Alex de Campi: Gojira!

***

WHO

FILM & TV

COMICS & BOOKS

6.6.05 20 Free Copies of SMOKE to Give Away

The lovely James Sime Esq, of Isotope Manor, San Francisco, is giving away 20 free copies of my new book, SMOKE. Email him before 12 June; winners selected at random. Details here.

The best part of the book being out is hearing from people who have read it, or who are trying to persuade their shops to carry it. A tip of the hat to occasional correspondant Legba C, who writes:

"You owe me.

Seriously. Like big time.

So yesterday I tore out of the house to find SMOKE somewhere inWashington, DC. I am super excited about this. First, I've been convinced this book was going to be brilliant ever since I started following your stuff on Ninth Art like a year ago; you throw around the weight of a veritable public intellectual with no small amount of humour and it reads wonderfully. Second, this adds one to the, I dunno, ten or so women who work in the industry and this makes me no short of very very very very happy.

But now I hate you.

I went through hell to get this $@#%$^^*^$ comic. HELL.

First store I went to never got their shipment for it. Fine. Go to another store. Guy says, hold on, I gotta look. Fine. I'm standing around next to the counter. A gentleman of significant girth comes up to me with two issues of something put out by DC clutched in his fists, sweating profusely, eyes bulging, and appearing to be in astate of no small distress.

"WHATISWRONGWITHYOUPEOPLEISSUE216DOESNOT
GOINFRONTOF217ANDTHESEAREOUTOFALPHABETICALORDER
ICANTTAKETHISWHATKINDOFSHOPAREYOURUNNING!"

He breaks down and starts crying. I feel bad so I try to give him some kind of assistance.

That's when he starts hissing, spitting, and kicking at me. The guy comes out of the back and has to PRY this man off of me, and said man tears out of the store holding both comics. The shop proprieter immediately informs me they do not in fact have your book.

Fine. I go to a third store. As I'm walking into this one in Georgetown, a cop stops me.And proceeds to accuse me of hijacking a car. No, I am NOT lying. It comes to the point where I almost get put in handcuffs when a second piggie comes crawling up to say oops, mistake, they made a mistake, I'm THE WRONG GENDER.

Fine. Okay. FINE. I go in. I ask for the FUCKING COMIC BOOKS. THEY SAY, NO, BUT THIS OTHER STORE HAS IT.

AND IT'S THE FIRST MOTHERFUCKING STORE I WENT TO.

So I go BACK to the first store.

AND THIS IS WHERE I FIND OUT THAT IT'S A PRESTIGE FORMAT 48 PAGER AND IT COSTS $7.49 AND I ONLY HAVE 4 BUCKS.

I spent the next 20 minutes FUCKING PANHANDLING FOR THE MONEY TO BUY YOUR Q$#^%$&#$&% COMIC BOOK. And yes, it was good. It was so good, I considered eating it. It's covered in tears. But god dammit, I enjoyed every page of it.

But if we ever meet, I want your first born."

( 9:24 AM )

0 Comments: