LIT TRIP >> Half Price Books: Dallas, Texas

Now that Half Price Books is finally opening its Oklahoma City location late this month, I’ll no longer have to make do with an occasional sojourn south of the Red River for an ultimate trip for discount titles. A recent weekend in Dallas found me back at the first Half Price site I’d ever been to — the one that doubles as the brand’s corporate HQ — and this return visit didn’t disappoint in cheap finds.

I wasn’t a huge reader at the time of Tim Burton MARS ATTACKS! movie, so I didn’t even know it had tie-in novels. I discovered two: MARS ATTACKS: MARTIAN DEATHTRAP by Nathan Archer and MARS ATTACKS: WAR DOGS OF THE GOLDEN HORDE by Ray W. Murill. I’m surprised that they were in hardcover; it appears Del Rey went the extra mile, commissioning terrific pulpy covers and inserting an exclusive trading card in each. Someday, I might even find time to read them.

Speaking of pulp, Frank M. Robinson’s THE INCREDIBLE PULPS: A GALLERY OF FICTION MAGAZINE ART by Frank M. Robinson is one of those digest-sized, full-color art books with a brief introduction followed by nearly 200 pages of those wonderful covers. This one divides the images among four genres: sci-fi, horror, mystery and adventures, which includes Westerns. Most of these great covers comes from pulps of the 1930s and 1940s, but a couple date back to the 1920s.

Last time I had gone to a Half Price — in Austin — I had found several black-spined paperbacks from the UK-based Wordsworth’s “Tales of the Mystery & The Supernatural” line. Here, I found several more:
• DRACULA’S GUEST AND OTHER STORIES by Bram Stoker;
• AYLMER VANCE: GHOST-SEER by Alice and Claude Askew, which supposedly were influenced by Sherlock Holmes;
• SHERLOCK HOLMES & THE TANGLED SKEIN by David Stuart Davies, a more contemporary novel that pits the detective against Count Dracula; and
• THE BEETLE: A MYSTERY by Richard Marsh, an early supernatural thriller.

Edited by Monte Beauchamp, NEW & USED BLAB! is a 2003 collection of pieces from early issues of BLAB!, which encompasses comics, illustration, graphic design and the occasional essay, all from outside the mainstream. Flip the square book over and you get some then-new material as well. Having missed out on the indie comics explosion from the likes of RAW the first time around, I’d always wondered what BLAB! and its brothers were all about. Quality varies, but there’s some good work from Peter Kuper (who details his history with porn), Richard Sala and others.

Another indie-comics collection was scored in RAW, BOILED AND COOKED: COMICS ON THE VERGE. Edited by Paul Candler, this slim paperback distills the entire history of the genre, from their days of being called “comix” to their current respectability. This is a good mix of essays and artwork — from people like Charles Burns, Art Spiegelman, Tony Millionaire, Peter Bagge and the Hernandez brothers — and that’s because it was accompanied by an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

Believe it or not, all the books above were brand-new, piled in stacks several copies deep as never-sold remainders, marked for next to nothing. That’s why I love Half Price Books; I wouldn’t have bought them if they were used. I only do that in extreme circumstances; as such, there were two this trip, picking up Richard Bachman’s THINNER in a mint-condition hardcover and William Peter Blatty’s LEGION. This EXORCIST sequel wasn’t in perfect shape, but it’s woefully out-of-print, so “pretty good” equals “close enough” until I find better. —Rod Lott

Buy them at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM LIT TRIPS:
• Half Price Books: Austin, TX
• Barnes & Noble Booksellers: Fort Worth, TX

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