Coloring books

You know, I DO NOT NEED another hobby. But I have to say, these new adult coloring books are really quite tempting.

Here’s a post at tor.com about a new Sherlock coloring book.

One does see articles like this one at the New Yorker, declaring that adult coloring books, like YA stories, are inherently childish and thus reflect a negative cultural shift away from adulthood. While I’m certainly willing to decry some of the directions American culture seems to be taking, this argument is surely too silly to actually need refutation. I mean, think about it for two seconds and I’m sure you will recall that the extremely similar hobby of paint-by-numbers was popular among adults in the fifties, a decade seldom held up as evidence of a trend away from acceptance of adulthood in American culture.

Anyway, Sherlock is okay, I guess, but I was never into Sherlock Holmes and don’t care about the modern reprise of Sherlock. No, the coloring book that tempts *me* is Rachel Mayo’s dragon coloring book, which I saw at Archon and nearly but not quite picked up.

Ah, yes, dragons! Even though I can hardly justify spending time with coloring books, no matter how elegant, I really am *very* tempted. Next time I see one of Mayo’s coloring books, shoot, I’ll just pick it up so I can *look* at it now and then. And pick up a nice set of colored pencils. Surely one drawing a month wouldn’t be too self-indulgent?