Ectozone.com News Archive

So if you remember me saying on October 1st that I'd hoped to have a Halloween story out this year, yeah, I blew it. I made some good progress, but about halfway through I looked at it and went "Man, this is just crap." I think there's some stuff there I hope to eventually build a story out of, but it won't be anytime all that soon.

I wish I could give you better news. Every time I think I've turned the corner and will start writing again, I hit a wall--and either a combination of real life or another interest popping up sends me down a different road. I feel bad about that.

I also feel bad that I've gotten behind on my snarky comments on the IDW comics. They're really just incredible, and Erik Burnham, Dan Schoening, Tristan Jones, and everyone else who works on them should feel justifiably proud of their work.

Have a good Holiday season, and I hope I can give you better news after the New Year.

--Fritz V. Baugh

(Photo posted on GBFans by Boomerjinks) As AJ Quick put it on GBFans:

AJ Quick Wrote
The above photo was posted to Instagram just a few days ago. It has been long on our minds to acquire the Ecto-1A from Sony and handle a community driven and community funded restoration (in the same way fans recently restored the "A" DeLorean from Back to the Future). We believe the only way we can get something like this to happen is by having the entire community behind the effort in support.
Our first step was to create this special petition site.
We ask that you sign your name to it in support, and share it with your friends. We know petitions are often felled on by deaf ears, but with a large enough number of support, we believe this can get off the ground. The end goal will be performing a complete restoration back to as seen on screen condition (though overall in better shape), and then having the car on display at large comic cons, and car shows across the country.
As a community, we need to get this done, we cannot let the original Ecto-1a rot away like this any longer. It will be up to us to band together and support this restoration as a community.
http://ecto-1a.gbfans.com/

This is kind of troubling. I mean, I knew Sony wasn't putting a lot of energy into keeping a car from a nearly quarter-century old movie in good shape, but this picture make me go like this:

AJ Quick Wrote
The above photo was posted to Instagram just a few days ago. It has been long on our minds to acquire the Ecto-1A from Sony and handle a community driven and community funded restoration (in the same way fans recently restored the "A" DeLorean from Back to the Future). We believe the only way we can get something like this to happen is by having the entire community behind the effort in support. Our first step was to create this special petition site. We ask that you sign your name to it in support, and share it with your friends. We know petitions are often felled on by deaf ears, but with a large enough number of support, we believe this can get off the ground. The end goal will be performing a complete restoration back to as seen on screen condition (though overall in better shape), and then having the car on display at large comic cons, and car shows across the country. As a community, we need to get this done, we cannot let the original Ecto-1a rot away like this any longer. It will be up to us to band together and support this restoration as a community. http://ecto-1a.gbfans.com/

So yeah, thought I'd get the word out.

Better news:

Four new figures from the first Ghostbusters™ movie arrive in late summer of 2014! Each 2-pack will include two 6? figures featuring new torsos with two removable proton packs, two snap-on proton streams, and two “no ghost” logo stands. This 2-pack comes in window box 30th Anniversary packaging. •Pack 1: Ray Stantz™ and Egon Spengler™ Figures •Pack 2: Peter Venkman™ and Winston Zeddemore™ Figures

I'm a bit torn myself. They do look neat, but there's also an extent which I'd only be buying them in hopes of getting Mattel to make additional figures.

We'll see, I guess.

--Fritz V. Baugh

GenCon 2013 has come and gone. So how did I do?

Observe...

Yes, that's me threatening to break the Internets again. I bought several things at the WhoNA booth, and my favorite is without a doubt The Scarf. I've wanted one of those for almost thirty years now, and now I have one. (Picture by Ogre using my iPhone camera)

Vincent Belmont and his fiance "Jill". Yeah, they made that official during the convention--Vince enlisted the help of the Live Dungeon staff to slip the engagement ring to Jill in an item drop. Congrats to the happy couple.

