And I see it's up to $52, which still seems to be an exceptionally low price.

It's just been called to my attention that a copy of the Cupples & Leon book Little Orphan Annie and Uncle Dan is on sale at the moment on eBay. Whether it is the hardest-to-find Annie book, as some have said, or no rarer than the others in the series, as others have said, what I find outstanding about it is that it has the dustjacket and looks to be in lovely shape.

Frankly, I don't think I've ever seen this vintage of Cupples & Leon strip reprints that had its dustjacket, though Overstreet carefully notes that each of the Annies came with one. A check of Bookfinder.com lists three copies from $28.50 to $55 -- but not one has a jacket.

So take a look. I think it's keen. Auction ends Feb. 17.

Mark Evanier has just called to tell me the sad news. I always take it for granted that readers of my blog use it in part to provide a fast link to other sites. But just in case you don't, link right now to Mark Evanier's blog (link on the left).

Mark's tribute to a man whose work delighted a generation of comics fans should be read by all.

On National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday today, Watch Your Head creator Cory Thomas spoke to host Liane Hansen about the strips he and 10 other artists have supplied to papers for today's publication.

They'll be trying to draw attention to the lack of diversity to be found in today's papers.

My brother, Paul (see "More Links" on the left), called this morning for an extended chat -- but in part to pass on news that he may have found a link to Golden Age artist Fred Kida (born Dec. 12, 1920). It was one of those "you never know what you'll learn in a friendly conversation" sort of things, but he had a conversation with a man who said he was in contact with Kida. You can bet that Paul gave the man his own contact information and a fervent request that Kida call or write him.

It'd be great to get in touch with a man who drew so many wonderful stories, starting with the Iger Studios, going on to work with Charles Biro and to draw Airboy (one of my favorite strips) for Hillman. Lots of work for Atlas followed, and I'd love to learn all he has to tell -- assuming he's willing.

Fingers crossed.

In an earlier posting, I alerted folks to the fact that United Airlines is going to begin to charge for a second checked suitcase and suggested that my way of shipping boxes filled with what would otherwise be in suitcases was a possible solution.

Daughter Valerie writes, "Be aware that hotels are onto the trend of people shipping stuff ahead." Seems a friend of hers was charged $10 per day per box when she shipped several boxes (books to be sold and food for in-room eats) in advance of a convention. "Because it was for a show, she made sure the boxes were there ahead of time and wound up getting soaked for a few hundred extra dollars."

I admit that the bulk of my air travel is for family and friends, rather than cons, and I was talking about two-suitcase problems, rather than larger shipments. In fact, my family travel is such that I'm pressuring folks there to maintain a "Maggie box" of clothes and such at each location: not something that'd help in solving convention problems.

Which may be what United is counting on. But I'm looking at other airlines now, after a couple of decades as a pretty faithful United traveler.

... which I was in the Feb. 5 posting that just preceded this:

I was revisiting Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens' last completed novel, yesterday and came across his postscript to it, written Sept. 2, 1865. He comments on his process of developing a mystery in the plot and then says:

"To keep for a long time unsuspected, yet always working itself out, another purpose originating in that leading incident, and turning it to a pleasant and useful account at last, was at once the most interesting and the most difficult part of my design. Its difficulty was much enhanced by the mode of publication; for, it would be very unreasonable to expect that many readers, pursuing a story in portions from month to month through nineteen months, will, until they have it before them complete, perceive the relations of its finer threads to the whole pattern which is always before the eyes of the story weaver at his loom. Yet, that I hold the advantages of the mode of publication to outweigh its disadvantages, may be easily believed of one who revived it in the Pickwick Papers after long disuse, and has pursued it ever since."

So Dickens thought publishing periodical installments of a novel had many advantages. But do they still outweigh the disadvantages, more than 140 years later?