Shut In Theater: Weekend Reading 204

Saturday’s here, and it’s brought Weekend Reading 204! What will you be paging through this weekend? Be sure and let The Beat know in the comment section, or over on social media!

AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend, I’m going to be reading Cabin Fever: The Harrowing Journey of a Cruise Ship at the Dawn of a Pandemic by Michael Smith and Jonathan Franklin. This sounds terrifying, but I’m glad I’ll get to read it as a nonfiction book before it’s eventually inevitably made into a TV movie. Then as far as comics go, I’m revisiting a classic with The Far Side Gallery by Gary Larson.

REBECCA OLIVER KAPLAN: I’m spending this weekend recovering from surgery and reading Ghost Book by Remy Lai.

CHRISTIAN ANGELES: I’m spending this weekend reading issues 1 and 2 of X-Men ‘97 by Steve Foxe and Salva Espin. Then will finish up Local Man vol. 2 by Tony Fleecs and Tim Seeley. 

TAIMUR DAR: I’ve been so busy last few weeks that my weekly comics reading pile has been piling up. At the top is Batman: Dark Age #1 by Mark Russell and Mike Allred, the thematic follow-up to their fantastic Superman: Space Age project. Like Christian, the second issue of the X-Men ‘97 comic tie-in is also on my agenda to read this weekend. Among other highlights from my pile is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures—April Special by Erik Burnham and Tim Lattie. 

DEAN SIMONS: Having finally caught up with my weekly 2000 AD subscription (for now), I next move to another backlog – the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine. If six months was bad for 2000 AD, on the Megazine I am no less than 3.5 YEARS behind! It’s a shame as I missed out on some absolutely fantastic series – not least the debut of fascinating Dreddworld prequel series Dreadnoughts by Michael Carroll & John Higgins, and the pulp noir alt universe mystery of Kenneth Niemand & Dave Taylor’s Megatropolis. Great stuff.

D. MORRIS: After watching the first episode, I’m catching up on Negi Haruba’s Go! Go! Loser Ranger!. The basic premise is pretty clever; what if a super sentai team was a sham and one of their monsters had to stop them. Also I picked up A-Do by Amano Jaku whose art looks like a middle ground between Akira Toriyama and Katsuhiro Otomo.

KRISTINA ELYSE BUTKE: I’m diving into a new BL series by Yuu Minaduki called Engage. Volume 1 just came out and it’s about chef Mei Suzumori whose favorite holiday is the Tanabata Festival in Japan. It’s a romantic holiday, and on one festival day, a handsome stranger named Naru graces his restaurant. Mei immediately and impulsively professes his love…but it turns out there’s a connection there that’s deeper than he realized. 

The other manga I’m reading (not BL) is Bless Vol. 1 by Yukino Sonoyama. In this manga, a teenager named Aia was scouted as a model at a young age, but his real passion is wanting to work behind the scenes as a makeup artist. He meets a classmate, Jun, who is self-conscious and ashamed of the freckles on her face. Aia asks to team up with her for a fashion show, with him doing her makeup. The two make a dynamic duo and learn more about themselves in the process, including embracing newfound confidence and facing obstacles head-on. 

Two very different manga, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy both of them!

You can peruse the 203 previous entries in The Beat’s Weekend Reading archive by clicking here.

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