See The Movie..Or Read The Book: "Ghostbusters"

Maybe I should've just seen the lady Ghostbusters movie..I wound up reading 3 books: the junior novelization, the standard novelization..and, perhaps better than either of those - a facsimile of Ghosts From Our Past, the guidebook serving as the catalyst for much of the film's plot.

The only disadvantage to opting out of seeing the film is that I can't say anything about the cast or choices regarding direction, production values and special effects. What I can observe is how earnest the story is. Erin and Abby's friendship is central to everything that happens...but it reminds me of the stuff with the baby in Ghostbusters 2 - actually, it's not as bad, but you can't have a proper screwball comedy romp when you try to add greater meaning to the shenanigans. Erin and Abby's dilemma belongs in a very different comedy, yet I'm aware that without it, this whole thing might resemble a remake of Pixels.

In the junior novel, Erin comes off particularly bipolar - she's looking for any chance to bail one moment, licking radioactive ghost traps the next. The junior novel, I'll bet, resembles the final cut of the film. Nancy Holder, who wrote the adult novel, goes to great lengths to flesh out Erin and Abby's backstory with lots of flashbacks to their salad days as teenagers and college students, eventually chronicling the disintegration of their friendship. That leaves little time for Holder to devote much to fleshing out the best characters: Kevin the receptionist and Jillian Holtzman. Midway into the final 3rd of the novel, she gives Holtzman and Patty Tolan a precious moment to talk about themselves, in a scene reminiscent of a moment between Dan Ackroyd and Ernie Hudson driving across the Brooklyn Bridge in the original film. For the sake of a sequel centering around Holtzman at least, I wish the film was successful enough for the studio to make one.

Other hints of the author taking creative license include an attempt to explain lame gags - the same Chinese food deliveryman, the dangerous radioactive device that gets handed like paperweight, Jennifer Lynch and the Mayor's obsession with keeping up appearances, Erin a popular target for getting slimed/puked on..

Oddly, Holder and Andrew Shaffer - the writer of the Ghosts From Our Past facsimile - invent contradictory accounts of the ghost Erin encountered as a child. Shaffer's account is more farcical and set around Halloween; Holder's account offers background on the old woman ghost and why she would want to haunt Erin. Shaffer and Holder also can't agree on how many hard copies of Ghosts From Our Past were self-published by Erin and Abby before Abby ultimately made it available on Kindle: Holder limits it to two copies, Shaffer implies far more, but never gives an exact number; just enough copies for other characters - debunker Martin Heiss in particular - to discover. These examples of discontinuity are not exclusive to these two; Ozzy Osbourne's cameo has a completely different line of dialogue in the junior novel and in Holder's novel! I prefer "I can't follow THAT!" (junior) to "SHARON!! I'm having another flashback!" (Holder novelization), but in this case, I'll bet the latter is in the final cut.

The guidebook is hilarious...though I wonder why they could make room for John Belushi and Chuthulu, but have no room for likely-to-have-been-seen-and-documented-before Ghostbusters rogues like Slimer, Viggo the Carpathian (whether you like him or not), Gozer the Gozerian, Vince Klortho and Zuul. Why not? This shit had rules? Nerds.

Hands down, the best passage in the guidebook was an Epitaph purportedly from Kevin, still completely at sea, trying to write abouta guidebook he opted out of reading...and trying to see if he can see the movie, instead...

...writing-wise, I think Kevin's my intellectual opposite/counterpart in the fictional world...

At the end of the day, I thought it was all okay...kind-of middle-of-the-road, story-wise. It's a story built on the outline of a plot I've seen before, so the interesting stuff was all the character moments..you could fashion a plot around this team never encountering any ghosts at all and still be entertaining...but that's not Ghostbusters...the appeal of this franchise is the blue collar approach to encountering the paranormal - like bug exterminators! It's a deceptively simple dynamic..but they got it half-right! It could've been much worse..

The Apocryphal Scrooge McDuck, Part 4

"Many is the book report that have been written by just reading the dust jacket"

- Linus Van Pelt in the TV special, Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!

I have reached the point in this series where I inevitably wind up highlighting books I don't own, but would like to have read, and would've owned if I had encountered them at any toy store/bookstore/dollar store/flea market/sidewalk book peddler table offering them. This means I unfortunately don't have a generous gallery to offer, or insightful snarky comments regarding key plot details, but my interest in these books remains piqued and they will be duly noted. As a bonus, I get to post another Christmas-themed essay! Ho ho ho/You didn't know/ Yo ho ho/ and a bottle of rum! ;)

The self-implied rule here is that I'm blogging about original Children's books featuring Scrooge McDuck as a member of the classic Disney stock players, be it as a primary character or guest-star, not Ducktales tie-in books, because I already wrote about Ducktales kid books in my Silver Dollars: Ducktales Anniversary series of posts, so why am I breaking the rule?...

