Hi, it’s me again. I need some help translating this:
%T Eric
%I Victor Gollancz (very large format illustrated hardback and paperback)
[vlf p/b is 7.6"/19.5cm wide by 11"/28cm tall; h/cvr boards a little larger]
%D 8/90 (both); both subs. reprinted. [all these editions now out of print]
ISBN 0-575-04636-8 (vlf colour-illustr. h/cvr)
ISBN 0-575-06836-0 (vlf clr.-illustr.p’bk.)[h/cvr signatures in card covers]
The % stuff is obviously formatting, that doesn’t bother me. The 2 bits I’m not getting are:
> 8/90 (both); both subs. reprinted.
Which seem to say that both (hc & pb) were printed in Aug of 1990, but what is “both subs. reprinted”?
I’m pretty sure that “both subs. reprinted” means that both of them were “subsequently reprinted”, meaning that there are later printings (after the ones being sold here).
Heck, here it is 10 minutes later and I have another obscure question. The book referenced in the OP, Eric, has a disclaimer (?) that I don’t remember seeing before:
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published…
Is this common? It seems to prohibit library binding. A later sentence also prohibits having the illustrations being “made up for sale” in any form other than as published.
At one time, selling a book, or its contents, in a physically altered form was considered a violation of a copyright holder’s right of adaptation. For example, taking a page from an art book, matting and framing it, and selling it as a print. Or rebinding the book with a different cover and reselling it.
However, the federal circuits are now divided on this question. The Ninth Circuit (which includes California) has found such actions to constitute infringement of the right of adaptation. Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 856 F.2d 1341 (9th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1018 (1989). The Seventh Circuit has found such actions to be non-infringing. Lee v. A.R.T. Co., 125 F.3d 580 (7th Cir. 1997).
The disclaimer is a standard one used by some publishers. Most don’t because it has no legal meaning. It just means that you can’t put out your own edition. But you can’t even without the disclaimer. Once you purchase the book you can do anything you want, so libraries can rebind them.
ISBN 0-575-06836-0 (vlf clr.-illustr.p’bk.)[h/cvr signatures in card covers]
(that’s the trade paperback ISBN)
I’m guessing that here “signatures” means the pages of the book, not that the author has signed anything. Then this is saying that the paperback is the same hardcover pages glued into a different (paperback) cover?
If I take the pages out of the paperback and have them sewn into hard covers…No wait! That’s a different thread.
I believe the copy of Watchmen my wife and I purchased at Costco (after seeing the movie last weekend) is the first graphic novel I have ever purchased for my own consumption (I bought some mange for my nephew years ago - does that count as a “comic book”). I have read individual comic books over the years (like, maybe 10), but I’ve never been a regular. And one thing has always been a bit of mystery. Do the bolded words in dialogue indicate an intended accent on that word? I’ve read chapter one in Watchmen so far and I remember having this same in the past. In my reading the bolded words just don’t seem to carry the emphasis I would put on the dialogue if it were my words.
This is apparently a common disclaimer in British books. I have a few books that were originally printed in the UK that have this disclaimer, except with the words “Except in the United States of America…” preceding it.
