Labyrinth Graphic Novel

I got this a little while back and keep forgetting to show it off. Boom Studios did a Kickstarter for this hard cover collecting their eight issue adaptation from 2024. The cool thing about it is that it adapts the movie novelization which was written while the movie was still in production so there are a couple things here and there different from the final film.

 

 I shelled out a little extra to get the version with the slipcase which is styled after Sarah's Labyrinth book from the movie. Boom Studios was also offering hard cover collections of their two (yes two!) Labyrinth sequel comics. I already have those and didn't feel the need to drop the extra cash to upgrade to hard covers. Of course, I also already have the comics collected here but this is THE story.

 

 This Kickstarter version has an exclusive variant cover that won't be reprinted again. The pages are gold gilded which just adds to how it looks on a table. I like when they do stuff like this so you feel like you're really getting something special when you support them.

 

Speaking of something special...one of the stretch goals was this fantastic art print.

 

 And this enamel pin was unlocked for people that backed on day one (that's me!). The campaign hit its initial $25k goal in 15 minutes! I guess there's a lot of us weirdos out there that love this movie.

 

 I instantly fell in love with the art style. I like that it's sort of cartoony. Disney's been all about live action remakes of animated movies. I think this would be a great candidate for an animated remake of a live action movie! I'd just use the film audio and animate it.

 

At the back of the book are 16 pages featuring different cover art used for the individual comics.

 

The last six pages have character designs. There's two pages each for Sarah and Jareth and the last two have a bunch of the characters Sarah meets, including Alph and Ralph the two dog-like door guardians that pose the logic puzzle to Sarah. Bet you didn't know they had names!

I'm really happy with this one and it's going to be a great addition to my growing Labyrinth library.

Haunted Halloween Board Game

In September 2023, I found a Kickstarter for Haunted Halloween, a board game about trick or treating. It had almost everything I would put in my dream trick or treat game, so I had to back it! 

 

In case you're wondering, the only thing really missing that my dream version would have is a "take that" element where you can play tricks on houses...or other players!

The game arrived just in time for Halloween! Being the Hallo-weirdo that I am, I went in for the Deluxe version of the game which includes a lot of fun extras. 

 

I should take this time to mention that this game is put out by Castle Clark, which is a small family owned and operated business. I've been in touch with them regarding a couple issues with the shipping (not their fault) and they have been super!

The back of the box shows what all is included. The Deluxe version extras include 3D printed player figures, ghost figures, candy corn trays to hold the treats you earn, a 3D printed coffin, and a 3D printed Jack-O-Lantern to hold all the candy pieces.

Let's get a closer look after the break!

Trick R Treat - Sam's 15 Anniversary Collection

Now that Saint Pat's day has passed, we can finally talk about...Halloween! Just kidding, I don't need an excuse to talk about Halloween any time of the year.

 

I recently received this gorgeous beast from a Kickstarter campaign. Now, I didn't have the $1500 to spare to get drawn into the book (how amazing that would have been!) but I also didn't go for the bare bones digital version either. These days, I have to feel like something is really worth it to get a physical copy and this definitely did not disappoint!

 

The main attraction is this hardcover, oversized graphic novel with over 260 pages of Halloween goodness. It includes the original comic adaptation of the movie and the sequel graphic novel (Trick R Treat: Days of the Dead). Plus, the KS exclusive version has a brand new story by Michael Dougherty and a slipcase, which is under the book in the above pic. It didn't come out great in my photo but the book has the movie logo at the top in an orange shiny foil.

 

 

 Also included is this set of 3 enamel pins by Hot Topic artist M. Victoria Robado.

 

 

And this pearlescent print titled "Halloween Carving" created by Michael Dougherty.

 

But that's not all!

1-Up Dice Sets by Infinite Black

I got into D&D at an early age, which naturally lead me to explore other RPGs over the years. Anyone that's ever participated in tabletop role playing will tell you there's one thing you absolutely need: your own set of dice. Sure, there's books upon books for every game but you can always borrow those from a friend, but dice...dice are sacred to some and aren't to be shared.

