The blog of Richard Thompson, caricaturist, creator of "Cul de Sac," and winner of the 2011 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Adrift on the Amazon


The page for the CdS book at Amazon now says "temporarily out of stock", and it lists one used copy for sale on Amazon Marketplace by Snappyshoppe. And it's only $8.29! So I guess it's been shipped to used bookstores. I'll check again later (not that I'm obsessing), but if I were you I'd jump on that.

12 comments:

Danny Fry said...

That looks like an outfit "Dill" would wear!

Kelvin O. said...

Mr. Thompson:

I, too, saw it - the instant I stopped watching Cheers earlier today - amazed that my favorite cartoonist (excluding the late Walt Kelly and Crockett Johnson) found the exact same thing. I've been checking for a month for your book, ever since I learned I didn't win a free Early Reviewer copy of it on LibraryThing - I had the fortune to win Mark Tatulli's book instead. I wasn't sad. (Especially since Mr. Tatulli's book turned out to be very good!) I have been a fan of yours ever since Cul de Sac first appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, and am lucky to have been, and still be, able to read each issue for no price at all... I feel that this is the way I can pay my dues to the one cartoonist alive aside from Bill Watterson that has really given me hope in cartooning... ashamedly, I lost hope not in the potential of the artform but in the future of it. But the acceptance of your strip gives me a drive that I've never really felt before (perhaps because I was younger than the age I am now, 16). Schulz once said that if you read his strip, you know him. If the same is true for you, Mr. Thompson, I am glad to have known you. We readers of your strip all are. I look forward to posting more comments (I only discovered your blog three days ago), but they likely won't be this long. I'm just a bit jumpy writing to you for the first time. Likewise, it is expected that if I do write a review of your book, it will be like Dorothy Parker's review of Barnaby - turning into shameless appreciation. It has been done once by me. And I thank you for reading on in spite of the appreciation going on and on - which could be due to it being four years due.


Kelvin O.


P.S. Have you read the manga Yotsuba&!?

Mike Lynch said...

Kelvin beat me to it. I was going to ask if the photo was from Yotsuba too!

Dustin Harbin said...

Richard you should enjoy the anticipation--by the time Christmas is over, you'll be sick to death at looking at that book, festering over the two or three typos that will bug you to death, and wondering whether I actually paid Mike for that copy at SPX while you were signing something (my story), or swiped it off your table after pulling the fire alarm (Mike's story).

C'mon Mike, grow up.

Dustin Harbin said...

I should clarify: Mike Rhode. Mike Lynch, I presume you are acting your age.

richardcthompson said...

Danny- yeah, or Petey, for protection.

Kelvin- thanks for the very kind comments! Glad you've stuck around for four years (almost longer than me) and come back again. I'm going to ask for Tatulli's book for my birthday, or just whine until the syndicate sends me a copy. Dorothy Parker on Barnaby; I'd forgotten about that, usually it's her review of Winnie the Pooh that gets quoted. I've got an old Dover Barnaby reprint that has the original blurbs on back. One is by WC Fields. Now that's consorting with the gods.

I haven't read Yotsuba. I'm so far behind in manga it's hard to know where to begin...

Dustin- yeah, I'm ready to trash the book and start all over again. Should've gone with the paisley endpapers, and the ink smells fishy. Whichever way it happened, I'll swipe something off your table at SPX.

And don't for a minute presume Mike L or R are acting their various ages.

Meanwhile somebody bought the used copy at Amazon, and the Look Inside feature is now available. I think everybody's going to be fed up with this book by the time it hits the stores.

Robert Gidley said...

I stopped by the local independent bookstore yesterday to order a copy (after being cruelly betrayed by Amazon).

After typing for some time on her terminal, the saleslady got a furrow in her forehead and said that something weird was up with the book, "Like maybe it's gone for second printing?"

So, it's not really a matter of it not being available yet, it's just sold out and is being reprinted!

richardcthompson said...

Maybe a reclusive billionaire bought up the print run and is having the whole run pulped. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

For what it's worth, I just got a box of books from the distributor, so it's out there... somewhere...

Bram said...

Not sure if there's anything you can do about it, but the book's not being carried in Diamond's Previews, which means that comic shops (or at least the one here) can't really order it…

JoshM said...

Barnes and Noble online does appear to have copies available. At least, the website didn't say that it's not available. I just ordered one, and they tell me it will go out tomorrow. If it arrives sometime next week, then we'll know.

Mike Rhode said...

Dustin, I believe that you actually tripped and fell over the table and "accidentally" carried away some "scrap" papers with you.

Mike R, not L.

Worth said...

I was able to find and buy a copy at my local Barnes and Noble (Skokie, Illinois).

I ran into the same "temporarily out of stock" Amazon message when Viper published my GN, Kid Houdini, in August.

But now Amazon says it's in stock ... and all is right with the world. (Except for the financial boondoggle, global warming, oil prices, the Middle East...)