23 detsember 2009

Labyrinth in Toronto - not that reliable bookshop?

There are only a couple of bookshops in the net for people who are interested about self published sketchbooks and artbooks - Stuart Ng Books, Bud's Art Books... and Ebay. That's it. Then I discovered another one - Labyrinth from Toronto, Canada. They have a nice blog, cool selection, books not only from USA but also from France and Japan.

So, I made my order for 4 books, one of them is exclusive for Labyrinth - signed Deanna Marsigliese artbook. Paid with PayPal on 1st September 2009. Got an e-mail next day with the promise to post the books on the weekend and for the confirming e-mail after the posting. And that's the last time I heard from Labyrinth...

It's the end of December now. Haven't got the books, haven't got ANY e-mails. Not, when the books were posted (IF the were), not for my e-mail inquiry from October 24th, when I had waited for the books for 8 weeks.

Okay, I chose the cheapest post, but $132.00 CAD for 4 books is still quite a lot of money, when one of the books is smaller than a monthly comic book. Another sad thing is, that as of today I'd only order 2 of those books... And, whatever the price, official post should move from one country to another. And I can't see why there could be a problem with my PayPal address, when it worked on other 150 or so times I used it.

And I really can't see someone stealing packet with some obscure books. On the times when envelope from Japan is here in 4-5 days and the last time something sent to me was stolen, was years ago (DVD tins from CDNow, on the times of anthrax powder mail hysteria), I just can't believe I will not receive the mail sent from Canada.

So, beware.

4 kommentaari:

Elina ütles ...

mis need teised raamatud muidu olid?

Raamatupoe nimi räägib ju iseeenda eest, labürintidest on ikka aeg ajalt raske välja pääseda:D

Ivar ütles ...

Travis Charesti 2009. sketchbook, mille detsembris ostsin lõpuks Ebayst (pole veel käes); siis veel Blacksadi esimene album, mille oleksin paar nädalat hiljem võinud odavalt soomekeelsena osta (2. ja 3. ostsin) ja Phil Noto raamat. Kolm neljast oleks pidanud olema signeeritud.

DEANNA MARSIGLIESE ütles ...

hi! this is Deanna Marsigliese...did you ever receive the books?? if not- i can go to the store personally to make sure you do.
--Deanna

Ivar ütles ...

Hi,
sadly, no... I just received last packet posted to me in 2009 (at the end of December), so I can say by now that I never received books from Labyrinth.

I got "Travis Charest 2009" from Ebay and I have Finnish Blacksad hardbacks, so now I'd be only interested about two out of four books I ordered in September...
:-(

I was talking about this missing packet in post office here. The situation is like this - if there was something wrong with my address so they couldn't find me and deliver the parcel BUT there was sender's address on the packet, it should have gotten back to the sender. Everything they can't deliver but has sender's address goes back.

As I really can't see someone stealing the books, I can see only two reasons why I didn't get the books - my address was wrong (maybe even country? I've heard stories like this happening) or they didn't sent the books at all. (I *was* a little bit surprised back in Aug/Sept they still had this Phil Noto sketchbook I ordered...)

Really, thanks for your offer to try to help to sort the things out, but I really think you shouldn't. I'll try to find time to send another e-mail to Labyrinth, maybe this time they will answer...

Thanks!

PS: Amazon just posted "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" artbook to me, saw something familiar there... :-)