PayPal notified me someone had bought “Most Outrageous” through my web site. I hadn’t sold a book there in months – and anyone who buys a MO always makes me curious, but when I asked the buyer for his address, he wondered if I could sell him a signed “Pirates/Mouse” and “Outlaws/Rebels” too, so I figured he was a regular – or irregular – comix guy and relaxed. (He was, he later clarified, a Bronx-based sound/writing/ drawing artist, who loved the “radical spirit and energy” behind comix. And visiting his web site revealed hm to be probably around 70 and someone of substance and acclaim.)
Since OR and PM are out-of-print, I can only replenish my supply on-line. Because anyone can do this, I feel bad about marking up the price to make a profit (and if not for profit, why sell them). After explaining this, I asked if my signature was worth a 10% add-on. It was, so I went shopping. I found best-available copies, figured in tax, shipping (dealer-to-me, me-to-buyer), and weighted this by what my royalties if the books had sold new. We struck a deal, and rather than making him wait for me to receive the books before sending them, I shipped two of at least comparable quality ones from my stock on hand.
I next asked how he had heard of me. He turned out to be the “partner” of the artist who had picked up an OR a couple of years ago at an art museum book store in Harrisburg and had emailed me because of how it had affected her. She had been after him to read it since, he said, plus “Your name kept coming up in conversation with other artists.”
That’s “artists,” plural. Which is more than among whom my name comes up in my home café. I’ve been thinking for a couple of weeks it’s a matter of forests and trees. The trees are that I write about comix and cartoonists, and most people’s reflective thinking keeps them from seeing the wondrous forest I’ve created doing this in the past 30 years. (I concede there is some of the “obscene, perverse and tasteless” I’ve been called out for in these woods, which can me a turn-off.)
In other news…
Faithful readers will recall (See “Adventures” 459) my racing to replace “Messiahs…” lost Author’s Note. Mission accomplished – but I have not heard from the publisher since. (Yes, I inquired.) Perhaps, like Berkeley’s hallowed Cheeseboard Collective, he has taken off the post-New Year’s week. I will follow up once I have judged I am past being annoying and his guilt has built up.
So many Bob Levins on the Internet; I'm the Bob Levin who writes.