Ectozone.com News Archive

Ghostbusters: Ghost Busted

Technically released the same day as IDW's Ghostbusters: The Other Side #1, TokyoPop's graphic novel didn't turn up in my area until a little later. Well, here it is.

I was interested in seeing what would come of this; TokyoPop got it's start (and still does the vast majority of it's business) as a translater of Japanese manga. They released an English version of the Sailor Moon manga back when they were know as Mixx, and back around 2003 or so even released Digimon manga adapting the first three seasons.

Anyway...

The book is a little bigger than the standard manga size, but that's no problem.

The cover: I admit, I liked the "not final art" version that leaked out, featuring Egon with blond hair and Ray with red hair. Ray still very much looks like the animated version. On the other hand...Venkman looks awful. He could be just about anybody.

The book is really divided into three stories.

"Theatre of Pain" is the first story, and it features some nice, surreal moments worthy of the Ghostbusters name. Egon trying to dance. A stage play that includes an F-14 Tomcat. And Venkman chewing the scenery during his stint as "The Di-Rector!!!" The art's a bit loose and messy, but that fits the screwball atmosphere. There's some nice mocking of both Blintzy Jones' very Micheal Bay-esque approach to storytelling ("More explosions!") and the more artsy-fartsy pretentions of the ghost of Francis Frum.

The second part is divided into chapters by different artists, and features the return of Jack Hardemeyer, the mayoral aide from GB2. As is typical, Hardemeyer looks only vaguely like Kurt Fuller, and at times I see perhaps a bit of the RGB version of Hardemeyer from the Now Comics GB2 adaptation.

The enemy pulls the classic "divide and conquer"--Ray is snagged while on a series of wild goose chases and "false alarms". Egon is nabbed just after (apparently) resolving the situation of his old physics professor, Harold Teplitz. And Venkman is nabbed by a ghost posing as a coed wearing nothing but a towel.

Winston gets to save the day here, using some mundane weapondry to fight ghosts who have developed their own version of the proton packs, these designed to hold and trap humans. This is kind of ironic--the title of the book, Ghost Busted, is the same as an RGB episode: "Ghost Busted" featured the brief career of the Crimebusters, who used proton packs designed to trap and hold humans. I wonder if that was a coincidence?

Anyway, it turns out Hardemeyer has an accomplice, but I won't spoil every surprise.

Artistically, the best stuff in this section is Micheal Shelfer, who draws an awesome Janine. Janine, by the way, hits on Egon, and there's no mention of Louis Tully at all in this book.

The last chapter is unrelated to the rest of the book, save for one cameo of Hardemeyer in a soup line at the end. The main story is about a Sumerian fashion nightmare who looks like a glam boot before becoming, as Venkman phrases it in the story, a "fussy tranny". I admit I thought the line about "concubine of Gozer" was a bit gratuitous, though, a bit of "connecting it to something from the movies just to do it even though it adds absolutely nothing".

Like the first story, there's a wonderful screwball sense to the proceedings (it's by the same writer) and some satire of the fashion industry, leading to a surreal climax involving all four Ghostbusters in drag. The art is, in my opinion, the best in the book--Chrissy Delk does the best versions of the characters by not trying as hard as the others to make them resemble the actors. They're not the RGB versions either, but I see their spirits in them; her Janine is also excellant.

I admit, I enjoyed this a lot more than I enjoyed the first issue of The Other Side

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--Fritz V. Baugh

Ghostbusters: The Other Side #1

Last week, IDW released Ghostbusters: The Other Side #1, first of a mini-series bringing the Ghostbusters back to the comic racks after a three year absence. There's also a new graphic novel by TokyoPop, Ghost Busted, but my shop didn't have that one on release day (October 15)

Well, the good news, it's a new Ghostbusters story, by a company that has a track record for actually putting stuff out. Compare that to the previous licensee, 88MPH Studios, who took an entire year to release the four issues of Ghostbusters: Legion and never did deliver the hardcover compilation that fans ordered and paid for three years ago.

(Oh, heck, rather than repeat some bitter rants here, I will direct you to a post on the Ectozone Message Board)

The art is solid, and the colors are vibrant. But I gotta admit, the dual problems of "likeness rights" and "most fans want them to look like the movie actors" lead to some weird results. The cover, for example (which is not by the interior artist) feature characters that could, to some extent, be just about anybody. Heck, ironically, on the cover Winston looks like no one more than Arsenio Hall.

The interior art delivers a bit more characterization. Venkman looks pretty decent, with a nice unruliness to his hair that helps distinguish him (of course, he spends most of the issue posessed). Winston didn't do much for me. Ray was pretty good, suitably goofball. Egon? I gotta admit, I really don't like the spiked haircut. It just doesn't fit him. It looks like something Janine drug him out to do under protest to try and "make him more hip" or something.

Of course, I'm the person who thinks current Ghostbuster licensees are missing the boat by not dumping the "make them look like the movie actors, but not enough to force us to pay them" bullshit game and just use the far more dynamic character designs from the cartoons, so take what I say on the matter with a grain of salt, I guess.

Story wise, I found myself in a very "1989 after GB2" state of mind, maybe because not one but two RGB episodes ("Partners In Slime" and "The Ghostbusters Live From Al Capone's Tomb") and two issues of the Now RGB comic (Vol.1#4, #7) from 1989 involved ghost gangsters. None of the familiar supporting and secondary characters appear here, or are even mentioned: no Janine. No Slimer. No Louis or Dana. It's just the four Ghostbusters and a bunch of ghost gangsters.

I admit there's a few holes in the continuity, even knowing that (sigh) they're not paying attention to anything from the cartoons. We know Venkman has been kicked out of his body, but there's no reason for Ray and Egon to realize that until after they knock out the posessing entity and Venkman doesn't wake up--over the course of the two movies, Dana, Louis, and even, briefly, Ray himself were posessed, and their spirits didn't depart for the "dark void of dispair".

