Do you read comic books?

No, I don't =)

Not often. Every one in awhile when someone really raves about a comic I'll check it out. I enjoy reading an actual novel much more.

Aha! I knew there had to be something we agreed on =P

I do, graphic novels which in some instances are just a compilation of long story that has been written under different titles of the same character.

Nope never touched one. Graphic novels never interested me that much. I briefly read manga at some point in my life and that's about it.

As a general rule of thumb, I keep "leisure" reading to a minimum.

never really been a comic ready but i did start reading The Walking Dead comics, im on issue 7

I used to read comics when I was little(before elementary school) but never touched any since then. Not my kind of thing.

I watch justice league and thats it.

Never really been into comic books, read a few when I was younger. It often (not always) feels that something was missing when reading comics. That there are a lot of things going that isn't mediated, between the squares in the the comic,

Rarely, I read more manga than comic books.

not anymore, you have to spend too much for the amount of entertainment you get.

i sat down and worked out the math years ago and on a dollar spent per hour of entertainment type scale drugs are no shit cheaper to do than comics.

These days I'm only reading The Walking Dead and Fables.

well, yes to some degree. The fact that they don't sell them here and the import tax is insane makes it hard. But i try to read them wherever i can

I don't know how you feel about digital comics, but you can venture in that sphere as well. Most Comic publishers have a subscription service where you can a ton of series from their inventory onto a digital platform. Example is Marvel has Marvel Unlimited where you can get access to decades of content and of course the latest stuff. I'm unsure if import taxes applies there, but it is something to certainly look into if you haven't already. =)

Graphic novels, DC Comics and Mangas so yes.

I stopped reading when my parents got me a PS2.

Yes.

Only The Walking Dead. I started reading it LONG before the TV show started and it's a great series that I'd strongly recommend.

May I ask why? I'm asking because I've heard the same advice before about keeping "pleasure" reading to a bare minimum but I never really understood why.

You been reading anything recently?

I'm obviously not talking for Gaza but I've heard from some people that reading should be used to improve your intelligence and your culture, and that pleasure reading (normally fiction) dulls the brain instead so they refuse to do it. (They also proceed to vegetate in front of the TV all day and playing video games =P)

I never heard that before, but I can understand why some people believe that. I know for myself I don't want to stop reading fiction as there is a lot of good stories and philosophies ingrain in them, but I do hope one day I can venture into the realm of reading books to improve my own intelligence and intellect. Just so I can become a better well rounded person. Anyway, thank you for giving me the insight. :)

@behardy24: No problem; I also believe you can do both...I love my fantasy books and I even write some of my own but that doesn't mean I'm unable to read something "higher level" if I want to.

I agree. The Walking Dead comic is ultra amazing. Kirkman should really be praise in the way he can juggle around so many characters and so many relationships with such ease. Also, at least for me, the realistic-ness of the series makes it hard to consume any other zombie stories without thinking it is silly.

I myself just started reading Fables. (Bigby is my avatar pic at the moment :D ) I bought the deluxe edition that comes with 10 issues. I finished through it last week and I thought it was pretty neat. I saw a lot of parallels between pre and post World War 2 in there as well as symbolic characters. I hope to continue reading through more of it pretty soon. How far into the series are you?

The average individual doesn't afford to dedicate much time for reading so whatever time I manage to fork out for that during the day I reserve for productive reading, reading that contributes something of value to me. To be fair though, pleasure reading can be productive in its own way. A fantasy novel can nourish one's imagination which is an asset just like any other "hard" asset but the opportunity cost is often unjustified and there are better media for that end, i.e movies and animation in particular.

More importantly though, I find pleasure reading to have a much higher rate of "adverse reading" which is reading material that is poisonous and potentially pathological of the mind and the senses. I recently finished reading a novel called a hundred years of solitude. Someone kept raving about it and asking me to read it until I finally did. I have developed the habit of finishing a book that I started no matter what so despite the fact that the novel felt on multiple occasions like an erotic novel, full of demoralizing smut and sexual deviancy, I read all 350 pages. Its not that it was not entertaining at times; I actually did enjoy it to a considerable extent, but my time would have been better spent reading some book that actually mattered without the incest fetish and god knows what else.

I read manga most of the time. But my friend got me into comics recently.

During my childhood days... i used to read comics like marvel, and manga until high school. Now, as a young man, Im longing to do it once more.

Never have, never will.

No I've never read one and I don't want to, comics just don't interest me.

I was busy riding bikes or playing baseball, basketball and football as a kid. I never did read comics and never really understood their appeal. I generally don't even watch films rooted in graphic novels/comics.

I found that pleasure reading, for me, greatly improved my spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. Many works of fiction also contain a lot of factual information. The story may be fabricated, but the author may relay historical or scientific information (or whatever) that is rigorously fact checked.

Brain function improves after reading novels:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2529855/How-book-really-change-life-Brain-function-improves-DAYS-reading-novel.html

@bforrester420: Yep, it definitely improves my vocabulary, especially when reading in a language other than my mother tongue.