics now, a complete run of Justice Society of America from 1991, an eight issue miniseries, and a couple of Indies, like Myth Adventures by Phil Foglio, couple of Sherlock Holmes adaptations by Dan Day ( whose moody artwork remains very high on my to-buy radar). All for 10 rupees each. At the stalls, found a bunch of issues of The Armchair Detective, a magazine for mystery ficiton-lovers, for twenty rupees each.

Followed this up by a visit to the Abids outlet of Best Book Stall, where there were quite a few good James Ellroys, two Iain M Banks ( I haven’t read Banks yet, so I figured that if I get his first novel for 50 Rs, I better buy it, and start reading) and some anthologies. Ahmed-sir was not around, and while I went to pick up some cash from the nearby ATM, had a solid lunch at Taj Mahal hotel ( not to confused with the Taj Group, this one is almost a heritage site in Hyderabad. The masala dosas there are to die for!), one of the places I would frequent at least once a week two years ago. When I got back to Best, I was contented beyond belief, and therefore, shruggeing off that state of complacency that eBay has brought me to, i waded into the piles at the back of the shop. It had been quite sometime since I had done this at Best, or any other place, really. Nowadays, the thrill of physically searching for a book has come down immensely – either I have become lazy beyond belief, or there is this sixth sensy thing that tells me “no goodies to be found in this pile, precious”. Or maybe I have started taking the Second Law too seriously.

Some dedicated scrounging turned up a first edition of Bertrand Russell’s History of Philosophy, with dust jacket. Also found a pile of old Indrajals, and on a whim, bought all the Buz Sawyers I could find. Which reminds me, let me tell you a small secret about Indrajal comics – they always had house artists redraw the original material, so if you have read Phantom and Mandrake and Flash Gordon and everything else published by Indrajal, you might still have not seen any of Lee Falk’s art, or Phil Davis’s or Alex Raymond’s. Which is why Indrajal now looks ugly to me. Especially the covers, most of which were drawn by this guy called Saaheb ( or was it Shehab? Ah, old age and all that.)

But believe me, it’s very hard, even for an artist who’s redrawing stuff, to detroy Roy Crane’s artwork, and more importantly, the stories that Roy Crane wrote in Buz Sawyer. There was a Sawyer story involving his brother Lucky, about the series of events that happen when Lucky is out of a job, and his relationship with his wife and son, which, had I been a little older, would have made me cry, perhaps. I was too young, so it just made me feel a little weird, and I flipped ahead to read the next Phantom story in that set. I reread it quite a few times after that, and always felt very calmed-down after every read. I have since remembered that story with a great deal of fondness, and I think I should try to scan that issue for you folks sometime.

As I was completing my shopping at Best, the guy there suddenly remembered that he had a couple of books that Ahmed-sir had kept aside for me. These turned out to be The Dark Knight Returns ( I am beginning to lose count of how many times I have bought this comic. ), and a copy of Sandman: Season of Mists. Also a very strange graphic novel called The Golden Vine, which appeared to be a rather poorly coloured manga written by a guy from Hyderabad. The name “Jai Sen” didn’t ring a bell for me, and later when I googled for information on the guy, I was dumbfounded! He was nominated for an Eisner!! Here’s an interview with him, in which he talks about his life and influences.

Anyways, I didn’t buy these three books because i was out of money, so they are going to hold them for me until I go there next.

So I came back home, and did a massive Lord of The Rings Extended Edition Marathon, with the concluding part of The Two Towers, which I had begun the previous day, and slept off because I was too tired, and Return of the King. Late at night, I got the stuff I had bought during the day and began to read (and re-read) them one by one.

And when I opened the copy of Myth Adventures, there was this beautiful writing in golden ink that just said “Best – Phil Foglio”. Which got me rather open-mouthed and trembly for about two minutes, before I ran into Rishi’s room, went to eBay and checked for Phil Foglio’s autograph. Which, sure enough, matched the writing on my comic book.

It’s times like these that I feel I am twisting reality around me. Maybe I am flattering myself a little too much, but seriously. A SIGNED COMIC? IN A SECOND-HAND BOOKSTORE IN INDIA? Yaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!