What an idiot! When I was nine I threw away my unfinished Crusader Rabbit coloring book. I thought I had outgrown it. And this is my problem. I can never guess trends, even ones as obvious as this. According to a
recent article in the NY TIMES (so it
has to be true), the latest fad is adult coloring books.
They’ve occupied as many as eight of twenty spots on Amazon’s Best Seller List. 1.3 million adult coloring books have been sold. Just think how many more books I would have sold if I had
drawn my memoir instead of written it! All that effort trying to make it funny and weave in current events when people would rather just color in a page of me attempting to folk dance or the Watts Riots.
Why are adult coloring books so popular? They relieve stress. At least that’s the theory (probably first discovered by the Crayon company). It’s a distraction, it’s fun, and you can post your finished product on the refrigerator. I’d like to think that as middle-agers your drawings will kick ass over your five-year-olds’. You can finally take down that crappy Spongebob scrawling and replace it with an eye-popping rendition of Ned Stark being beheaded from GAME OF THRONES. (Have plenty of red.)
I am course am being a facetious blogger (and jealous author), but does this method work? Do any of you color? I will say this, adult coloring books are a lot cheaper than Xanex (I assume you can buy them without a prescription), safer than alcohol (I’ve yet to see any signs that say: “
Don’t drink and color.”), and you don’t need your kid to install it and teach you how it works.
This fad has really taken off. There are coloring clubs, coloring contests, and if you’re an AARP member you can probably get senior discounts on crayons.
So what are examples of adult coloring books? “Creative Cats,” “Game of Thrones” (you thought I was joking), “Stress Relieving Patterns,” and landscapes. I wonder if restaurants that provide coloring books for kids will now also have adult selections. “What would you like? We have
the Adventures of Chuck E. Cheese or
Scenes from Guantanamo.” I’ll tell you where adult coloring books would really come in handy – sitcom writing rooms. Practically every writer I know doodles in the margins on his script. Usually they’re angry renderings. And in most rooms there are three or four writers who don’t contribute. At least if they’re coloring in Prague Ghettos they’re not chiming in with stupid punctuation corrections.
So my question again is: does this art therapy work? Is it an inexpensive fun way to relieve anxiety or another one of those chic fads like water bars or toilet cafes? Weigh in, dear readers. And if any of you happen to have an unused Crusader Rabbit coloring book please send it to me. Thanks.