Stuff We Like This Week: June 5 Edition
Stuff We Like This Week: June 5 Edition
Jun 05
In an effort to combat our occasional…okay, okay, near-constant negativity, we give you a regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday, SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the past seven days.
Matt: Two brief encounters with geekdom in the “real world” were head-noddingly cool:
–At the Orlando Magic game last Saturday, as the Magic kicked into one of their several great runs, the loudspeaker blasted the opening title theme from Star Wars. My father-in-law turns to me and punches my shoulder and says, “Hey, it’s your song!” Yes. Yes, it certainly is.
–Walking into the Magic Kingdom for my daughter’s third birthday yesterday, what should be playing on the loudspeakers at the gates but “Yoda’s Theme” from The Empire Strikes Back.
I think maybe geeks really do run the world nowadays. Either that, or I’m being stalked by Lucasfilm.
Sarah: As y’all know, I try to avoid irritating geekish pronouncements of the “You MUST read/watch/consume this!” variety.
However.
You MUST read I Kill Giants. Joe Kelly’s masterfully-crafted tale of acerbic 5th-grader (and self-proclaimed giant-killer) Barbara Thorson is sweet and funny and sad and perfect. It’s the kind of comic I would give to both people who deeply love the medium and people who have never touched so much as an Archie. I don’t want to give away too much more about it, because part of the joy is the discovery of the story, which addicts you from page one, keeps you hooked throughout, and eventually reduces you to massive, heaving sobs if you have so much as a semblance of a heart. And the art by JM Ken Niimura is gorgeous — the characters practically vibrate off the page.
Post-script: I also very much like the staff at Midtown Comics, who helped me find the not-quite-shelved-in-alphabetical-order collected edition. Thank you!
Chris: This week is the 25th Anniversary of Ghostbusters. As is next week. Here’s the deal — Ghostbusters had its Hollywood premiere on June 7th, 1984. That would be 25 years, Sunday. It’s general release was on the 8th. Both are next week. And this past Tuesday, American Movie Classics began showing Ghostbusters 1 and 2 back to back, as the start of a month long celebration of the big two-oh. Only, because they don’t say things like, “We’re starting now, but the 25th anniversary is actually next Sunday,” Twitter lit up like a Christmas tree, with people squealing, “Happy anniversary Ghostbusters!” and “25 years today? Holy cow!” and “Ghostbusters is three years older than I am! I feel old.”
Most plunk my nerd nerve, and that last one just sucks (I saw Ghostbusters in theater. First week. Using my allowance. I feel old.)
But that’s OK, because this is what I’ve stuck around for 25 years for and this is why I ran my website for the last decade. June is Ghostbusters month. Unofficially.
Blu-ray, the video game, new comics, and I got a swag pen in the mail yesterday — it’s slime green with a green ooze-filled top. I must now become Prime Minister, just so I can sign a missile treaty or something with it.
Just a warning — my Stuff We Like for the coming weeks will likely be very similar to this one.
Jeff: This week, I’ve been nuts about very diverse things.
Like that last issue of Northlanders. The book is consistently one of the best I read each month, but Vasilis Lolos, whose work on Pixu and Last Call is just amazing and must-read stuff, guesting on art makes this standalone, all-fighting issue one of the best in the series so far. Lolos draws the most beautiful violence, especially in a medium that has watched its fight scenes get less and less dynamic in recent years.
Like True Blood, which I’ve just started seriously watching since I didn’t start reading the Sookie Stackhouse books until the first season was nearly completed. It’s airing three episodes per night on HBO right now, so if you like shows that air in marathons, you should definitely give it a watch.
Like UP, which I’ve been working on a review of for just about a week and will post sometime soon. It’s not the best Pixar joint, but it’s a reminder that even the worst Pixar flick (A Bug’s Life) is still pretty great.
