Rocky once famously ran through the city of Brotherly Love training for the fight of his life. This coming weekend the geeks will be running to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center for the Great Philadelphia Comic Con. Beginning Friday afternoon, April 12th at 1:00 PM, the convention is three days of celebrating comics and pop-culture for fans of all ages. The Con’s motto is “Get UR Geek On!” and whether you are into comics, movies, anime, cosplay, or all of the above, you can bet you’ll find something to entertain you in Philly besides a good cheesesteak.

Alice Cooper, Volume 1: Welcome To My Nightmare
Written by Joe Harris and Brandon Jerwa (issue 6)
Art by Eman Casallos and Nacho Tenorio (issue 6)
Colors by Aikau Oliva
Inks by Sergio Mora (issue 6)
Letters by Simon Bowland
Covers by David Mack
Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: August 19, 2015
Cover Price: $24.99

Metal heads rejoice! Alice Cooper Volume 1: Welcome To My Nightmare is now available as a graphic novel! Collecting the first six issues of the series, this comic is everything you would expect from Alice Cooper. From the over-the-top ideas to the humorous and the horrific, you won’t be disappointed. It looks like the stage presentation was adapted for sequential art, and then embellished a tad.

As 2014 is just about at an end, we take a moment at Geeks Of Doom to remember the fallen musicians who left us this year. A large array of heavyweights, cult heroes, pioneering figures, and sentimental favorites are among those who have left us in a physical sense, but the memories that they made in the past and the ones that each of their fans have in regards to them will never leave.

A list of some of our (and probably yours as well) fallen heroes is below.

Each and every week, I, “Where’s my ‘Atlantis Attacks’ movie?!?!” Henchman 21 and “Coming 2023!” Empress Eve read a lot of comics. Seriously you guys, a lot of comics. Maybe too many comics. I mean, it is possible… theoretically. Naturally, we look forward to some more than others. I mean, who doesn’t? So, let’s take a look into the depths of our pull lists, grab some comics, and we’ll let YOU know what the top books to look forward to are for the week of October 15, 2014. Single issues and trades, they’re all here.

After a couple of insanely busy weeks, we’ve got a chance to take a bit of a breather this week and take a look at some smaller books out this week that you may be passing up, but that you shouldn’t. I use “smaller” figuratively, as some of the books on the list this week are quite thick, and I don’t know what to tell you, but I like big books and I cannot lie. You other brothers can’t deny. And even though some knuckleheads are trying to diss, these are the books on my GoD List!

Dick Wagner, a guitarist who was a key figure in the early pre-punk and American glam movements, utilizing his talents for such luminaries in the music world as Alice Cooper, Lou Reed and KISS, has died at the age of 71 of respiratory failure. Wagner had been battling ill health for many years prior to his death.

Born in Saginaw, Michigan, Wagner rubbed elbows later on after the first wave of hard rock music that came from that state’s seminal city Detroit, when Wagner was recruited to play on Alice Cooper’s seminal solo release, Welcome to My Nightmare, a record in which Wagner was heavily involved (with producer Ezrin) with Cooper, eventually sharing songwriting credits. (A highlight is the ambiguous and haunting “Only Women Bleed.”) The 1975 release became a benchmark in Cooper’s career and also showed the embryonic strains of a solo career that would stretch currently into its fourth decade. The muscle and confidence of Wagner’s playing (he had huge shoes to follow after Cooper had been in a band with Glen Buxton earlier, whose playing was signature up and down all over the band) put him as one of the mid-70s post Detroit-rock/pre-first wave of punk music’s heavyweights. In fact, for the next few decades following his successful debut foray with Cooper on record, Wagner became involved heavily with the shock rock singer thereafter, appearing on various subsequent albums and tours.

Every Halloween, when it comes to entertainment, most people immediately think of horror films…but what about music? Over the years many artists have attempted to bring the “shock” back into rock.

So, if you are hosting a Halloween party this year, here are some performers that will help you turn it into a heavy metal Halloween.

Bob Ezrin, who has produced some of the more seminal music records of our age, Pink Floyd‘s The Wall and KISS Destroyer to name a few of the more higher profile ones, celebrates his 64th birthday today.

The Canadian-born Ezrin, employs a style which is mired in a magisterial, booming, bombastic one, which gives a larger than life sonic quality to the records he produces. Kind of a cross between Sir George Martin and producers who have made opera house acoustically styled classical albums, Ezrin has taken many genres, mainly the rock and roll one and turned it on its collective ear, bringing a kind of aural respect to the genre, and the result of which has spawned some of the all-time great albums.

Happy Birthday today to Alice Cooper, the master of “shock rock,” the man whose early goth impetus coupled with a foot in the musical blues, and his larger than life persona, which made him a superstar to the masses in the early 1970s and a true elder renaissance man in the current hard rock and heavy metal circuits.

Having fan bases which stretch wide and in a way are compartmentalized by certain eras of his, not unlike say Miles Davis and his different approaches to the genre, Alice Cooper has always kept a common thread for what he does best — being an enigmatic front man who propelled his band (originally called Alice Cooper, a name reportedly in which was acquired from a Ouija board excursion) to galaxy heights, sounding a doomy, bluesy, Doors-style approach ala Black Sabbath, but making themselves in a way more accessible to a wider audience instantly, due to Alice Cooper’s sly wink he uses at himself and the audience.

Amazon is currently offering over 300 Classic Rock songs in MP3 for just $0.69 each right now: 300 Classic Rock Songs For $0.69 Each.

Click the link above and browse the list of tunes, which contains tracks from artists like Aerosmith, Kansas, Fleetwood Mac, Black Sabbath, Dio, Heart, Billy Joel, Bad Company, Janis Joplin, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, Alice Cooper, Yes, Cream, The Doors, Van Halen, and many more!

MP3 songs usually sell for $.99 to $1.29 each, so 69 cents is a great deal! No word on when the sale ends, so grab the songs you want now at the discounted price. Also, all this month, Amazon is offering up 2,000 albums for $5 each in MP3 format, so be sure to check out that hefty selection, too.

Lots of sonic platters of joy are ready to be served up this holiday season, and what better gift to give someone than the universal appeal of music? During this festive time, when credit card debts mount up, layaway plans become way too unmanageable, and the stress of owing money takes charge over one’s soul and wallet as the new year turns, it’s still worth the feeling one gets when one sees someone’s eyes light up when they tear the wrapping paper off a gift, positively effused with sincere delight at its contents. We all still do it, we all get by, we grumble as the new year rolls in, but it’s all worth it; gifts are cool, no doubt, gifts never go out of style, and the end result of giving someone a gift makes it all worth it. Music was no exception this year. There were some great collections for one to gnaw on, collections which run every genre and will turn even the most hard hardened curmudgeon of a Scrooge into the softest teddy bear imaginable, even if it’s only for one holiday. My holiday box set picks are below, this one goes to eleven: