THE TIJUANA BIBLE

New York, NY, U.S.A.: St. Martin, 1989. 1st edition with complete number line beginning with 1. Fine in fine dust jacket, not price clipped, with protective mylar cover. Comic strip artist Jack Deacon. "A "Tijuana bible" is both a pornographic comic book and the key to hidden treasure in this lighthearted story of greed. Cartoonist Jack Deacon is astonished when a colleague he had not seen in years, Mutt Shermer, dies in his yard from gunshots. He is even more surprised when he finds beautiful Sally Westerland hiding in his closet. Jack and his fellow cartoonists ponder these events at a Connecticut diner, but it is not until a package addressed to Sally arrives at Jack's house, where Sally once lived, that things fall quickly into place. In the package is a "Tijuana bible," and in its pages is a coded map leading to a collection of "Golden Age" comics worth millions. After Sally's boyfriend steals the contents of the package at gunpoint, Sally and Jack set off for California to try to recover the volumes, which originally belonged to Sally's father, and soon the smitten Jack is ducking bullets on her behalf. Even though suspense does not dominate this story, Goulart ( The Great Comic Book Artists ) more than compensates his readers with a soft-shoe touch reminiscent of the Thin Man series." -- Publishers Weekly. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. Book.