This recent email from my friend Allison was too bizarre and well-worded not to share with the rest of you.
“Today I had a strange experience in a creepy used bookstore. I was walking past the sci-fi/fantasy section,
and from the piles of unsorted books on the floor, a familiar blue color caught my eye.
I jumped for joy at the thought of buying a discounted copy of Blankets, even though this copy was oddly shelved
with fantasy novels and tales of Wiccan overlords. I thought, “what a strange place to put …”
But when I opened the cover, I found the entire book printed upside down and backwards …
… with most of the panels shoved up into the margins, or buried in the gutter.
Even with this defect, the bookseller wanted $18 because it was the only graphic novel he had in the store.
I thought maybe it was a sign to support my current theory that the stars have turned upside down and backwards,
hence the madness of our modern world and the obvious fact that humans are bored and taking it out on one another.
I left the book in the store, but not before I re-shelved it next to Nutritional Healing.
Just as I am doing with the universe, I will return in a week to see if it has righted itself.”
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July 29th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Ha! That’s awesome. I’d totally dig having a messed up copy of Blankets. I’d probably colour panels in. Just because I could.
July 29th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Hilarious! I used to work in a large book store and it was always fun to find what had been mishelved (purposefully, or not!) where.
July 29th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I know I shelve *my* copy of Blankets next to books about Dragon Lords. Also, when I read “Wiccan overlords” the first time, I thought it said “Wisconsin overlords.”
July 29th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
how wonderfully odd!
July 29th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Weird!
July 30th, 2009 at 7:57 am
hhahaahahaha that is kind of awesome.
July 30th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Amazing.
July 30th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Right up above Blankets there’s a shelved copy of 300, so it sems like it’s in the general area one might find it.
July 30th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
For an old-school comic book, such a printing error would make it worth more, yes?
July 31st, 2009 at 5:51 am
Printed upside-down and backwards… and only $18… how could one pass it by?
July 31st, 2009 at 9:29 am
Whoa. Freaky cool. I totally would have bought it and I already have a copy of Blankets.
July 31st, 2009 at 10:21 am
Hey Allison and Craig,
I remember our Top Shelf days of selling your Blankets by the buckets all over the country fondly. I own a hardcover edition of Blankets printed similarly (inside pages starting behind an upside down back cover). In fact, it may have been the last HC copy we had at SD, and a guy brought it to me asking for a discount.
No discounts. Then and there, that book was MINE, ALL MINE! And, had I encountered that reversed softcover edition of Blankets, I’d have bought it too, just so my HC would have some company…
Craig: You’ve gotta come down to Texas when it gets cooler for a visit. I’ve been told the Austin metro area is like Portland, with better weather…
Yer pal,
Wayne
August 1st, 2009 at 8:03 am
Craig… I name-dropped you in a comic… sorry the surrounding content is aimed at the 1980’s preteen demographic: http://easelainteasy.com/2009/07/30/so-close-phonetically-but-i-was-looking-for-kristy-thomas/
August 1st, 2009 at 9:13 am
amber, i coloured in bits of my blankets.
August 1st, 2009 at 9:16 am
that last sentence sounds so mystic like a snow angel x
August 1st, 2009 at 10:29 am
thanks for sharing the story. i wanted to share this with you - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1qHVVbYG8Y&feature=fvhr
enjoy x
August 1st, 2009 at 11:01 am
just showed my mum, and all she said was ‘yes. well, a week is a good amount of time’ ..
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
“Wisconsin overlords” = funny. Somebody draw this, please.
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:24 am
such a great story! I imagined it in comics form upon my second time reading it which made it even funnier
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Whoa! Is this a used bookstore in Burbank?? Looks very similar.
August 4th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
I saw a customer today at UCLA where I work who looked exactly like you. He even had what looked like a pocket sized spiral sketchbook with him but I didn’t dare ask him if he was THE Craig Thompson. If it was you, sorry for the creepy vibes and my not so subtle attempts to catch a glimpse at the name on your driver’s license.
August 9th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Hello Craig! I don’t know if it’s the right place to do this… well, I’d like to say that I loved Blankets. I’m brazilian, so I bought and read the Portuguese edition a few days ago. The story makes me think about me and my brother, and a lot of other thing… It’s a really beautiful comic, and I hope they translate more of your graphic novels.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
this bookstore looks eerily familiar. i’m guessing the campus smith family in eugene.
August 18th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I just finished reading Blankets, forty-five minutes ago on the bus. Thank god I had it with me, it was a nightmare in transit.
Oh my goodness. It was so amazing to read about someone else’s Christian childhood, where you can’t sing but you can draw, where you’re supposed to fit in with God, but don’t, and the guilt buried under heaven. Lovely. I almost cried. On the bus.
I am going to go draw now….
August 29th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Blankets is so beautifully written that it made me cry. I was raised bilingually - English and Chinese, so I could read a little when I saw the Chinese version of Blankets on your blog. I like the literal translation of the book title, vs. something altered for promotional reasons, as movie titles often are when distributed in foreign countries.
August 29th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
So I mustered the courage to write a comment. ^____^
Ah, that blue cover. It always stands out in every bookstore I go into. Blankets was a tremendous inspiration to me when I first read it, and is still that on every reread.
I was told that as part of my portfolio class (I’m an illustration student at the Ringling College of Art and Design) that I should contact an artist I admired. I used that assignment as the impetuous for this timid little comment.
I just wanted to add my voice to the other fanboys and just say, “thank you for writing blankets. I’m so very glad you did, even if some of them were printed upside down.”
September 10th, 2009 at 2:55 am
Haha! Funny how these bookstores function! The book is priceless. And its price has doubled up suddenly, which is kind of scary:/
October 26th, 2009 at 7:30 am
Actually, when I bought a copy of Ghost World from Amazon, the book had the SAME EXACT PROBLEM! Even the color bars were visible! For a moment I thought “Oh, well, I don’t know much about Clowes. Maybe this is intentional?” I did eventually get to exchange it for a better copy.