I am not entirely certain, but I think a great part of it might have to do with what I associated “science” and “engineering” with when I was a kid. Even when I was little the idea of scientists in white coats was a bit weird. I had seen them made fun of in cartoons enough to appreciate a caricature. My grandfather worked in a hospital lab and for me such lab coats were for doctors. I never could put my finger on it until recently but as I have went back through the franchises I enjoyed as a kid, I finally realized who I wanted to be:
Commissioned art from Eddie Nuñez digitally colored by author
I know that they are basically the same person, barring the mutation thing. But that was it. Referencing in books, figuring out solutions and answers, the person that people went to for obscure things, that is who I have always wanted to be. In fact, it turns out that when I was 8 I tried to teach myself Assyrian and Sumerian because Egon knew them.
Now, here is the problem: There isn’t a path of study that can lead to that outcome. That outcome is not quantifiable nor does it really bring prestige or money to your alma maters and paters. As I continue to work towards finishing what has become a huge portion of my life I take solace in the fact that all of the extemporaneous stuff I have done through these years have led me more towards being the person I really wanted to be. Whether or not a Ghostbuster and a Ninja Turtle were the reasons I decided to get a PhD, they remain the noblest aspect of this entire experience.
If you enjoy either franchise check these crossover out. If you like both, buy the recently released hardover collection
I have learned more about myself in the things I have done to stay sane during graduate school than I have about any topic I have studied. When it came time to pick a major for university I settled on Mechanical Engineering because I was good at math and mechanics. If you’ve taken courses in engineering you can see where this is going. I completed all my core courses my first year in college and realized that I didn’t want to be a career engineer in the sense that we were learning it. I wanted to design and build things, not manage button pushing operations. There is a perfect example of this in Egon’s life in an episode of The Real Ghostbusters: “Cry Uncle”
In “Cry Uncle” Egon’s uncle shows up and reminds Egon that he said he would come work for him at Spengler Laboratories. There Egon would get to do “real” science. Once at Spengler Labs, Egon has his white coat, and is tasked with feeding the research rats and mice. When he admitted it wasn’t what he expected, Uncle Cyrus explained there are no small jobs in research.
I really like this shot because it shows that it isn’t only the rats that are caged.
There isn’t inherently a problem with going into a field you are good at, especially if you are interested in it, but for me it was extremely limiting in the scope of my expectations for college. Such expectations continue to shape my opinions of higher education. I think the first thing I found odd was that the way our classes parsed out on the rubric I would be a senior taking freshman speech. Nothing built on anything else. Even the Engineering courses, which were only offered every other semester or so, wanted info in and were built on the premises that you passed or dropped out.
When I went back 5 years later I tried my hand at a broader field: Anthropology. I took every course my university offered and enjoyed them all. I did field work in Belize with another University and ran the gamut of geology towards that degree. Issues of being color blind and terrible mineralogy courses dropped me out of that certification (although I still practive the paleo and science outreach that I learned there) and ended up with a history degree. That itself is just as problematic because everything is formulaic and most of the people at the top hate everyone and have painted themselves into such tight “intellectual” corners that they wouldn’t dare step out of their offices to help someone even if they could.
I even completed an advanced degree in History. Then moved on to combining what I had done and what I thought I wanted to do. History of Science. I worked on another MA, which was worse than History because of the way our coursework is arranged. I still wanted to know more. Not more of one thing, but more in general. There were loose ends that needed to be tied up. So I reached out and ended up taking graduate level hours in Art History and Biology. As I have worked through all the stories I want to tell, and then figuring out how to appease the Academy and still get to write for the audience I want to engage with, I realized that I still want to know it all, and I want to be able to use that to help people answer questions and solve problems.
I still want a lab and a workshop. I doubt I will ever build a nuclear accelerator or a portal device, but with such a practical environment, who knows. I think that this is one of the reasons I have gravitated towards museum exhibits. Aside from presentation and engaging the public with collections (and collecting) there is the technical aspect of getting the displays built, arranged, and installed. Practical needs that people ask you do do.
