The first Saturday of 2023 has arrived, and it brought Weekend Reading 144!
While it may be a new year, here at Stately Beat Manor, we’re still spending our weekends getting lost in a good book. What will you be paging through this weekend? The Beat wants to hear from you! Let us know, either right here in the comment section or over on social media @comicsbeat.
AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend, I’ll be completing my journey through Maison Ikkoku by Rumiko Takahaski with the tenth volume of the Viz Signature release.
DEAN SIMONS: Recently felt the urge to revisit the mid-‘00s Image series Elephantmen. I hadn’t read it in some time and decided to go back to the start. One of the things I enjoy about it – aside from some very interesting heady themes – is that Richard Starkings invokes so many references to classic British comics and scifi in those early issues with Moritat. Also, after a few weeks’ break, I am continuing my readthrough of Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura’s Blue Lock (a soccer manga which is still surprisingly entertaining for a guy who doesn’t have much interest in sports).
TAIMUR DAR: Since subscribing to his Substack I’ve been on a Brian Michael Bendis kick lately. Having been first introduced to his work through Marvel back in the day, I thought I’d properly check out some of his non-superhero work I’ve been meaning to read for some time like Jinx, Pearl, and Joy Operations.
REBECCA OLIVER KAPLAN: From graphic medicine to speculative fiction to ancient Hebrew divination, I have a wide range of reading material on my slate this weekend. For my birthday, my friend and fellow scribe Gregory Paul Silber bought me Harold Roth‘s The Magic of the Sword of Moses and Elisheva Nesher‘s Casting Lots: Ancient Hebrew Divination Magic. Both books look dope AF, and I can’t wait to learn how to wield the Sword of Moses for magical purposes, master the art of lot casting and interpretation, and more. I am also starting a comic book that has been on my to-read pile for a year, Comic Sense by Nancy Mucklow, which uses the sequential art storytelling format to teach common sense and social skills to people with Asperger’s and ADHD.
