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AiPT! Staff Picks - June 2017

Comic Books

AiPT! Staff Picks – June 2017

Comics, film, games – at AiPT!, we love it all! We’re also very generous, which is why we want to share what we love with you. Here are our staff picks for June 2017!

AiPT! Staff Picks - June 2017

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David Brooke: Media & Content Manager

Favorite Current Comic Series: My favorite current series might be Green Lanterns as it’s consistently good at mixing character work and action. Rock Candy Mountain is slowly becoming a lot of fun from the indie scene.

Favorite Current TV Series: I’m a huge fan of The Handmaid’s Tale and I even hosted a party for the finale. It’s dark and depressing, but so well made.

Last Great Movie You Saw: The last movie I saw that was really good was Equals starring Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult (best known for playing Beast in the recent X-Men films). It was the perfect kind of science-fiction film as it wasn’t too over the top with effects, but incredibly immersive in the world. I haven’t seen a science film quite like it since Gattaca.AiPT! Staff Picks - June 2017Current Gaming Addiction: Star Wars: Battlefront is so flipping addictive. The sequel comes out later this year–and looks amazing–but this is my go-to for a quick hour of FPS gameplay.

Coolest Recent Purchase: I recently purchased the Marvel Legends Moon Knight action figure. I really love what they did with his armor and head sculpt. Plus it’s the modern take on the character which is cool.

Biggest Pet Peeve of the Moment: Spoilers in the titles of articles. Comicbook.com does it and other comic book websites and it’s just obnoxious. It’s also rather annoying when other sites “review” a comic but it’s really just spoilers. I get they need the views, but have a little self respect when writing criticism!

AiPT! Staff Picks - June 2017

Ken Petti: Contributor

Favorite Current Comic Series: Extremity by Daniel Warren Johnson from Image’s Skybound imprint. At its surface, it’s a revenge tale set in a brutal, broken, fantasy world. There is a lot of deeper stuff, though: identity crises, family tragedy, a struggle to survive, being consumed by anger, forging your own path. This doesn’t even mention Johnson’s awesome art, full of cool designs, widespread panels, and the most effective sound effects I’ve ever seen in a comic. He clearly puts a ton of himself into this book. If you’re looking for something new, give Extremity a shot. One of the best books on the stands.

Favorite Current TV Series: It’s definitely not current, but my wife and I are rewatching Seinfeld, mostly as a palate cleanser for The Handmaid’s Tale, which can get pretty heavy. I’ve seen a lot/most of the episodes, but my wife hasn’t, so it has been a lot of fun guiding her through the series. It has stayed remarkably relevant; things like pay phones and contemporary pop culture references are really the only things that show any age. I’m really glad I can now make Seinfeld references that she’ll get.AiPT! Staff Picks - June 2017Current Gaming Addiction: The Witcher 3. I got it back in November for my birthday, and started playing in January-ish. Since then, I have been living The Witcher lifestyle: cruise around on Roache, kill some monsters, complete a few quests, dominate Gwent. I’m 72 hours in, and am expecting a least another 50. I’m expecting my first baby in November, so I’m shooting to be done before then.

Coolest Recent Purchase: As thanks for picking up the slack during my wife’s rough first trimester, she bought me a set of Guardians of the Galaxy Geeki Teeki cups. They’re pretty silly and cool, and conveniently fit a full beer or two. They will be all the rage during summer cookouts. The Guardians are the one Marvel franchises she really likes, so it’s cool that we both have something nerdy to sip out of (she obviously gets baby Groot).

Biggest Pet Peeve of the Moment: Marvel’s recent trend with trade paperbacks. They have been padding out collections and story arcs with extra issues of sometimes totally random books. I get that not all arcs are a nice, neat six issues. And I definitely don’t want them to force that on writers for the sake of trades. It’s just, when I get an Ant-Man trade that has four issues of Ant-Man, and one issue of some truly random, middle-of-the-arc issue from a totally unrelated issue, that is just kind of annoying. Especially because they charge you full price. I’d rather have a slimmer, cheaper trade, or a bigger, more expensive trade, than one that is padded out with junk.

AiPT! Staff Picks - June 2017

JJ Travers: Instagram & Contributor

Favorite Current Comic Series: This is a hard choice given how many amazing series are out right now. Star Wars: The Screaming Citadel, Low and Batman Beyond are all killing it right now. But I have to give the title of my favorite to James Stokoe’s Aliens: Dead Orbit. Stokoe has dug up the roots of what made Alien so special and combined it with his unique and ridiculously detailed art style, to produce an utterly fantastic comic book.