I think the best thing about all of this is that it took years of advancing schooling to get back into comic books only to find what I study and write about was there all the time. That isn’t to say I write about mutations or ghosts, but a huge swath of my work is science and popular culture, and how the public engages with science. As for my dissertation, it will compare early American Naval and Army expeditions in their scope and treatment of the scientists (naturalists) and artists as were full expedition members. The first one, The United States Exploring Expedition (U.S. Ex.Ex), was in many ways undertaken due to John Symmes’ insistence and marketing that the Earth was hollow.
The Hollow Earth Theory
Even my PhD advisor admitted that my niche might be in being a generalist.
Today is another of those scenic turnout days from comps work. Instead of painting (I did that last week, and will post it after the next section break) I spent the day organizing and figuring out my bazillion bytes of animation data that I have spread across several hard drives.
This post will be filled with cartoon intros and very little thinking substance. While organizing and checking for new DVD releases I was checking the dates of some of my favorite series and noticed that they all happened about the same time. This isn’t a complete or exhaustive or even objective list. These are the series I remember watching, playing, and remembering from the three channels that we had on television.
1983
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe My cousin had nearly all of the toys for this line. At least I thought he had nearly all until I saw the list of what all actually made up this toy line.
The 2002 series intro is much shorter and actually spoofs the original, which is a lot of fun.
G.I. Joe: The Real American Hero actually “debuted” in 1983 as well, but the first two seasons were mini-series, so I will add that intro in 85.
1984
Transformers More than meets the eye. I think it did something like the G.I. Joe mini-series intro, I was more familiar with Transformers than G.I. Joe so I am putting it in for its first year release.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRQtMVJKBFc
These things have come back around in various (dis)guises forever, I think the last time I saw any at all they were in the computer animation style beast wars and Optimus was a gorilla and Megatron was a dinosaur.
Voltron-Defender of the Universe I never saw Voltron until I was much older. I was aware of it through toys, but I wanted to include it here in situ with Transformers.
Voltron-The Legendary Defender The new (2016) Netflix launched one (that has been picked up for a second season) that really shows you how to do a reboot of a popular 80s franchise. It is a great story, but most importantly it looks like it is supposed to.Since it is Netflix, there isn’t an intro per se, but here is the original trailer that we were all excited to see
and a really great fan-made intro where none were before
I don’t want to leave 1984 without adding one of the best kids’ shows that ran the last half of the 80s. If you haven’t seen it, or don’t remember it, just because it was muppets doesn’t mean it didn’t have action, adventure, and a healthy dose of satire.
Muppet Babies
1985
Thundercats
I had the light up sword of Omens from this series but always wanted Panthro’s nunchucks. I thought Tygra’s whip was cool, but never really liked him. I can’t remember why.
More recently Thundercats came back in 2011. I haven’t brought myself to make time to watch it yet. I have seen bits and clips online and I am torn on the character looks. From what I understand there isn’t a tradition intro as one would have, but there are several fan made ones on youtube, with clips from the show with the original audio.
G.I. Joe: Real American Heroes
I didn’t have many, if all, of these figures either, and I only remember seeing a handful of episodes, and I really only include it because it is iconic in lists of 80s cartoons. I remember liking the ones that weren’t in standard uniforms which, in the 80s, meant some kind of outback hat and vest or something.
1986
The Real Ghostbusters
Now we get into the realms of utterly obsessed I suppose. The Real ghostbusters were the first figures I remember asking for by name. I remember having the sword of omens but not asking for it. I remember asking for and getting a proton pack. I never got a trap because we had carpet inside and dirt outside and there was no place for it to roll. I always thought this was unfair reasoning. It is also the first series I remember wanting to be like someone and that was (is) Egon. I saw the cartoon before the movie and was a little disappointed that Harold Ramis didn’t look like Egon was supposed to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7VS-ZoeMqs
The show holds up extremely well. I didn’t care for the slimer shorts when I was a kid, but it didn’t bother me when he became more involved in later episodes. I didn’t like the Jr. Ghostbusters at all.
