For the ninety-fourth weekend, The Beat team is reading.
It’s somehow the weekend once again, and that means the time has arrived for Weekend Reading 94!
As always, here at Stately Beat Manor, we’re hoping you’ll share your reading plans with us, as well. Give us a shout-out, either here in the comment section or over on social media @comicsbeat and let us know what you’ll be reading as you join us in denial of the horrible impending reality of Monday morning!
AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend, I’m going to be finally catching up with Spider-Man: Life Story by Chip Zdarsky, Mark Bagley, John Dell, Andrew Hennessy, and Frank D’Armata, Matt Milla, and Travis Lanham. While I did get to read the J.Jonah Jameson-spotlighting annual about this singular take on Stan Lee & Steve Ditko’s most famous creation, I did not get the opportunity to read the rest of the series, so I’m looking forward to checking it out. Then, I’ll be checking out Juni Ba‘s Monkey Meat #1, which has already won me over thanks to the incredible inside cover.
TAIMUR DAR: I’m cautiously anticipating the upcoming The Batman film when I (hopefully) see it in theaters in March. Director Matt Reeves cited Batman: Ego from writer/artist Darwyn Cooke as an inspiration for the film during the DC FanDome panel so it’s been on my list to read for awhile. See that the Batman: Ego and Other Tails collection is available on the DC Universe Infinite app so I’m going to enjoy some acclaimed Cooke Batman comics. Likewise, I’m continuing my reading of Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha manga epic having read the first volume last weekend so I’m moving onto the second volume.
DEAN SIMONS: Somehow ended up stuck in the middle of two longer prose works – dystopian The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa plus Benjanun Sriduangkaew’s scifi novella And Shall Machines Surrender. I hope to finish one of these. Comics-wise, probably early volumes of Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (the Phantom Blood arc).
ARPAD OKAY: I’m not sure if it qualifies as reading but there is a book I will be spending some time this weekend wishing I could live inside. Visions 2021 Illustrations Book is just that, an anthology of contemporary artists, curated by Pixiv, recently published in English by Yen Press. Half the book is portraits of manga girls doing manga things, some of them totally inspired, some of them embarrassing cheesecake. The other half is several hundred varieties of slice of life, mundane or super fantastic it ranges from artist to artist. There are 170 of them, everyone with two pages, alpha by artist, simply the best utter overload to flip through. There are maybe a half dozen loose genres or styles/movements within the scene, with real standout talents across each of them. Some of my favorite Pokémon card artists are here, 0313 and hyogonsuke, a few artists I know from international illustration social media circles like Heikala, a lot of environmental artists like Hirotaka Tanaka and Asteroid that I am super geeked to get to know, more I want to talk about but will save for actually talking about some time soon elsewhere on the Beat.
My works in the Visions 2021 illustrators book ✨ There are works by so many of my favorite artists here, so happy to be among them😭💕 @visions_pixiv pic.twitter.com/hlLvspg6aa
— Heikala (@heikala_art) November 12, 2020
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