 

I can't tell you the last time I picked up a die to make a saving throw or an attack roll so a new set of dice is something not even on my radar but when I saw this Kickstarter awhile back I had to get in on it. Not only did it combine RPGs and video games but the packaging really grabbed me.

As you can see, I liked the sets so much, I got two! It was just too hard to pick only one. And I got a few bonus items: silver and gold d20s and a special d2 coin.

Let's dig into the sets!

 

Plunderlong 8-Ball Figure

 It has been so long since the Plunderlong/Plnuderstrong Kickstarter ended that I forgot which figure I had picked! This guy washed up on my doorstep last week.

In addition to 8-Ball, I also order the "Leather Crate" which probably sounds a lot more kinky than it is. The figure also came with this cool (and heavy!) two-sided golden coin. Let's bust him out!

8-Ball comes with two bundles of dynamite, two sets of hands, three heads, a helmet, and a torch. I had some trouble swapping the heads and had to put him under a hair dryer for a bit. To be fair, Lone Coconut had mentioned this in a project update. Now that I've gotten off the head he shipped with, I'm a little shy about fully plugging one on there in case it gets stuck. It doesn't seem to make much difference if the head rests on the neck and you'd only notice it if you were moving the figure around.

Haunted Halloween Boardgame

 Fully funded in under 48 hours, Haunted Halloween is a game I'm very excited to see coming!

For a long time, I've had this idea for a tabletop game where you play as kids trick or treating. I thought it might be a card game where you pick another player to "trick or treat" at their house. The treats would have different points from 0 for pennies or a toothbrush to 10 for full size candy bars. They would have to give you a treat from their hand or play something like "Lights Out" or "No One Home".  

 

You'd also have trick cards! Get a low score treat or no treat at all? You can play a trick like "Eggs", "TP", or "Flaming Bag of Poo" to boost your points. (Honestly, I just want to make this game to have a FBoP card.) Of course there would be trick counters like "Door Cam" or "Big Kids".

Anyway, this is as far as my idea has gotten but the fine family at Castle Clark Games are Kickstarting this Haunted Halloween board game which feels like the game in my head made real (minus the trick part).

The campaign ends on October 12th so there's still time to jump in on this. I went in for the deluxe edition because the upgraded parts look great. I'm really hoping they add the standee figures as a stretch goal (they may have by the time this post goes live) because seeing the standee figures really takes me back to playing board games as a kid. And if you can't feel like a kid playing a game about Trick or Treating, when can you?

If you happen to be a game designer and my idea sounds cool, please contact me :)

Click below to see the full list of Countdown blogs!

Now Hear This - Cybertronic Spree

Last year the Cybertronic Spree did a Kickstarter to fund a brand new album of original songs and it was successful! I got my rewards recently so I had to share them. But wait, do you know who The Cybertronic Spree are?

They're a band from the planet Canada made up of various Transformers! They put on a heck of a live show. This shot is from when I saw them in 2021, my first "post-pandemic" concert. Prior to this album, they mostly played covers but also had a couple of original songs. Back in 2019, they released a cover album of The Transformers 1986 movie. That's right, the covered the entire soundtrack album!

Let me tell you something about me...this soundtrack is one of my all time favorite albums. It came out just before I started my junior year in high school. I'd been into hard rock/metal and this album led me to new artists like Stan Bush and Lion. As you may remember, high school is a weird time and this album was there for me. Between Stan Bush's "Dare", "The Touch" and Spectre General's "Nothin's Gonna Stand in Our Way" this was my go to pick-me-up album.

Anyway, back Ravage, the new Cybertronic Spree album!

Sean Äaberg's Halloween Book

Back in October of 2021 (has it been that long?!) I backed this project on Kickstarter. If you've been hanging around here any length of time, you know I LOVE Halloween. So this was a no-brainer!

 

Just looking at the art on the Kickstarter page was enough to sell me on this.

