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PostPosted: July 6th, 2013, 7:59 pm 
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Fritz Babbles About Ghostbusters #21

Extensive Spoilers to follow as usual.

So, at the end of the last issue the real Ghostbusters were back and everything is going to get quiet and back to normal, right?

Of course not. Twenty pages of the Ghostbusters loafing around GBCentral isn't going to sell too many comic books.

First, what about all those "extra" Ghostbusters?

We find out as Ray tells Jenny Moran, former Ghostsmasher and Donna ("Mrs. Dan Aykroyd") Dixon lookalike, as they have coffee together. Aw. The fact she looks like Dan Aykroyd's wife and of course this version of Ray looks as close to Dan Aykroyd as IDW can get without being sued, it sure looks promising here.

It looks even more promising for Winston, of course, as we see him with Tiyah. Thankfully, even though she's still nervous about the whole "Your job is dangerous and to top it off soul sucking demons from Hell hate your guts and are after your ass" thing, they're still together. Venkman's crap advice to Winston two issues ago didn't seem to cause any problem. Venkman's just jealous.

Janine's gladly gone back to the reception desk. Ortiz is back to the FBI and Mulder Savage, but she doesn't seem too happy about it. Ron has been sent to annoy the blank slate in Chicago, and he's not too happy about it either; "he" in this case being the blank slate. Apparently, Chicago is now the dumping ground for characters IDW doesn't want to use too much right now; next thing we know, we'll find out Dana and Louis moved there too. (Yeah, I know, Erik Burnham already said they didn't, way to spoil my snarky joke...)

And Kylie? Well, for some reason, she seems to fit quite well into the role of Ghostbusting. Almost like in another life it was her primary job or something. So she's going to stick around as at least a backup.

And another loose end is tied up (or, perhaps, spun into further headaches down the line) as Peck fires Hardemeyer. Hard-On is threatening to sic his lawyers on Peck. Wally is not all that scared. Hot air from Jack, or will this snowball down the line? Maybe he'll make a deal with one of Egon's dead science professors and try to trap the Ghostbusters, but fail and have to eat at soup kitchens.

Nah, probably not that last sentence.

Anyway, just because it might be a good idea for a book about a group calling itself "Ghostbusters" to have some "busting" of "ghosts", we get Venkman and Kylie in Mamaroneck, which is almost as much fun to write as Schenectady. The Doom Train shows up; looks like it's gonna be one of those days. Kylie haggles with Venkman for extra overtime pay, and in the process we get an interesting revelation: Kylie has hired a "barely literate" guy to take over for her when she's not taking over for Ray at Ray's Occult? And Kylie has to insist "He does read"? It wouldn't happen to be a slightly sarcastic Latino who, in another life, she once quipped "You read?" about? He's only in it for the "Easy paycheck" and she hired him anyway because she'd never admit it but she actually does find him kind of hot? That would be so awesome.

So, anyway, the proton packs are not working real well--the Doom Train (driven by Casey Jones and everything! That's the Casey Jones from "Last Train to Oblivion", not the guy who wears the hockey mask in some other comic book) so Venkman pulls out a giant honking bazooka (based off one, ironically enough, from "Mean Green Teen Machine", which parodied that same other comic book) and causes some major derailment of the Doom Train's plan. It's not as cool as suplexing it, but it works--Kylie and Venkman are able to zap and trap what's left of Casey and Doom Train with very little effort (and some more fun quips).

So...with that over, it's on to Janine and EgonLite (aka Roger) who are watching TV at her place. Things look comfy, but Janine's not having much of Roger's selections of TV shows--too many horror movies and "sci-fi comedies", which remind her too much of her job. Sure, there's the movie about the talking cat that sounds suspiciously like Venkman (hey, that one works for both Music and Murray now, after all) or Zealous Ladies, but she hates the cat movie and has seen all the Zealous Ladies episodes anyway. Roger decides he likes the one with a gorilla in a hat chasing ghosts, which doesn't speak very well of his taste in entertainment. Man, talk about a crap idea there. But Janine isn't making snarky comments about "Nah, the ape reminds me too much of Dr. Venkman" so he thinks she must be okay with it...excepts then he looks at her and she's zoned out and has bright yellow slime starting to ooze out of her eyes.

