Welcome to What Are You Reading?, our weekly look at what the Smash Pages crew has been reading lately.
Let us know what you read this week in the comments or on social media.
Shane Bailey
Short and sweet this week as I’ve been reading ALL the Future State books, which you’ll be reading about here soon.
I’m reading Reckless by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips and they have these opening scenes down to a science! Every time they release a new book, it feels like an event. Like one of those films you have to see in the theater. It’s the experience. It’s special and you savor each page.
I also just finished Dracula Motherf*cker, and that book was next level. There’s something about an Alex De Campi book where you read it, read about it, and immediately go back and read it again. Every single time. Alex writes in layers. I love that. And Erica Henderson, all I can say is wow.I knew she was good, but this was amazing. This was seeing two amazing creators already, go out there and just say, you know what? Screw it. Let’s show them what we can really do. It felt energetic. It felt fun. It felt different. Then you read about it in the backmatter and yeah, they pretty much said that.
I had a chance to check out The House by Paco Roca from the library and it brought me to tears. It’s superb. It’s about three siblings that come to fix up their grandfather’s run down summer home after his passing. As they fix it up they remember him and work through their problems they had with him and each other. I absolutely loved everything about this book and highly recommend it.
Finally, I’ve been running through a bunch of Marvel Milestones I picked up from the recent comiXology sale for around a $1 a piece. I’ve been reading old Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker Spectacular Spider-Man, Marvel Team-Up, Champions, Deathlok the Demolisher, Ms. Marvel and War of the Worlds featuring Killraven, and it’s just been so much fun digging into 1970s and early 1980s Marvel again. It’s been almost a palette cleanser as I read one of these old school books and then a new one.
JK Parkin
Like Shane, I spent a good part of the last week reading all the Future State comics for a roundtable we’re working on; I’m hopeful you’ll see some of the fruits of our labors in the next couple days. But I did take a break to read some other recent releases, including Batman: The Adventures Continue #15-17. I’ve enjoyed this journey back into the Batman: The Animated Series universe immensely, and this three-part holiday story featuring The Ventriloquist, Scarface, the Joker and a super villain Christmas party hosted by Harley Quinn was just what I needed, even though the holidays are over. It’s a nice character study of the Ventriloquist, as he tries to leave his old life behind.
The other comic I really enjoyed this week was Scout’s Honor #1, by David Pepose and Luca Casalanguida. It is a post-apocalyptic story about a new society that rises from the nuclear ashes of the old one and follows the teachings of an old scout’s manual. It’s a fun coming of age story, with secrets, lies, highwaymen and giant irradiated boars; I’m looking forward to seeing where they go with it.