 

 

Favorite Current TV Series: I read American Gods for the first time ever earlier this year without any idea that it was coming to television. I guess I’ve got really good timing. Book aside, the show is fantastic and can easily stand on its own. Visually it’s in a class of its own, the style is wonderfully unique and quite simply stunning. My biggest surprise though was the acting. I didn’t expect it to be as good as it is. Ian McShane is absolutely incredible in his role as Mr. Wednesday.

Last Great Movie You Saw: Doctor Strange. I don’t recall the circumstances that caused me to miss this when it was in theaters. I’ve always been a big fan of Benedict Cumberbatch’s work and with few exceptions, all the Marvel Studio films have been great. Thanks to Netflix, I was finally able to catch this flick and it didn’t disappoint. Cumberbatch nailed the arrogant doctor who finds the inner strength to swallow his pride and serve the greater good. Marvel delivered an impressive and dizzying Inception-like world, that opened a new mystical-based chapter in the Marvel cinematic universe.

Current Gaming Addiction: Nostalgia struck me recently when I came across a Warcraft III reddit post. So I reinstalled last week and have absolutely loving replaying this game. The story is so well done and the missions are all really fun.AiPT! Staff Picks - June 2017When I’m looking to waste time I’ll play Hearthstone until it makes me rage quit.

Coolest Recent Purchase: Nixon “Sentry” watch, stainless steel with leather band. The first watch I’ve bought for myself if you don’t count the Apple Watch. It’s very well made, looks classy but it’s not too expensive and I’ve had several people compliment me on it.

Biggest Pet Peeve of the Moment: Two words: Bathroom etiquette.

My girlfriend and I recently went to Vermont and stopped at a rest stop en route. On entering the one and only stall the bathroom held, I was greeted with a toilet lid completely smeared in shit. It was as if a new lid made entirely of shit had been formed over the existing lid. Feces on the floor, walls and toilet tank and of course a big upper decker unflushed.

Some of you might say, “Hey, it’s a rest stop, what did you expect?”, but wait there’s more! I work in the information technology department at a college in Boston. My office is in a nice, modern building with a lot of nice, hardworking professionals. Due to this, I believe it’s fair to hold the expectation that basic human decency and hygiene is upheld. Either my expectations of reality are warped or I work with a bunch of sociopaths. Nearly every single day I enter the bathroom and I’m greeted by a toilet filled with unflushed shit, dirty toilet paper all over the floors, piss puddles, the list goes on.

Why do people behave like wild animals in the bathroom? Do your business, flush it, wash your hands and move it. UGH.

AiPT! Staff Picks - June 2017

Michael Rosch: Contributor

Favorite Current TV Series: The Leftovers literally just wrapped its final episode in June, so I’m counting it as a current series. This is a show that definitely is not for everyone. Its flawed first season introducing us to a world two years after the inexplicable disappearance of a random 2% of the world’s population is so bleak that it was often a chore to subject yourself to watching it week to week. But it was Season 2, when the writers took the story beyond the events of the original source material and started taking incredibly bold, risky creative choices, that the show became one of the greatest explorations of how we cope with a world where our loved ones can be taken from us so suddenly I’ve ever seen. Series leads Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon (who’s also killing it this season on Fargo) deserve Emmy Awards. And, as far as I’m concerned, the recent series finale redeemed Showrunner Damon Lindelof for his disappointing ending of Lost.  

Last Great Movie You Saw: I just discovered that, long before The Player, Adaptation, or Cabin in the Woods, Hollywood attempted a big budgeted deconstructionist film in 1964 called Paris When It Sizzles. Despite starring Audrey Hepburn and William Holden, seemingly nobody’s heard of it. It’s hardly a masterpiece, and it completely bombed at the box office. Hepburn herself called it her worst film. But a Hollywood-produced film outside of the avant-garde French New Wave so ahead of its time that so nakedly exposes the cliches and tropes of 1960s Hollywood conventions seems like it belongs in the annals of cinematic history, and yet I can’t find any references to it in more scholarly writing about deconstructionist films. Despite the film’s many flaws, I feel slightly like the title character in Hugo, rediscovering some lost, groundbreaking work that time forgot and wanting to help get it the recognition it deserves.AiPT! Staff Picks - June 2017

We know you have picks of your own – share them in the comment space below and we’ll see you next month!

 

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