But, of course, it's more than just the art, it's also a sort of a mini-treatise on celebrating Halloween.

The Spooky Tarot by Ryan Caskey

Earlier this year, I backed The Spooky Tarot on Kickstarter and although I didn't get it in time to post as part of the Countdown to Halloween, I just couldn't wait to share it! Even though there's no "official" 13 Days of Creepmas going, it still lives on!.

If you've been around for a bit, you know I collect playing card decks for the art. I do have a few Tarot card decks as well for the same reason but it's a small fraction compared to the number of playing cards I have. One look at this one and it was an instant back for me!

 

Dan Brereton's Nocturnals October Epoch Calendar on Kickstarter

 If you're like me, you'd be happy if it was Halloween 365. We're not quite there yet but illustrator Dan Brereton wants to help out with a new calendar that starts in October and ends next October.

I absolutely love the Nocturnals comic series/setting. It's Gothic horror, pulp noir, and Halloween all rolled into one. I am over the moon at the thought of keeping them up on my wall for a year to countdown to next Halloween. In addition to the gorgeous artwork, the calendar will have important horror dates like movie premieres and creator birthdays.

It's only $25 to get the calendar itself. If you watch the video, you'll see there's some amazing other goodies you can get at higher pledge levels.

Spooky Tarot on Kickstarter

 Already at double it's funding goal with 22 days left, Ryan Caskey's Spooky Tarot looks to be a real treat for the Halloween fans! 

 

If you've been around here, it's no surprise that this was an insta-back for me when it went live. The artwork on the cards is both gorgeous and terrifying at the same time.

The traditional Tarot suits have been swapped for Pumpkins, Cats, Spirits, and Worms!

Head on over to the Kickstarter to sell your soul for this wicked Tarot deck. Or, maybe just 35 bucks if you don't want to give up your precious soul.

 

Also follow Ryan on Instagram for more spooky goodness!

Ghoullotine Card Game

 I picked this up earlier in the year from their Kickstarter campaign because I really like the art and I'm always on the lookout for Halloween themed games.

Ghoullotine is a sort of a Frankenstein of the "don't bust" of Blackjack and the "take that" of Uno. Players are dealt a hand of cards which have values ranging from -6 to 7. Some of the cards have special abilities that effect play. 

 

You have to play a card every turn and that card value is added to the current total. But if your card pushes it over 13, you're out and the count resets to 0 for the remaining players. The scorecard (above, bottom) is used with the included chips (not pictured for some reason) to keep track of the current total.

Like I mentioned at the top, the art is what really grabbed me. It's a little spooky without being too scary for the younger set, which makes this a great little card game for the season!

If you want to pick up a copy, you can visit the Vindicated Games page for Ghoullotine where they also have a couple of How to Play videos.

Click below to visit the Countdown site with a list of all the participating blogs!

Awfully Cheerful Engine! (ACE!) Role Playing Game

Back in June, the Kickstarter for the Awfully Cheerful Engine! (or ACE!) Role Playing Game was funded. Usually, I'm an all digital guy when it comes to books but for some reason I splurged for the physical books on this one. What drew me to the Kickstarter was the promise of multiple settings and a fast, easy system.

It's also sort of comic book-y. The game books are around 30 pages and comic sized. Each one is an "issue" in the series. Before I dive into the books, I want to get my major gripe with them out of the way.

While they're comic sized, they have a bound spine instead of being stapled. What this means with a thin 30-page book is that you can't lay it flat open and keep it in minty condition. In addition to collecting things, I like to keep any of my books in the best possible shape. Lucky for me, the "all-in" pledge level includes PDFs of all the books too. If I'd kicked in another $40 I could have gone with the deluxe hardcover edition but I really like the comic size format.

Dwellings Comic #2 by Jay Stephens

 I recently got my Kickstarter rewards for the second issue of Dwellings from Jay Stephens. You might knew Stephens as the creator of the cartoons Tutenstein and, one of my personal favorites, The Secret Saturdays. I usually only go in for digital with comics but they offered some cool physical rewards that I had to have!

