The Research Process

I'm a huge fan of David Cronenberg's 2005 film "A History Of Violence." It was one of the first DVDs i ever bought and i must have watched it eight or nine times. But i tried to play it again a few weeks ago and, like so many of my older DVDs, it would no longer play. So, i did what anyone would have done: i bought another copy. My new copy included bonus features, woo hoo!

One of the bonus features was an interview with the god-like David Cronenberg, and in it he mentioned that the film had been based on a graphic novel by John Wagner (writer) and Vince Locke (artist), and that the novel had included a lot of detail that had to be omitted from the film, and that intrigued me, so i set off on a quest to find the book.

First stop: my friendly local independent bookshop. Always buy locally when you can, folks! It keeps the money in the community. Alas, the book is no longer available in Canada. Bummer.

So then i started looking around online. I know a few independent online dealers. But dagnab it, no luck there, either.  OK, so i succumbed to the lure of the whore of Babylon (a.k.a. the corporate world). First stop: amazon.ca. Nope. Amazon can often resell schtuff via other dealers, but in this case they came up empty. I really didn't want to go to amazon.com -- not with the Canadian dollar currently worth around 76 cents American, but i did anyway -- you're only young once, after all! -- but they let me down, too. Oh, they could get it, but it would cost me around $120 + postage. I declined.

Then i thought of amazon.co.uk -- they've occasionally found schtuff for me that i couldn't find anywhere else. My slightly-used but in good condition copy should arrive any day, and it cost me about $18.

Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes!