Saturday’s here, and it’s brought Weekend Reading 196! As you might imagine, the Beat Elite are holing up Stately Beat Manor and getting lost in a good book. What will you be paging through this weekend? Be sure and let us know in the comment section!
AVERY KAPLAN: We may be late to the party, but Rebecca Oliver Kaplan and I finally caught on to Gravity Falls. We binged the show before it was removed from Hulu on Wednesday (only to discover it’s still streaming on Disney+… whatever). Now I’m ready to dig a little deeper into the world with Gravity Falls: Journal 3, written by Alex Hirsch (the series creator) and Rob Renzetti and illustrated by Andy Gonsalves and Stephanie Ramirez. You know this book will be good because the dust jacket has pull quotes from Guillermo del Toro, R.L. Stine and Grunkle Stan (“This book is amazing! BUY IT TWICE!!”). I’m sad to have exhausted the forty episodes that make up the show’s wisely finite run, and I admit I’m not ready to say goodbye to this weird little animated corner of the Pacific Northwest. Iba P ruvd dl’ss tlla hnhpu zvtl zbuuf khf!
CHRISTIAN ANGELES: Two years ago I met Amy Chu at a convention and bought her first book, Girls Night Out. I plan on finishing it this weekend as I slowly get through the trades like I’ve accumulated since 2020. So far it’s been a pretty excellent read with a mix-match of stories written by her and a slew of different artists. I’m curious to learn more about creative’s first projects, as I’m very much in that phase in life myself.
TAIMUR DAR: I recently joined an online graphic novel book club. This month we’re reading the first volume Once Upon a Time at the End of the World from writer Jason Aaron and various artists including Alexandre Tefenkgi, Lee Loughridge, Nick Dragotta, and Rico Renzi. It came out last year from BOOM! Studios and is luckily available on Comixology Unlimited.
KELAS LLOYD: I’ve been on the waitlist for Babel by R. F. Kuang at the local library and it’s finally my turn. I’m excited to jump into it, and I’ll admit the Hugo drama made me even more curious. I also received a review copy of Sam Nakahira’s Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape. I love her work so I have very high hopes here.
BILLY HENEHAN: Thanks to the wonderful Brooklyn Public Library, I’ll be poriing through Jack Kirby original art in Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four Artisan Edition. I love that BPL decided to invest in copies of this art book from IDW. Scott Dunbier did a great job putting this together, reproducing original art from Fantastic Four #71, 82-84 and Annual #6. If you’ve never sat down with an Artist’s Edition or Artisan Edition, I can’t recommend them enough. Artist’s Editions reproduce original art at their original size, and Artisan Editions reproduce them at about double the size of a comic. Both are beautiful in their presentation.
KRISTINA ELYSE BUTKE: This weekend I’ll be reading The Genius Puppeteer Loves the Holy Knight Fiercely, a BL manga by Hatoba Kogarashi. The title drew me in and then the beautiful art on the cover. The manga is about a holy knight named Gilbert who was captured at the end of the war, and instead of being executed, is rescued by Chris, the opposing kingdom’s puppeteer and master artificer. Chris’s plan: make Gilbert into an immortal doll. To be honest, this one sounds a little outside of my wheelhouse but I’m very, very curious. And of course, the art is gorgeous, too, so I’m happy to dive into this.
REBECCA OLIVER KAPLAN: To be completely honest, I am still catching up on my weekend reading from last weekend. In addition to last week’s books, I also plan to read a graphic novel that I picked up at San Diego Comic Con last year: Mexica by Kayden Phoenix, with pencils by Fernanda Lozada, ink by Aster Santiago, color by Gaby Zermeño, and letters by Sandra Romero.
DEAN SIMONS: At last year’s Angoulême Festival, I recalled seeing a new addition in the Thorgal series called Adieu Aaricia [“Goodbye Aaricia”]. At the time I freaked out because I thought the new creative team (the original creators Jean Van Hamme and Grzegorz Rosinski retired in 2019) killed off his beloved wife in the main series. Turns out I was wrong – this is a special tale outside of the main series’ continuity, in which an artist can tell their own story based on beloved characters. In Robin Recht’s tale we see Thorgal, the stoic viking warrior from beyond the stars as an old man and in the opening he bids a tearful goodbye to his wife as he sets her to rest. In heartbreak and pain the aged hero says “I cannot live without you”…and an old foe appears to offer him a devil’s bargain. Since an English language release is unlikely or far off, I am reading the French edition, published by Le Lombard in 2023.
You can peruse the 195 previous entries in The Beat’s Weekend Reading archive by clicking here.