 

At first glance, the art style looks cutesy and might remind you of something you'd see in Harvey Comics if you're of a certain age. But let me assure you, this is a horror comic and definitely not for the kiddies!

In Dwellings No 2: “Second Tongue”, the internal conflict between the rational and the supernatural becomes deadly, as a science-minded stranger to town investigates a case of Foreign Accent Syndrome. Mistaken Identity? Or another entity entirely?

 

Kickstarter - The Decline of Mall Civilization

If you were around in the 80s, you no doubt have some special memories of going to the local mall. It was the one place where you could do it all: shop, hang out with friends, eat, and play video games. Unlike the malls today, there was actually "mall culture" back then.

Hold on to your leg warmers, because Michael Galinsky wants to take you back to 1989.

I wish I had known about the first book when it came out because I totally would have gotten one. If you don't want to miss out, head over to Kickstarter and snag yourself a copy for $44 or for just $10 you can get a 4x6 postcard featuring an image from the book. They've just about hit triple their funding goal already so this is definitely going to happen!

See you at the mall!

Merry Christmas, Krampus

There's a Krampus children's book currently on Kickstarter called Merry Christmas, Krampus.

Merry Christmas, Krampus is an independently published children’s book that tells the story of legendary Christmastime creature Krampus and how one child from Santa’s Naughty List teaches him that all “bad” children have some good in them.

Any children's book featuring Krampus would be fun but what makes this one a little more special is the way they're creating the images. They're actually building the characters and sets, then photographing them.

The folks creating this have worked for Jim Henson's Creature Shop, Disney Imagineering, and Disney Animation! There's still 22 days left for them to hit their funding goal and I'm really hoping they make it. I'd love to see the final product.

There's some open Early Bird pledge spots open where $30 will get you a copy so head over to their Kickstarter page and check it out.

Egyptian Glyph Playing Cards

I got this deck recently from a Kickstarter campaign so I thought I'd show it off.

 There were two decks available, Egyptian and Aztec. Nothing against the Aztecs, I've just always been drawn to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Sure, Aztecs have some cool temples and human sacrifice but you think Egypt and it's all pyramids, tombs, treasure, and mummies. Maybe I just watched too many monster movies on Saturday afternoons as a kid.

I like the deck but I would have preferred something more dynamic. Sometimes I feel like I'm looking at the equivalent of Egyptian clip art. Then again, maybe I'm missing the point of what this is supposed to be.

The one thing that I am not a fan of in this deck are the Jacks. The horizontal artwork being mirrored on the cards just doesn't feel right.

And the Queen of Diamonds...I can't tell what all is going on there. I think she and her King are a little too busy in their art and my eye doesn't know where it should be going.

I feel like I've done a lot of complaining about this deck but I really do like it! The Aces are fantastic, I like the font used, and the cards all have a sandy background to them adding to the desert feel.

My favorite thing about the Kickstarter was being able to add this pair of dice to my reward. They look even better in person!

Return to Fireball Island

While everyone was watching Wrestlemania last night, I took a quick vacation back to a place I used to go when I was younger. A place a haven't been to in at least 20 years.

A place called Fireball Island!

Only this wasn't the Fireball Island I remembered from my youth. Like any place you haven't seen in awhile, it's changed, but definitely for the better!

 Restoration Games is bringing back Fireball Island and is totally crushing their Kickstarter campaign which just shows the love that is out there for this classic Milton Bradley game.

Thanks to Flip Florey's Super Saturday Board Game Serial podcast I found out about the Kickstarter a few days before it launched. It had somehow flown under my radar prior to that and now that it's launched I've seen plenty of my fellow geeky bloggers talking about it.
And rightfully so!

The Kickstarter page has a list of tour dates where they will be demo'ing the game around North America. Since PAX East was this weekend, the first non-con stop on the tour was right in my backyard at The Castle, a boardgame cafe.