A few good zingers, though. I laughed out loud when the entity posessing Venkman claimed he was "screamin' like a little girl" and Venkman's ghost retorts "That's a total lie! Everybody knows I sound like a big girl when I scream"

Points for a shocker of an ending, though: Venkman's posessed and his spirit's in Purgatory. And Ray, Winston, and Egon have been shot with more holes than John McCain's economic plan.

Final assessment: Frankly, I didn't get nearly as much of an "Oh, Yeah!" zing out of this one as I did with Legion #1. I think the writers and artists of the earlier project had a much greater sense of familiarity with the property and characters at the outset. But I think The Other Side is still not a bad start, and plan to stick around and see where it goes.

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--Fritz V. Baugh

It's Coming!

Sorry...couldn't resist...

The Big Announcement at Comic Con is that the rumored released of one of the best cartoons of all time in a proper format is not a rumor anymore: Time-Life will be releasing The Real Ghostbusters in it's entirety in a 28 disk set this fall!

25 total DVDs packaged in a specially-constructed box. 24 DVDs contain 134 episodes of The
Real Ghostbusters, a special double-length alternate episode, and 13 episodes of Slimer!
5 DVD digipak subsets with individual covers, each packaged with a 16-page booklet,
including episode synopses, trivia, and art.
1 Bonus DVD contains over three hours of bonus materials, including extended interviews, the
never-before-seen promotional pilot (with commentary and storyboards), and more.
5 Documentaries spotlight Creating The Real Ghostbusters, Animating The Real Ghostbusters,
The Heroes of The Real Ghostbusters, The Creatures of The Real Ghostbusters, and The Green
World of Slimer.
21 innovative on-camera commentary tracks feature producers, writers, artists, voice actors,
and other The Real Ghostbusters personnel. Watch the commentary participants as they
interact, while inset screens show the episode and a dynamic slideshow.
86 special episodic introductions showcase the talented people behind The Real Ghostbusters.
Exclusive interviews with Joe Medjuck (Executive Producer), Michael C. Gross (Executive
Producer), J. Michael Straczynski (Writer & Story Editor), Len Janson (Writer & Story
Editor), Maurice LaMarche (Voice Of " Egon Spengler"), Laura Summer (Voice Of First
"Janine Melnitz"), Kath Soucie (Voice Of Second "Janine Melnitz"), Kevin Altieri (Director &
Storyboard Supervisor), Kathryn M. Drennan (Writer), Michael Edens (Writer), David Gerrold
(Writer), Pamela Hickey (Writer), Dennys J. McCoy (Writer), Francis Moss (Writer), Richard
T. Mueller (Writer), Marc Scott Zicree (Writer), Marsha Goodman (Voice Director & Voice
Casting), Gabi Payn (Character Designer - Heroes), Everett Peck (Character Designer -
Monsters), Michael Diederich (Designer), Brad Rader (Storyboard Artist), Dan Riba
(Storyboard Artist), Michael Swanigan (Storyboard Artist), Rich Arons (Animator), Darrell
McNeil (Layout Artist), Derdad Aghamalian (Color Key Artist), David S. Karoll (Color Key
Artist), and James Eatock (Publisher of cereal:geek Magazine).
Multiple image galleries of Character Designs, Backgrounds, Model Sheets, Promotional Art,
Advertising Art, and more.
Selection of dialogue-free "Music & Effects" episodic audio tracks
Original series bumpers and textless "clean credits."
DVD-ROM Material: Series Bibles, Episodic Scripts and Storyboards in PDF format (Mac/PC
compatible).
Exciting material from the Sierra Ghostbusters; The Video Game

The price is $179.99, but can be pre-ordered from GB Fans for only $161.99. So far this release is for the United States only.

Pretty steep when you don't have an income, but dammit...this is the only thing that has come down the pike in the last year that has me genuinely excited. I feel so-so so far about the Tokyopop manga. I get headaches when I read about Aykroyd and Ramis's Marty Stu factory video game. But this has me pumped

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--Fritz V. Baugh

Way back in the early days of 2004, Jeremy Hicks of the Ghostbusters West Coast came up with an idea: his last name, Hicks, derives from "Hyksos"--the ancient people who once conquered Egypt and, in the Ghostbusters Universe, are mentioned as worshippers of Gozer. So what would happen if Jeremy Hicks was posessessed by Vinz Clortho?

With the movie's twentieth anniversary looming, it snowballed into the inspiration for a massive event crossing over the original Ghostbusters, the Extreme Ghostbusters, the Ghostbusters West Coast, the Ghostbusters UK, Ghostbusters Nightsquad, and Ghostbusters: Arcane Divisio; a crisis large enough to justify that big a roster and celebrate the movie's twentieth anniversary.

Chronicles of Gozer

Despite a strong start, the development started to plod along; it took a year to release five chapters, and the sixth was missing in action for much longer.

Well, today, the wait is over.

It may not be worth the three years it took, but on the other hand, I think it's worth a read. It's a story we took our time to make sure it was right instead of crapping it out just to get it done.

Today, I announce the one hundredth story in the Ectozone fan fiction saga.

Ghostbusters: Chronicles of Gozer Book Five: Exaltation
By Various Authors; Edited by Vincent Belmont
June 2004--Timeline Year Twenty Two
The epic conclusion. Ghostbusters International, the Order of Hermes, and the Garou nation stand united against the impending return of Gozer. An alliance the likes of which the world has not seen in untold ages. Secrets are revealed, enemies become allies, and desperate plans are made as science, magic, primal might, and faith march against the ancient horror of the Shapeless Destructor. But is it enough?

One of those "secrets", by the way, is one mystery that has been lingering since the release of "Future Shocks" five years ago: the identity of Eric Stantz's mother, the woman that Ray Stantz married. Now you will know...

And that's not the only thing.

But you'll have to read it for yourself.

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--Fritz V. Baugh

It was five years ago today that I took the step of opening the very first version of the Ectozone ("Ectozone 1.0") to put online the Ghostbusters Omnibus Timeline.

I'm not going to get as nostalgic as my February 3rd posts, but out of that tiny, crude html acorn has grown...well, maybe a steady twig or two. A second timeline, almost a hundred fan fictions, it's very own message board, and more.

I started at Angelfire, and moved to GoDaddy in August of 2007, mostly to make some more options available. I guess it's only appropriate that today we take another small step. You probably noticed the green, and the new banner at the top of the page, and maybe even some of the new title logos on the fan fics...it's all part of what I perhaps inevitably call "Ectozone 4.0"

Just like Ectozone 2.0 was brought about by tables in html, and Ectozone 3.0 was brought about by stylesheets. Ectozone 4.0 continues the process begun when I switched servers. The main pages now end in the .php extension to allow the use of server side scripting such as includes statements--this news item, for example, actually exists as a brief .html file in the /news/ menu; both the main page (index.php) and the new news page (/news/index.php) just simply call it up with an includes statement. It mean I only have to have it on the server once, and the pages that need it both call up the same text.

(And don't worry much if you have the old .html pages bookmarked. One other thing I can use now is .htaccess pages, which should redirect the old .html urls to the new .php pages.)

Back in March, for St. Patrick's Day, I uploaded a green stylesheet to the Ectozone message board, intending it to be a one-day nod to that particular holiday. The move proved so popular that when I floated the possibility of moving to a new "Ecto Green" look as a new default for the site, the idea was strongly embraced by the posters on that board.

Furthermore, as I've gained some knowledge of the PhpBB3 software, I realized I would be able to moadify the Subsilver2 pages to create a modified look to the board that makes it and the main site look more alike than ever. I uploaded some of this revision to "Ecto Red" a month or so back, but...again, I'm really pleased with the results.

And perhaps, take the time to check out GBWC.net, the home page of the Ghostbusters West Coast. It has also been upgraded to "Ectozone 4.0", and features a new banner designed by Mjollnir.

It's been a great five years--but I ain't done yet!

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--Fritz V. Baugh

If you're reading this, you're seeing the news item created for the Beta of Ectozone 4.0. This page might not look terribly different--sure, it's green, and there's a new logo at the top of every page, but the real trick is "under the hood" as it will.

Just like Ectozone 2.0 was brought about by tables in html, and Ectozone 3.0 was brought about by stylesheets. Ectozone 4.0 will be the culmination of the potential brought about by the hosting plan I switched it to in July 2007. The main pages will end in the .php extension to allow the use of server side scripting such as includes statements--this news item, for example, actually exists as a brief .html file in the /news/ menu; both the main page (index.php) and the new news page (/news/index.php) just simply call it up with an includes statement. It mean I only have to have it on the server once, and the pages that need it both call up the same text.

It will really be special once the fan fic pages are recoded: instead of having two huge pages listing identical blocks of text in different orders...they'll just be a couple of .php pages listing includes statements in different order.

I'm also working on some hacks to the message board software--the end result will be that the board and the main site will look more alike than they ever have.

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--Fritz V. Baugh

Happy New Year

Well, I hope, anyway. It's go a lot of potential going for it--chief among them the election of George Bush's successor (assuming Vice President Darth Haliburton doesn't fake up some excuse to declare martial law and cancel the election...but I'm trying to be hopeful here).

Anyway...

On tap for 2008:

Chronicles of Gozer. I know I said this last year, but this time I mean it--I will write no other Ghostbusters stories until I get this sent to Vincent. I've released ninety nine fan fictions thus far; this would be a great candidate for #100.

Artwork: Up in the Art section is a redesigned page depicting the children of the Ghostbusters, including updated depictions of most of them and the debut of present day versions of future Ghostbusters TJ Anderson and Marie Lupin. Check it out. I hope to add to it later.

The Fact List. I actually uploaded some updates a few weeks ago, but didn't say anything to see if anyone noticed. They didn't. Anyway, I picked through the 88MPH comics and iBooks novel and added some stuff from those--appropriate pages have been updated with seperate sections for those facts, as the don't always blend into the GBOT continuity.

The Video Game I'm still not excited about this. I had a much longer rant I almost put up (and possibly still will in the Video Game forum ). Having friends I've known for years saying they'll "gloat" if characterization clusterf***s from the retread movie sequel are continued and the snotty attitude from many of "Well, it's about time we found out what really happened" like there hadn't been a single Ghostbusters story written by anyone anywhere since 1989 don't help.

Anyway, enough about that--like I said, I'm trying to be hopeful.

Here's to a good 2008.

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--Fritz V. Baugh

It's official

Ghostbusters Video Game coming in October 2008.

Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, and Hudson will provide the voices of their characters. Annie Potts will return also, but Weaver and Moranis have "passed" on the project. William Atherton (Walter Peck) will appear. And apparently they accomplished the impossible, and got Bill Murray's likeness rights (his brother will also do voices for the game)

(sigh) I gotta get this out of me.

I don't know why this doesn't excite me at all yet. I look around and everyone on all of the other boards is just splooging all over themselves over this, and it just leaves me cold.

Maybe it's because I'm not really a video game person.

Maybe it's because, while everyone else is going "OMFG Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis are doing this one1111111!!!1111one111" I can't help but remember that their batting average with me is .500, meaning that it's just as likely this will be a lame attempt to cash in again as it's likely to be an inspired and worthy addition to the franchise.

Maybe it's because we got burned so bad by 88MPH and iBooks.

Maybe it's because with Sony's obvious mostly blas� attitude to this property, I have trouble believing they'll go all-out for it.

Maybe it's because I'm old, and battling depression, and feel so little joy anymore.

Maybe that will change. I admit the screencaps of the ECTO-1, basically the ECTO-1A with the original logo, does provide this slight sense of validation. And Rick Moranis not being in it does provide the slightest, teeniest ember of hope that Ramis will correct his biggest characterization misfire in GB2.

But on the other hand the whole concept of the game depends on some "Player Avatar" character shoved into it, which could be a very very bad thing.

All I know is that honestly, right now with everyone else raving about "THIS IS THE BIGGEST NEWS IN YEARS!!!" I have trouble caring much.

Keep up with Proton Charging and GBHQ for updates

--Fritz V. Baugh

One of the whole reasons I wanted to switch to stylesheets almost a year ago was because they would let me change the look of the entire site pretty quickly.

I didn't do a lot of that last year, other than the message board, because it was all new and I didn't want to confuse people any more than usual.

But this year, I'm gonna try and get with the program.

For the entire month of October, the Ectozone will be orange instead of red. Okay, maybe this was easy, as I basically reused the stylesheets from the Ghostbusters West Coast site, though their page is now orange and dark blue instead of orange and grey.

And even though the PhpBB3 board is new, I've uploaded a new stylesheet to it too.

And of course you probably noticed the Sam Hain logo, modified from the one I used on the Ectozone board last year (and just for the fun of it, the Archived Board has been switched to it's Halloween skin too)

And just wait until after Thanksgiving...

--Fritz V. Baugh

I've had the Ectozone hosted with Angelfire.com since the very beginning. It was almost six months after the day the site came up before I purchased the Ectozone.com domain name from Lycos. (in between, it was Ectozone.tk for a while)

I purchased the Ectozone.net domain from GoDaddy.com two and a half years ago, originally to be the url for my Digimon site; I did notice some blurb about "Free Web Hosting With Domain Purchase" but I looked around the web site and saw their "WebSite Tonight" program and thought it didn't look any better than Angelfire or Cyberturf (then the host of the Digimon site) or Freehomepages.com (the host of the GBWC site since before there was a gbwc.net) I set the domain url to redirect to cyberturf.com/digimon and left it at that.

Of course, the Digimon site never really took off, and later I tried to use Ectozone.net as a bit of a webring. That didn't really do a lot either, and since earlier in 2007 ectozone.net became a redirect to the Ectozone forum

Recently, whether it's an actual upgrade of GoDaddy's service, or I just read the wrong stuff, I've discovered I was very very wrong. It's a "real" web host program, with at present 5GB of web space, 250GB of bandwidth, MySQL database capacity, the works (maybe not as good as something I'd have to pay $20.00 a month for, granted, but it's frickin' free with something I'm already buying from them!!!) In four years I've filled about 12 MB, but that was through constantly trying to keep my file size down, and deleting some stuff I didn't need anymore.

Well, after some soul searching, some hard work, and some input from everybody who actually gives a flying leap what I do, I've decided to make the jump.

The Ectozone is all brand new, even though, at first glance, it may not look any different. Maybe not Ectozone 4.0, but Ectozone 3.5. The Timeline, the Fan Fics, the Fact List, it's all still there, pretty much exactly as you remember it (in fact, if you have Ectozone.com bookmarks, it'll take you to the exact same page on Ectozone.net) But with Ectozone.net, a lot more things will be possible, and probably will happen as my knowledge of web mechanics slowly grows.

Like, for instance, even two months ago if you'd started to talk about config.php files and MySQL databases, my eyes would glaze over (and admittedly, I still know jack shit about php programming or how MySQL works for the moment). But after some diligent research and a leap of faith, I have the first genuinely improved feature of Ectozone.net to announce:

The all new Ectozone Forum. And it's all mine. Not Proboards'. Not Netsolo's. Mine Uploaded, configured, and installed by Your Truly, utilizing the latest version of the popular PhpBB program.

So feel free to sign up, take a look around, and maybe help fill the new place up with the same insight I got used to at the old board.

And in case you were wondering, the "old" Ectozone is still there. While through the magic of IP pointing and Domain Aliasing Ectozone.com now redirects to Ectozone.net, if you feel like touring the old place just go to http://archive.ectozone.com. The url is different, but other than that it's pretty much just like you remember it.

The original Ectozone Forum is temporarily unavailable until I get it reconfigured to be disabled for new posting. As soon as that is finished, it will be reopened as an archive, and everybody should be able to retrieve their PMs if they so chose.

Thanks as always for your support.

--Fritz V. Baugh

As the guys who visit the Ectozone Forum know, I have a younger brother named Al (actually, he's one of three younger brothers I have, but that isn't important right now), who posts there under the user name OgreBBQ. He doesn't post very often, mind you, because 4chan has lots of porn for him to download and I don't, but he pops up once in a while.

What is not as well known is that Al dabbles in writing too. In some ways I still think he's better than I am, but he's even less motivated. Al's my first spellchecker, has given me more zinger ideas than I can count, and (under the pen name Jim Harley) is the creator of the Inquisitors, the team of characters seen in Shadow Of The Inquisitors.

Well, after a very long wait, I finally have something he's done ready to show the rest of you. If you've been wondering what happened to the brutal vampire hunter Anatole Vashnivski after he was Embraced...well, time to find out.

Blood Feud: Prague

It's darker and more intense than most of the stuff I do, but that serves the subject matter pretty well. I hope everyone else has as high an opinion of Al's work as I do.

