Pantheon Books is reprinting Craig Thompson’s first graphic novel Goodbye Chunky Rice<\/i>. The Pantheon website states the release date as May, 2006, and the price is 12.95$. Considering that Pantheon is a proper book publisher ( the earlier graphic novel releases, such as Persepolis<\/i> 1and 2, David B’s Epileptic<\/i> and Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers<\/i> have all been available at regular bookstores in India), I think there is a fair chance that I might be able to buy Goodbye Chunky Rice<\/i> pretty soon. Need to talk to the folks at Bookworm and Blossom, hmmm. Oh, and Jessica Abel’s La Perdida<\/i> is also being brought out by Pantheon. We wants!<\/p>\n
As a friend pointed out to me recently, Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s Lost Girls<\/i>, which Moore describes as “literary pornography” ( he refuses to call it erotica) is complete after 16 years of developement. The story is about three classic characters from literature, Dorothy from The Wizardof Oz<\/i>, Wendy from Peter Pan<\/i> and Alice from Alice In Wonderland<\/i>, who, in the year 1914, meet at a chateau and talk about their erotic adventures. Top Shelf Productions is bringing out a 3-volume hardcover edition, on sale from June 2006 for 75$, as well as a signed and numbered edition of 500 copies, available for a mere 150$. *Sigh*. According to the website, “this will be the most expensive book Top Shelf has ever published, with the first printing costing us almost $200K. Why so expensive? Because Lost Girls will be published as three, 112-page, super-deluxe, oversized (9″ x 12″) clothbound hardcover volumes, each wrapped in a beautiful dust jacket, with all three volumes sealed and shrink-wrapped in a gorgeous slipcase.<\/i> “Much as I would like to buy the lot, I realised that it would be completely impossible to bring it into India – Customs would no doubt be ready with their permanent black markers to protect me from obscenity. Did I ever tell you about my copy of Heavy Metal<\/i> magazine that had certain pages blackened by our moral guardians? <\/p>\n
I am a little hesitant about getting the 2-disc King Kong<\/i> DVD that’s available right now, because there might be a seperate collectors’ release in the future. With a figurine and all. <\/p>\n
Meg Cabot’s seventh Princess Diaries<\/i> title is out, and is priced at 376 Rs, goddamnit!!! Now I just need to wait until it lands up in the Bargain section of Odyssey at half-price. But, but, what am I saying?? I want to read that book SO BAD, I am pretty sure I am buying it at full price before the month is out. It’s called Seventh Heaven<\/i>, by the way, keeping in tune with the number-themed earlier books. (Book 3 was Third-time Lucky<\/i>, Book 4 was Mia Goes Forth<\/i>, and so on).<\/p>\n
Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead<\/i> is one series that is so completely true to the Zombie genre – I have been following it since issue 1, scanned, of course, and when I look to buying it off eBay, the prices make me faint. Apparently the early issues had very low print-runs, so there have been instances of the first two issues selling for 113$<\/a>, and the first printing of the first issue for 81$ – you get the drift. So what I found is that if I want to buy The Walking Dead<\/i>, the best thing would be to go, like a true completist, for a slipcased hardcover edition. This collects the first 24 issues of the series, and costs a mere 100$<\/a>. Another such selling-for-real-high-prices-on-eBay series is Invincible<\/i>, also by Robert Kirkman, and they have got hardcover collections for this series up on Amazon too.The second collection hasn’t been released yet, though. Heh.<\/p>\n