...I didn't know Ducktales: Christmas At The North Pole existed, that's why. The book was part of Disney's "Wonderful World of Reading" mail-order book club series, which means only a faithful subscriber keeping up with his/her dues would've recieved this installment, rather than bailing out after receiving the umpteenth Alice in Wonderland or Cinderella. You would've also received the bizarre Disney Year Book, a Highlights for Children -esque book of stories mixed with anecdotal educational content featuring Disney characters.

The plot? Donald Duck, who is still in the Navy, is stationed at the North Pole and has invited Scrooge McDuck and Huey, Dewey and Louie to join him to celebrate Christmas. Mrs. Beakley, Webby, Duckworth and Launchpad get to come along, but  Launchpad drops the ball when he crashes the plane in a location that's vaguely North-ish. While McQuack makes repairs to the plane, the cast set up a campfire and fret about missing Christmas and Donald, but begin to perk up as they keep eachother entertained and attract the attention of local wildlife, who peacefully join in at the camp. Launchpad finishes the repairs and the gang is able to resume their trip. I  gather the point of this tale is that Christmas is a holiday that need not be celebrated in materialistic ways, nor can it be "ruined" if events don't work out as planned. Meanwhile, Donald was guzzing egg nog wondering why nobody showed up.

The 1980 Christmas tale, Merry Christmas, Uncle Scrooge McDuck!, looks interesting because it appears to suffer from a clash of art styles: it looks like Scrooge crashed the set of A Charlie Brown Christmas while dressed in an outfit he borrowed from Mister Magoo's wardrobe...I wonder what Ducktales would've looked like if it had been animated by DePatie-Freling Studios instead of TMS or Cuckoo's Nest...something like that cover, maybe?

The plot in this tale is that Scrooge refuses to give Donald an advance on his pay before Christmas, meaning Donald can't afford to buy presents for Huey, Dewey and Louie. There are two ways the plot of this book could go: 1) Donald enlists Mickey Mouse and Goofy's help in cobbling together four ghost costumes and they procede to scare Scrooge into having a change of heart and forking over some spare change; 2) Scrooge leaves work early and observes other people enjoying Christmas, even partaking in some holiday-themed pastimes (like a snowball fight, perchance?) then realizes how his nephews are missing out on the fun and has a change of heart. I'm going to guess the latter option, which sounds alright. After all, two visits with three spirits would be...goofy. ;)

I  hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a Happy New Year. And if you were visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve...you should've called the Ghostbusters. Happy Holidays! :)

The Terrific 10 of 2013

Here we are -  a list of ten neat "things"  I liked in 2013, all funnybook/pop culture related/available in better-than-average comic shops, with emphasis on "things"  because the #1 on this list was not a comic book, yet it was the most "comic book" of all. So, without further  ado...

10. Tales of A Sixth-Grade Muppet: When Pigs Fly -  coinciding with the release of The Muppets and subsequent revival of that franchise's film franchise was a series of novels written and illustrated by Kirk Scroggs  (in the style of the Diary of A Wimpy Kid  series) about the Muppets consoling a boy after he is suddenly transformed into a Muppet...and still has to go to school anyway. There were four books in all, but the final installment is the best, because it jettisoned the sitcom kiddie novel trappings in favor of high fantasy - most of it is set inside the USS Swinetrek ... the ship from the Pigs In Space sketches on The Muppet Show. Suddenly the series feels like a Roald Dahl book...and that's a good thing.

9. House of Fun #1 - Evan Dorkin gave his humor comic Dork!  a name change when he moved it to Dark Horse, naming it after his & wife Sarah Dyer's website, HouseofFun.com, and adding color! Perennial favorites Milk and Cheese are also present, along with a new Eltingville Club story and recurring sitcom-spoof The Murder Family, plus a lot of great stuff.

8. Superior Spider-Man #5: I'm happy to say that I've been enjoying the adventures of "Otter" (Doctor Octopus swapping minds with presumably dead Peter Parker and assuming the latter's life and superhero identity for the past year of Spider-Man comics,  hence the change-of-adjective in the book's title), largely because Marvel's stance on who Peter Parker/Spider-Man is  for the last decade has resulted in comics that didn't interest me, but this stuff, with Otto as Spider-Man...feels like the Spider-Man comics I read when I was a kid in the late-80s and 1990s...and in that sense, this is classic Spider-Man - not Steve Ditko or John Romita Sr., but David Micheline & Todd McFarlane, Howard Mackie & John Romita Jr., Todd Dezago & Mike Weiringo, Tom Defalco with Pat Olliffe & Ron Franz, and J.M. Dematteis with Sal Buscema or Luke Ross. YES...that was my Spider-Man: decadent,  domesticated, happily married  (Yes! He was happy!) not particularly accessible,  but the only time Spider-Man was accessible (in my humble opinion) was his origin story in Amazing Fantasy #15 .
Anyway, I chose issue #5 of Superior  for this list because it's an early standout issue - that cover alone lets you know the kid gloves are off fairly early in the game; writer Dan Slott's greatest accomplishment throughout this past year was to present "Otter" as a fully-realized character and not a placeholder.  I look forward to seeing how this storyline wraps up (as hinted) in the Goblin Nation storyline.