--Fritz V. Baugh

Well, it's the fourth anniversary of the Ectozone, so I feel like I gotta write something deep and eloquent about it. Or, failing that, something self-important like "in this day and age lasting four years means something blah blah blah..."

I don't really have a lot to talk about though. All the Ghostbusters stuff is stuck in a rut. No news on the (supposedly) upcoming video game and (supposedly) upcoming CGI Ghostbusters 3. I'm not much better off on a personal level--my interets sometimes ebb and flow, and Ghostbusters is kind of at an ebb right now.

I've been spending more time lately playing around with Digimon stuff, especially after it was made official that the fifth season of the show was going to be coming this fall on Toon Disney. I was even inspired to rebuild my Digimon site, The Digital Ectozone, and am even in the process of writing a Digimon fan fic based on the Digimon Adventure (Season 1-2) continuity.

But not all is lost if you remember that I did once try to bring both of those interest together in a fan fic called "Digibusters" And the one new tidbit I have today (I try to have a new story ready for the anniversary) is, after a two year hiatus (like I said, my interests ebb and flow), Digibusters, Part 3

I'm not giving up on the Ghostbusters, though. "Pandora's Box, Part 3" is well under way, and "Digibusters Part 4" is almost done. And I keep intending to get "Chronicles of Gozer" done one of these years.

Thanks for your patience, and your four years of support.

--Fritz V. Baugh

Ghostbusters 3 at last?

So here's the deal, kids...

Back in February, there was a sensation on GBN and GBHQ. After a radio DJ inverviewed Dan Aykroyd and Shannon/Zedd made a post on GBHQ the Ghostbusters community was on fire like it hadn't been since late 2002/early 2003.

Ghostbusters 3 might finally be made! It would be in CGI and Bill Murray had agreed to be Venkman's voice, but since he wouldn't let them use his face "The characters will be based off the cartoon rather than the movie" (which, as you can expect, caused more than one movie purist to whine)! We were finally going to get it at last!!!

Or maybe not.

We had already heard that a Ghostbusters video game was in the works (go to the Proton Charging .com Archives for more on that) but now, what it looks increasingly like, as there has been no official announcement from Sony or any of the other actors who would likely be involved, that Aykroyd may have gotten his terms confused and the talk about GB3 was really about the video game

I admit I just couldn't get terribly excited after all the false starts the Ghostbusters community has had the last several years, but it also feels like a bit of a let down nonetheless.

Still, who knows? To keep up on any breaking developments:

Proton Charging. The Hardcore Ghostbusting News Site

Ghostbusters Headquarters Movie Forum

Ghostbusters Central Ghostbusters III Forum

And of course **cough** The Ectozone Movie Forum

--Fritz

I spent the last two New Years talking about how the previous years sucked. Well, 2006 still sucked, but not quite as bad. I did some successful stories that drew a lot of attention, like Where In The World Is Chelsea Aberdeen?, the mind-bending Gemini Rising, and the much anticipated wedding of Egon Spengler and Janine Melnitz, Forever. No real life triumphs, but no failures this time. And in the larger world, people woke up enough to the colossal clusterf*** of the Constitution and our troops being committed by the Cheney junta that his lapdogs suffered an electoral "thumpin' "

So what's in the works for 2007?

Chronicles of Gozer In the summer, Vincent Belmont bowed out of writing the finale of this long-delayed epic; he sent the plot outlines to Kingpin and me, and now that the big stories I was working on (ie above mentioned "Gemini Rising") are done, I plan to get together with Ben, Iain, Jeff, and a few others to see about finally getting this sucker done.

Ghostbusters: Pandora's Box In 1992, Now Comics began this story but never finished it. The Peoplebusters are loose in New York and the mystery of Ian Epimetheus is hanging over the Ghostbusters' heads...so how did those things turn out? Time to find out.

Ghostbusters West Coast Two new members have joined the team. Fritz and Chelsea adjust to married life. Kyle Stevens deals with the heartbreak dealt him in United Darkness. And in the shadows, the Necromancer sets up his dominos, waiting for the right time to knock them down...

Ghostbusters International Bo Holbrook has proposed some fundamental changes to the GBI operating paradigm, ideas that may lead to a big story with big reprecussions for every Ghostbusting franchise. It may even have Andy Harness's fateful title "Legends of Ghostbusters"...

And we start off with a satirical Apocrypha piece, in which I blow off some steam after the long, involved stories, and have a little fun with the excesses of fandom. If the title The Legend of Mary Sue doesn't tip you off what you're in for, be very afraid...

Have a safe and happy 2007
(The Seventeenth Year of Aquarius to you Hermetics. Though that doesn't start till March)

--Fritz

Ectozone 3.0

When I started this site 3 1/2 years ago, I knew just about zip about website design, and it showed (look in the Archive Section to see what I mean. One year after opening the site, I announced "Ectozone 2.0", where I organized the site by using tables. It made it state of the art for 1999.

Today, the next step in the Ectozone's evolution--Cascading Style Sheets. Maybe pretty simple ones by the standards of CSS, but they're all mine. Plus a new link bar powered by Javascripts--so the next time Rich Roy moves GBI, I won't have as many out-of-date links (just kiddin' with you, Rich :P) All of this means less clunky codes and easier updates in the future. Want to decorate for Christmas? Bam. One script page changed, every page on the site is red, white, and green.

The Ectozone Message Board is being warped by these codes too. I jumped at the chance to use the same stylesheet ideas to make the main site and the forum actually look a lot more like the same website than ever before.

I had hoped to have the conclusion of "Gemini Rising" ready for this upgrade, but...er, well, it will be done soon.

Within the next few weeks, the Ghostbusters West Coast site should be undergoing a similar makeover.

I hope everyone enjoys the new look. State of the art for 2002.

--Fritz

On September 13, 1986, ABC aired the first episode of a cartoon called The Real Ghostbusters. It was based off the hit movie from two years before, Ghostbusters.

It couldn't even call itself Ghostbusters because of an obscure Filmation show in the 1970's, Ghost Busters, and a battle for the name. Columbia got to keep the name, but Filmation retained the rights to do a Ghost Busters cartoon (starring a monkey) to cash in on the name Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray made popular.

Top it off, due to likeness issues, none of the Ghostbusters looked like the movie actors. Ray Stantz became pudgy and redheaded. Venkman became younger looking. Winston lost his mustache. Egon became tall, lanky, and with weird blond hair. Bookish secretary Janine got a bit sexier.

Could this work?

You bet your ass it could.

ABC and DiC studios (the company that actually produced the show) hired sci-fi writer J. Micheal Straczynski to be Story Editor, and he kept the staff from cliche's and formulaic storytelling as much as possible in Saturday Morning TV in 1986. JMS himself wrote several scripts for the show, pointing the way to a greater sense of drama, intensity, and intelligence, a sensability never seen in the Saturday Morning ghetto. It was unprecedented, it was groundbreaking. And it was a ratings smash.

To be sure, it didn't last. ABC hired a bunch of "experts" who clearly don't believe in "If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It" and ordered the show dumbed down for it's second season. Venkman lost half his IQ, and due to Bill Murray's whining about the voice Lorenzo "Garfield" Music was replaced by a lame Murray impersonation performed by Dave ("That Dumb Guy From Full House"*) Coulier. Even worse was the personality lobotomy performed on Janine, turning a gutsy, abraisive, take-no-crap character into just another meek, passive, perky Mommy Figure. And don't get me started on their insistance on centering the show on mascot ghost Slimer...

Straczynski quit the show because of this. Still, what JMS built was strong enough to last six years on ABC and sixty five episodes of first-run syndication, making it not only the most successful cartoon based off a movie ever, but one of the most successful shows in all of television history based off a movie. It was so successful that a generation of kids grew up confused thinking the movies were based off the show! There are still many people who, to this day, regard The Real Ghostbusters as an equal, or even a greater, part of the Ghostbusters phenomenon as the two movies.

It is as part of this celebration I release my eightieth fan fic, Ghostbusters: Gemini Rising, Part Six; the penultimate (I hope...) chapter of this epic, bringing into focus, once and for all, exactly how I see the movies, the cartoons, and their relationship.

So Happy Birthday, RGB. You may be gone from our TVs, but you're far from forgotten.

--Fritz

*--That description courtesy of The Bondo Bandit :)

Ghostbusters Nightsquad was the very first "fan fic" based franchise of Ghostbusters International, and set the standard to which succeeding teams would be held. Their membership over the years has included several of the luminaries of Ghostbusters fan fiction: Vincent Belmont, Ben King, Jeff Chrismer, to say nothing of "The Legend" himself, Nightsquad's leader Bo Holbrook.

After several guest appearances (ie "Chronicles of Gozer" and "Where In The World Is Chelsea Aberdeen?) and one aborted attempt to rework the Nightsquad origin (I never finished due to my hospitalization in 2004, though Bo and Adam Bestler put together a workable revision based on the concepts I'd discussed with Bo) Bo finally handed me an opportunity I couldn't help but jump at: revision of the turning point Nightsquad story "All Hell Breaks Loose"

It was a little intimidating to be reworking such a great story (Kingpin was involved in the previous version) but at the same time it was fun to do some hammering out of Nightsquad's still somewhat complicated continuity (Sometimes I swear Bo's nickname should be "Hawkman" and Nightsquad should be "The Legion of Super Heroes". So I guess you might say I got to be Superboy Prime and take a few punches at it). And I definitely got to feel perhaps too clever with myself by solving one of the sticky continuity problems of the earlier version by taking advantage of an obscure (and admittedly not-well-regarded) story Now Comics did in their Real Ghostbusters 3-D Annual.

But I guess you'll have to judge for yourself how well this all worked.

Ghostbusters Nightsquad: All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One

--Fritz V. Baugh
GBI Historian

Today celebrates three years since the Ectozone was opened on May 13, 2003. And like many years, I have a new story to put out to celebrate it...

Back in January I released Ghostbusters: Forever, the story of the long overdue wedding between Egon Spengler and Janine Melnitz. Well, if you've read some of the GBWC stories, or such fan fics as Future Shocks then you know what the logical next step is...

Less than a year after finally getting married, Egon and Janine Spengler recieve the news that their relationship is about to advance another step--to parenthood.

The stage is set. On June 13, 1999...everything changes.

Ghostbusters: Gemini Rising

I hope everyone enjoys this important event in the lives of the characters we love so much.

Fritz V. Baugh

Longtime readers know this already--but as many things as I like about Ghostbusters, if I had to pick one single element that grabbed my attention, it was the weird budding romance between Egon Spengler and Janine Melnitz. It led to some touching scenes in the first movie, and the writers of the animated series--most notably J. Micheal Straczynski, Micheal Reeves, and Richard Mueller---took it and ran with it, deepening and defining them into possibly my favorite couple in popular fiction.

Well, to the consternation of fans everywhere, Harold Ramis disowned the idea and created the gut-churningly dumb Janine/Louis Tully romance in the sequel. An idea that was, in turn, disowned by Straczynski, comic writer James Van Hise, the producers of Extreme Ghostbusters, and even later licensees such as the 88MPH mini-series. Not to mention a vast majority of the writers of fan fiction that have helped keep the flame burning in the years since. (The iBooks novel The Return was the sole exception, but even they, intentionally or not, had some material that could be construed as pro-Egon/Janine).

