Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Corin Howell, Dan Schoening, Erik Burnham, Erik Evensen, ghostbusters, Rachael Stott, Tim Lattie, Tom Waltz

Ghosts Never Scared Me: Ghostbusters Annual 2017

The Ghostbusters have had a crazy year, or so says the introduction page. People died, came back as ghosts, the whole shebang. They've even expanded and added new characters!

What I like about annuals is that you don't really need to know much about the previous comics. They tend to be stand alone stories, easy to follow, and in this case they allow most of the characters to shine. We open with a Winston centered story, where he's being interviewed by two men who are trying to write a Ghostbusters book. They ask about a problem that had happened during a trial against the team, and from Winston's POV the story is as boring and mundane, the opposite of what the two interviewers wanted. For the reader it's not really a boring story. It's straight to the point. Winston doesn't waste anyone's time. He's always been a level headed, tell it like it is guy.

The other main Ghostbusters cast are written as they are in the movies. Venkman is still sarcastic and dry, Ray is still a lovable goofball who's dating a ghost, Egon is smart and a no nonsense kind of guy. The extended universe cast of characters are a little more complex and interesting, but that could also because no one really wants to see the original Ghostbusters tampered with too much. If you suddenly made Venkman just an all out asshole, people would cry foul. This isn't a bad thing at all, but you can still expand their characters without giving up their core qualities.

Every story in here is easy to follow without any prior knowledge. They all wrap up neatly, and the flow between stories is fine too. Again, this is an annual, so you (usually) get a variety of writers and artists. I was partial to the art style in "Second City Ghostbusters", from Erik Evensen. Story wise, "Haunted America: A Prairie Hell Companion" by Erik Burnham. In fact, Burnham writes most of the stories in this annual, but we do get pieces from Dan Schoening, who also pencils a few stories, and Tom Waltz. Artists include Corin Howell, Rachael Stott, and Tim Lattie.

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