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Ghostbusters 2023: The Monster of Lungbarrow, Part Three
October 2023--Timeline Year Forty-One
It's the birthday party for TJ's uncle, Sylvester Cadonfloyd. Emotions run high. Passions flare. A prodigal relative returns. A shocking dark secret is revealed.

--Fritz V. Baugh

Ghostbusters: Mr. Stay Puft's Christmas Adventure
December 24, 1983--Timeline Year One
It's Christmas Eve. Venkman's in a foul mood. Ray misses his family. Egon is not sure how to react to Janine's elf costume. Winston has a fateful meeting. And then the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man shows up. Wait, what? How is that even possible?
(First Posted December 12, 2011)

Ghostbusters: Spirit of the Season
By Jason Knetge
December 17, 2003--Timeline Year Twenty-One
The Ghostbusters (???) are called to help stop a spook during the holiday season. .
(First Posted December 20, 2008)

Ghostbusters West Coast: Silent Night
By Mick Nielson
December 25, 2008--Timeline Year Twenty-Six
It's Christmas in LA...and everyone's lost their voices!
(First Posted December 25, 2008)

--Fritz V. Baugh

The fifth Ghostbusters movie, the fourth in the original continuity (timeline 681 to us Ectozone guys) released their trailer on November 8th, revealing that the codenamed "Firehouse" is offiically named Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Mild spoilers to follow:

After watching the teaser:

Likes:

The villain appears to not have a blessed thing to do with Vigo.

The caution striping on the side of the power cell is, intentionally or not (and my bet is intentionally), visually evocative of the cartoon hanging the ghost traps there.

We see Winston, Ray, and even Venkman. What Bill Murray decides to appear in is always a crap shoot.

The villain appears to not have a blessed thing to do with Gozer, either.

No sign yet of a shoehorned in Rick Moranis appearance. Let the guy be retired in peace, sheesh.

Not So Likes:

I don't know who any of these new characters are yet!!!

While we saw Ray, Winston, and Venkman, we didn't see the last key character: you know, the lady who gave Egon the lucky coin all those years ago...

All in all, looks pretty spiffy.

--Fritz V. Baugh

See? John and TJ are ready (Blatantly swiping Ken Steacy's classic cover to Now's RGB#4)

But first, on October 27, Haslabs revealed their latest Plasma Series prop replicas (yes, that's plural):

Ghostbusters Plasma Series HasLab Two in the Box! Ghost Trap and P.K.E. Meter

Nice.

I have a Matty PKE Meter, and a cheaper Spirit Halloween one, a well as what was basically the Spirit Halloween Ghost Trap on sale at Walmart, so while these will be a lot better than the earlier stuff I'm not achingly going "If only I could have done this..." this time, but it's still cool and has got a lot of people excited.

Now about that story I mentioned...

Okay, it's not actually a Halloween story, but the continuation of John and TJ's London adventure.

Ghostbusters 2023: The Monster of Lungbarrow, Part Two
October 2023--Timeline Year Forty-One
So why are John and TJ in England, anyway? And what is up with Ahagotsu's new "friend" Doctor Vidius?

This story is growing in the telling somewhat, so it's probably going to take two more chapters instead of one to resolve it. I hope you'll give it a look.

Thanks for reading!

--Fritz V. Baugh

It's October, so time for the Pumpkin Head Spice theme and the Halloween Reading List!

Ghostbusters Nightsquad: All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One
By Bo Holbrook, Ben King, and Fritz Baugh
September 2003--Timeline Year Twenty One
It seems like just another day for the members of Ghostbusters Nightsquad. The original Ghostbusters are out of town, and a few small jobs keep things from getting too dull. But in the shadows, a sinister plot is being hatched...a plot that will change the team forever...
Guest stars Jeff Nash, Vincent Belmont, and Fritz Baugh.
(First Posted July 17, 2006)

Ghostbusters Nightsquad: All Hell Breaks Loose, Part Two
By Bo Holbrook, Ben King, and Fritz Baugh
September 2003--Timeline Year Twenty One
Catastrophe!!! The Extreme Ghostbusters defeated!!! Nightsquad's worst enemy has taken over Central Park!!! And Nightsquad can't do anything about it, because they're in jail!!!
(First Posted July 24, 2006)

Ghostbusters Nightsquad: All Hell Breaks Loose, Part Three
By Bo Holbrook, Ben King, and Fritz Baugh
September 2003--Timeline Year Twenty One
As if the Blair Witch wasn't enough...the cult's plot has drawn in another familiar face, one that had nearly defeated the original Ghostbusters more than once. Will Nightsquad, even with the help of Vincent Belmont, Jeff Nash, Fritz Baugh, and Roland Jackson, have a chance in hell against them?!
(First Posted July 31, 2006)

Ghostbusters Nightsquad: All Hell Breaks Loose, Part Four
By Bo Holbrook, Ben King, and Fritz Baugh
September 2003--Timeline Year Twenty One
It's the final showdown between Nightsquad, their allies, and the Hain Witch. The fate of the world is at stake (again), and even if the Ghostbusters are victorious they will pay a price in dearest blood...
(First Posted August 7, 2006)

Ghostbusters Nightsquad: Aftermath
By Bo Holbrook and Fritz Baugh
October 2003--Timeline Year Twenty-One
One week ago, the Hain Witch destroyed his headquarters and killed two of his friends. Now, the drunken wreck who was once Bo Holbrook is confronted with the chance to rebuild--problem is, he's not sure it's worth it.
(First Posted September 17, 2007)

(Okay, it technically didn't take place on Halloween...but c'mon, SAMHAIN!!!)