Well, after exploring the very beginning of their relationship in Fateful Opportunity, it's highs in The Zodiac Imperative, it's fall in As Dreams Fade, and it's rebirth in Dreams Reborn, it is time for the event so many have waited for.

After fifteen years (or twenty two, depending on how you look at it) of confusion, denial, reversal, and dark moments of dispair, the long-awaited day has come for one brilliant physicist and one spirited secretary to celebrate the love that bind their souls together.

At long last, the wedding of Professor Egon Spengler and Ms. Janine Melnitz.

I wrote at the end of 2004:

I'm glad 2004 is over.

Last year sucked.

2005 wasn't much better. There were bright moments--from the personal moments such as the birth my niece, to larger events like some signs of awakening in the American media and public to the collosal clusterf*** the country's been undergoing since Selection 2000--but it's been mostly about pain, dispair, and more pain and dispair. I wouldn't wish the last two years of my life on my worst enemy.

Anyway, on to cheerier things...

I've finally gone ahead and unvieled the fan fic and GBI oriented version of the Timeline. In the GBI Timeline all the stuff that's "conjecture" in the "regular" Timeline is canon fact, as well as things from the fan fics written by Rosey Collins, Ben King, Iain Bennett, Vincent Belmont, myself, and numerous others

Along with that I added a new page to GBNY, one devoted to the most important wholly inanimate character of the Ghostbusters universe, the ECTO-1. It sets out my interpretation of the ECTO-1/ECTO-1A conundrum, and presents a new piece of artwork depicting the "present day" vehicle as I picture it in my mind; it's essentially the ECTO-1A with the original logo and some of the promotional stuff removed, similar to some ideas out there (for example, "ECTO-1" the member of the GB Community, who redesigned the vehicle for this "Ghostbusters 2.5")

Please let my hopes for a good year come true this time...

I've been doing some rearranging of stuff on the site; it's mostly for my own benefit, putting some stuff into more orderly folders and such. It's a process I started over the summer by placing the Fact List and the Timeline in their own subdirectories, and now have taken the biggest step: the placement of all fan fictions into a folder of their own, cleaning out the base directory.

Everything is still there, but it's in different spots.

With that, a lot of the old fan fic urls will no longer work. Most of them require adding a /ff between the domain name and the fan fic file name (ie ectozone.com/gbzi3.html becomes ectozone.com/ff/gbzi3.html). Or just click the link to the Fan Fic page (which is now Ectozone.com/ff and everything is right there.

I apologize for any confusion, but in the long run I think this makes a lot of sense.

The conclusion of "Extreme Ghostbusters: Hearts In Eclipse" is now out. I know a lot of you have been waiting for it...because it means that the next thing up is a little story called "Forever"...

Item 1: Just a few days ago (August 20) I attended the big gaming convention GenCon, and by far the highlight of the day was meeting some of the other members of Ghostbusters International in person for the first time. Dr. Vincent Belmont (Arcane Division, and long-time fan fic contributor, including the editing of Chronicles of Gozer), Kevin Kemarly of the Onarga Ghostbusters, Greg Justis of the Detroit Division, and what must have been Nick Schueren's entire Louisville Ghostbusters crew. As well as a couple of new fans from the Southside of Indianapolis (small world sometimes, huh? Lol) Despite not having a flight suit, I made a semi-credible showing in that illustrious company thanks to Kevin lending me a lab coat ("I'm a scientist") and a "neutron saber" (Well, okay, a Star Wars lightsaber, but close enough...)

Picture courtesy of Nick Schueren. (And no, I'm not in it, thank goodness, or it'd probably make the server crash.)

Update--Oct 3: Read Ghostbusters International: Con-Fusion for a fan fiction take on the events of that day

Item 2: The all-new Ectozone.net. Well, okay, it's not really a new site (if you pay attention the url actually takes you to a page of Ectozone.com) but a nifty new trick I found where I can assign subdomains to the Ectozone.net domain name. I could do that with Ectozone.com, but Lycos only allows three...with GoDaddy, I can create up to one hundred. All the old urls still work, by the way, with the exception of the Digimon site (which used to be Ectozone.net). So here's the component sites of Ectozone.net for the moment...

forum.ectozone.net The Ectozone Message Board. The configuration of the boards have been changed to fit the new concept, but it's basically the one I've had up over a year now.

gbcomm.ectozone.net The Ghostbusters Omnibus Fan Fiction Center

gozer.ectozone.net The Chronicles of Gozer web site.

digimon.ectozone.net The Digimon site that noone ever visited, but it's still there just in case anyone wants to.

gb.ectozone.net Okay, I'm being a little silly with this one, because that one takes you right back here (lol)

There's one more I haven't made public yet, but will when the time is right. And there are a couple of other sites I know who might appreciate the subdomains...but nothing about that until more is set up.

It was two years ago today that I first started this web site, mostly to showcase the now semi-infamous Ghostbusters Omnibus Timeline; the closure of Ghostbusters.net a couple months later led to it becoming my primary fan fic site.

For the anniversary, I'm pleased to announce that I'm finally releasing the end of The Zodiac Imperative; as I released part 1 on my first anniversary at GBN, releasing the conclusion at an anniversary seemed very appropriate.

For nostalgia's sake, here's two pages I dug out of my backups: the index page on May 13, 2003 (back when it wasn't even officially the Ectozone zone yet; I called it "Digibusters") and a year later, on May 13, 2004. I guess this'll have to be a tradition now (lol).

The Ectozone Forum is going to be better than ever very soon. Proboards is currently in the process of upgrading their software, and as soon as they get to Server 31 there'll be all sortsa nifty new features. As soon as I know when it's going down--then when it's back up--I'll send all members an email to make sure they know about it. And remember, it's the only Ghostbusters board on the net right now where you can talk about Egon and Janine without getting flamed...