That's...not good.

EgonLite high tails to GBCentral and, low and behold, the only one there is EgonActual. As has been a recurring subtle theme throughout many IDW issues from many different writers, he's dismissive of being bothered until he finds out Janine's in trouble--at which time he seems to just short of teleport to Brooklyn (well, this is Egon, so I guess it's not impossible). Janine's in worse shape than when Roger left--the yellow slime is now all over her and she's sleeping above her covers. Four feet above her covers. Egon tries to counteract it with pink slime from the slime blower, but the yellow slime goes "Denied!" and the pink stuff vanishes. Egon tells Roger to grab an arm; they'll have to literally drag her back to GBCentral. I guess the teleporter was only one way.

Back at GBCentral, as Roger and Slimer watch, Egon pulls out the Chekhov's gun he got from Madame LaVeau eleven issues ago: the voodoo Gris-Gris. He plops it on Janine's head and she immediately snaps out of it, declares her undying love for Egon, dumps Roger, and Egon and Janine go off to start conceiving their Twins. Hah hah, no. Actually, the Gris-Gris doesn't seem to do much of anything. Unless it caused the glowy Viking dudes to appear behind the two Egons, that is.

Backups this time are a couple of one-pagers. The first one is Ron and the Rookie. The second one is Kylie and the first IDW continuity appearance of the Sandman--he tries to put Kylie to sleep, but she's too wired on caffeine for the sleep dust to work. Instead, Sandy will be taking a long nap in that big red Ecto Containment Unit in the Ghostbusters' basement.

See you next time.

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PostPosted: July 8th, 2013, 9:17 am 
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Fritz wrote:
Kylie has hired a "barely literate" guy to take over for her when she's not taking over for Ray at Ray's Occult? And Kylie has to insist "He does read"? It wouldn't happen to be a slightly sarcastic Latino who, in another life, she once quipped "You read?" about? He's only in it for the "Easy paycheck" and she hired him anyway because she'd never admit it but she actually does find him kind of hot? That would be so awesome.


Yeah, that would. It does sound promising. If that is not what's going on here, then it would be a) a missed opportunity, b) a weird thing to do and c) just plain mean.

I'm not getting excited just yet, but if this is what we would hope, what does that mean? Getting grumpy works? Erik Burnham watched "Deadliners" as well as/instead of the episodes I - proven expert and undisputed Queen of EGB - recommended? That is where the "You read?" quote comes from, and I can't imagine the "He does read" line being inspired by anything else in particular. Interesting. I'll have to try and dig up some background (unless Fritz finds it first in all his routine forum wanderings and saves me the work... or eburnham himself logs in to gush about how much he now loves EGB, or something like that ;) ).

Or maybe those power-mad comic book people really are just being mean.

Or maybe Steve Collins is finally going to put in an appearance (I saw that, Fritz!). :mrgreen:

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PostPosted: July 8th, 2013, 1:03 pm 
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Well, I had a lot of mixed feelings about this issue, I hope all of my worries are worked out over the next few issues, but the character revelations in this one didn't go like I would have liked.

Quote:
Fritz wrote:
Kylie has hired a "barely literate" guy to take over for her when she's not taking over for Ray at Ray's Occult? And Kylie has to insist "He does read"? It wouldn't happen to be a slightly sarcastic Latino who, in another life, she once quipped "You read?" about? He's only in it for the "Easy paycheck" and she hired him anyway because she'd never admit it but she actually does find him kind of hot? That would be so awesome.


