Incoming Books: March 17th

Somehow, I managed to get through all of Lunacon without buying a single book from another dealer -- I was tempted by a SFBC omnibus of The First Chronicles of Amber, with the great Ron Waltosky cover that I commissioned, but I managed to stifle the urge [1] -- perhaps because I secretly knew that my order from the great remainder dealer Edward R. Hamilton was waiting for me at home. And, in fact, it was.

So here's what I did buy from that fine purveyor of cheap entertainment:

E.C. Segar's Popeye, Vol. 1: "I Yam What I Yam!", the first in the excellent, gigantic series of books from Fantagraphics reprinting one of the great comic strips of the 20th century.

A clutch of books from Overlook Press's lovely, wonderful "Collector's Wodehouse" series -- Love Among The Chickens, The Code of the Woosters, Summer Moonshine, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, and Piccadilly Jim.

Ellen Forney's Lust, reprinting a bunch of cartoons illustrating smutty personal ads from the website of a Seattle alternative weekly. (I think I've looked at Forney's other book, I Love Led Zeppelin -- I know I've seen her work somewhere.)

Patently Silly, a book about weird patents, published by the Lyons Press, with which I used to do a lot of business, back when I was buying books about hunting & fishing, and by a guy named Daniel Wright.

Talking Lines, a collection of cartoons by the New Yorker artist R.O. Blechman -- who would be worth reading just for that spectacularly wonderful name, but is also an excellent cartoonist to boot.

Secret Identity, the Craig Yoe-edited book of bondage and other smutty art by Joe Shuster, who -- as you know, Bob -- was the original artist for and co-creator of Superman.

And Flesh and Fire, the first book in a fantasy series that's gotten quite good reviews -- and it's by Laura Anne Gilman, whom I've vaguely known for longer than I want to remember and whose books I've felt vaguely guilty about not having read for nearly that long.


[1] If I try to seriously start to rebuild what I had before the flood, there will be no end of it.