Bonus: Why are they the Real Ghostbusters? The earlier Filmation (who also did He-Man) series debuted in 1986 as well and it was based on the 1975 live-action version.
Filmation’s guys were the sons of the live action guys, episode 1 was even called something like “I’ll be a son of a ghostbuster or something.” I am a diehard Real Ghostbusters fan, but there are things to appreciate about filmation’s busters, if only for the level of bizarre the series took. There was crazy fallout conspiracies with the two on air at the same time. One even declared Filmation was racist as the ape was supposed to be the equivalent of Winston.
in 1997 a PKE surge saw the formation of a new gang of busters. I was an adamant hater of Extreme Ghostbusters then. I caught a couple reruns on cable after 2000 while working out of state but didn’t see the whole series again in order until the dropped it on HULU. Honestly the “extremeness” really sets itself firmly in my late junior high early high school days, but the writing on this still holds up and like the original some of the episodes are genuinely spooky. Egon (and Janine and Slimer) are the carry overs (if you aren’t familiar) with the extreme ghostbusters consisting of students in one of Egon’s courses. A more diverse group, without being preachy, the toyline on this one really blew up when they refused to market the wheelchair bound adrenaline junky Garrett.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGsMr3pe5T4
1987
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
By all accounts this was a true phenomenon when it hit the airwaves. The comics has been around a couple years and an older generation (or those that lived anywhere near a comic shop) generally hate the cartoon versions, but they were my first exposure and I was hooked. The downside to getting turtles toys was I had to get rid of my ghostbuster ones. Seriously. It was a tough choice and I think when it stopped coming on television I was able to justify the cut somehow and went on to get the turtle van and sewer lair. I never had the blimp but wanted it. Plus this thing runs for 10 seasons, the intros change (not for the better) throughout the season with the final “Red Sky” seasons splicing bits of the movie into the intro.
I just finished re-watching the series and there were scores of episodes I hadn’t seen as they aired on cable channels later. I have more recently started watching the 2003 series having never seen a single episode. The character development seems solid and the writing is an over arching story reminiscent of the original series first seasons. We’ll see how it goes for another 7 seasons. This is an extremely annoying intro and I have skipped it every time since watching it the first time.
TMNT comes back again in 2012 (there was a feature length computer animated film called Turtles Forever but that isn’t what this is all about). This series is fully computer animated and is generally described as “more for kids” but there are some deep themes covered in this ongoing series (currently towards the end of season 4). This intro is ridiculous too, but watching it change through time is interesting. Given the changes the intros made within a series who knows where they will go now.
My original list ended there, but I started looking at other things I watched on Saturday morning so I could round out the decade. In fact I would say the 1980s were the zenith of animated series that didn’t subtitle themselves “The animated series.” But before moving on, we can’t skip one of the best that is about to get a reboot:
Ducktales (woohoo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koSl8JX5BeI
One of my favorite episodes still is the druids episode with the glowing hound.
Another that seems only a handful if us remember was the far out space sci-fi western (way before Firefly) Bravestarr, another Filmation production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaMo4k7iG7s
1988
Garfield and Friends
I am watching old episodes of this as I type. The craziest thing about this is that the intro I remember doesn’t jive with the episodes I remember. It is also one of those intros that changed for the better and one of the few that had something different in each one (similar to, but not to the extent of the Simpson’s couch gag, more like Bart’s chalkboard writing).
The intro I actually remembered:
A Pup Named Scooby Doo
I watched every episode of this. Scooby Doo is by far my favorite animated series and this was the newest incarnation of the franchise (13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo kicked off in 1985, but was something between a mini series and a series, but some great voice work).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo1C1XL4p6c
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
It seems like 1988 was trying to turn away from the gritty anime action stylings with these new releases. In fact this is about the same time The Real Ghostbusters started fading towards a harder focus on Slimer and their intro was reoriented to be Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters. Either way, the turn wasn’t terrible. Maybe the sword fighting sound effects guy retired.
1989
This was the year for me that everything went Nintendo. The two new shows that hit network television were Captain N: The Gamemaster (which so few people remember) and The Super Mario Brothers Super Show.
Captain N: The Gamemaster
This was a weird live action into animation that included a dog. I didn’t know many of the characters in the show because affording Nintendo games wasn’t something I was good at. Welcome to VideoLand
The Super Mario Brothers Super Show
This is one of those shows that I remembered fondly and when it hit Netflix a couple years ago I wasn’t disappointed. That isn’t to say that it holds up as well as Real Ghostbusters, but the live action segments were the best. It was an animation/live action mixed intro with music that was great, but catchy as hell. I always liked Luigi, but being an only child I never was able to play the character (that is why I liked Super Mario Brothers 2). It is a weird intro, and when it was on Netflix it didn’t have the Legend of Zelda shorts in the middle. You remember “Excuuuuse Me Princess”? Because Link was obviously a valley girl. Putting this together I realized this show was over 10% intros.
Full show intro:
The Mario Brother animated Intro:
and the Legend of Zelda intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eKS8L6dB20
It wasn’t all Nintendo though, these were on Saturday morning, but after school (or at least by the time I got off the bus) there was an Indiana Jones and Magnum P.I. team of chipmunks.
Chip N’ Dale: Rescue Rangers
1990
The 90s. What’s to add except
Tiny Toon Adventures
TaleSpin
My grandmother loved this intro.
1991
I am going just into 1991 to include a few outliers.
Darkwing Duck Is an excellent parody of the super hero genre that really takes off with animated series of their very on from 1992 until the virtual end of television.
The Pirates of Dark Water
Peter Pan and the Pirates
This was an excellent series and I wish it would get a DVD release. Who wouldn’t love a Tim Curry Captain Hook?
That will wrap up the pre “animated series” series. This is a rough mix of what I watched on Saturday mornings and when I got home from school, after feeding all our animals. The later years most of the good stuff came on FoxKids which was channel 29 for us and we only picked up if it was cloudy-but-not-too-cloudy. From 1992 on you see Batman, X-men, Animaniacs, The Tick, and a huge shot in nostalgia’s arm with Cartoon Network’s Toonami (my aunt got satellite by this time so I could get some VHS recordings of the Herculoids, Thundarr, The Centurions, G-Force, etc. Then Cartoon-Cartoon took off and we got Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, and (maybe most importantly) Samurai Jack.
This all started while I was waiting for files to transfer and I was interested to see which of these were on the air at the same time.
As you look back through this batch of nonsense, it is the perfect time to point out that those of us that grew up with this are now reaping the benefits of others our age working in the comic industry. Of those listed IDW publishing currently runs a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ongoing comic, Ghostbusters comes in series, and Transformers are a huge swath of their enterprise. The also have Pink Panther and Strawberry Shortcake and ,among others, the reprinting of the old Popeye comics. There is also a growing trend with major crossovers. To date:
TMNT/Ghostbusters (2014)
Ghostbusters/Real Ghostbusters (2015)
TMNT/Batman (Dec. 2015-May 2016)
and DC is currently running…
He-Man/Thundercats
Ending where I started with He-Man, if you like the art here (and in the Batman/TMNT series) you can check out more, buy prints or originals at the artist’s (Freddie Williams II) website.
Winston Zeddemore (all images are screengrabs from the collected series unless otherwise noted)
I am currently working through some visual culture/studies ideas on how things shape our relationship with the social order and more basically the world around us. Without getting caught up in all the theories and manners of looking at things, it has gotten me to thinking more about something I said off the cuff to a friend of mine back over the summer when and after some of the more ridiculous things began happening where I attend University:
Aside/tangent/parenthetical background:
If you have read the previous post on the Ghostbusters you won’t be surprised that it probably had something to do with that and it does. I was born in 1982 in a tiny farm/hamlet town that was filled with people whose commute to work was on (a general) average an hour. It was also a town composed completely of white people. My family tree consists of nearly every name on the mailboxes in the town. Some of this is in the “about me” section on here, but I will string it along here again to help me order my thoughts. We had an elementary school through the 5 or 6th grade depending on the number of students in a given year or three, then we were bussed 16 miles to attend Jr High and High school in the next town. There were 18 kids in my kindergarten class. We were the teacher’s first class and she had graduated with my mother (the guy that later became my high school principal graduated with them as well. We won’t get that far, but it is worth mentioning). I was in Jr High before I ever had a class with someone who wasn’t white. We’ll leave that here and get back to the main story.
My friend and I were talking about the television shows we grew up with and what looked like and reminded us of our childhood. He was a Navy kid and spent his impressionable years in Japan so DragonBall Z was his. Mine, as I have belabored the point was The Real Ghostbusters and Scooby Doo. Both were the first things I can remember that were longer than the 6 minutes of Coyote and Roadrunner or the Hanna Barbera cartoons. Scooby Doo was in syndication (until a Pup Named Scooby Doo) but Ghostbusters was new. It also had something different in the main line up: a black guy.
Slimer, Peter, and Winston
We talked through it for awhile and I have been milling it over for a couple months now to make sure that what I said was indeed true: Winston Zeddemore was the first black person I “knew.” I use the quotations here because how well can you really know a cartoon character? Ghostbusters started airing when I was 4 and ran on network television until the early 90s. I don’t remember seeing the goofy Slimer/professor Dweeb things at all.
That all being said, I wasn’t aware at the time that this was the first non white person that I “knew.” If I went with my mother to the grocery store I would see people that didn’t look like me, but there was no conscious separation of us and them. There was an older guy that mowed the field at our elementary school, who I would see every other week on a tractor, but there were no daily life contact. Later I got to know James (the tractor driver) really well when we would work on the schools equipment for him in the auto mechanics shop.
Growing up like that really shapes the way you see the world. The holotype I had that structured how I thought of an entire population that I had no relationship with, was a cartoon character based on a film character. That is a powerful thing, and I have droned on through this because I believe that this happens more often that we think, and not always with such a positive representative. My school mascot was a warrior, and to this day Spirit Week consists of at least one day where the students fashion headdresses to wear. (in addition to all the bad Indian puns that were put on pep rally posters).
When this is all you know (or is the sum of your experiences), especially in a time when there were no facebooks and twitters and social change hashtags or even someone near you to offend it creates this world of “that’s just the way it is.” What I learned of the Civil War was the northern aggression narrative and the local cemetery in town has more than one CSA foot stone belonging to my ancestors. I took one of those ye olde tyme western photos at the fair when I was 10 dressed as a confederate general with a rebel flag backdrop. I wore a rebel flag belt buckle for years, and even have one on my high school ring (wherever it is). I knew no one it offended for years, as I began life in college and started making friends with people that I didn’t grow up with, that changed, and so did my understanding of things.
Egon and Winston (scan from my own animation cel from The Real Ghostbusters)
If you’re wondering what the point is other than “white kid can remember first black person he knew” it is that there are still a lot of rural schools in the US and there are still a lot of extremely homogenous towns, and when those kids leave those towns for college or life, it might be the first time they have experienced not only the “other” but the voice, the protests, the anger, and the offense of that other. I work with special populations on campus, which generally means first generation students and underrepresented in graduate school. I am a McNair Scholar alum, both as a scholar and working as Graduate Mentor for the two years I was working on my Master’s degree. It has been interesting to see first gen students adapt to the new environment of university both where I am now and my previous university.
It has also been interesting to see from afar kids that have never seen a brown person to suddenly be dropped into a room with 40 varying shades and accents, and then find out that some of them are smarter than they are. There are a lot of things in place to help international students adjust, but there aren’t that many (that I am aware of) in place to work with those I only see the “other” in town sorts. The first thing they usually hear is something about “white privilege” which is never explained and all they know is they aren’t privileged in any way and all sides get defensive and any chance at meaningful conversation shuts down. Everything we are doing to address race in this country is falling short failing. I don’t have the answer, the only suggestion I can propose that I have seen work in small groups (e.g. the McNair Scholars I have worked with) is to start focusing on what makes us the same rather than what makes us different.
Even the language that we use is up for argument about things. I have gone back and forth with the title of this, and the descriptors of people in order to bother the fewest number of people. I have worked with people who prefer to be called African-American and some that prefer to be called black. I have seen one of each get into a very loud and heated argument on a job site about how African one was–both were born in Texas. I have also been at a drug testing center (for employment) where the black lab tech called this tall lanky white guy back up to fix his paperwork because he had checked the “African-American” box. I will forever remember his reply: in a heavy accent he said, “No, that is correct, I am from South Africa, I am an African-American, you aren’t.” Make of that what you will. There is also the trouble here of growing up with the hymn “Red and Yellow, Black and White, They are precious in his sight,” which I have seen changed to “every color every race—I can’t remember the rest but I don’t think it rhymes with “Jesus’ face.”
The whole gang
The bottom line to all this is to not dismiss something as trivial in your life until you have had time to examine it and see if it really was trivial. What came out as a joke about Winston being the first black guy I knew, actually led me down a long path of talking with my friends of all ethnicities about their experiences and trying to understand where my own mental expectations of things came from. I think I am lucky in the sense that I have recognized that while my creation was based on what someone else created ( the derivative character for the cartoon based on a film) the organization around that mental construct was mostly my own (as far as I can tell) and not because I wholesale accepted what everyone around me was saying I should think about people.
When I finally did see the Ghostbusters movies Winston was the most like his animated self. Remember, I saw the cartoon first was a little let down by some of the movie versions of the others. Winston was the everyman character in both. Ernie Hudson became the “real” holotype for my characterization because it did not conflict with my mental world of what it meant to be “black.” Through it all now, I constantly wonder what the modern equivalent could be for today’s kids, the seeds of my entire notion of a significant part of the population in my country were based on a character created by Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis, played by Ernie Hudson, and then condensed (caricatured?) for a Saturday morning cartoon show. I suppose the whole point to this might be something like, “If this isn’t an example of how powerful popular culture can be (and a reason to study and take these things seriously) I don’t know what is.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NKxfl32yMQ
*I am aware that my use of “black” and not “African-American” or “people of color” or other acronym may upset some but to be true to the point and expression of growing up and offering my thoughts as I have made and seen them this is the best I can do. I did not live in a world of African-Americans or People of Color, I lived in a world where the people who were not white, Indian, or Mexican were black. Or worse.
Actually it was the reply to a tweet. The one below in fact. Suddenly, going through twitter in the morning before getting out of bed changed the trajectory of the entire summer and, in all honesty, may have helped my reconnect with a very long forgotten piece of myself. I’ve used the analogy before, but in this case I very much feel like Columbus who has discovered something that thousands of people already knew about. The Ghostbusters cartoon, that is The Real Ghostbusters, had a comic.
Nessie is a ghostNo, really.
So it goes, that April 19th began a tireless internet search for any format of any of these comics I could find. I lived for the ghostbusters cartoon when I was a kid. I saw the series before the movie and was always a bit bummed that Egon did not look the same in the movie. If I ever had a television hero or role model as such, it was Egon. Cartoon Egon. I can’t tell you how hard I tried to get my hair to roll like that. Incidentally it was the late 80s and early 90s and I did have the rat-tail too.
Personal collection of animation cells
Not a single person I knew was into comic books when I was a kid. To be fair I grew up mostly around adults, but still I don’t remember classmates bringing any to school or whatever. The first one I bought was an Uncanny X-men that was in the magazine section of the grocery store (Brookshire Brothers is its name), because I had been watching the animated series on Fox Kids on Saturday mornings.
I kept up with the story arc until at some point in Jr. High school, I was made to get rid of my collection of two large Nocona boot boxes full of comics, by this time X-men, Ninja Turtles, and Wolverine because they were “a fire hazard.” I gave them to the one person I knew had comics and as far as I know he still has them all to this day.
When I tried to get back into them later when I had my own place that I wasn’t concerned with pyromaniac comics burning down, I found that the single story lines I had followed had been split into seemingly limitless different arcs and I absolutely hated it. I didn’t pick up a comic again until this year.
