Not quite perfect

[ed_rex]

Perfect Books isn't quite the perfect bookstore (kind of like this cheap opening sentence isn't a perfect hook), but wandering the eccentric and obviously personal selections lining its shelves was a breath of fresh air after having spent some time at an enormous Chapters the day before. (Though really, memo to Perfect Books: Since you own the domain, perfectbooks.ca, having your homepage default to villagewitch.ca is just confusing. But I digress.)

I — in truth, we, though Raven kept to the sidelines and only briefly said hello to Moggy, shortly before we left — made my first visit to Perfect Books I think since I lived here around the time of the First Gulf War (you do the math arithmetic; I haven't the heart for it).

Anyway, we were there for Vonandmoggy's book-launch, the unveilling of Von Allan's second book, Stargazer. Happily, and more than a little to my surprise, there was a line-up (smallish, but a line-up) waiting to talk with the artist-writer when we arrived, and so Raven and I first did a brief auto-tour of the store itself and it seemed, as I said, to be a very good one. The SF section in particular managed, with three (maybe four) shelves, to provide me with as many interesting-looking books as Chapters managed in thrice or four times the space.

Anyway, I cut that short and wandered back to Von's table, and introduced myself. "I'm ed-rex," I said and to my pleasure my presence seemed to be his pleasure. We talked — mostly about comics and quite a lot about Dave Sim — until Moggy pointed out that he, once again, had a line.

Raven snapped a few pics (forthcoming), I paid for my book and we paid our respects then headed back out into the night. I haven't had the chance to read the book yet, but the Big C took a look while I was working in the kitchen last night and was more than a little impressed, using words like, "Great art-work" and "This is really good." I mentioned to Von that True North Perspective has a "Book End" slot and would love to feature Stargazer in it. And yes, I need to send him the promised email as soon as I finish this meandering entry.

Right. On to that email, then to finishing up a review and then to getting down to paying work.