Ghostbusters at IDW
 

Super excited! More info soon...

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...es-d3drnx6.jpg

congrats, hope all goes well with it. You have every reason to be excited

Yeah, kudos to you, Tristan! But now I'm worried your Ghostbusters duties might crowd any potential TMNT work off your plate!:tgrumble:

this is cool! can't wait

As I said on FB, I'll definitely be subscribing for this one. The art very much reminds me of the Wii graphics in the latest game.

Funny you should mention that dude, I would suggest you read up a bit about Dan the Man ;)

I was thinking the same thing!

Cool stuff!

Didn't Dan Schoening also do the art on "What in Samhain Just Happened?"

Ghostbusters comics from the 21st century with actual TALENT behind them?? :o Wow. Methinks Sony isn't so eager to see the franchise fail at recapturing the public's attention again anymore.

lol! oh gobo

There's only one Dan the Man. And his name is Berger. :)

Can you say anything about the story/setting? Is this post-GB II? Does the video game factor into things? The Real Ghostbusters?

Nope... :P

Grats to you mate.

QFT!

Congrats on the gig man. I'll definitely be picking this up!

Just picked some of the older stuff up. I dug it. Is it going to follow the older IDW stuff or is this a fresh start?

i'd love to get my hands on more of the older stuff

It's going to be a pretty fresh start. You might want to check out the Infestation issues, but you don't need to :)

I started with the Infestation stuff actually. It was really good. I dug it. Also the Valantine issue was good. I'm so excited about this. I've been talking you up at my local shop Tristan, trying to get people as excited as I am. Ghostbusters and one of my favorite writers. Can't wait.

I have been keeping up with the GB stuff so I am excited to see this and for you Tristan!

This calls for celebration...



C'mon, everybody now...

Sorry for the late reply, but I love you azrael.

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/20...es-d3h1lb7.png

Can't wait for this to come out! The artwork is awesome!

Just read the script to #2 and saw some pages of #1. This book is going to ROCK!

Hooray for GB books that won't suck cuz TJ won't let 'em!! :D

can't wait to get my hands on 'em!

I would suggest everybody go here or here... ;)

This book looks really good! I am getting more excited the more I hear about it.

Does anybody else think it would be equally awesome if IDW could do re-prints of some of the Real Ghostbusters comics?

I'd pass out from overexcitement, but I'm pretty sure RGB is a completely different non-corporeal entity, legally speaking.

Not to draw away from this particular board, because I love it here, but Tom Waltz just informed me that IDW've opened up a Ghostbusters forum over on their boards as well! Hopefully you'll all swing over there at some point, too, as it'll definitely be the best place for you guys to touch base with other comic fans that aren't necessarily part of the hardcore fan base (some you may be able to convert and draw over here ), as well as IDW editorial and the creative team more regularly.

Head on over and take a look, and spread the word too! Would be great to see more fans talking under the one roof, rather than split across a number of different websites

http://forum.idwpublishing.com/viewforum.php?f=34

If you love me, How about a Signed copy of issue 1 with the cover of my choice :D for free?

If you send it to me with a stamped, self addressed envelope, I can certainly do that ;)

Just wanted to remind y'all that when you go in to pick up your new comics from today onwards, be sure to preorder Ghostbusters! It's finally available for preorder (and don't forget IDW's TMNT as well)!

September 21st, right Tristan?

I don't get out to the GD forum much, but I thought I'd copy-paste my response to the first issue of the Ghostbusters ongoing series here:

Dear god, if IDW could have just done THIS coming from the very beginning...

This was just a great mix of everything Ghostbusters. Burnham has the characters on point and I've been a fan of Schoening since he was just a guy doing sick art on DA.

But what I think is best, though, is that from start to finish this comic is FUN. IDW's earliest efforts tried way too hard to be "dark" and "gritty" and "epic". Ghostbusters is a lot of things, but first and foremost it is a COMEDY. If you don't think the Ghostbusters should be fun, then you shouldn't be writing Ghostbusters.

Schoening's "animated" style and the crazier humor really gives this a "Real Ghostbusters" kind of vibe, which is a high compliment (Janine's design is straight out of the cartoon). I purposely avoided the preview because I didn't want anything spoiled for myself, but I love all the Easter eggs thrown into the art; Buster the Ghost, the Banshee, Dopey Dog (to name only a few; Schoening's stories are practically "look n finds")... and a great effort at replicating scenery and equipment from the movies. I just love looking at these pages.


If you look at a taxi cab, you can see that the issue takes place in 1992 and there are references to both Ghostbusters the Video Game and Ghostbusters Infestation (the Stay Puft Marshmallows ad agent talking about how Stay Puft keeps coming back and going on rampages). I dunno if making it take place squarely in the past was entirely necessary; they coulda just used the standard coming book "sliding timeline" where instead of hard dates the referenced events were only "a couple years ago", but they're being discrete about it, so it's cool.

