SHUT IN THEATER: Weekend Reading 166

Midsummer has arrived, and it brought Weekend Reading 166! As is our custom, the Beat Elite will be spending our weekend inside Stately Beat Manor, lost in a good book. 

What will you be reading this weekend? The Beat wants to hear from you! Give us a shout-out, right here in the comment section or over on social media @comicsbeat, and let us know what you’re thinking.

AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend I’m checking out TaleSpin: Flight of the Sky-Raker and Other Stories (The Disney Afternoon Adventures Vol. 2). There are tons of creators who worked on this thirteen-story collection, which includes comics created from 1990 – 1997. While there’s a high probability that some of these stories will be re-reads for me, I don’t think I’ve had the chance to read those that were previously published only outside the United States. Plus, while I enjoyed the first volume of the series, this second entry includes a “Timon and Pumbaa” story. 

CY BELTRAN: Not sure how much I’ll be reading this weekend, but if I find the time I plan to take a day at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago and check out some of the incredible booths (and hopefully snag a few interesting ARCs!). I’ll also be trying to wrap up Stephen King’s The Dead Zone before taking a break from his books for a little bit… I’ve been really enjoying them so far but I think I need to check some of the other books out on my to-read list as a bit of a breather.

TAIMUR DAR: Between the Ultimate Universe making a comeback this week in Ultimate Invasion #1 and revisiting the original Ultimate Spidey issues, I’m feeling nostalgic for those early Ultimate Marvel books. When I got back into comics, Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch were just wrapping up The Ultimates 2. So this weekend I’m going back to check out the trade collection of the first Ultimates series they did. Likewise, I’ve been on a Mark Russell kick lately and with Pride Month coming to a close, it seems fitting to read his acclaimed Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles comic miniseries with artist Mike Feehan. 

DEAN SIMONS: I have a lot of comics to read for research and other things but recreationally I will be making more headway with my 2000AD backlog of weeklies. I am up to September 2022’s Prog 2298 which has a neato cover by Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague. Progs 2298 and 2299 see the wrapping up of the latest batch of serials, notably the actual finale of James Peaty and Paul Marshall’s entertaining scifi romp Skip Tracer which started all the way back in 2018’s Prog 2081. After a special zombie-themed Prog 2300, the comic starts a new batch of serials.

You can peruse the 165 previous entries in The Beat’s Weekend Reading archive by clicking here. Weekend Reading is edited by Avery Kaplan.