Last Book Day was the first one I signed living in Zaragoza. In the morning I was at Fnac in what can undoubtedly be said to be a relaxed atmosphere and in the afternoon at the Taj Mahal Cómics stop near Plaza España, where the atmosphere was rather festive. And it’s logical, Book Day is a wonderful celebration, in addition, April 23 is combined with the fact that it is also the day of Castilla y León and Aragón, so it catches me up close everywhere (I am from Valladolid, I live in Zaragoza and besides being a journalist I am a writer).
And while I waited for the arrival of one of my readers, I will not deceive you by saying that there were hundreds (but there were at least some), I saw a mother berate her son for looking at comics. Or more than scolding, what he said was “That doesn’t interest you, they’re comics” and since the kid was still small, he shouldn’t even have been twelve years old, he paid attention and dropped the little volume he was holding.
But… if he took it in the first instance it was because he was attracted to it. Because of the drawing on the cover, because of the colors, because it reminds you of a series… Who knows? The only certainty is that it was so and that should have been all. The boy should have left there with him, perhaps now the world of cartoons would have a new reader.
Of course, perhaps what really happened is that the mother did not feel like stopping and that it was more her who was not interested in comics. I wonder but unfortunately it’s something very common, there is still today an important sector of the population that considers comics to be something second class (and no, there is no second class reading). It is true that there are comics that are only to pass the time and others that are not even, so what? All of us who read can yank several titles of novels that do nothing but the same thing and that is also not a bad thing, light and fun reading is needed.
But I’m getting off topic, a little kid’s interest in a comic. Maybe it was going to be the first comic in his life, maybe the story that finally made him read straight away, but it won’t be like that. We will never know if a new reader would have been born there, another author, perhaps someone who in the future was going to revolutionize that field… But you know, they’re just comics.
And so we continue in the middle of 2023.
