SHUT IN THEATER: Weekend Reading 98

Saturday has arrived, and that means the time has come for Weekend Reading 98! This won’t be much of a shock, but The Beat team is once again spending the weekend holed up in Stately Beat Manor, getting lost in a good book!

As always, we hope that you’ll consider sharing your reading plans with us, as well! Give us a shout-out, either right here in the comment section or over on social media @comicsbeat and let us know what you’re planning on reading as you ignore the inevitability of Monday morning!

AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend, I am re-reading all six issues of Made in Korea by Jeremy Holt, George Schall, and Adam Wollet. In addition to the incredible A-story, as back matter, the series includes six short comics set in the world of Made in Korea, but by six different cartoonists: Ron Chan, Ben Cohen, Eunjoo Han, Wook-Jin Clark, Dave Cole, and Fred Chao (with lettering by DC Hopkins on Chao’s comic). While the series was incredible while reading chapter-by-chapter, I’m eager to see how it plays when all the pieces are assembled (and you can find out for yourself by picking up the Made in Korea TPB, which is available now and includes all the back matter comics). As far as prose goes, I’ve been working on a piece about noir detectives, and as such, I can’t help but return to one of my favorite stoner noir stories: Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon.

TAIMUR DAR: As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been using this time I’ve been stuck at home to finally devote time to read books that have been on my list for years. The comic series, Saga, for instance from writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples is one such work. It’s one of those things that everyone’s praised and kept meaning to read but life (per usual) constantly got in the way. Now that it’s returned back after the long hiatus, it seems fitting to start it so I’m going to be reading the first Saga Vol. 1 trade collection. Likewise, for lighter reading I’ve become hooked on the Big Nate comic strips so I’m continuing reading those. Definitely much lighter reading than Saga! 

CY BELTRAN: For this weekend, I plan on catching up on the books I picked up from my shop this past Wednesday. I loved Ram V, Anand RK, John Pearson, and Aditya Bidikar’s Blue in Green, so I had to pick up the first two parts of their Wight Witch story in Batman: Urban Legends #11 and 12. I’ve been waiting to get the trades for V’s Catwoman run, but I couldn’t wait to see what this team did here. I’m also excited for stories by Vita Ayala, Nikola Čižmešija, Mohale Mashigo, Arist Deyn, Mark Russell, and Karl Mostert. I also picked up another DC anthology in Strange Love Adventures. I love the holiday books DC puts out, and I’m most looking forward to the stories by Stephanie Phillips, Jon Sommariva, Devin Grayson, Roger Robinson, Ram V, and Phil Hester. Finally, I was obsessed with Juni Ba’s Monkey Meat #1, so I rushed out to two different comic shops to find a copy of issue #2. It’s some of the most energetic and emotive work this year and I cannot wait to crack it open.

ARPAD OKAY: I picked up the first volume of the Osamu Tezuka epic, Buddha. I’ve never been able to connect with Astro Boy, even after ripping through Urasawa’s Pluto, but I have fallen hard for Tezuka’s shōjo work in recent years and generally been looking to give him more chances. This late 80s uhh biopic of Siddhartha looks good and weird. Tezuka’s style reminds me of Ub Iwerks or early Walt Disney. It definitely gives the surreal moments a comedy that seems at odds with the weight of the book’s subject and the tremendous suffering and squalor everyone in it goes through. Plagues and starvation and yuks. Into it. Hey Vertical/Kodansha! No translation or lettering credit? My copy is a tenth printing, y’all have had plenty of time to do better. I deeply appreciate the last thing someone says to their loved ones before being devoured alive by a snake in front of them is “Take it easy.” But I also appreciate whoever chose that turn of phrase and put it on the page for me to read.

DEAN SIMONS: Still making my way through Gene Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer. Still digging it. Also still reading through Hiro Mashima’s debut series Rave Master. Having reached the ninth volume of the series, I clearly must be liking something about it. One interesting thing is seeing Mashima’s art improve. I was more familiar with his more recent series Fairy Tail and it is quite something seeing an artist grow and find their feet in an early work – especially when they are hitting the ground running.

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