The first week of Shut In Theater is complete, and that means it’s time for the weekend! We asked the Beat staff to share the comics they’ll be reading. Let us know what you’re digging into in the comments!

JOE GRUNENWALD: I have a stack of books I got for my birthday last month, including Frogcatchers by Jeff Lemire, Two Dead by Jeff Jensen and Nate Powell, and New Kid by Jerry Craft. I’m planning to work my way through some of those this weekend.

AVERY KAPLAN: I have two books I’ve been meaning to get to for a while that I’m planning on reading: Jughead The Hunger Volume 2 by Frank Tieri, Michael Walsh, Pat & Tim Kennedy, and Joe Eisma, and Animosity Volume 1 by Marguerite Bennett and Rafael De Latorre.

ARPAD OKAY: This weekend I am diving into the unknown with two graphic novels: Becoming Horses by Disa Wallander, which is exactly what it sounds like, and a molecular space opera from Linnea Sterte, Stages of Rot.

AJ FROST: The main book I’m diving into this weekend is Fante Bukowski: The Complete Works by Noah Van Sciver. But I also have Fantastic Four: Grand Design by Tom Scioli, and two volumes of The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa. I also have Danny Fingeroth’s Stan Lee biography A Marvelous Life on the nightstand. 

JOSH HILGENBERG: The first comics I read every morning (mostly because they’re sent to my inbox, but also catharsis) are from The Nib, but I also recently re-upped my Shonen Jump sub, which means catching up on Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia and possibly diving into some of The Promised Neverland by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu

TAIMUR DAR: Right before the release of Strange Adventures, it occurred to me that I had yet to read the first collaboration from Tom King and Mitch Gerads, Sheriff of Babylon. Weeks before the current pandemic, my LCS had a graphic novel sale so I picked it up along with a more recent of Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier that includes tons of great behind-the-scenes material and the one-shot Animated Special which I had never read.   

GREGORY PAUL SILBER: I’ve been embarrassingly behind on monthly floppies since before the pandemic, so I’ll catch up on Undiscovered Country by Scott Snyder, Charles Soule, and Giuseppe Camuncoli, among MANY others. Beyond that, I think it’s about time I climb the Mt. Everest of my “to read” collection: Jack Kirby’s Fourth World omnibus!

Chuck Forsman's Automa #1 and #2

BILLY HENEHAN: I recently ordered the first two issues of Chuck Forsman’s Automa mini-comic, the comic that he’s producing for subscribers to his Patreon. The first 13 issues are available direct from Chuck through his Oily Comics storefront for people like me who missed out on getting in on the Patreon earlier. If I dig Automa, I plan to play catchup with more issues and hop on his Patreon. On a side note, Greg is tempting me to finally order that Jack Kirby’s Fourth World omnibus!

PHILLIPPE LEBLANC: The plan for the first weekend reading is to both catch up on books I’ve been meaning to read for a while. I also plan on reading some work to my son that I think he would enjoy, he’s turning four soon, and he’s been picking books at random to go through, I’ll put some interesting ones in his hands. For me, the first read will be Yoshitoki Oima’s A Silent Voice and the new Noelle Stevenson’s memoir The Fire Never Goes Out. For my son, we’ll read Tove Jansson’s Moomin and the Comet and Moomin’s Winter Follies.

RICARDO SERRANO: I’ve been saving Jodorowski and MoebiusThe Incal for a special occasion for a while now, and though these are special times for other less favorable reasons, this book has ticked all the boxes for quarantine reading. Its world is a dream of psychosexual sci-fi magical realism that sucks you into the story with its eccentric characters and lush settings. There’s nothing like getting into a sprawling fictional world when having a lot of time on your hands and Incal has been precisely that for me.

CHLOE MAVEAL: With all of the comic shops and bookstores shut down completely here in Portland, I’m digging back into my home comics library for some nostalgia comfort. So it looks like there will be lots of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, Alan Moore and Alan Davis’ D.R. and Quinch from 2000 AD, and if I’m feeling particularly stir-crazy and anarchistic, Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. Apparently this is going to be a pleasant weekend of contrasting comics that have aged well with ones that make me go “aaaa yikes”. 

HUSSEIN WASITI: I’m excited to finally dive into Walt Simonson’s Thor run, courtesy of my local library. I’m lucky enough to have checked out the entire trade collection just before all the libraries in Ontario closed until the middle of April, so I can take my time with it. I also bought the first Once & Future trade from my local comic store and I’m looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about. Also, now’s the time to finally crack open my copy of Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen, which has been on my to-read pile for an intimidatingly long time. 

GEORGE CARMONA 3RD: I didn’t make it to my Comic Shop to pick up my stash, I’ll be utilizing my Amazon Prime Reading to the fullest as it has select collections that are free for Prime members. I’m going to try and bang out Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis, the completest in me just need to know and Benjamin Percy’s Teen Titans Vol:1 Damian Knows Best, I’ve been digging his current X-Force run so I want to take a look at his back catalog.