The original run, drawn and written true to the cartoon are a thing of beauty. Not far into the run, there is Egon pointing out the debates on the warm-bloodedness of dinosaurs. That was neat enough, but when I got to the issue that had the reference to Symmes Hollow Earth theory I was hook. I am a historian of science (specifically earth and field sciences, geology, paleontology, and archaeology) so it was fascinating to see that obscure reference in a comic from 1988 aimed at kids. I now have an enlargement of that panel on my office wall.
Discussing the finer details about dinosaurian blood temperatureThe Hollow Earth Theory
In addition for finally rounding up all the original US comics and digitizing them, I lucked on to a fellow from the UK selling the first 100+ of the UK Mag comics. I have about 15 of them digitized, but they are coming along. That aside, something interesting started showing up in the google searches for Ghostbusters comics–(and here we have the second voyage of Columbus) there were new ones.
They were new, but they weren’t new. They are brilliant. They are absolutely everything that a fan could possibly want in a 21st century rendition of the franchise. I hate to admit just how long it took me to get used to the newly drawn characters specifically because I love all the artwork and the artist Dan Schoening (@Dapperpomade) is such a great guy and a must follow on Twitter if not for interaction then for his sneak peak/previews (including some really neat post-it art).
That is the “Rookie” from the video game. (all images are copyright of IDW Publishing and are used here to highlight and review the work where they are originally located. no infringement is intended and they are used for educational purposes (secondary to praise))The Twinkie
There could be a full manual written on just the easter eggs and sly references to other incarnations of the Ghostbusters that he includes in the series. When I started reading the series (that is now more than a couple years old) the appearance of Belushi as Ray’s Dreamworld Virgil pretty much squashed any doubts I had about where this was going. The writing, masterfully executed by Erik Burnham (@Erikburnham) brings everything together in a way that make every single issue enjoyable every single time you read one.
It’s the end of the world as we know itand I feel…
What I think I love the most amongst all this stuff that many of you have been enjoying for years is the fact that it does the very opposite of the thing that turned me away from comics all those years ago. Instead of splitting stories into backstories and alternate universes and riding relative dimensions to some weird end, the IDW publishing series is tying in everything. That is everything. The cartoons–yes, plural, even that weird one made for teens is represented, the movies, the video games, it is all coming together and that, for me, is a nice bit of Ray Stantz cosmological symmetry.
So much goodness
They, along with Tom Waltz (@TomWaltz) produced the crossover to rule them all: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ghostbusters. (I don’t want to leave the colorist Luis Antonio Delgado out either, the stuff pops on the page and looks amazing on a retina display iPad, Luis doesn’t have a twitter that I am aware). God, how I wish this would have been done when I was a kid, because the very UN-esque agreement that my mother made me submit to in order to get Ninja Turtle toys was to make room for them by getting rid of my ghostbusters toys. That this even exists is a tribute to humanity’s greatness. I am telling you, t is golden record in space worthy.
Even when interests mesh, it isn’t a perfect 1:1 and that makes it perfectMikey asks the important questions
Every page has comes with something like this. Which, of course, has led to backtracking to Tom Waltz recent runs with Ninja Turtles proper and it doesn’t disappoint either, but that is a thought for another time.
Currently they are running a 4 part Ghostbusters Get Real, wherein the cartoon ghobstbusters have crossed over into the new/real/comic universe. Never before have I wanted to hit up a Comic Con and get anything signed before, but this series has me looking at future locations.
Get Real #’s 1 & 2
The third one is out in a couple weeks and will feature Egon on the cover, so I am more than a little excited for that. The story is running true to all forms too. The best news comes that they are also working on a Ghostbusters Annual for the end of this year and a full new series (this will be Vol. 3) for 2016 along with a full published Tobin’s Spirit guide. There is really much, much more to say about just how wonderful all of this is and most especially for me as it recaptures a lot of what I was before life really got in the way. It also doesn’t hurt that I am finding it as I am working on my PhD research. A quick read through of one or two issues is a welcome break and recharge from digitizing thousands of WPA letters and funding, locality, worker records, and bureaucratic paperwork. I will, with all sincerity but these guys in my acknowledgements when the dissertation is finished.
