Recently, The Morning News asked readers to submit their favorite guilty reading. I sweated over a submission, trying to decide whether I was more addicted to pulpy paperbacks or food writing. Or is it Lois Duncan I crave when I'm useless for reading anything else? In the end, I decided that I couldn't decide, crumpled up the paper I was writing on and threw it into a wire wastepaper basket. Which is just nonsense: who writes things on paper anymore?

If I were to be totally honest, though, I'd tell you that what I've really been craving lately is a copy of Viz.

I can remember the first time I picked up a copy of the bawdy British comic on a cold, wet December day in a tiny town near the very center (sorry, centRE) of England and nearly choked on my Cadbury Twirl. Cartoons that curse and do drugs! What's this? These snowmen! They're *gasp* having sex with snowwomen! I read Viz at seventeen like a twelve year old boy stumbling over his first copy of Playboy. (Is that a snownipple?)

The craving welled up again as we sat around digesting leftovers on the day after Thanksgiving. I mentioned it out loud, and to the perplexed amusement of my parents, J and I started listing our favorite Viz characters.

"Johnny Fartpants!"
"The Critics!"
"Farmer Palmer! 'Get orf moi laaaand!'"
"Felix and His Amazing Underpants!"
"Paul Whicker, The Tall Vicar!"
"The Modern Parents!"
"Finbarr Saunders and His Double Entendres! Fnarr! Fnarr!"
"Two Fat Slags!"
"You mean The Fat Slags..."
"Sorry, was confusing them with Two Fat Ladies."

I plan on stuffing my amazing underpants with J's old copies when we're back this Christmas so we'll never find ourselves without a copy again. Because no one should ever be without access to one's guilty pleasures. And it's not just the poo jokes and drunken snowmen; it's an important part of British comic history as well.

Yes, that's it: I read it for the articles.