7. The All-New Ghostbusters #1: rumors of a new sequel to Ghostbusters have hinted at a lot of things, most prominent the rumor that a new team of GB's will appear alongside the old guard ( I heard Jonah Hill and Emma Stone have been cast ). Anyway, IDW had some fun with these rumors by relaunching their Ghostbusters comic with a new #1, featuring a new team made up of recurring characters that had been introduced in recent storylines, led by Janine the receptionist for a half-dozen issues before the "good ol' boys" came back. I'm sure Dan Ackroyd and Ivan Reitman have their own ideas, but this was fun.

6. Doctor Who vol. 2 #12 : this issue marked the conclusion to "Sky Jacks", a fun four part arc that brought Clara Oswald into IDW's Doctor Who comic book series. Those among you familiar with the concept of the Tardis - the Doctor's "bigger-on-the-inside" time machine, will REALLY love this one, since the show doesn't really have the budget to show a WW2 bomber flying inside it. :)

5. The House of Mystery: my blog, my list, my rules - the public library had all 8 volumes of the DC Vertigo revival of DC Comics' code-approved  Silver Age horror series, written mostly by Matthew Sturges (with Bill Willingham contributing material here & there) from a few years back. It starts off rocky, with the tone of contributions by Willingham clashing with Sturges' storylines before the latter takes over writing all the material,  allowing it to find its groove before the announcement of its cancellation forces a rushed conclusion. I noticed how (or maybe it's just me seeing things) Sturges scripts seemed to switch influences midstream from Joss Wheddon to Russell T. Davies and ending with Steven Moffat. Very timely. I loved it. I DO strongly recommend you skip Willingham's story in the premiere issue about the girl getting pregnant with the mosquito boyfriend...what was Bill smoking that night when he thought that up?

4. Superheroes! Capes, Cowls and The Creation of Comic Book Culture : you may recall a post from last fall, in which I reviewed a documentary on PBS about comic book superheroes (DC & Marvel  Comics superheroes,  mostly) and I thought the thesis inferred from watching it was that you didn't need to read the comics to enjoy the characters, because they had become subsumed within mainstream pop culture, perhaps in a cynical way...and they left out stuff! :)  Laurence Maslon, who worked on that documentary and cowrote this  companion book, had read my review, and left his comments,  including a suggestion that I check out this book - I'm glad I did. The book presents a stronger case for the film's argument that the genre has become ingrained within our pop culture landscape...and I believe that's because the authors - Maslon with Michael Kantor - offer new voices. With the exception of Jim Steranko talking about his work on Nick Fury, and Neal Adams (taking a break from defending his work on Batman: Odyssey , for a change), I had heard a lot of those guys in the film on older interviews giving the same answers they always give in documentaries and books/magazines about comics, so the programme was likely a success among newer audiences. This book was well-written and deserves a place on your bookshelf.

3. The Joker: The Clown Prince of Crime: Miracles happen. Small miracles, at least. Who knew that DC Comics would actually release all 9 issues of The Joker's late-70s solo series in a handy, affordable (!) trade paperback - in color!!  This was the treat of the year.

2. Jim Henson: The Biography: Brian Jay Jones's excellent book about the man who created the Muppets is fantastic and heartbreaking at the same time; the last 1/3 of the book reads like a workaholic's fever dream, as Jones chronicles every single project that Henson was working on during the last few years of his life and how his multitasking had spread him too thin creatively, resulting in a string of flops (The Jim Henson Hour in particular,  which is sad, because I do remember watching that show and missing it when t was yanked). If there was never any doubt about how creative the man was, Jones does shed light on his faults, perhaps eerily foreshadowing his untimely demise due to a bacterial infection that may have been preventable,  because, as I insist that you should read and see, the man was always busy. He was a genius - he could never stay idle and content where he was; he had an entrepreneurial spirit and optimism that kept him going...even when his final days were spent as the eye of a tornado that he thought he was calming by adding another gust of wind.  Sad, brilliant,  joyous and heartbreaking - the epitome of "gone too soon".

1. Doctor Who: The Day of The Doctor: THIS ...was the best "thing" of 2013. I really didn't care about what Marvel was doing, or DC Comic's 3D "wiggle" covers or Zombo the Clown (Jeff Lester's favorite) or Dark Horse's Battlestar Galactica-esque interpretation of George Lucas's pre-1st draft scribbles of "The Star Wars"...and nobody could've anticipated just how fantastic Doctor Who's 50th anniversary special would be. I've already written about the special before...but I may have neglected to add that this was the best thing of 2013.

And now you know.  :)