Andrew Huerta, artist of Pathfinder #1-6 signing my copies of 2-5 (since he got to sign #1 last year). He's a really cool guy, and hope to see him do future work on the series. The book's writer, Jim Zubkavich, was at GenCon, but every time I went to the booth he was at he was at lunch or something. Maybe next year.

Our whole gang playing Cthulhu Fluxx. From left to right: Jill, Vincent, Vrash, Erica, and Ogre. I took the picture, as you might have guessed.

So here's the haul for this year:

Very good year for the Doctor, which since it's the fiftieth anniversary is appropriate. In addition to the scarf, an old Target Books novelization I needed (I tried to get all the regeneration stories) and a couple of toys: a 3.75 inch action figure of the Eleventh Doctor (it'll go well with my Star Wars guys and some others I have) and a Minimate-esque set of all the Doctors (well, for another four months, anyway). Unfortunately, they're just a little smaller than the Ghostbusters Minimates, so the planned Egon Spengler/Ian Epimetheus reunion looks a little wierd:

Another good year for DnD4E stuff. Between Ogre and I, we have every non-adventure module book except Monster Vault: Threats of the Nentir Vale.

Even better year for Ars Magica. The highlight was the Transylvania Tribunal book, which I bought directly from Atlas Games. In a neat nod to prior canon, there's rules for making vampire player characters in there. I did get a bit of an unfortunate shudder to encounter the term "aedile", though--the worst RPG ever used that as the term for their GM. Damn Byron Hall for ruining a perfectly innocent Latin word like that.

And the miscellaneous stuff. 13th Age by Pelgrane Press is maybe the coolest thing I picked up this year--it's a D20 game by Jonathan Tweet (Co-creator of Ars Magica, and one of the lead developers on DnD3E) and Rob Heinsoo (Lead developer on DnD4E). That melding of minds kind of shows--the buzz that 13th Age could be "4th Edition's Pathfinder" or "The game that will do what DnD5E isn't--uniting the editions" may be a bit premature--but after having read it, I can't rule it out, either.

The rest include the GenCon 2013 official dice set and a set of large size dice from Crystal Caste; a Cataan sheep from Mayfair Games (because of a number of boring injokes); Pathfinder: Goblins#1 signed by the cover artist, the aforementioned Andrew Huerta; and the Legacy Era Campaign Guide for Star Wars Saga Edition. I have little use for most of the EU crap after Episode 6, and always said "Legacy Era will be just about the last SWSE book I ever buy". Well, it very nearly literally was--all I need is The Unknown Regions to have a complete SWSE set.

Summation: Had a BLAST. Looking forward to 2014 already.

Just a little Ghostbusters update, and it's bad news:

The ECTO-1 mentioned in the last mainpage article has been cancelled. Pre-orders didn't meet Mattel's expectations (whether those expectations were realistic is another debate) so it won't happen. The Neutrona Wand is still going ahead, though, and it looks like it will be on sale December 15th.

Believe it or not, GenCon did not drive me completely broke, and I may be braving the White Screen of Death to get it.

--Fritz V. Baugh

So...SDCC brought us Mattel's latest Ghostbusters prop:

Badass.

There was also a lot of speculation about the "mystery box" (a sheet covered box seen at the Mattel booth all through Thursday) and a lot of the guys at GBFans were convinced it was a full proton pack to go with the wand.

They were wrong.

It appears that the reports of the death of the action figure line (from none other than Mattel itself) were greatly exaggerated. But then again, this is Ghostbusters. Stuff "rising from the grave" is par for the course, right?

I doubt I'll get the ECTO-1, though if the figures with removable packs are offered seperately, it's not beyond the realm of possibility. The neutrona wand, however, I'm seriously considering. I guess it'll defend on how broke I am after GenCon (lol)

--Fritz V. Baugh

To repeat myself...

Oh how far I've come in ten years...

