Weekly Comic Book Review

By Keith Champagne (writer), Tom Nguyen (pencils), Drew Geraci (inks), Moose Baumann (colors), Chris Mowry (letters), Nick Runge (cover)

The Story: A routine ghost-bust goes horribly wrong and the Ghostbusters find themselves up against the Ghost Mafia. When Venkman’s soul is separated from his body, the remaining GBs’ must race against time to get his soul back to his body before it’s lost forever!

What’s Good? At the core, it’s a very interesting story. The introduction of the Ghost Mafia is a good idea, even if it was done on the cartoon. Keith Champagne does a good job adapting the Ghostbusters to comics, making the comic darker and less silly. Even though the humor isn’t quite the same, the story still manages that Ghostbusters feel.

What’s Not So Good? Egon’s hair.  Actually, the character designs of all the Ghostbusters is pretty weak. I’m sure it came down to not getting the likeness rights, which is understandable; but it’s a little distracting with how different everyone looks. And while the Ghost Mafia is a good idea from a plot perspective, visually none of them are very interesting. Slimer, Gozer, Stay-Puft, and the Librarian all had very interesting looks, and having normal looking ghosts isn’t the way to go. It’s a nod to the films which is severely lacking in the books design. The overall lack of detail in Nguyen’s style is a bit of a sore-spot. Obviously the focus will be on the characters and the foreground so it’s expected that the backgrounds have less detail, but it shouldn’t be this much. This only works for a few panels where purgatory is depicted. That said, I feel it’s more of a coincidence than intent.

Conclusion: This is a solid read for any Ghostbusters fan. The writing is good, and the story has some real potential. Without giving away the ending, it’s pretty clear that the GBs may start to see things from “the other side.” Artistically the book does suffer, and takes a pretty large step away from the look of the films. Still, it’s got a good grip on the world of Ghostbusters.

Grade: C+

-Ben Berger