Saturday’s here, and so is Weekend Reading 199! All together now: this weekend, the Beat Elite will be holing up in Stately Beat Manor and getting lost in a good book. What will you be paging through? Be sure and let us know in the comment section, or over at The Beat’s page on Bluesky.
AVERY KAPLAN: When I blurbed Demon Wars: Scarlet Sin #1 by Peach Momoko for the Marvel Rundown back in May 2023, I wrote that I hoped the issue would get a nice oversize printing. Well, good news, everyone: it did! This weekend I’ll be checking out the oversize Demon Wars Saga trade paperback by Momoko, with English adaptation and dialogue by Zack Davisson, lettering by Ariana Maher, and edited by Lindsey Cohick. Then as far as prose goes, I’m checking out The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu. I was made aware of this trilogy thanks to Rosalind Chao, who played Keiko O’Brien on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Not only is she appearing in the Netflix adaptation of the novel, 3 Body Problem, but she’s also narrating the audiobook. However, I will be enjoying the read in trade paperback form!
GREGORY PAUL SILBER: Over the past year, there have been at least four movies that riff on Frankenstein (Birth/Rebirth; An Angry Black Girl and Her Monster; Poor Things; Lisa Frankenstein), and at least two upcoming Frankenstein film adaptations are in the works by filmmakers Guillermo del Toro and Maggie Gyllenhaal, respectively. Clearly, something is going on in the zeitgeist that’s got everyone thinking about Frankenstein again… but what? To investigate this phenomenon, I’m going straight to the source: Mary Shelley’s original 1818 Frankenstein novel. I’m already several chapters in, so stay tuned for a future Silber Linings in which I’ll explore why mad scientists and reanimated corpses seem to be on everyone’s minds these days.
TAIMUR DAR: As I mentioned last week, I’m suddenly all on board the Deadpool train thanks to the upcoming movie. Still working my way through the Gerry Duggan/Brian Posehn run. But it seems fitting to go to the early ‘pool years so I’m going to read the Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness Deadpool run that will defined the character.
DEAN SIMONS: “By Jove! You’re STILL reading the 1957 Edgar Jacobs’ Blake & Mortimer adventure Atlantis Mystery?!” Why yes, old chap. Yes I am. One simply shouldn’t rush such things.
KRISTINA ELYSE BUTKE: I’m checking out a new BL manga by Scarlet Beriko called Nagahama To Be, Or Not To Be. It’s a story about a teen named Nagisa who’s unfairly labeled a delinquent, and his best friend Issa who loves the fish market and the ocean, where they hang out daily. When it seems like Issa might have a girlfriend, Nagisa’s world is thrown into turmoil…does he like Issa more than just a friend? Is there a chance any of his feelings could be reciprocated? This sounds like a sweet little love story whose main plot may be a little familiar to me, but I don’t care. BL is my comfort food.
You can peruse the 198 previous entries in The Beat’s Weekend Reading archive by clicking here.
