Comics in Public: A Social Experiment
By Lisa Fary
Want to be a social oddity? Bring a comic book to a bar.
Last week I attended a teaching conference, and by the end of the second day, I really needed some time to myself. So, I headed down to my hotel’s lounge, planning to settle down at the bar with a book and a glass of wine.
I’ve brought books to bars before and it’s always a conversation starter. I don’t mean for it to be, but people seem to be curious about the nerd sitting there alone with her nose in a book. They always ask the same questions:
“What are you reading?”
“What’s it about?”
“Is it good?”
“Are you a librarian?”
The cringing starts when I say, “No, I’m an English teacher.” See, English teachers are more likely to shrewishly correct your poor grammar and less likely to do dirty things in stacks when the library is closed. All the stretching and groaning involved in re-shelving books is sexy. Red ink stained fingers and grumbles about your dangling participle? Not so sexy.
Two books found their way into my suitcase for the conference: Alan Moore’s novel, Voice of the Fire, and Planetary volume one. I grabbed the Moore novel and headed toward the door, but then I wondered, what would happen if I sat at the bar reading a comic book openly and unashamed?
So, I headed down with Planetary to conduct my little experiment. These are my findings:
A comic book in a bar will ensure that no one sits next to you, no matter how crowded the place gets. The hotel lounge got pretty busy, but the barstools to my left and right remained empty.
A comic book in a bar will get you weird looks from near and far. Men sitting two stools over looked at me, looked at the comic book, looked back at me and made confused, scrunchy faces. Women who came up to order drinks looked at me and my comic book and immediately looked more confident (I’m reading a comic book, therefore I must be socially retarded, therefore I am not competition for male attention).
A comic book in a bar will ensure that no one talks to you except the bartender, and that’s just to take your order. Some people who came up to order openly stared at me and my comic book, wearing expressions of either confusion or disgust. No one asked the usual “book in a bar” questions.
The results may have been different had I been in my street clothes. A comic book in the hand of a girl wearing plaid Chucks, a newsboy cap, and printed tee with a talking dinosaur on it wouldn’t look all that unusual. But, it may have been disconcerting to see a woman in a suit with a glass of wine in one hand and a comic book in the other, not even trying to hide it.
Ten years ago, I probably would have been mortified by what went on around me and skulked out of the lounge within minutes to read Planetary alone in my room, never to show my face down there again. These days, I’m comfortable enough with who I am and what I like to stay down there and not only read it cover to cover, but to enjoy the hell out of it.
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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.
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Lisa you amaze me! You took a backpack when you left home and got on a bus with an open ended ticket! You are a tough woman! There are allot of “man” that would leave there comfort zone. You are my HERO! I’ve been all over the world but I never did as much as you!
I love reading comics in public! I was reading The Dark Knight Returns (for about the fifteen billionth time) on the subway and an older guy tapped me on the shoulder to tell me I was in for a real treat. I told him that I’d read it before, to which he responded that I have great taste. Yay for non-sketchy interactions!
I kind of love the way some people ignore me and deem me unworthy for reading comics. It makes it that much easier to spot the not-so-few who look over and are keenly interested because they, too, want to be reading comics. Geeks of the world, unite!
Hee. Thanks for posting that. I, too, read comic books and graphic novels in public a lot. I don’t find that people avoid me when I do it, though. Quite the opposite–more people talk to me when I have the graphic novels. I once had a guy at waiting for the walk sign to cross the street start up a conversation with my because I had a Y the Last Man peeking out of my purse. I think its because in my normal demeanor, I deter most folks: I don’t go out of my way to seem approachable, I don’t smile unless something is funny, etc. But the graphic novels may just bring out such a spirit of geek solidarity, that fellow geeks figure I can’t be THAT mean, if I’m reading graphic novels. And to them, I’m probably not.
Yikes: Evidently, my internal editor has gone off to take a nap. I meant to type “Once, while waiting for the walk sign to cross the street, a guy started up a conversation with me…” And the it’s in the next sentence needs an apostrophe.
Brava, Lisa.
Being a fellow geek girl (and someone who works in a library if not a full-fledged librarian yet), I probably would’ve asked you the usual book-in-a-bar questions. In that spirit, what is Planetary about? (I’m just going to assume it’s good based on how much you enjoyed it.)
It’s pretty amusing that so many people still look at you funny if the book you’re reading happens to have pretty pictures to go along with the witty dialog and clever plotlines, yet they wouldn’t give it a second thought if you were reading a fashion magazine full of photographs. Actually, I’d probably dismiss a woman with Vogue or something of its ilk the same way you were dismissed by the she’s-not-a-threat crowd. Which is probably just as superficial of me, but there it is.
Awesome. I’m not a big fan of Planetary, so I hope you had enough booze to help you through it.
This was a real delight to read and to be honest the ide sounds wonderful! But I love reading comics anywhere.
This probably shows how much of a geek I am but I wouldn’t walk up and interrupt someone reading a book but if they were reading a comic I totally would, I love meeting new comic fans.
I work at a comics publisher across the street from a terrific dive bar. It works out pretty well. =)
Dive bars might work out better than an awkward airport hotel lounge full of off duty business types who tuck their t-shirts into their belted khaki shorts.