Read on, comics fans! Followup

After a few minor delays, I'm able to post photos of me and my pal Clint on Read a Comic Book in Public Day.

Not my most flattering look, but a damn fine comic!
I'm hardly a big Spawn fan, so Sam and Twitch, the detectives from that series, eluded me until this smart, tight miniseries.
Suffice to say I'll be seeking out the back issues as soon as I can afford to do so!

The locale for the little Saturday outing was a fine local coffeehouse/eatery called Anodyne. I'm not a huge coffeehouse maven, but I rather like this one. And their oatmeal is quite refreshing!

Again, not my most flattering look, but I really like the direction J. Micheal Straczynski is taking Superman. This issue may make my Top 10 for 2010!
I admire the fact that he can maintain the quality and humanity of his writing, given his self-imposed mandate to write at least ten pages every day!

The whole populist direction JMS is taking with the character is a refreshing return to Supes' Depression roots, without the Super Dickery that plagued the character from the late 30s into the 70s!

I showed my pal, painter and Webmaster extrordinaire Clint Rost, a key page from this issue.

Mad for the Captain America shirt!
So what did this little exercise accomplish? After all, like many of my peers, I read comics in public on a regular basis.
Well, for one thing, it's fun. For another, it can serve to increase awareness. Finally, in order to read comics in public, you (or someone you know) needs to OWN comics. So like Free Comic Book Day and the upcoming 24 Hour Challenge, it serves both to increase public recognition of the medium and to reinvigorate the base, as they say in political circles.
Now if you'll excuse me,  I have to get back to the new issue of Echo....

Read on, comics fans!

This Saturday is Read Comics in Public Day! It's also Jack Kirby's birthday, which is no coincidence.

This event is one of those groundswell things. Since comic readers have historically been perceived as  less than literate, despite the posturings of the Simpsons' Comic Book Guy, who now has his own comic book, this event could be an opportunity to dispel preconceived notions about comic readers. We're not semi-literate slobs or social misfits. We're just people who love to read- an increasing rarity. According to the American Booksellers' Association, book sales are paradoxical. While people are ostensibly buying more books, independent stores are closing, and there's no evidence that people are reading the books they buy. Nor do the figures note what types of books are being sold. The largest sellers remain cookbooks and the Bible.
Bottom line is that, according to the US Census Bureau statistics, April 2010 book sales of $917 million are at their lowest level in 8 years.
And comic book stores are not immune from this disturbing trend, as evidenced by the recent closing of one owned by filmmaker and comic lover Kevin Smith, and by the closing of the great Forbidden Planet in England.
Eau Claire Comics and Collectibles, in Eau Claire, WI, the first store to sell my work, is also gone.
We are blessed here in the Twin Cities to have a comics community that supports no less than a dozen comic stores, but I fear for their future as well.
Possibly that's a sad but realistic outcome.
The economy is either improving slowly or doomed, depending on what the economic seers had for breakfast. Unemployment appears to have leveled off around 10% and may or may not rebound. That leaves many people with little, if any, disposable income.
So if we are in an inverted Maslow model, where the hierarchy of needs is worked down to the basics rather than up to self-actualization, I fear that books and comics will not be very high up most people's lists of necessary purchases, at least for a while.
And as is the case with any art form, continued involvement is crucial to comics' thriving.
We've overcome much of the 30s - 60s stigma about comics, partially due to the snobbery associated with the "graphic novel", but we need to be visible. We need to be seen loving our comics, proudly.
Hey, if it's good enough for Bogey, it's good enough for us!