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October 24, 2004
Humiliating
As you may know, I read comics on the subway every day. I am not the least bit ashamed of my choice of reading material. I don't hide it behind the Wall Street Journal or wrap it in a plain brown book-cover or anything. If other people have a problem with it, then hey, let them have their problems. Besides, there's usually a homeless guy taking up 3 seats and sitting in a pool of his own filth, and that inspires considerably more eye-rolling than a grown man reading the latest issue of the Fantastic Four. Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I even see my neighboring rider looking over my shoulder every time I turn the page! Rather than turning away from them, I try to tilt the book in their direction a bit.
Unfortunately, it seems that every time there is somebody looking over my shoulder, I turn the page in a Marvel comic and come upon the full-page ad shown at the right. Could there possibly be anything more mortifying than reading something containing this ad? I suppose that if I was actually wearing the Captain America costume with padded muscles with that sh!t-eating grin on my face, I would be more humiliated. For the love of all that is holy, would somebody at Marvel PLEASE stop the madness and quit running this ad in my comics? I can't take one more withering look of revulsion from a fellow commuter who sees me looking at that page and decides that I am the kind of person to whom that ad is directed. I just can't take it. It's enough to make me start hiding my comics behind something less humiliating, like maybe an issue of Hustler or a copy of "Everybody Poops."
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at October 24, 2004 06:10 PM