Lately I find myself writing up a lot of Kickstarter Spotlights, mostly comic-related. This one is a bit different in that it’s about comic book creation and not the publication of an individual comic. Specifically, it’s about coloring comics digitally. I’m sure most of us have some version of Photoshop and we use it for a wide range of things. While I might use it to place a likeness of my ex-wife’s face on a horse’s rear, you might create awesome art projects for school or work. To each his own, I always say.

But maybe you have an itch to get into the comic book biz and your focus is coloring the artwork. Well, friends, this is the book for you. How do you get this awesome manual, you ask? Well, all you have to do is fund Hi-Fi Color for Comics!

The X-Files/Ghostbusters: Conspiracy #1
Written by Erik Burnham
Art by Salvador Navarro
Colors by Esther Sanz
Letters by Shawn Lee
Edits by Tom Waltz & Denton J. Tipton
Covers by Miran Kim, Dan Schoening & Luis Delgado, Joe Corroney & Brian Miller
IDW Publishing
Release Date: January 22, 2014
Cover Price: $3.99

Going into The X-Files/Ghostbusters: Conspiracy #1 I was a bit nervous, because I’ve never watched the X-Files television series. So, I was a bit concerned that I wouldn’t understand what was going on. So, did it make sense to me? Let’s find out.

Thanks to regular Ghostbusters writer, Erik Burnham, I totally understood what was going on in this issue. He gives a great introduction to The X-Files characters, lays out their purpose in this crossover, and has it make total sense, instead of just a big mash-up of the two different properties. Not only that, he actually shows us a different side of the Ghostbusters’ life that we haven’t seen in the regular Ghostbusters title.

Robert E. Howard’s Savage Sword, Volume 1
Written by Paul Tobin, Scott Allie, Mark Finn, Marc Andreyko, Joe Casey, Robert E. Howard, Jeremy Barlow, David Lapham, Joshua Williamson, Dave Land, Peter Doree
Art/Illustrations/Pencils/Inks/Colors by Wellington Alves, Ben Dewey, Greg Scott, Pop Mhan, Tony Parker, Fabio Cobiaco, Patric Reynolds, M.S. Corley, Sean Phillips, Tim Bradstreet, Tim Seeley, Robert Atkins, Rebecca Buchman, Michael Atiyeh, Dave Stewart, Grant Goleash, Michelle Madsen, Jose Villarrubia, Brian Miller, Hi-Fi Colour Design, Dan Jackson
Letters by Richard Starkings and Comicraft
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: January 9, 2013
Cover Price: $17.99

Okay, first off, the individuals listed above were done so in the order in which their stories were placed in the anthology, subdivided by the type of work they contributed. No offense was implied towards any person who might have been placed incorrectly in this review. There, I’ve been about as politically correct as I can be. All characters are based upon the work of Robert E. Howard. This is, after all, Robert E. Howard’s Savage Sword, Volume 1.

It’s been officially announced that recently, at the Astana International Action Film Festival screenplay competition, The Weinstein Company acquired the rights to a movie called Apollo 18, written by Brian Miller.

The movie tells the story of NASA’s Apollo 18 mission to our moon, which was actually one of the many canceled missions in reality…or so we’ve been told. In the movie, the idea that the mission actually went ahead as planned is presented. It will be shot documentary style, to look as if it is proof of the mission actually happening and showing undiscovered footage from what the crew on that mission found, including “disturbing” proof of other life forms.