I hope you all caught the recent strip I contributed to Kingpin at Ghostbusters.nuts: GHOSTBUSTERS.NUTS #20: Peter, You've Changed. I didn't get my butt flamed off this time and everything!

May 13 is also my 34th birthday. It's led to a lot of reflection of late, especially with everything else I've endured over the last year. I lost my job, I lost my left leg, I lost...well, suffice it to say the last year was not totally kind to me.

But I keep telling myself that I survived a pretty grueling ordeal. If I can survive coming only a matter of hours away from death, I can survive all the rest of the heartbreak life seems determined to shit upon me.
Fritz V. Baugh
Lord of the Ectozone

Some new stuff up--in addition to the long-awaited conclusion of GBWC: Curtain Call, I've added some nifty new stuff to the Ectozone Art Gallery and the Fact List: for the first time, I've added pictures of the four Ghostbusters in their "classic" civilian looks (as seen in the animated series) to their fact list pages and to top it off, the art pages and the Fan Canon Update pages include concept drawings of the four Ghostbusters as I envision them today, also in civvies. I got some nice family pictures I spliced together too, and will be posting those at My Deviant Art page

I've spruced up the semi-famous Ghostbusters Omnibus Timeline with a nifty new logo. And events of the Legion mini-series have been added, along with some smaller nods to The Return

If you haven't been by the Ectozone Forum lately, I encourage you to do so. I've been tinkering with the fonts and colors, and now, at last, it actually looks more like the rest of the pages on the site.

If there are any Digimon fans in the audience, or you're just curious about what the heck is going on in Digibusters, take a look at the Ectozone's counterpart, my Digimon website, Ectozone.net. The little blue link at the bottom of the page (featuring Veedramon, the Digimon name I signed up for GBN under) will take you there.

I'm glad 2004 is over.

Last year sucked. Starting in February, when after seven plus years of good work (just a few months after I got my best review ever in September 2003) I get knocked down to part time and pushed out of the job I'd been doing for the previous two years. To add insult to injury, another person in the department--who had been in neither the position or with the company as long as I had, a person I'd trained for the job--got to stay.

And it was all downhill from there. Sick time--gone. Health insurance--gone. (Yeah, I hear the long-time readers gasping there, they have an inkling where that goes...) Then I get to be the store's f***ing tampon--wherever there was a bleeding hole in the schedule, I got shoved into it. There were times where I was literally scheduled for four or five different jobs over the course of any given two weeks.

By the end of June I had to quit--I was stressing badly and having trouble holding down food. It was right after this that the blister appeared on my left big toe...which got infected. Well, read the "Where Is Fritz?" thread on the board to see how that turned out.

And it wasn't just me, either. Right after I quit the HR manager's daughter Ashley was hit by a car. The doctors told her mother, Angela, that she was brain-dead and pulling the plug would be the smart thing to do...well, she didn't. Angela and her husband eventually were able to bring Ashley home. She's breathing on her own, but still comatose.

Another former co-worker of mine ended up getting murdered for drug money. Thankfully, the scum was caught and put in jail, but it doesn't make Teresa any less dead.

And just two days before Christmas...well, this one hits close to me. There's a fussy blonde girl I used to work with in the cash office...someone I've been quite fond of for quite a long time (let's just say...she's a strong inspiration for the character of Chelsea Aberdeen). I got a call from another friend with the bad news that "Chelsea's" neice had been killed in an auto accident.

Sorry to blather on and on...I won't even go into other things that were wrong with 2004, like Paris Hilton still having a career, "The Real Gilligan's Island", and the election of George Duh-bya Bush.

Suffice it to day, 2004 sucked rhino, and I have to hope 2005 will be much much better.

Have a happy and prosperous New Year.

Fritz V. Baugh
Lord of the Ectozone

It was one year ago today that I officially unvieled the Ectozone, and what a year it's been! The smash success of the Ghostbuster Omnibus Timeline and my Ghostbusters fan fictions brought me into the Ghostbusters West Coast, and into semi-respectable standing in the Ghostbusters Community. Grife, I'm a Mod at Ghostbusters Central, Ghostbusters Headquarters, and GBI. I'm Co-Administrator at GB Omnibus Fan Fic and the GBWC Message Board (and I own a second web site, the GBWC page!) So times have been good.

To Dr. Riddle (who is much missed), Kingpin, Brian Reilly (creator of the new logo!), Miss Janine, the GBWC members past and present, Netsolo, Jesusfreak, and so many more--Thanks.

You probably noticed things look a little different today, too. I've been tinkering with this place since it started, and as I learn html better it shows up here. I experimented with frames, but decided not to use any of it. Now I'm playing with tables, and I think it's really paying off--the new navigation sidebar looks great, and I hope it works out well for everyone (I freely admit I swiped the idea from GBHQ lol)

So happy birthday, Ectozone. Here's to many more!

Fritz V. Baugh

IT'S HERE!!!

The Ghostbusters Fact List

101703f The result of seven months hard work by our Great Friend Kingpin, this is the definitive guide to the Ghostbusters, their talents, and their tools. The indespensible companion piece to the Ghostbusters Omnibus Timeline!!!

Update 93003t Some new grahpics you should take note of: the "Ghostbusters", "Extreme Ghostbusters", and "Ghostbusters West Coast Division" logos seen in the Fan Art and Fan Fiction sections have been redesigned by my good friend Kingpin. Thanks for the fine work, Ben!!!
There have also been some revisions made to the Ghostbusters Omnibus Timeline reflecting some of Dr. Riddle's thoughts on Stantz family history. Thanks for your work as well, Matthew!

Ghostbusters: Ghost Busted

Ghostbusters: The Other Side #1

It's Coming!

Artwork inspired by Kurth, LaPoint, and Blond