The sketch book at the end tells us the name of the villain, though beyond that, we don't know exactly what the conflict is going to be aside from a "third" something. But cliffhanging or not, this issue just felt so good.

Tristan Jones's back-up was cool and it covers the more serious/technical side of how city officials would regulate something as dangerous and abnormal as a "ghostbusting" business. Of course, we've got Walter Peck in charge of the whole thing. As much as I enjoyed Ghostbusters the Video Game, I don't think the story really allowed him to be the political and legal threat that he's supposed to be (it WAS a video game, after all; if you can't shot him, he isn't a very exciting villain). Comics seem a better outlet for his scheming; where he uses "the system" against the Ghostbusters to make a threat more difficult for them to deal with than simply blasting a monster to pieces.

Anyhow, this is the Ghostbusters comic I'd been wanting for I don't know how long. I loved IDW's holiday-themed oneshots and the Infestation two-parter was enjoyable. But one issue in and I'm already in love with this title.

Between this and TMNT, IDW has really turned its creative output around. Makes me almost want to read their Transformers comics again. Almost.

Not having read any of the previous IDW efforts, I can't compare this issue to what has come before. But I concur with your overall thesis, and I had a fun time with this issue. I am really lovin' the characterizations and overall tone that feels like an ideal mix of the live-action movies with the RGB cartoon.

Thanks to Tristan and everybody else at IDW who are making this GB comic into something worthy of the franchise's legacy.

I agree and disagree. Ghostbusters is a comedy, but it's offset by an AMPLE amount of horror. Ghostbusters is all about balance. You can have a dark and gritty looking ghostbusters comic as long as you can make it humorous. The movies themselves are pretty damn drab visually, and the ghosts are more horrifying than hilarious, except for Stay Puft, but he works because he's this physical embodiment of doom. He's a terrifying concept at the core, and the visual kind of works with that to balance it and keep it inline with the rest of the film.

I had no idea the GB IDW was out

Read it. Had no idea Tristan was drawing his own piece... damn, doubly nice work, man.

Ghostbusters is a mash-up of a lot of genres; science fiction, Lovecraftian fantasy, action/adventure and, considering Dana/Louis/Janosz/Peter/Janine/Egon, romance. But comedy and horror are definately the two biggest influences, yes.

However, it's my opinion is that you can have a good Ghostbusters story that isn't scary, but you can't have a good Ghostbusters story that isn't funny.

Horror is the second most vital element to a Ghostbusters story, but not 100% necessary. The Real Ghostbusters illustrated that point by having a number of episodes where the ghosts weren't frightening at all, but the humor and action was so strong it made the episodes completely awesome.

For example, aside from the suspense of the "deadly gameshow" motif, there's nothing inherently horrific about the episode "The Devil to Pay", and it doesn't even involve a single proton pack. Yet it is so gut-bustingly funny, it's one of the best episodes of the series.

I won't downplay the necessity of horror to a Ghostbusters story, as my favorite Ghostbusters stories and specific moments have a heavy dose of scary to them (Dana's possession scene in the first film is as effective as any moment from any "pure" horror film I can think of). Indeed, the balanced stories are often the best.

But Ghostbusters is a comedy. That's the section you find it in at the video store, after all. And if a Ghostbusters story isn't funny, then it's just missing the spirit of the franchise.

That's what I was getting at in my initial post. Horror is important, but comedy is more important.

Spengs, you know I love you, and I know exactly what you're saying -- and I'm not even saying I'm capable of doing this -- but I'm 100% sure you can have a good Ghostbusters story that's played totally seriously. You can totally have a Ghostbusters story that's good without any horror in it at all, but you can flip the dime. All you need is the right story. That's it. It's like Spiderman. You can have some (pun half intended) amazing Spiderman stories that totally drop the comedic aspects of the character, because they tend to push and expand on the character. I firmly believe you can do the same thing with Ghostbusters. At the end of the day, Ghostbusters is definitely about balance -- at least if you want it to work best. The BEST Ghostbusters stories incorporate both and one complements the other. I honestly can't think of any RGB eps that didn't really employ horror that I really enjoyed. You play up the comedy too much and it loses focus. People pick up Ghostbusters and expect to see creepy things being busted. It's like TMNT. You can be as funny as you want, but people are going to get up in arms if there isn't any ass-kicking.
If people really, genuinely want to see the most out of their most beloved properties -- whatever they may be -- they need to be open to every facet of that universe. You could tell some genuinely amazingly tragic stories set in the Ghostbusters universe, using those characters, that I'm sure people would love.