Staff Picks – Week of September 30th, 2016
Well, we have made it through another week. October is already here! Well…tomorrow. Be sure you check out the site, we will have a bunch of cool Halloween content throughout the month, including Hammer horror movie reviews, scary comic and book reviews, and a daily horror movie review from editors Amelia and Billy!
The past week we have been busy! We have reviews for the premier of Red Dwarf XI, the latest episode of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the documentary, The First Monday in May. We always have you covered for comic books, this week we reviewed ROM Revolution #1, Black Light District 6 Issues, Raven #1, Northguard #2, Postal #15, and The Re-Creation Project #1, just to name a few. And you know we have you podcast lovers covered. Check out Scooby Dos or Scooby Donts and the Comicsbound crew discusses the top 10 Batman villains! But now it is time for our picks of the week!
Ryan’s Pick of the Week – Heroes of the Storm – Machines of War is the latest big patch to hit Blizzards successful MOBA, Heroes of the Storm. Machines of War focuses on bringing in a bunch of StarCraft themed items to the game. To start things off, there are two new maps, Barxis Holdout and Warhead Junction. Barxis Holdout sees each time fighting over control points to sway more Zerg over to their side for a massive Zerg Rush, while Warhead Junction scatters Nukes that heroes can pick up to deliver crazy damage. There are also two new heroes, the Protoss anti-hero Alarak from StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, and Zarya, the second hero from Overwatch to come to Heroes of the Storm. Finally, the event is rounded out with three new skins, including a Legendary Ghost Skin for the Queen of Blades herself. The event has pulled me away from Overwatch, at least for a little while, but it is nice to see how the game has evolved since the Diablo themed event from last year. Hopefully this means a Warcraft event is around the corner, with Overwatch to come later too.
Josh’s Pick of the Week – For this week my staff pick is something I’ve been looking forward to for months and it’s finally almost here: The Flash Season 3. This coming Tuesday, October 4th, kicks off The CW’s fall superhero weekday line-up with The Flash’s third season. With two fantastic seasons under the show’s belt it’s hard to imagine how anyone isn’t excited for this season that starts of with one of The Flash’s most iconic stories in recent history, Flashpoint. Of course it’s going to be vastly different from the comic version of the story, but it’ll still hit the same basic beats to get the core idea of the story across. It is a shame though that Flashpoint doesn’t seem to be affecting the other CW superhero shows, even though they’re set in the same universe so it would not only be totally awesome, but it would make sense in the context of that world. With appearances from Kid Flash, Jay Garrick, Reverse Flash, Savitar, and so many other fantastic characters from The Flash comics, this season is looking to get even deeper into the crazy weirdness that is the comic books and I couldn’t be more excited!
Stephanie Pouliotte’s Pick of the Week – My pick this week in Kimi no Na wa (Your Name), a Japanese animated fantasy film about two teens who have gender-swapped dreams. The main characters, a girl from a rural village (Mitsuha Miyamizu) and a boy from Tokyo (Taki Tachibana), struggle with feeling trapped in their own skin and find an escape in their dreams as they mysteriously inhabit each others bodies and get to live different lives. Taki eventually resolves to find Mitsuha in real life, only to discover that her village had been destroyed by a comet three years ago. Taki’s quest becomes a race against fate as he tries to reconnect with Mitsuha to warn her before the comet decimates her village. The film showcases beautiful imagery of everyday Tokyo and draws on common themes in Japanese literature such as teenage angst and anxiety in the face of natural disasters. Kimi no Na wa has taken Japan by storm and is currently the highest-grossing film of the year netting over 10 billion yen (a first for a non-Ghibli anime film that isn’t based on a pre-existing series). The writer/director Makoto Shinkai is hailed as someone who could fill the void left by Myazaki when he retired in 2013. If you like this film, I can’t recommend Shinkai’s other works enough!
Greg’s Pick of the Week – Last weekend while attending a comic convention I got the chance to meet K. Lynn Smith and talk to her briefly where she introduced me to her series Plume. While I am going to have a full review up sometime next week I wanted to make sure people knew about this book ASAP. Plume follows Vesper Grey, a 16 year old girl, who starts the series living a normal, rule filled, mundane life with her aunt while her father travels around the country on various adventures. What she doesn’t know is that one of the artifacts that her father gave to her comes with a mystical guardian named Corrick, who’s purpose is tied to the holder of the artifact that will lead her on many adventures and change her life forever. Smith’s writing is great throughout as it is filled with some great interactions and even better humor. What shines for me even more than the writing is the art. Smith’s art pops throughout the book. Many panels where she could have just written the story out she instead allows her art to express the emotions of her characters. I found myself smiling and chuckling a bit at the knowing sideways glances between Vesper and Corrick. A full review will go up later but know that you will not be disappointed if go out and grab Volume 1 today.
Robert’s Pick of the Week – My pick of the week is Surgeon X. Karen Burger is the editor for the book and she has edited all of your favorite Vertigo books back in the day. She is responsible for bringing the likes of Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and Neil Gaimen to comics. She left Vertigo three years ago and has been working as a consultant to many book companies. Karen pushes the creators on her books to really explore facets of stories that are not typical to comics. This is why she is my favorite comic book editor. Surgeon X was the idea of Sara Kenney. She won the Wellcome Trust Grant. They basically gave her money and told her go/create. The book is about antibiotics no longer working on humans because all forms of viruses have become immune to basic antibiotics. It’s a flash forward look at the future cost of doctors giving out antibiotics as chew candy. This book was a great read and the social commentary was well situated. I love what Image is currently doing and this book is added to my pull list for the foreseeable future. 