Quote:
Yeah, that would. It does sound promising. If that is not what's going on here, then it would be a) a missed opportunity, b) a weird thing to do and c) just plain mean.


Yes, I too would really think it would be great if this were Eduardo. It would be all of those things and more, EGBfan, if it wasn't. It would be interesting to see Eduardo as a nonGB, he would be a good skeptic voice. Ray probably wouldn't like him much at all lol.

Actually those a/b/c points you bring up fit quite well with how I feel about Egon/Janine/Roger right now. I was really disappointed the grisgris didn't do anything, but maybe that's because he tried to use it in a detached/scientific way instead of as a love declaration. I mean, Marie was real and powerful, so I would think the grisgris would be too. (Also, kept meaning to mention this would be another great source to explain where Eden's middle name came from... assuming the grisgris did work of course.) But the surface answer to why it didn't work is either it was a dud, or Egon doesn't love her and I don't accept either of those answers.

I'm starting to feel conflicted about this triangle (which I'm sure Erik loves, lol). I found myself thinking that it would make much more since if she had married him between this and EGB instead of Louis in the timeline. Of course I did see "Made of Honor" the other day and can't help but draw a parallel where Roger would technically be the perfect guy for her, except of course she has this best friend who she really belongs with, he may be the perfect guy, just not the perfect guy for her, to quote that movie. Though I really hope that we don't have to wait on a broke up wedding for an answer.
(Maybe Erik can confirm whether or not he was allowed to publish that on panel answer to these questions? Hint hint nudge nudge wink wink)

I was also put back about Tiyah and Winston's conversation. Not that there was anything, per se, wrong with it, but the exact reason's he gave for not putting his relationship on hold were the same reasons that I always figured that Egon would give for pushing Janine away. I always thought it would be Egon's realization that Janine was gonna be a target with or without him that broke down his resolve.

Maybe I am way over thinking this, but I feel like I have to over think it just to have hope for the story at this point. The surface explanations don't seem to look good for E/J fans. What do you guys think?

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PostPosted: July 9th, 2013, 8:29 pm 
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Quote:
I was really disappointed the grisgris didn't do anything, but maybe that's because he tried to use it in a detached/scientific way instead of as a love declaration. I mean, Marie was real and powerful, so I would think the grisgris would be too. (Also, kept meaning to mention this would be another great source to explain where Eden's middle name came from... assuming the grisgris did work of course.) But the surface answer to why it didn't work is either it was a dud, or Egon doesn't love her and I don't accept either of those answers.


My own instinct on the matter basically matches yours on this--I don't feel like that little talisman has quite fulfilled it's role yet. I could be wrong--maybe summoning up the glowy Vikings to hopefully get Egon to make them explain themselves is it. I guess we'll find out next issue. But yeah, it'd be a shame if that promising Chekhov's Gun turned out to just be a gag pistol with a sign reading "Bang!" popping out of it.

Of course, having created Eden a good decade before this story appeared, I had a different explanation, but I admit that's a fun idea.

Quote:
I found myself thinking that it would make much more since if she had married him between this and EGB instead of Louis in the timeline. Of course I did see "Made of Honor" the other day and can't help but draw a parallel where Roger would technically be the perfect guy for her, except of course she has this best friend who she really belongs with, he may be the perfect guy, just not the perfect guy for her, to quote that movie. Though I really hope that we don't have to wait on a broke up wedding for an answer.


You know, if I was just getting into fan fic writing today, I might do that. I'm still mulling over the exact role a GBOT version of Roger would play.

Quote:
I was also put back about Tiyah and Winston's conversation. Not that there was anything, per se, wrong with it, but the exact reason's he gave for not putting his relationship on hold were the same reasons that I always figured that Egon would give for pushing Janine away. I always thought it would be Egon's realization that Janine was gonna be a target with or without him that broke down his resolve.


Well, Egon and Winston are two very different people, so yeah, I could see them making completely different decisions for the same reasons.

