It’s been one hundred weeks since we began The Beat’s longest-running Shut In Theater feature, and now that we’ve reached Weekend Reading 100, we can’t imagine stopping now!
Just like every weekend for the past two years (give or take), we’re once again holing up in Stately Beat Manor and spending the hours until Monday morning getting lost in a good book! As always, we hope that you’ll share your reading plans with us as well, either here in the comment section or over on social media @comicsbeat.
AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend, I’m going to be reading Afterlift by Chip Zdarsky, Jason Loo, Paris Alleyne, Aditya Bidikar, and Allison O’Toole… and when I opened the copy of the TPB I got from my LCS, I discovered that there’s a bookplate signed by Zdarsky and Loo on the inside front cover, featuring art by Jeff Lemire. Viva physical media! And thank you Nuclear Comics in Laguna Hills, California for continuing to be awesome.
While my @comiXology reader is seemingly starting to stabilise (hasn’t crashed today), not all books have smooth page turns or transitions – – – usually the once Kindle-exclusive titles. I feel like I would have a better time if this were a pdf and read on Adobe etc. pic.twitter.com/bwLc64452K
— Dean Simons (@dsimons_123) February 23, 2022
DEAN SIMONS: It has been over a week since that botched new Comixology/“Kindle Comics” rollout and I have been pushing myself to use the app. The fact that what was once a seamless, pleasurable experience is now a glitched and sluggish one hurts immeasurably as I don’t have the luxury of always having my physical books with me. Currently I am reading Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack (whose print editions are hard to find). So far at volume 2. It is a joy despite moments that show its age. I am also reading Tite Kubo’s Bleach. With the loss of HD comics in MANY cases from the shift to Amazon’s Kindle servers, Bleach is one of the losers. When the pages get too fuzzy to read, I jump to the Shonen Jump app which is occasionally better. That will be my weekend.
JOHANNA DRAPER CARLSON: I’m going to be reading some more graphic novels to be added to my SherlockComics.com website – and thanks to Heidi for mentioning it – such as Sherlock Holmes vs. Harry Houdini (by Anthony Del Col, Conor McCreery, and Carlos Furuzono) and The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (based on Nicholas Meyers’ novel). Also, in much more timely fashion, Darryl Cunningham’s Putin’s Russia: The Rise of a Dictator is now out. I’m not sure I want to read it, but I feel as though I should.
TAIMUR DAR: I wear my love for the current iteration of DC Super Hero Girls that Lauren Faust developed and various tie-in media on my sleeve. With the upcoming Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse crossover movie in a few months, it seems a good time to check out the TTG/DSGH crossover in comics form with the Teen Titans Go! / DC Super Hero Girls: Exchange Students crossover original graphic from writer Amy Wolfram and artist Agnes Garbowska. Wolfram of course is no stranger to writing both TTG and DCSHG having worked on the OG 2003 Teen Titans cartoon. So I’m excited to read the graphic novel for myself!
GEORGE CARMONA 3RD: To close out Black History Month I’m picking up a book that hasn’t been in circulation for a very long time, but recently that was rectified with a new trade paperback, Truth: Red, White & Black. If you enjoyed the subplot in the recent Disney show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, about the Black super soldier Isaiah Bradley, this book is the origin of that character created by writer Robert Morales and artist Kyle Baker. A dark corner of the Marvel universe is explored as we learn about the Black soldiers who were experimented on in the research to replicate the super soldier formula that created Captain America.
BILLY HENEHAN: I finally took the plunge, and bought the first volume Taschen’s oversized Marvel Comics Library, The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 1962-1964. The fact that I waited this long to buy this book is a testament to my self control, though I always knew I could only resist so long. Unfortunately, resisting cost me, and I missed out on one of the numbered Famous First Editions. My copy is sadly unnumbered. But it is still very impressive! I’m in the middle of reading the stellar opening essay by late 90s Amazing Spider-Man editor Ralph Macchio. Soon I’ll be into Steve Ditko and Stan Lee’s amazing Amazing run.
CY BELTRAN: For the past month I’ve been trying to decide if I wanted to buy a copy of Volume One of The Complete Peanuts collections at a shop in downtown Chicago. Right when I had finally decided to buy it…someone else grabbed it from right under my nose. So, instead, I picked up the earliest volume I could, which collects the years 1957-1958. I’ve read a lot of Peanuts from my mom’s collection, but I’ve never owned my own volume, so I’m excited to crack this open and check it out.
