SHUT IN THEATER: Weekend Reading 162

Saturday is here, and it’s brought Weekend Reading 162! We know this won’t be surprising, but we’ll be spending the time until Monday holed upside Stately Beat Manor, lost in a good book! What are you planning on reading this weekend? The Beat wants to hear from you! Let us know, here in the comment section or over on social media @comicsbeat.

AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend, I’m checking out Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth with illustrations by Sara Lautman. I hadn’t heard of this prose novel, but my spouse Rebecca Oliver Kaplan brought me a copy from New York City and I can’t wait to check it out. The book not only opens with a map but also includes a “This Book Belongs to [BLANK]” page, so even before making it to the first word of the first chapter, I’m already being won over. Then as far as comics go, I have another gift, this time from The Beat’s Managing Editor Joe Grunenwald: Diary of a Girl Next Door: Betty by Tania del Rio, Bill Galvan, Bob Smith, and legendary letterer Jack Morelli. I’ve never read this 2014 prose/comic hybrid, and I’m eager to amend that omission!

TAIMUR DAR: Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of attending the US Book Show where I got to see Bone creator Jeff Smith. I met him once before at my first NYCC in 2007, but this was my first time seeing him since I joined The Beat. I can’t express enough how influential Bone was on me as a kid growing up. Then, of course, I dug RASL as an adult. While at the US Book Show, I picked up a copy of TUKI: Fight for Fire so I’ll finally be reading another Jeff Smith classic.

DEAN SIMONS: To unwind from long days (and late nights) of research and deadlines I have been reading more of the Cinebook translations of Franco-Belgian favourite Edgar Jacobs’ Blake & Mortimer. I finished The Yellow ‘M’ [La Marque Jaune], and jumped straight on to its follow up Atlantis Mystery [l’Énigme de l’Atlantide] translated by Jerome Saincantin. Originally serialised in Le Journal de Tintin between March 1955 and May 1956, Atlantis Mystery involves the discovery of the lost civilisation. I went into the book cold and really enjoyed the sudden jump from gorgeously rendered pedestrian adventure to mind-blowing out there ‘50s science fiction. Very entertaining.

REBECCA OLIVER KAPLAN: The queer sports graphic novel from Ollie Hicks and Emma Oosterhous, Grand Slam Romance, appears to be the week’s MVP with Team Beat, and I’m looking forward to checking it out this weekend. With Pride Month just around the corner, I also plan on reading a queer comix classic, Howard Cruse‘s Stuck Rubber Baby. And finally, a while back I found a copy of Afterglow, written by Pat Shand, with art by K. Lynn Smith and lettering by Jim Campbell. The cat on the cover looks exactly one of the Kaplan cats making the comic the perfect choice for Caturday.

CY BELTRAN: Last weekend, I had an amazing time checking out Chicago Zine Fest over in the West Loop, and grabbed a ton of cool comics from some great people! So with the long weekend, I’ll be trying to make my through all (or most) of them, with work from Andrea Bell, Hink, Anna Jo Beck, Caroline Cash, Jess Kuczynski, Ben Marcus, Maria Iqbal and Bryan Baynes (of the fantastic Bubbles fanzine). Please check out the attached websites/Instagrams for some fantastic comics! And then if I have time, I’ll be reading Stephen King’s Night Shift, naturally.

You can peruse the 161 previous entries in The Beat’s Weekend Reading archive by clicking here. Weekend Reading is edited by Avery Kaplan.