I created this site originally to showcase my Ghostbusters Omnibus Timeline, which in the intervening years has become three Timelines; the closing of Ghostbusters.net in July 2003 quickly caused the transition of the Ectozone into the main venue of inflicting my crap on the Internet.

This place (and it's most direct sister site, GBWC.net) have grown and changed as I got better with programming. I mean, I could barely use html tags when I started! In 2004 I discovered how to do tables and then in 2006 I improved the functionality with Javascript and CSS, which in turn led to the exodus from Angelfire to GoDaddy, and the availability of .php codes and, of course, my very own message board.

It's been a little rougher the last few years, I admit. I haven't been as active as I'd used to be. I still don't know when the GBWC story "Toy Soldiers" will continue. But I do have some new stuff to celebrate this significant anniversary:

If you haven't been reading IDW's Ghostbusters comics what the hell is wrong with you? Sure, it's got actor caricatures and technically the cartoons aren't in-continuity, but those little imperfections are nothing compared to the sheer awesomeness Erik Burnham, Dan Schoening, Luis Delgado, and Niel Uyitake bring to us ever month. It's chocked full of in-jokes and callbacks to aforementioned cartoons, and in the latest storyline EGB character Kylie Griffin has become a full-fledged Ghostbuster! It's awesome and you should read it!

And I'm not saying that just because they named a character after me...

While I can't really reconcile much of IDW's series with Ectozone/GBOT fanon, that doesn't stop me from putting my own spin on things introduced in the most recent storyline:

Fan Art: The New Ghostbusters

I freely admit Janine and Kylie are just recolors of my existing "stock" artwork, but Melanie Ortiz and Ron Alexander are all-new! Each character is depicted in three different color schemes: one is the flight suit they actually wore in the story (Janine and Melanie in tan/grey, Kylie in black, Ron in Egon's RGB colors), one in the RGB color corresponding to the uniform they actually wore (Janine in Egon's colors, Kylie in Ray's, Melanie in Venkman's), and a set with the colors they wore on the covers of New Ghostbusters #1 and the interiors of #2, albeit full flight suits instead of short shorts (Janine in Venkman's colors, Melanie in Winston's, Kylie in Ray's again but with her own name on the tag). As Ron technically only wore the Egon flight suit, I rounded his set out with the standard tan/grey (how I could see him wearing in a more RGB-esque universe) and one in Winston's colors to complete the "set" of borrowed flight suits.

But here's the one that will probably shock people:

Ghostbusters: The Monster That Is A Cookie
1984--Timeline Year Two
Ray's trying to eat the cookies his Aunt Lois sent. Then he gets more exposure to cookies that he could ever want--there's a monster at a cookie factory. So much for his diet, huh?

Yeah, that's right--a new story. I actually had most of that one sitting around for a long time; I started it just before I was slammed with some medical issues and a major bout with depression. I don't know how long this new burst of energy will last, but it got me over the finish line to getting something out for this notable anniversary.

I hope everybody enjoys it.

Once more, thanks everybody for ten great years.

--Fritz V. Baugh

Coming In February 2013...

If nothing else, 2013 should be a better year than 2012 because there's no sprocking election. I think I was sick of the parade of hypocrits, crazies, cranks, religious extremists, and greedy old bastards by this time last year. The fact that the election turned out the only good way helps, but the most important thing is that it's over.

IDW's Ghostbusters Vol.1 is wrapped up, and February will see the beginning of Vol.2. I'd originally hoped to have the New Timeline updated with all of the stuff from issues 9-16, but due to some family complications over the holidays that didn't happen. I'm now shooting for February 3 (Longtime Ectozone readers may find that date ringing a bell somewhere...)

I really can't promise much at this point on the fan fic front. I've been dealing with writer's block and fatigue for a while now, and it seems like every time I think the dam is starting to break something else comes up and I end up right back in neutral.

Hope you and yours have a safe and prosperous 2013!

--Fritz V. Baugh