In August of 1971, seven years after the release of the
Bantam paperback, Berkley Medallion released a movie tie-in to
The Omega Man. Despite the significant deviation from the source material, the original novel was reprinted, as opposed to a novelization of the film's screenplay (decades later, I discovered that an adaptation of the screenplay
was published in the pages of
Screen Stories magazine).
Featuring a wonderful cover painting by the legendary Mort Kunstler (another that I would absolutely love to add to the archive) of Neville, Matthias and the torch-wielding Family, the tie-in would prove to be quite successful, with a second printing issued in November 1971 — the first time for the novel in the US since Gold Medal released their '
Second Big Printing!' in 1957.
A Canadian printing was simultaneously released in August of 1971.
For the next 20 years, I only ever encountered first and second printings of the tie-in, and assumed that was the extent of the print run.
In April of 2016, I received a package from Kelly Laymon containing several Richard Matheson books from her Dad's colection. Richard Laymon was a dear fried who we had the honor of publishing twice —
A Good Secret Place and
A Writer's Tale — before his sudden passing in 2001. They knew I was a huge Matheson fan, and that I would appreciate these books from Dick's collection. What made it an even more special gift was that among the books was a copy of tie-in to
The Omega Man — a fourth printing!
Armed with the new awareness that there were (at least) two more printings than I had never encountered, I immediately set out on a search to find a third printing, which I eventually did.
And low and behold, during that search, I found a copy that didn't match the others that I had accumulated. Sure, to the untrained eye, it appears almost identical.
Until you compare the two side-by-side. Note the red Medallion is shifted from the left to the right, and the text that ran along the spine has been moved to the top of the book. Additionally, for the fifth printing, the ISBN and the price changed (an increase from 75¢ to 95¢).
Is there a sixth printing out there, waiting to be discovered? Based on my research (and the ease at which the latest printings can be spotted from the cover alone), I think the fifth was the final release until Berkley reissued the book in
1979. But I have long since learned to never say never!
Be sure to check back next week for another item from the I Am Legend Archive!
