halloween

The ghosts and ghouls of Halloween have all scuttled back to their shadows now that the witchy festivites are almost a whole week behind us. Greasepaint-stained costumes have gone to the laundry basket; Twitter names and icons have reverted to normal; and we're officially drinking all that pumpkin spiced caffeinated milk froth strictly for Thanksgiving reasons now. Before we unwisely turn our back on vampires and Frankensteins for another year, we have one more tradition to observe; the annual Snailoween Party in Toronto. As we've done for the last few years, we sent our friend Paul Hillier, cosplay photographer extraordinaire, to capture the very best outfits at one of North America's nerdiest costume parties.

To celebrate both Halloween and the upcoming release of Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds put back on his superhero costume, and hit the streets on Halloween, meeting up with a bunch of trick-or-treaters dressed up as the X-Men. The Merc With the Mouth tried to recruit these pint-sized mutants to join his Halloween team, but it didn’t quite go according to plan.

Halloween is almost here. In fact, it basically couldn’t be any closer because it’s All Hallow’s Eve. Or Devil’s Night if you’re a Crow fan. As you’re planning your spooky activities, mapping out your candy begging routes, and putting the finishing touches on your costumes, we’ve got one last treat Halloween treat for you! This ghoulish gallery devoted to everyone’s favorite shambling, abomination to medicine and religion, Frankenstein! I don’t want to get too book report-y here, because you have access to Wikipedia for that, but Frankenstein’s grip on the public’s imagination, and more importantly how quickly and how long it’s held that grip, is something that cannot be undervalued or disregarded. Whatever reason has brought you here to look at these images, I’m going to assume at least part of it has to do with what place Frankenstein (or “Frankenstein’s Monster” if you’re one of those people) holds in your heart or your nightmares.

Tomorrow is Halloween, and while spooky scares and gigantic piles of candy are always fun, you should also take care to have a safe time if you're heading out trick-or-treating. I mean, you never know when your Halloween could be interrupted by, say, a humanoid pumpkin who will try to distract you with his clever raps and rhymes. That, at least, is the usual problem faced by the Power Rangers on Halloween, but it seems that they're also pretty worried about more common problems, like making sure you don't get lost and that your costume is visible even in the dark. To that end, the cast of Dino Charge are here with some safety tips on how you can have a safe and happy Halloween --- and how that also involves buying official Power Rangers merchandise.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from our years on the Internet, it’s that there’s no aspect of comics that can’t be broken down and quantified in a single definitive list, preferably in amounts of five or ten. And since there’s no more definitive authority than ComicsAlliance, we’re taking it upon ourselves to compile Top Five lists of everything you could ever want to know about comics. The Halloween season is upon us, and even though any time is always a good time to think about Dracula, this is probably an especially good time, so today we’re going to be talking about comics’ best Draculas!

With 800 episodes over the course of 22 years, the Power Rangers television show is arguably the single most successful live-action superhero franchise of all time, and certainly one of the strangest. Adapted from Japan's long-running Super Sentai series, created by manga legend Shotaro Ishinomori, the Power Rangers combined the giant robots and monsters of their Japanese counterpart with a completely different set of secret identities and problems, and became a pop cultural phenomenon. That's why we're looking back with an in-depth guide to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, including its source material, Kyuoryu Sentai Zyuranger, in ComicsAlliance's Ranger Station! This week, though, we're jumping ahead to 2006 for a spoooooky episode of Power Rangers Mystic Force, where the Pink Ranger becomes a vampire!

Is there any holiday more geared specifically towards teenage hijinx than Halloween? I mean, I love Christmas, but the shenanigans involved in trying to find the right present for someone aren't really all that wild, and nobody really gets all that excited about, say, Arbor Day. Halloween, though? Candy! Costumes! Mistaken identities! Parties that go haywire for any number of reasons! It's the perfect time for teens to find trouble while dressed up as bears, and I know this because I have been reading Archie comics for a very long time. And now, to celebrate the season of scares, Archie has put together their next digital collection: Masquerade Mishaps, which follows up on last week's amazingly titled Josie and the Scaredy Cats with 100 pages of costume-themed comedy from Archie and the gang. It's out on the 23rd, but if you can't wait, check out a preview below!

ComicsAlliance Presents “Kate or Die,” a series of exclusive comic strips created by one of our favorite cartoonists, Kate Leth! In this episode, Kate has some awesome tips for great spooky comics to get you into a Halloween mood. Buy them for yourself; buy them as gifts for a friend, relative, or local witch; or give them away to the best trick-or-treaters to come to your door.

Q: Are there any superheroes who can't be improved by making them also a werewolf? -- @daveexmachina A: My friends, I am being 100% real with you when I say that questions like this are exactly why I started writing this column in the first place. So let's see here. If you go back and look at my work over the past ten years, it's probably going to be pretty clear that when it comes to your classic Halloween monsters, werewolves don't really do much for me. I am and will always be a Dracula man, but I can't deny that throwing in some extra hair, a couple of claws, and an uncontrollable monthly blood lust is something that could make pretty much any character in comics a whole lot more interesting. Which, now that I think of it, is probably why it's actually happened way more than you might remember.

ComicsAlliance Presents “Kate or Die,” a series of exclusive comic strips created by one of our favorite cartoonists, Kate Leth! In this episode, Kate's getting into a spooky mood for Halloween with a collection of tales sure to send shivers down the spine of anyone working in comics. Enter ye now the ghoulish garret of the freelance cartoonist... if you dare!