In praise of guilty pleasures

“Guilty pleasures” are usually defined as something not-literature or otherwise not-classy that you enjoy anyway, and it feels a little like playing hooky when you read or watch or listen to it. Where does the guilt come from?

My guilty pleasure was comic books, best of all Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, the early days of Marvel Comics when Stan Lee and friends were just getting started. They were my gateway drugs to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson and Georg...