SHUT IN THEATER: Weekend Reading 173

Saturday has arrived, and it’s brought Weekend Reading 173! What will you be reading this weekend? Let The Beat know in the comment section!

AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend I’m checking out the first four volumes of Toilet-bound Hanako-Kun by Aidairo, with an English translation by Alethea Nibley and Athena Nibley with lettering by Jesse Moriarty and Tania Biswas. I don’t actually know anything about this series, but Rebecca Oliver has been reading it and one of the benefits of having another reader in the house is pilfering their leftovers. Qapla’!

DEAN SIMONS: I recently procured a copy of the English translation of Edgar P. Jacobs’ The U Ray [Le Rayon U] – translated by Jerome Saincantin and published by Cinebook. It is Jacobs’ precursor to his famous series Blake & Mortimer and it has quite a curious history. The U Ray was first serialised in 1943 in a children’s magazine in Nazi-occupied Belgium after the French edition of Flash Gordon was abruptly removed following a decree that US-originated material be banned (Note: Belgium was invaded and occupied in 1940, US entered World War 2 in 1942). The removal of Flash Gordon was so abrupt that Jacobs was first assigned to do a final page to tie up the Flash Gordon serial for readers before coming up with something brand new. The end result was The U Ray. The Cinebook edition seems to be from a post-1973 republication as Jacobs later added word balloons since the original 1943 story only had captions. Fascinating (and gorgeous) stuff.

ARPAD OKAY: This weekend I plan on checking out Will Tempest’s Harsh Prospect on Webtoon. I’ve seen Tempest’s Kickstarter for the collected series floating around the decaying remains of my Twitter feed, and it definitely looks like the take on colonialism through a science fiction lens is my bag. I just backed The Hard Switch by Owen Pomery, and Simon Roy’s Griz Grobus, another Webtoon crowdfunded into print, has been one of my favorite books this year. I thought I was burned out on twilight survival sci-fi, living it every day makes reading about it less enticing— but I keep finding new things that are building upon instead of adding to.

TAIMUR DAR: As I mentioned last week, I’ve been on a Robert Kirkman comic kick lately. While I’m still continuing my Invincible read, I think I’ll finally check out The Walking Dead. Aside from the odd issue here and there and the first few seasons of the AMC television series, I’ve never really read too much of TWD despite all the acclaim. I’ve already begun the first trade and I’m enjoying it thus far so I’ll likely continue the next few trade collections over the weekend.  

CY BELTRAN: I’m still bouncing between a million different stories at once, but this weekend I plan on wrapping up 1994’s Phalanx Covenant, a crossover I find to be very much just ok, but one that’s vital to finally reading Generation X. I’m also gonna be checking out Steve Orlando and Sara Pichelli’s new Scarlet Witch series, a title I’ve heard a lot of praise for (some of which comes from this very site!). Then, of course, I’ll be making myself read a bit of Cujo, which is far more of a character study than a horror novel so far (though that dog is BRUTAL).

You can peruse the 172 previous entries in The Beat’s Weekend Reading archive by clicking here.