By Erik Burnham, Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado
It’s exciting to see the creative team that absolutely understands the nature of Ghostbusters return with a new mini-series. The animated iterations from The Real Ghostbusters will meet with IDW’s…genius. The Ghostbusters from the animated series are transported to the other dimension by the main antagonist, Proteus, who had other plans for the team. Fortunately or unfortunately, his spell was tampered with. Now, the groups have met and are ready to bust some ghosts!
The Ghostbusters comics are known to have easter eggs referencing the various animated series, so now having them directly connected was the logical next step. Especially, after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters crossover series. Every aspect of this comic was just impressive. The core plot of this storyline evolved out of an actual episode from The Real Ghostbusters, “Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster”. At first glance, the episode can seem like a forgettable one, but Erik Burnham was able to find strong plot threads that would work not only for this series, but in the overall structure of the universe of IDW’s properties. This shows real research and understanding of the franchise… very impressive!
Opening to the first page, fans of the cartoon will be instantly transported to when they watched it. Dan Schoening and Luis Delgado have perfectly nailed the designs and look of the classic series. It’s just jaw-droppingly stunning how good it looks; almost as if these two worked on the animation from the very start. This is no mere imitation; to be able to make this look so good and then transplant it in another established world takes true skill. Even the coloring style is lighter and faded like the show was. When the two teams meet, the styles are clearly evident and make the material far more immersive. Scenes are taken right from the source episode to make the transition seamless. Having the dialog and art mirrored so well is such a treat. There’s several nods to “Janine Malnitz, Ghostbuster”, in the writing and art, but I’ll leave that for readers to find and enjoy.
I highly recommend finding the classic episode and comparing it with the comic. It will provide so much context and appreciation for what these men are doing. Perhaps though, the real charm is that the creative team makes the story their own. They see the potential strength of the villain and how he was poorly used in the cartoon, so many possibilities are there and it looks like a lot will be explored in this event. This is an absolute must buy for fans Also, the variants look amazing too.
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