Serendipity
Yesterday I stopped by one of the many 2ndhand bookshops in my neighbourhood to browse the $2 bin. I found a collection of short stories written by women crime writers, including Sara Paretsky, so I went into the very back of the shop to pay. As is my occasional wont, I asked the young guy casually, 'you don't have any Sandman comics, do you?' For once they did - & I mean comics, not the elegant collected volumes*, which is what I had in mind. These are the genuine article, from the early 1990s, & as such, have the original ads & other period goodies.
He had seven, each sealed in a neat cellophane bag, & I snapped them up, despite it making a largeish hole in my month's grocery money. They are issues 46 & 47 of Brief Lives (Feb & March '93) and 62-67 of The Kindly Ones (Aug '94-Jan '95).
So far I have just looked at no 46, & there in the middle is something that doesn't turn up in the Brief Lives volume:
Death talking about AIDS and safe sex. A six-page b&w straight talking comic about how AIDS is transmitted, who can catch it ("people"), and a demonstration by Death & a reluctant assistant of
how to put a condom on a banana. A date in the bottom of one frame and 'for Don Mella' in the last frame, are a reminder of the rationale for such a comic.
I'm hooked! Apparently there are more at another bookshop in the city - I wonder if I dare go & look? The guy said he thought they had about 20 there. if there were, & I bought them all, I'd be living on boiled rice for the next few weeks. The collector's dilemma - & I have been staunchly claiming that I'm not a collector! (Apart from spirals - oh, & pink houses.)
*The collected volumes are very rare in 2ndhand shops, as so much of the population of Newtown is into the Sandman.
He had seven, each sealed in a neat cellophane bag, & I snapped them up, despite it making a largeish hole in my month's grocery money. They are issues 46 & 47 of Brief Lives (Feb & March '93) and 62-67 of The Kindly Ones (Aug '94-Jan '95).
So far I have just looked at no 46, & there in the middle is something that doesn't turn up in the Brief Lives volume:
Death talking about AIDS and safe sex. A six-page b&w straight talking comic about how AIDS is transmitted, who can catch it ("people"), and a demonstration by Death & a reluctant assistant of
how to put a condom on a banana. A date in the bottom of one frame and 'for Don Mella' in the last frame, are a reminder of the rationale for such a comic.
I'm hooked! Apparently there are more at another bookshop in the city - I wonder if I dare go & look? The guy said he thought they had about 20 there. if there were, & I bought them all, I'd be living on boiled rice for the next few weeks. The collector's dilemma - & I have been staunchly claiming that I'm not a collector! (Apart from spirals - oh, & pink houses.)
*The collected volumes are very rare in 2ndhand shops, as so much of the population of Newtown is into the Sandman.