TJ Radford

Hello Azumillo, Well, I have 2 more data points for you. On March 30, I received a lot of a 1st and a Book Club 4th Killing Joke, and today (April 9), I received another Book Club 4th. Both were the Non-BOMC version, and both were from Canadian sellers. So all 4 of my copies have come from Canada, as has Stonguy’s copy. Do you recall if the copy you found was from Canada as well? If so, it would seem that this may have been made for something there. I would still put money (but not too much) on Doubleday Book Club of Canada. San Diego started convention exclusives in the 21st century, so it seems way too early for some sort of Canadian convention giveaway. I looked up the bigger conventions in Canada, and only Hal-Con started early enough, and it ran until 1987 and then did not run again until 2010. If only we could look at Ronald's records...

Hello Aszumilo. Yesterday (October 16) I received a 4th printing Killing Joke without the back cover text from a Canadian seller. Inside was no BOMC text. That is 2 for me and one drom Canada that Stronguy has. I did some looking, and found an article on The Canadian Encyclopedia on book clubs. According to it, BOMC had 100,000 members in Canada in 1987. Also, the Book Club Division of Doubleday Canada had 250,000 members in 1987. Could Doubleday bee the source of the copies without BOMC text? And let us throw some more gasoline on this fire. A few months ago, I received a 4th BOMC as part of a 2 book lot. The other was a copy of the Batman Year One trade 2nd printing. Something struck me as odd about it. I couldn’t find a price anywhere. So I looked on the publication information page, and there is the BOMC text. So I looked through the Ebay listings and found 4 copies that had no price, including one from Canada. I ordered them and waited. The first two had BOMC text. The third came from Shenksville, PA, and did not have the BOMC text. And when the Canadian book came, it too did not have the BOMC text. I will try to get pictures to post at some point, if I could figure out how to get my phone to hook up to e-mail. I have searched for book club edition of the Year One trade, and not have found anything. Two brand new 35 year old books. Maybe. So, should we be trying to find a list of DC trades from the late 80’s\early 90’s, and checking Ebay listings for unpriced copies? A whole new collecting area. Get in on the ground floor. I wonder if any of the early DC Archives got the book club treatment? Someone else can go down that rabbit hole.

Hi Aszumilo and Stronguy. On June 4, Ebay had a 4th printing Killing Joke with the BOMC back cover for sale, There was a third photo which showed a partial inside front cover, and there was no BOMC text below the letterer line. I was going to buy this anyway, but seeing that me go, “buy it now!” I now have 8 BOMC style back cover 4th printings, 6 that have the BOMC inside front cover, 1 without, and a slabbed 9.6 that I am not cracking open to check. The slab doesn’t say BOMC Edition on it, but it could be from prior to CGC adding that category. Oddly enough, like the copy Stronguy bought, mine also came from Canada. Specifically, Quebec. On the topic of the Titan printings, if you look below the Titan Edition line there is a string of numbers, starting at 10, and counting down. The last number in the string is the printing number. So if it ends at 1 it is first printing, at 2, second printing, etc. Fairly common in the book trade, frequently with 3 years counting up in front of the countdown. I also recently bought a copy of the V for Vendetta Book Club edition. It has the Ronalds sticker over the BOMC text, but there was a bookmark inside the book from Doubleday Book and Music Clubs, Inc. Since wpbooks01 has a copy of the V hardback without a Ronalds sticker over the BOMC text, is it possible that there were versions made for other book clubs, but rather than create new plates they just had someone cover the BOMC text for these other clubs?