I got to meet JR Honeycutt, the Restoration Games member who has the job of driving around for the next few weeks bringing the only-one-in-existence prototype to the masses.

I wasn't able to get a good shot from the "front" of the game but you can get an idea of the size here. The original Fireball Island board is up at the top. The new version is much more dynamic, using three connecting trays to make up the board and give it more height. JR assured us that the finished product will have a matte finish and not be handpainted. I still think it looks pretty great!

The game has a lot more going on than the original version. There's trees that can be moved to block marbles, treasure to be collected, and scenic vista spots on each of the three island sections that you have to visit to snap a memorable photo for big points. And yes, the Heart of Vul-Kar is still there for anyone brave enough to grab it!

Because it just wouldn't be Fireball Island without Vul-Kar!

I had a ton of fun checking out the new Fireball Island. I really enjoyed all the new stuff that's been packed into it while keeping the basic play the same as the game I remember. If you're not familiar with the original game, you may be stuck experiencing it through YouTube videos as it's quite the pricey game to get your hands on now.

If you want to pick up the new version, along with any of the expansions (that's right, expansions!), head over the to the Kickstarter page. They're already five times over their goal!

Creature Comfort Playing Cards

I love finding new playing cards on Kickstarter. The platform allows for people to make the things they want without business people getting in the way of things that might not sell at retail. This time around it's Creature Comfort playing cards designed by artist Don Moyer.

I knew I had to have this one once I started looking at the images on the Kickstarter page. It's got all kinds of weirdness going on. Click on the pic above to take a closer look at the card back design, it's pretty crazy! The deck was available with black or red backs. I like the black better because it looks like a bunch of bugs crawling around, even though most of the critters are something other than bugs.

In most decks of cards, you get repetition of design somewhere. Not here! Every card has a different being on it. That's pretty amazing to me because the artist had to design not only the pips but also came up with some face cards that wouldn't look out of place in an illustrated version of Alice in Wonderland.

Maybe it's a little easy to make that leap when one of the Kings is a walrus (goo-goo-goo-joob). The Kings are all enjoying their favorite Creature Comfort snack food. I kind of think the King of Spades looks a bit like Admiral Ackbar, don't you?

If you like this art, head over to Don's website and check out his other stuff, including some wild "Calamityware" dinner settings.

Creeping Flesh Trading Cards

I was so thrilled to see this project on Kickstarter a few months ago. I've been a fan of Dan Brereton for a long time now after discovering his comic series The Nocturnals. It's not only gorgeous to look at but the atmosphere is what I can only call Halloween Noir. Image Comics recently made The Nocturnals available digitally so if you want to check it out, go here. If you prefer having it in hand, you can probably find them at a local comic shop or Amazon.

But enough about the comic, I'm here to talk trading cards! Creeping Flesh is a set of 19 monster girl trading cards and 1 sticker. It's presented as a wax pack of trading cards straight out of the 80s, but instead of having to buy a ton of packs, you get the whole set in one shot. They did an incredible job with the presentation.

For a few bucks more, you could add on this display box to hold the pack of cards. Anyone that remembers buying cards back in the day may get a nostalgia flashback.

Just like the store boxes, the top folds back with a cut out image. That's the pack of cards inside it to give you an idea of the size of the box. They come in a wax wrapper too. The only thing missing is a stick of gum which is probably for the better.

In addition to the wax pack the cards come in, they sent a flat wrapper. Something they didn't have to do but it's a nice bonus. The left side has a checklist of the card set.
Also included is a promo card for the set.

Here are just a few of the 19 cards. The one with the white border is the sticker card. The regular cards are either orange or purple bordered giving the set even more of a Halloween vibe. As you can see, Brereton has a wonderfully spooky art style.

If you want to snap up a set of these wicked women, they have about 60 sets left. There are also add-ons you can get like the display box, signed cards (why didn't I order one of those?), or even a collector's set with each card autographed!

Drag yourself over to Sidekick's site to order.