I can go down a rabbit hole better than anyone! What started as a quick search to buy a new coloring book turned into an all out research project. No sense in doing that much digging and not sharing my findings! So here we are…… an impromptu post dedicated to spooky, macabre, quirky, and gothic coloring books! After all…. what better way to celebrate National Coloring Book Day!
That’s right…. National Coloring Book Day happens to be August 2. How do I know this?…. Well, rewind a few years to the days when the Covid outbreak had many of us stuck at home. I had a 4 year old daughter at the time, and finding ways to bring fun and joy into our lives was a top priority of mine. I turned to a long list of weird and wonderful lesser known holidays. Did you know that every single day there is a list of national and international holidays, appreciation days or observances? So, each week, we’d pick out a few holidays and go all out….. costumes, food, music, projects… whatever we could think of that was suitable for the celebration. We celebrated Watermelon Day, Peanut Butter & Jelly Day, Unicorn Day, Mermaid Day, Hawaii Day, Cheese Day, Donut Day, Space Day….. I could seriously list hundreds. As life began to normalize, we downsized the full blown events for each of the holidays, but we’ve always continued to recognize them in small ways. My daughter even has a “National Days” desk calendar that we consult EVERY morning.
Knowing that my daughter and I would inevitably be getting out our coloring books, with National Coloring Book Day coming up, I thought I’d order a new one for myself. I was surprised to see how many choices there were. Sadly these days, it seems like anyone can just slap a book together and list it on Amazon, so I’m very weary of ordering anything without some validation. So here’s my PSA regarding the books I have listed below…. I do own a few of them, but the rest are included based on the reviews I read, and the number of stars given. And yes – I read the reviews….. SO MANY reviews! If a book looked amazing but had little to no reviews… I did not include it. If there were constant complaints about the quality of the paper or the printing, I did not include it. Many complaints were clearly personal preference…. lines were too dark, lines were too light, paper was not right for pencils, paper was not right for markers, too much detail in the images, not enough details in the images….. you just cannot make everyone happy, so I took this into consideration. The last thing that was brought up in a lot of reviews was the use of AI in the illustrations. I know a lot of people may feel strongly about this topic, so to be transparent…. It is entirely possible that some of the coloring books I have listed below were designed with some AI assistance. For me personally, if I like the image, and the quality is good, it does not bother me to color an AI generated illustration. However, as someone who does use AI in many of my artwork projects…. I have a HUGE pet peeve when an artist uses AI but does not clean up all of the bizarre details that often come with an AI generated image. So…. if I read even 1 review that mentioned that the artwork had the typical AI errors like multiple fingers or elements out of place, I did not include the book. If you are picky about the images you color… I highly recommend reading the reviews for yourself.
So, after all of that research…. here’s a list of 18 of my favorite coloring books, broken into genres that will hopefully offer a little something for everyone! Click the images to be taken directly to the listing.
Before we get started…. This post contains some affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, you won’t pay a penny more, but I’ll get a small commission, which helps keep the lights on. Thanks! Click HERE for more details.
Edgar Allan Poe
Of course I have to kick off the list with Poe inspired coloring books! I couldn’t believe how many are available these days! The 1st coloring book pictured below was one of my 1st ever “adult” coloring books. It came out almost a decade ago, but is still one of my favorites! I also have the 2nd one pictured and love the images! The last one just looked really cute. I don’t own it yet, but I have ordered it, so fingers crossed!
Witches
Magical pages filled with simple illustrations of plants, potions, herbs, familiars, crystals, symbols, and more…. The perfect books for some quiet reflection!
Horror
I own several of “The Beauty of Horror” books, and this will not be the only Alan Robert book to appear in this list. There is an entire series of “The Beauty of Horror” books! I consider them to be one of the OGs of truly macabre and gothic adult coloring books. Illustrations are always high quality and decidedly twisted! The other two listed here had rave reviews and I can’t wait to see them in person!
Traditional Halloween
As you can imagine…. there is an infinite amount of Halloween coloring books, (and certainly plenty of good ones besides the three I chose), but so many are geared towards children. I selected these because, while still including all of the traditional Halloween elements…. pumpkins, witches, haunted houses, skeletons, bats, scarecrows, etc, there were beautifully intricate details that seemed more adult.
Hauntings
Beautifully illustrated Haunted Dolls, Haunted Playgrounds (another in The Beauty of Horror series), and Haunted Houses!
Fairytales and Monsters
“Tea with Monsters” has been in my shopping cart forever, so I’m thrilled to have an excuse to finally order it! I love Victorian Tea (have you seen all of the Victorian tea cup candles and tea infusers I sell in my shop?!) so this dark twist on high tea is right up my alley! “Dark FairyTales” had rave reviews, so it seemed like a must for the list. Lastly – another in Alan Robert’s The Beauty of Horror collection…. “Ghouliana’s Sanctuary for Monsters” is not just a coloring book, but an illustrated storybook for you to color… a macabre fairytale itself!
If you have a favorite coloring book not on this list, please drop me a comment so I can check it out. I am planning to order several of the books on this list and will certainly update the post with any relevant info! If you happen to purchase one of these, please comment to let me know what you thought of it!
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