One-hundred fifty weekends later (give or take) and the Beat Elite are still spending our Saturdays holed up in Stately Beat Manor for Weekend Reading 150! It’s been a long road, getting from there to here. What fresh hell will we find ourselves in when we’ve been through another 150 weekends? Place your bets now! My money’s on extraterrestrial invasion.
In the meantime, we hope (as always) that you’ll share your reading plans. It’s true: The Beat wants to hear from you! Give us a shout out, down in the comment section or over on social media @comicsbeat, and let us know what you’ll be paging through.
AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend I’m going to be checking out This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone. Then, I’ll be checking out Marvel Graphic Novel No. 14: Swords of the Swashbucklers by Bill Mantlo, Jackson Guice, Ken Bruzenak, and Alfred Ramirez. Published in 1984, I don’t know much about this oversized OGN, but I’m eager to dive in.
RICARDO SERRANO: This year marks the 125th anniversary of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a landmark horror story that’s perhaps one of the most adapted and reinterpreted pieces of fiction in history. Not only am I watching Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version of the story this weekend (with Gary Oldman playing my favorite version of The Count), but I plan on reading the comic book adaptation by Mike Mignola and Roy Thomas, a fine adaptation of an adaptation that earns the read thanks to Mignola’s signature art style and Thomas’ already vast experience writing Dracula with other artists (Dick Giordano among them). Looks like it’s a weekend full of blood, of the drinking kind I hope.
TAIMUR DAR: I’ve begun my journey into the works of acclaimed horror manga artist Junji Ito and I’ve liked what I’ve read so far. This weekend I’ll be reading his Deserter and Shiver short story collections. For years I’ve been meaning to read the original comics run of The Authority but have been hesitant for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that its trademark cynicism and brutality isn’t something that appeals to me in these times. Nevertheless, the team and characters have managed to endure and be part of the DC Universe plus a film adaptation is on the slate from DC Studios. I’ve read the first 12 issues and enjoyed it enough to move on to the second volume.
CY BELTRAN: I burnt myself out a bit from all the X-Force I read last week, so I’ll be keeping it light with X-Force Annual #2 and X-Force #26-28, by Fabian Nicieza, Mat Broome, and Tony Daniel (joined by an army of inkers). I also plan to dive into The Girl From H.O.P.P.E.R.S. by Jaime Hernandez, as I’ve been slowly working my way through Love & Rockets, starting with Jaime’s Locas. Maggie and the Mechanics was fantastic, and from what I’ve checked out of the beginning of this second volume, it keeps getting better.
REBECCA OLIVER KAPLAN: After years of hunting, I finally found more of the Marvel Comics adaptation of Stephen King‘s The Stand at Southern California Comics in San Diego, CA. I found the hardcover collections of “Hardcases” and “The Night Has Come,” both by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Mike Perkins, and Laura Martin. Since we’re snowed in, I have big stack of “to-read” for the weekend, including a TON of Star Trek comics, Super-Abled Comics, edited by Travis Rivas, and The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adam.
You can peruse the 149 previous entries in The Beat’s Weekend Reading archive by clicking here.
