Ordering from America: Quebec sources for bande dessinée
This will be edited and updated as time goes by, but somebody today (June 13, 2008) has just asked how to find bande dessinée in the ‘States that isn’t available through Amazon.ca.
A good question, especially since Amazon’s bédé selection kind of sucks.
With not enough research behind me, my off-the-cuff answer is that your best bet is ordering through a native-to-Quebec book chain. Bédé has always been part of the normal order of business for bookstores here (and with my last few visits to chains in Atlanta, it looks like Borders and Barnes & Noble are starting to catch up with several shelves of graphic novels for sale).
The wrinkle, of course, is that these are Quebec-only chains, and the thought of U.S.-based customers has probably never even crossed their minds.
But, off the top of my head, these are the Big Three booksellers in Quebec, with decent Web sites and order functions (shopping carts, etc):
Biblairie GGC is a smaller chain. They only accept U.S. orders via e-mail.
Renaud-Bray is a larger chain, but oddly doesn’t seem to have as deep a selection as GGC. Shipping looks like $12.95 for a first item (base price), and $2.95 for each subsequent item.
Archambault is the other big Quebec chain. Similar shipping charges.
Those shipping fees kind of make me blink at first, but I just sent two Tintin books to a friend in Toronto for about $10 today, so for cross-border shipping — if you’re ordering more than one book at a time, particularly — that’s not too crazy, I guess.
*Update, 16/06/2008: In Montreal yesterday, I wandered into one of the city’s best BD specialty stores, Planète BD, and they’re very happy to prep mail-order for American customers. Their site is just an events blog with no catalogue to speak of, but if you e-mail them they’re very well-stocked and also quick to recommend new books. Ask for François, Laurent or Daniel.
I will do more research on this and update it periodically if I get better sources.
If you need some help with the French on these sites and Babelfish and/or Google aren’t doing the job, contact me and I’ll see if I can help.