Ordering Lost Girls

As you may or may not know, Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s big porno comic Lost Girls will not be available in the UK until January 2008, despite being published in the US this summer, due to Great Ormond Street Hospital’s complaint of copyright infringement. (In brief, it features a character who quite probably is Wendy from Peter Pan getting up to all sorts of shenanigans. GOSH own the copyright to Peter Pan and kicked up a fuss but that copyright expires next year anyway.) This is, of course, mildly annoying for those of us in the UK who want to read the damn thing, especially if, like me, you’ve had the first few chapters serialized in the anthology Taboo sitting on your shelf for over a decade. Enough, already. Give me the comic.

Thankfully we live in the future and can order things from other countries with our computers. Here’s the Amazon.com listing which, at time of typing, has it in stock. I ordered mine on October 23rd and it arrived today, 10 days later. The price, including shipping, was $56.23 which, thanks to George Bush’s consistently entertaining economic policy, cost me £31.89. Given that the UK retail price of the thing was going to be fifty quid that’s a pretty good deal and probably close to what Amazon.co.uk will be selling it for when they’re allowed to.

The book itself is huge. I knew it would be big but not this big. And it’s gorgeous, beautifully printed and bound with lovely colours. As for the story itself I’m only a third of the way through and suspect it’s going to take a few readings before I can form a decent judgement. After all, this is a major work from Alan Moore and those don’t come along every day. Or every year come to think of it.