There have been lots of comic book based coloring books to come out, and honestly they are a whole lot more fun than some of the other coloring books that have been published and marketed toward adults. Who wouldn't want to take a crack at coloring some of our favorite comic panels? Because these have basically been the actual comics, sans color -- not the coloring books of yore that were thick black lines with no details, created solely and originally as coloring material.

The nice thing about ARCHIE'S HOLIDAY COLORING BOOK is that there are so many years to pull from--decades, even, from covers to pin-ups. The word balloons have been left intact for the jokes, and many of them are some classic Dan DeCarlo Betty and Veronica images.

No matter how fastidious you are in maintaining your comic shop pull list in your never-ending battle to make sure you don't miss anything good (or accidentally waste your money on something not so much), it never hurts to do a last minute check on what's coming out this week so you can make those fine-tuned adjustments.

Here are our looks at this week's upcoming comics, and our hot takes on whether they're a pick or a pan. Your mileage may vary.

Retro games have been out on the market for some time now. You can find them in any store's toy aisle, with classic titles like Pac-Man, Asteroids, and others. The catch: they're almost all Plug-and-Play. Which is fine if you don't mind sitting within four feet of the screen.

Enter AtGames and their new line of Flashback Blast!

To illustrate what makes these games different, we ran one of the units through an experienced video game tester.

I've expressed previously my love for the old DC horror titles like GHOSTS and HOUSE OF SECRETS, or Charlton's MIDNIGHT TALES (featuring the Midnight Philospher and his hot little niece, Arachne), and how disappointing it is that such titles don't exist in the market these days.

I stand corrected. There is at least one title out there that captures the twist-ending, twisted-horror that these older books did so well, albeit with a touch more mature language. Zenescope's GRIMM TALES OF TERROR continues to bring the Twilight Zone-esque feel with stories that have endings you simply don't see coming.

"Don't Flash Your Lights" builds on an urban legend about gang initiations that involve random killings.

Click to enlarge.

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” 
― George Orwell, 1984

We communicate with words. We may communicate crudely or eloquently, but nevertheless we do it with words. And as we mature, we learn there are words that are better than others, and there are words that are not spoken in polite society.

And then there are words that are not only looked down upon, but they are controlled. They can be said, but only by certain people. This act of protectionism embues a word with power, ideally to remove the power of hate from it when used by those who would use it thusly.

We know the most prominent of these words by their first letters. The F-word. The N-word. Say them in the wrong place, or be the wrong person, and your environment can quickly change.

Which is why it was such a shocking moment when X-Man Kitty Pryde dropped one of these bombs in the classic X-Men graphic novel, GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS.

The biggest challenge I face as a critic is telling you, my wonderful readers, about films I truly enjoy. When a film is terrible, I have no shortage of material. When a film is just so-so, I can explain the good and the bad in equal parts. However, when a film knocks my socks off I don't really want to tell you anything about it. I want to transform into my 10 year-old self and say, "Ohmigod you have to see this! It's so hilarious! There's this one part that had me laughing so hard but I can't tell you about it because it would ruin your fun so why are you still here holy crap go see it and then we'll talk!" And that, my friends, is how I feel about Ralph Breaks The Internet. 

It’s amazing to me how modern country music has lost its differentiation from other forms of modern music, like it sold its soul to rock and roll. Today it all seems like just rock music with just a touch of country added, no doubt to stay more mainstream and modern.

What a breath of fresh air it was, then, for me to listen to WHO I AM from TJ Hernandez.

Immediately upon clicking on the first track in my player, I realized I wasn’t listening to mainstream country pop music. (Huzzah!) I was listening to old school country--in voice, lyrics and musicianship, this was country music as it was when it was known as Country and Western!

The songs are lyrical stories, with the first song, “Corporate Man,” being a well-constructed song. Just by reading the lyrics you would say, “This is a Country & Western song.” And with its pedal steel and twangy guitar, it completes the picture.

People can't get enough of MARS ATTACKS, as the big-brained aliens seem to re-attack us every couple of years now.

This viewpoint of the alien invasion is grounded by the story of a man and his elderly father. It's a contentious relationship, as the older man is a conservative retired U.S. Marine with a cantanerous attitude, while the younger one is more of a pacifist who has never lived up to his old man's expectations.

The two of them find themselves on the run for survival when the Martians attack the nursing home, leaving the entire landscape charred. Now with the son pushing the father in a wheelbarrow -- the only mode of transportation they could find -- the two encounter a militia group ready to take on the invaders. They're armed to the teeth with all kinds of guns, and one of them even has a bazooka.

Adventure in the fashionable fifties continue as Bettie Page finally gets her own ongoing series, after a few minis and a Halloween One-Shot. The pin-up queen, who came to comic book prominence largely thanks to the tireless efforts of the late Dave Stevens, now leads her own series as a special agent, working a division that deals with U.F.O.s and extra-dimensional threats.