Ghostbusters West Coast: Flipped Out
October 31, 2006--Timeline Year Twenty Four
It's Halloween and something extra weird is going on...as our heroes are confronted with a team of opponents who are both shockingly wierd and very familiar. Not the least of them, a woman named Ellie...
(First Posted October 31, 2006)

Ghostbusters West Coast: HELLoween
By Aidan Munroe
With contributions from the entire GBWC team
October 31, 2007--Timeline Year Twenty-Five
Halloween is the busy season for a GBI franchise, and this year's no exception. It starts with a familiar ship full of ghostly pirates...and then gets even wierder from there!
(First Posted October 31, 2007)

Ghostbusters West Coast: The Masks We Wear
By Jason Knetge
October 31, 2009--Timeline Year Twenty-Seven
It's Halloween, and sure enough something weird has happened: everybody has turned into their Halloween costume! Join Doctor Who, Deadpool, The Wolfman, Ash Williams, Kitty Pryde, Wolverine, and the Cat Girl as they try to figure out what caused this--and how to reverse it.
(First Posted October 31, 2009)

Ghostbusters West Coast: One Froggy Halloween
October 31, 2014--Timeline Year Thirty-Two
It's Halloween, which is seldom a quiet time for any Ghostbusters franchise, and this year is no exception for the West Coast office. A literature professor with personal ties to one of their own is being stalked by a froglike monster. Can they save him before he croaks?
(First Posted October 31, 2014)

Thanks for reading!

--Fritz V. Baugh

Ghostbusters 2023: The Monster of Lungbarrow, Part One
October 2023--Timeline Year Forty-One
TJ has returned home to London--but she's not making the journey alone. And what does the recent grave robbery in an Earl's family plot have to do with it?

Hope you'll give it a look.

--Fritz V. Baugh

Yeah...so that's a thing again. It seems like modern Ghostbusters movies are cursed. 2016 brought us misogynist internet chuds, 2020 brought us COVID-19, 2023 an actor's strike.

Anyway...

It's August! You know what that means...

Gen Con 2023 was held August 3-6!

So how are my friends at Pointy Hat Games doing?

Brimley's had a face lift since last year, and that's not all...

He's got legs! Kinda.

Among the other neat things I saw this year...

I really liked that wooden Dragon Dagger...I almost bought it. $30 seemed a bit steep at first...but then when I decided to get it it'd sold out. Ah well, means somebody else wanted it more than I did.

Bezier Games, you may remember, had stuffed cats promoting one of their games last year that weren't for sale. They must have listened to me and everyone else...

...Because this time they had some for sale! They were more stylized, and in my humble opinion not as cute as last year's. But that's just me.

Gen Con always has a balloon sculpture every year that they destroy on Sunday. This year was an Apollo lunar module...I joked that they should have reenacted Apollo 13 and burned it, but the fire marshal probably would've had a thing or two to say about that.

And there was a food truck with a picture of Bob Ross on it. Can you beat that?

Haul was rather limited this year, because I didn't have as much money as usual.

The newest Pathfinder book was really my only "big" purchase. The rest of it was either freebie or cheap; you also see my badge and the 2023 coupon book (I don't get hard copies of the program guides anymore, because the PDF copy doesn't take up nearly as much space.)

I may have not spent a lot of money, but I had a great time--and that's the most important part!

Now the long wait until August 1, 2024.

--Fritz V. Baugh

Now that that's out of the way...

NEW STORY TIME!!!

Ghostbusters 2021: Playtime
by Fritz Baugh and EGB Fan
July 2021--Timeline Year Thirty-Nine
The new team of Ghostbusters goes on their first official case!

The story was born, in part, out of some discussions EGB Fan and I had years ago about a couple of characters of just about the same age having been raised in the same place, and whether that should mean we should give them a connection. Rosey wrote up a great scene defining that, and giving me some great new details about one of the new Ghostbusters' backstory, so I knew I had to write a longer story around it.

The idea I had was to give us a look at the 202X team's first official case, with a problem inspired by an enemy I'd been thinking of using in a now-dead Pathfinder 2 campaign.

I hope you'll enjoy it despite the long time it took to be finished.

--Fritz V. Baugh

Twenty. Damn. Years

Let's do one of those Isotropic.org entries on the day I started the place:

(The last one isn't Isotropics, it's mine)

I created this site originally to showcase my Ghostbusters Omnibus Timeline, which in the intervening years has become three Timelines (and really I should have started more by now); the closing of that time's version 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 its 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.

