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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Reading comics in public

Found out this morning that there's something called International Read Comics in Public Day.  It's happening this coming Saturday, in fact. Glen Weldon at NPR's Monkey See blog sees it as a chance to make his love of brightly colored superhero comics as public as his interest in "dense, serious, black-and-white comics about war and art and history and social class and blah." DC Women Kicking Ass wants pictures for "Women Read Comics in Public." I see it as a sign that I should get out and enjoy the weather, as the idea of reading whatever I happen to be reading publicly doesn't seem like such a huge deal to me. Yes, I understand that it might if I'd had more experience of being publicly mocked for what I was reading, but I have very little shame about my entertainment choices, and I'm likely to read whatever I happen to be reading in public. Cormac McCarthy on the bus? Check. Entertainment Weekly on the BART? Check. Dante's Comedia on the Caltrain, Twilight while standing outside during a fire drill, or Pride and Prejudice at Starbucks? Check, check, and check. Today, in fact, I'll probably take advantage of the nice weather by finding someplace outside to read part of Justine Larbalestier's Liar. There might also be ice cream involved, but only because there are no snowball stands in San Francisco.

On Saturday, I'll probably read The Sandman, vol. 8: World's End in public, because I've been meaning to finally finish the series, and it's likely to be sunny outside. And I might send a picture in for WRCiP, because it does make sense to me that there's some profile raising to be done there. (I wonder if I get extra points for being a Black woman reading a comic in public.) But I guess I'm curious: is it really that big of a deal? I feel like people read all sorts of things in all sorts of places, and I guess it's never really occurred to me that something that wasn't somehow obscene would be something you'd hide to read (at least past high school).

Do any of you have things you love to read or watch that you don't admit to publicly? You know, besides porn and Twilight.

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