Pretty much all of Shiga's work is worth a look, especially if you happen to be a math or physics nerd...

Caveat Emptor: I haven't purchased from them myself yet (I have a local comics shop) but they have a good reputation and have been around forever. Dark Horse has used them as a preferred vendor for some stuff in the past, IIRC.

As a rare book librarian, I have to say the rare book stuff isn't that reality-based either. They keep using the word "Caxton" but there's no such US publisher in the time period. If there's such a thing as American incunabula, it's books published in the 17th century, so 1838 definitely doesn't qualify. The book is basically worthless without the provenance, so the idea of making a forgery is just silly; it'd be far simpler to buy a real one. The BAL is for literature, so Bibles aren't listed.

Obsessive-compulsive quibbling aside, this was a hoot and a half. Loved the guns-blazing raid on the politically motivated book thief, loved the reference work while clambering around on a moving truck, loved the narrow escape from rapidly closing compact shelving.

The link to the original story said that one of the stolen books was 16th century, iirc.

It's not like this ruins everything, but the attention to detail is so good elsewhere, it's weird to me that some bits are so confused, and it's impossible for me not to notice. My wife is very tolerant about my pointing out in movies every time somebody's bookshelves are filled with the unmistakable spines of Reader's Digest Condensed Books.

Or you can order them from the... what's it called... publisher; that's what Shiga's own ordering page says is "the best place to order my comics online". Don't give $50 to Amazon, and don't pester a busy cartoonist with order forms!

John Overholt, I'll forward your complaints to the responsible party. He will be devastated and plunge a sword into his bowels.

(the microfiche checkout system! I remember that!)

But it's not like, say, the first Casanova trade, which you can easily order online for less than cover price (and I just did the other day). Or the latest X-Men comics, which you'll be able to find just about anywhere.

You can order Bookhunter from the publisher, Sparkplug Comic Books. Click on this link to go to the Sparkplug website and you can order the book for the normal cover price and they will send it to you in the mail. That's how to get the book. Do not order it from Amazon. Do not order it from Jason because he will not get around to shipping it for a million years. Order it from Sparkplug Comic Books. The page at the other end of this link will tell you how to do so.

It's a real good book.

My wife, by the way, is less tolerant of my conniption fits about magical movie computers.

I heard about it in "Unshelved, the library comic strip", http://www.unshelved.com/

Someday I plan to do a bike tour of the places that are mentioned.

Jason Shiga, when he's not working on comics, is actually a librarian. He's also rather sweet in person, and quite the geek. He makes a lot of local appearances in the company of Derek Kirk Kim and Gene Yang.

[No, I don't stalk them--why do you ask?]

since the action takes place in an alternate universe where the library police clearly have special legal powers

(Excellent, excellent geeky work. Will show to all my friends until I don't have any left.)

I'm also a translator (En/Fr) and I was just very recently pondering if it was worth trying to convince a French publisher to pick up some of his work (and, of course, pay me for the translation job)! Hence my curiosity, now piqued.

Bookhunter looks indeed very, very cool. Adding it to the list...

It's got to be an alternate universe. The systems cracking part clearly shows tcpdump being used, and I'm fairly sure that didn't exist in consensus reality until some decades later. :}

Plus, lowercase? In 1973?

And it's way past time that someone published Meanwhile. I think some small press in the U.S. kept saying they were going to do it, but they flaked out or maybe they just decided the tabs were too much trouble.

I did not know about La Comédie Illustrée though, and will look into it (as soon as *this* translation job is done, that is). Thank you!

are you sure it's out of print? i bought a copy from the artist, at his publisher's table, at ape in november.