Books are inexpensive over there? That's really good for you. Here most books are quite expensive, so it's quite common for people to resort to downloading (even preprint versions) and printing them, or photocopying them. Even university professors distribute illegal versions of the books they expect the students to read, because asking them to pay for the original would be too much.

I usually buy novels or collections of short stories, but only the ones that are not best-sellers because the latter are ridiculously costly. And sometimes when I have relatives coming from the USA I ask them to bring me some books and then give them back what they paid for them. Buying specialized reference books is definitely out of the question (I used to buy them in the past, I bought the last one in 2001, but sice then they have become way too expensive).

I liked the comic, even though I didn't get the 'slash' part. What does slash mean?

And I must applaud Brian for writing 3 articles for a single issue!