1 Head to the Mitchell Library
It might be a struggle to get tickets now but tomorrow night comics writer Mark Millar is appearing at Aye Write. Fresh from the big-screen success of Kingsman: The Secret Service and with his latest series Chrononauts and Jupiter's Legacy currently in the shops (if you're quick off the mark), Millar will be talking about about the graphic novels that have inspired him over the years. What are the chances Mark Beyer's Amy + Jordan will get a mention?
2 Time travelling with Paul B Rainey
It has taken cartoonist and Viz contributor Paul B Rainey seven years to complete his graphic novel There's No Time Like the Present (Escape Books, £18.99), but it's been worth the wait. What begins as a very British satire on comics geekery (the great advantage of time travel, it turns out, is you can get future episodes of Doctor Who. Emmerdale too, if you really want), becomes a moving essay on ageing before spinning off again onto another tangent as we encounter a post-death universe.
Rainey's cartooning is the opposite of flashy but its simplicity grounds the story. The result is a quiet, bittersweet pleasure.
3 Viewing pictures at an exhibition
Opening at Good Press on Saturday is a new exhibition from Edinburgh artist Malcy Duff which will include pages from two new comic books, The Stagnant Water inside a Bath Duck and I Trimmed a Tree So a Lorry Could Pass, both of which will be issued during the exhibition's run.
Comics commentator and historian Paul Gravett has argued that Duff might be Britain's "most intriguing surrealist who uses comics", someone who "is stretching and twisting the medium into unexpected shapes". The exhibition at Good Press is a perfect opportunity to get a taste of Duff's graphic experimentalism.
Pages From the Stagnant Water Inside a Bath Duck & I Trimmed a Tree So a Lorry Could Pass opens at Good Press, 5 St Margaret's Place, Glasgow on Saturday at 3pm with an afternoon of performance readings and continues until May 30.
4 Indulging in a little comic-book psychogeography
Publisher Nobrow are the go-to people for beautifully produced left-field comic books and Victor Hussenot's The Spectators (Nobrow, £14.99) is no exception. An arthouse mood piece about urban life it's a lovely evocation of big city sadness and the grimy beauty of the urban landscape.
5 Going to the movies
To be honest I'm not one for superhero movies (way too much CGI for my liking) but the new Marvel movie Avengers: Age of Ultron, which comes out on Wednesday, does feature The Scarlet Witch and the teenage me used to have something of a thing for Wanda Maximoff. Elizabeth Olsen plays her in Joss Whedon's movie. Without the weird headgear if the stills are to be believed though. Pity.
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