Wow, though. Two freakin' decades.

I came into the Ghostbusters community at an exciting time--88MPH studios was teasing their comic book revival project, the first new Ghostbusters material since 1997. I timidly unleashed my first Ghostbusters fan fic on Ghostbusters.net...and with a positive reaction, more came. Eventually a lot more.

Indeed, it's slightly embarrassing to me to realize that almost 2/3 of my entire output--100 out of 160 fan fics to date--came in the first five years. I've slowed down considerably, though never quite stopped, and sometimes I wonder why.

Some of it was undoubtedly my own fault.

I didn't deal well with the news about the 2009 video game, and when I read some of the posts I made on the Ectozone forum during the years leading up to the game and the aftermath I really cringe. I sometimes think about locking that whole forum up in the Containment Unit, but that would be dishonest--I need to leave it out there to keep me humble.

I no doubt lost a lot of readers and potential readers from that. And by sticking to my guns and continuing to write in a continuity that took the first movie, the early years of RGB, and EGB as its foundation, I was basically setting myself up to be left behind by the audience, and I guess it's what I deserved. Ghostbusters: Legion was fit into the Ectozone continuity (timeline 8932) with only a bit of modification--it actually helped "set" a few pieces of larger Ectozone canon (ie when 8932 Venkman and Dana broke up after the first movie). I may not use everything from the video game, but I finally made peace with saying that some version of it did happen in "my" world. IDW eventually made its way in with mentions of Melanie Ortiz and, of course, how could I not put my own spin on Roger Baugh?!?! I found ways to make use of Answer The Call too.

And then the big one was Ghostbusters: Afterlife. I just can't reconcile their depiction of Egon Spengler with the way I've seen him for most of my lifetime, but even then, I couldn't help but acknowledge it and basically leave the door open to make use of Gary Grooberson, and that there's people of some significance named "Trever" and "Phoebe" in 8932's history somewhere.

As I mentioned two years ago, it's still a little wierd that the "future" Ghostbusters I first unleashed on the world twenty years ago are now the "present day" team of the Ectozone universe. To be certain, there's not much resemblance to the official Ghostbusters of the 2020's, but it's been a fun group to write thus far. I hope you'll be patient with me; I have some big plans for this group over the next few years.

More than anything, I want to thank everybody who's stuck with me all these years. I know I haven't always been easy to deal with, and haven't been as fast as I used to be--and wish I still was--but I hope I can make it somewhere close to worth it.

Thanks for two great decades, fellow Ghostheads, and here's to many more years!

--Fritz V. Baugh

More at the Deadline link above the quote.

Oswalt's the only one I'm familiar with, but he's pretty darn good, so I have high hopes for this.

--Fritz V. Baugh

The next story has a great scene written by EGB Fan that will be part of it, a neat character piece working with a couple of her characters and a couple of my new team of Ghostbusters, and I really look forward to having it out there. I just gotta get my part done.

My apologies, and please keep hanging in there.

--Fritz V. Baugh

Joined: February 3, 2003

Twenty years?!

Wow...how far I've come since then...

GBWC.net. I got my first Moderator gig at Brian Reilly's Ghostbuster Community Board, part of the diaspora that sprung up during the waning days of the original Ghostbusters.net. Later came gigs adminning or modding at GBHQ and Still Playing With Toys, GBCentral, Ghostbusters International, and GB Fans.

More importantly, tons and tons of friends I never would have met if not for four guys and one gal in snazzy flight suits and laser backpacks.

(Wacko Jacko Slimer not so much.)

Thanks everybody for twenty great years.

--Fritz V. Baugh

Illustration by John Tobias, Rich Rankin, and Suzanne Dechnik

So what's up for 2023?

Biggest thing, of course, is the fifth Ghostbusters movie (the fourth in the original movie continuity), code-named "Firehouse". As far as we know at this point, pretty much everyone from Afterlife will be back (except probably Bill Murray) and, barring another pandemic or other unforseen disaster, it will be out on December 20th.

2023 marks the twentieth anniversary of the Ectozone. I'll undoubtedly put up some self-congratulatory posts on February 3rd and/or May 13th, but damn, twenty years is a long time.

Plans for fan fics in 2023 include:

1. A collaboration with EGBFan, set in the early days of the 2021 team's career. I hope to have that ready for February 3rd.

2. Ghostbusters 2023: The Monster of Lungbarrow. Continuing some of the plot threads introduced in The Werewolf of Notre-Dame and Panther-Panther Burning Bright, a faraway land that's nevertheless close to home for one Ghostbuster brings new opportunities...and new challenges. Hopefully will get it rolling by May 13th.

Hope you'll stick around and give it all a look!

Have a safe and happy Thirty Third Year of the Age of Aquarius.

--Fritz V. Baugh

Ghostbusters ™ and © Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. No use of characters and images associated with the above or any other trademarked material is intended for profit, or to challenge the copyrights of the above holders. Characters and ideas not appearing in the above copyrighted works are to be considered © Fritz V. Baugh and/or their other respective creators