Sevi Ettinger is a 15 year old with a heart for her fellow human being’s suffering. And while there are many songs written about the ravages of war, few are written about the suffering of all the refugees on this world, as humans flee for their lives and the lives of their children to start a better life, only to find themselves still living in harsh conditions and unable to fulfill their dreams.

SALTY WATER is an EP album of 4 songs filled and expressed with the long suffering that Sevi has felt for these refugees. The title song, “Salty Water,” was written by her while living in Shanghai, with the aid of an app on her phone as she was moved by the plight of the Syrian refugees.

For those two or three of you who haven’t seen the trailer yet for the live-action Detective Pikachu film, may we present to you:

So yeah, not only did they actually go through with it but what has already been shown in this one trailer has already blown away people's expectations entirely. This does make us wonder though, what other difficult to adapt games and anime might be suited to live-action film or television to be released somewhere down the line?

No matter how fastidious you are in maintaining your comic shop pull list in your never-ending battle to make sure you don't miss anything good (or accidentally waste your money on something not so much), it never hurts to do a last minute check on what's coming out this week so you can make those fine-tuned adjustments.

Here are our looks at this week's upcoming comics, and our hot takes on whether they're a pick or a pan. Your mileage may vary.

After decades upon decades of the Big Two being the place to go for comics, with distribution ranging from the classic spinner rack at the corner drug store to a direct sales market structure, a new way of getting comics has been gaining traction: Crowdfunding. Whether through Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or other means, creators have found ways to take charge of their ideas and bring them to the masses without having to dilute them through the traditional channels.

One of those projects that's been generating a lot of buzz is LITTLE GIRL LETHAL, starring the enigmatic and sexy Sugar Lightspeed. But as intriguing and arousing as the artwork appears, what is LITTLE GIRL LETHAL all about?

We sat down for a chat with Sugar's creator, "Slick" Jimmy Love, to get an in-depth and personal look at the world next door -- a world of sexy assassins where seedy sins aren't necessarily hidden in the shadows; the world of Sugar Lightspeed."

I don't get it. Any of it. Clearly, J.K. Rowling's latest film franchise is beyond me. That bothers me a bit because I greatly enjoyed the Harry Potter films, except for the Deathly Hallows Part One, or as I call it, "The one where the puberty-angsty teen wizards go camping and whine at each other for almost three hours." Hey, at least I understood what they were doing and why, I just thought it was terribly boring. 

For all it's suspense, this episode of RIVERDALE isn't without some problems.

Betty (LILI REINHART), having learned the dark secret behind the game Griffons and Gargoyles and it's connection to the last generation, finds Jughead (COLE SPROUSE) steeped in the lore of the game as he continues to progress in it, in his attempt to get into the mind of the person behind it -- and the murders that follow it. The game is so addictive that even the aloof Cheryl Blossom (MADELAINE PETSCH) has gone full-on cosplay geek in the roleplay involved. And Jug is already finding secrets that confirms Griffons and Gargoyles is tied specifically to Riverdale itself: the mythical land, Eldevair, is an anagram for their town.

While it didn't get off the ground very fast, after it was announced, SYFY produced a planet-shattering 1st season that exceeded most expectations.

With jaw-dropping plot twists and shocking revelations, KRYPTON "flipped the table" and turned everything we knew about Superman's lineage and history on its head. Starring Cameron Cuffe as Seg-El, "Superman's Grandfather", Krypton features a clash of ideologies, as a society that thrives off of its caste system is threatened by multiple outside sources.

There are too few all-ages books on the shelves these days, and even fewer that feature characters which parents can recognize and, thus, feel comfortable about when selecting comics for their kids.

Dynamite Comics holds the potential to make some great headway into this market with their licensing of the franchise RAINBOW BRITE, and utilizing the characters to create a superheroic mythos.

Young Wisp has disappeared from Earth, having been chased by monsters that were eating -- of all things -- the color blue from items in her neighborhood late at night. Meeting up with the friendly creature known as Twinkle, she ends up teleporting to Rainbow Land -- which is nothing at all like it's name, having been drained of all colors by the King of Shadows and his ally, Murky Dismal, a scientist who has found a way to mine color for fuel. The King of Shadows has found ways to drain the light from everyone in the land, turning them to creatures of darkness.

Disney's Aladdin brings the usual splendor and fun you've come to expect from a Disney Broadway production with its limited St. Louis premiere engagement at the fabulous Fox Theatre, running November 7 - 25, 2018. Please note that an early version of Aladdin played the Muny in Forest Park back in 2012, and this show is from the Broadway script, not the earlier production. 

For the better part of the last year, the face and voice of Comicsgate has been Ethan Van Sciver, whose YouTube channel "ComicArtistPro Secrets" garnered massive audiences for livestreams (with over 80,000 subscribers) and became, by default and by name, Comicsgate Live.

No matter how fastidious you are in maintaining your comic shop pull list in your never-ending battle to make sure you don't miss anything good (or accidentally waste your money on something not so much), it never hurts to do a last minute check on what's coming out this week so you can make those fine-tuned adjustments.

Here are our looks at this week's upcoming comics, and our hot takes on whether they're a pick or a pan. Your mileage may vary.