Green Line Cafe, 43rd and Baltimore, Philadelphia, PAI found the declaration and timing of this 'day' to be a little odd and slightly amusing, especially with the brouhaha being stirred up by the whole Glenn Beck rally on MLK's 'I Have a Dream Speech' anniversary. And I guess I've never been ashamed of reading comics in public anyway, I've done it before, and I'll no doubt do it again. My experience has been that no one has noticed or cared, or even realized that I was reading a comic. Maybe I've always gotten strange and hateful looks while I was reading, who knows...
However, I understand the purpose of the day, and so if it helps to raise the visibility of comics in the public domain, so be it. On my weekly excursion to Green Line Cafe, I brought along two books by Jason, Why Are You Doing This? and The Left Bank Gang. Jason is fast becoming one of my favorite artists, and these two books could well topple Goodbye Chunky Rice from the top of my favorites list.
I love this quote from The Left Bank Gang, spoken by none other than James Joyce (as an anthropomorphic bird). When asked why he does comics, he replies: "It's the only thing I know how to do. I can't drive a bus or hit a nail with a hammer. I can tell a story in tiny pictures and fuck up my eyesight a little more every day."
This pretty much sums up my philosophy for comics.
2 comments:
Holy Crap. You are a Jason fan too. I own almost everything he has made. Have you read Werewolves of Montpellier yet?
Hey, Wait... is my all time favorite graphic novel. I'm embarrassed to say I even wrote it into a screenplay for film in my youth.
I have read 'Werewolves of Montpellier,' though the werewolves part is a bit thin. As all things Jason, the book is not really about what the title might imply.
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