COMICS! On The March

For the past few years, respectable journalistic outlets have been covering the rising tide of comic book culture. They hide their shame by re-naming the artform as "graphic novels."* Or they give themselves some ironic distance with endless variations on "Biff! Bam! Pow! Holy [Relevant Subject Matter], Batman!" & "Comics: Not Just For Kids Anymore!" Nonetheless, it seems like the secret shame of comic book fandom is out of the closet.

In Japan, where the equivalent artform is known as manga, comics are read in public by all members of society according to these articles. People openly and notoriously read these books on the subway, so the legend goes. Since I take two different trains during my commute to work every day I thought it might be a good opportunity to do some fieldwork to see if the same is happening in the United States.

In theory, my route would be ideal for spotting comic book readers. The first leg, the RiverLine to Camden, goes to Rutgers University. The second train, the Patco into Philadelphia, provides access to numerous undergraduate universities as well being the main means of arriving at a moderate-size art school, the University of the Arts. If the comic book surge is bringing in new readership, as these reports allege, commuter trains packed with artistically-inclined undergraduates should be prime observations territory.

Alas, it is not quite the case. Thus far I have witness only two incidents of people reading comics on the trains. They are not promising.

1st Encounter: Approximately two weeks ago on the RiverLine I spotted an aging, obese white male reading an issue of the Jeph Loeb HULK series. Not really the image comics are trying to encourage right now. On the other hand, dude was LOVING that comic book. He was folding pages around the spine and bending it like you read a newspaper, just devouring the thing. The look in his eyes was like a kid in a candy store. I suspect he was mildly mentally disabled.

2nd Encounter: This morning on the Patco I stood next to a paunchy, goateed white male in his early 30s wearing wire-rimmed spectacles; he looked rather meek. He was reading a new copy of the WATCHMEN trade paperback so I assume he is either new to comics or generally is a hardcore mainstream superheroes-only type of fan. I have no reason to suspect he was also mentally disabled but its a safe bet his social skills are severely impaired.

The results of my scientific study of new comic readership are, as you can observe, thus far quite disappointing.

Even expanding this to encompass other likely locations for comics reading does not bear fruit. Every afternoon I walk to the Starbucks near my firm, which is also the nearest Starbucks to the University of the Arts. The store is always teeming with artsy girls in their late teens and early twenties, who I have been led to believe love indie comics and manga, sitting there drinking coffee and reading. I have yet to spot any of them reading a comic book so it appears they are not so into the whole thing. You know what they ARE into? Avoiding eye contact with me so as to not give the false impression that I have a green light to approach them.

They must smell the fanboy on me.

* The term "comic book" in an anachronism anyway. It hearkens back to ye olde times when the first comic books were literally re-packaged newspaper comic strips. Stan Lee prefers the term "comicbook," no space between the words, to signify the break.