Art From My Youth

My aunt sent me these pictures that I drew way back in I think 1991 or 92 (time frame is based on the fact I tried to draw Darkwing Duck), and man I guess what colors I had to work with were really limited LMAO

Ghostbusters: A Big Part Of My Life

As we all know, prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, the movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife was supposed to be hitting theaters next month... and so I thought why not write a piece about what Ghostbusters means to me. Being born in late 1982 means I got to grow up with a lot of things, a lot of different influences that in many way shaped me into the person I am today, in terms of how I look and respond to things, what I look for in a show, movie television or video game. Now the earliest franchise I remember absolutely loving was Ghostbusters. Not because of the movie, but because of the REAL Ghostbusters animated series, which aired in syndication and on Saturday mornings on ABC.

Now I can't recall when I first saw the movie, which I know was on VHS, because the version of the film we had was in the RCA red border box... but I do remember the first episode I saw, or one of the earliest episodes, it was 'Knock, Knock', the episode where a Subway construction crew accidentally opens a door that unleashes all sorts of ghosts into our world, and Ghostbusters have to go down into the Subway to seal it, but I think the scene in it that connected with me the most was when they get on a Subway train to head towards the disturbance, with the lights going out and then suddenly our heroes are surrounded by skeletons dressed like passengers and they close in on the boys... then the lights go out again, and suddenly the scene lights up with the Ghostbusters firing their proton streams. What follows if I remember right is a scene of seeing the train on the tracks, with the windows being blown out, obviously indicating the Ghostbusters are fighting off the monsters, but we don't see what's happening in the train, and it's the first time I can really think I imagined what was happening... are they running from car to car, do they remain back to back and firing wildly, we don't know... and it was exciting. So that hooked me. At some point I saw the movie and while not fully understanding as a young kid how come the characters look different than the cartoon (cause I was an idiot, which is something I still claim to be today lol), the spirit of what I saw in the cartoon certainly was reflected in the source material. I think it was the first time I saw something can exist in different forms, a live action movie, a cartoon, and eventually comic books. I remember getting a whole bunch of REAL Ghostbusters merchandise, in fact I still have my Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (the hat was lost a long time ago). I remember having the Proton Pack, all of the original figures, the firehouse, the Ecto-One and other vehicles (Ecto-2 gyro-chopper, the Ecto-3, and a Volkswagon Beetle type car that transformed into a monster if I remember right). It's a shame I moved around so much that a lot of those toys became lost over time... but I still got My. Stay Puft! Hell one of the first comic books I remember having was issue number one of The REAL Ghostbusters published by NOW Comics in I think 1990/1, and I made sure to get it again when I got back into comic book collecting a few years ago. So yeah I was a big fan. I remember seeing Ghostbusters 2 in theaters in 1989 (which was the best summer of movies ever!) and loving it, cause by that point I understand the relationship between the films and the cartoons and I was super-stoked when there was an episode of the cartoon that mentioned Vigo. Hell I remember seeing The REAL Ghostbusters Halloween special along with the Garfield Halloween special in the same night and thinking that Peter Venkman and Garfield sounded the same. Yes this was Dave Coulier's Venkman, but to me as a kid, his take on Venkman sounded close to Garfield

Now of course I will admit that I kind of migrated towards The Ninja Turtles in the early 90s when The REAL Ghostbusters faded out from view, but I think it was 1991 I discovered Star Trek and I remembered there being a Real Ghostbusters episode that made so many references to Star Trek which I had no clue what it was until I saw Spock and saw the character similarities to Egon. So yeah I got into Star Trek because of Ghostbusters, go figure and Star Trek became the big franchise I was into...for the duration of the 90s. But when I read in an issue of Disney Adventures that there was a new Ghostbusters cartoon coming in the fall of 1997, I instantly returned to my original fandom. Extreme Ghostbusters was different than REAL Ghostbusters, but it was a sequel, the original Ghostbusters were disbanded, everyone was older... and so a new generation who were being mentored by Egon was going around busting ghosts, and this was real cool to me. Not only because by that point I was entering High School, but the new characters of Kylie, Roland, Eduardo and Garrett were depicted as being not to much older than I was. The stories were in many regards, a lot more darker than many of the REAL Ghostbusters episodes, and the references to pop culture in the show were more in-line with what I was familiar with,. But here's something you won't believe, but its true Extreme Ghostbusters was the first time I understood what antisemitism and racism was in the episode "True Face Of A Monster'. Of course most people remember Extreme Ghostbusters for the two-part episode Back in the Saddle that saw Ray Winston and Peter return... and of course there was that mention of a third movie, which lead me really discovering the internet. I remember going to my High School's library every day at lunch time to search for news of Ghostbusters 3... sadly that never happened. But much like REAL Ghostbusters, Extreme Ghostbusters stuck with me for a long period of time... hell my first attempts of fan fiction were based on Extreme Ghostbusters, and I submitted some artwork to the Ghostbuster Fan Forum back in 2001 during my failed army career. I did get some of the toys associated with Extreme Ghostbuster, namely the Ecto-1 and I think I managed to find the Kylie, Roland and Eduardo figures.... and those got destroyed when my grand-parents basement got flooded in 2003.

Fast Foward to the mid-2000s with Ghostbusters The Video Game, which obviously was a continuation of the films, but including a few nods to the cartoons, and I loved it. It was a day-one pre-order for me and I remember taking off work, waiting for a FedEx truck and playing it on my PlayStation 3 from like 3 in the morning because of how good it was. I have sense bought the game three times, once the original Steam version for PC, then the re-mastered for PC *which I streamed on Twitch earlier this year) and also for Xbox One just to cover all my basis. The multiplayer on the PS3 version was a ton of fun and I'm hoping it gets implemented at some point for the remastered versions, but I'm not holding my breath. I checked out several of the IDW Published Ghostbusters comics and I love the fact that Kylie Griffin was apart of them in a key supporting role, since Kylie was for me, the star of Extreme Ghostbusters. So now can you take a wild guess of what my reaction was to Ghostbusters 2016 was based on not only growing with the REAL Ghostbusters as a kid, and having Extreme Ghostbusters as a teenager? While I was excited when a third Ghostbusters film was announced... that excitement started to die a quick death when I saw that Paul Feig was the director, and all of his work was basically just 'gender swapped parodies' of other films. So to make this quick, for me Ghostbusters 2016 is a rotten film that has only one redeem quality and that is the character of Jillian Holtzman. Clearly Kate McKinnon didn't intended for this, but with what she did with Holtzman made it seem like she was the only character that could fit in with the two previous Ghostbusters films and the animated series, and it's the only reason why I bought the Funko Pop and Action figures of the character because the idea of Holtzman connected with me the way everything prior to the release of Ghostbusters 2016 had. Also of note that same day I also watched the Ghost Heads documentary to watch to basically wash the taste out of my mouth as soon as I got home (and yes I did contribute to that Kickstarter campaign and got the DVD along with the Funk Pop of Winston in an Ecto-1)

With all that said, I'm looking forward to Ghostbusters: Afterlife with cautious optimism and hopefully, the next big Ghostbuster experience to come along will be a positive one like the majority of things with the franchise has been with regards to me. I'm actually hoping that the COVID-19 stuff will be under-control by next year so I can see it in theaters, but we'll just have to wait and see won't we.