But we'll just have to see. Other than Egon's little bit of on-camera musing in #14, it seems like his real feelings have been kept intentionally opaque most of the time.

This story isn't over yet. And hey, we don't like the ending, we can always blame it on jerkwads at Sony. :lol:

Quote:
Or maybe Steve Collins is finally going to put in an appearance (I saw that, Fritz!).


I realize we'd have to figure out what he looked like. Maybe Dan would look for a picture of Rino Romano and go for a caricature. Kind of the reverse of Roger and Egon. :P

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PostPosted: July 14th, 2013, 5:13 am 
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Finely had the time to look at the comic.

I wanted to ask, in the seen where egon is interrupted by Roger. You think Egon said " Damit " b/c his experiment was messed up or the fact that it was Roger that came bursting in ?


Also here is something I don't get. If Hardemeyer has all these cool deels in the work. Why not go the the real GB to see if they would want in. I'm sure Peter would want in on some of the opportunities.

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PostPosted: July 14th, 2013, 10:57 am 
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The line from Peter about heartbreak doing Egon some good sounded like could be some ominous foreshadowing. I wonder how (or if) Roger's going to leave, because Roger and Janine do seem very cozy together. I was hoping we'd get to see inside Janine's apartment at some point, so that was pretty neat, and I loved the references to the TV shows (Garfield, Desperate Housewives and Filmation's Ghostbusters). The elevator scene and the unsuccessful use of the gris-gris were both hilarious. I'm not looking too much into the reasons why the gris-gris didn't work; I'm more interested in how it will work. 

Sad to see Ortiz back in her FBI role, although I don't think that's permanent, or at least I hope it isn't. We didn't see much of a reaction from Peter about it, which is surprising because for someone who seems keen on getting involved in everyone else's love lives, he doesn't seem that successful or interested in keeping up with his own. I wonder whether one of the guys will remind him of that the next time he starts spouting off another chapter from Venkman's Guide on how to Date. I'm very pleased that Kylie's staying with the main team and like the others on here I'm hoping that Eduardo is looking after the store and that maybe he could make an appearance sometime.  They had some great banter together on EGB and I think that would really fit well with the humour of the comics.

Pleased that Ron's out of the way, though. I'm not a huge fan of the character. He doesn't seem to have one redeeming characteristic, and I feel sorry that the Rookie's got to put up with him. 

I think this issue in particular demonstrates how well romance is handled in these comics, with a great balance between it and action and I'd love to see what they could do with a popular pairing like Egon and Janine.

jason knetge wrote:
I wanted to ask, in the seen where egon is interrupted by Roger. You think Egon said " Damit " b/c his experiment was messed up or the fact that it was Roger that came bursting in ?

I like to think both. :mrgreen:

jason knetge wrote:
Also here is something I don't get. If Hardemeyer has all these cool deels in the work. Why not go the the real GB to see if they would want in. I'm sure Peter would want in on some of the opportunities.

Hmm. Maybe he will. I don't think this is the last we've seen of Hardemeyer. Could be an interesting power battle between him and Peck from now on.

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PostPosted: July 14th, 2013, 1:30 pm 
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jason knetge wrote:
Also here is something I don't get. If Hardemeyer has all these cool deels in the work. Why not go the the real GB to see if they would want in. I'm sure Peter would want in on some of the opportunities.


Well, hell, we know Wally still doesn't like Venkman. Maybe that's exactly why he cancelled all those deals.

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PostPosted: July 17th, 2013, 1:13 am 
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Quote:
I wanted to ask, in the seen where egon is interrupted by Roger. You think Egon said " Damit " b/c his experiment was messed up or the fact that it was Roger that came bursting in ?

I like to think both. :mrgreen:



I also think both :D


I have a question to ask.
Is it fun for everyone or not to speculate as to the plots of the next issues. I mean if I were to come out and say: I bet so and so happens or wouldn't it be wild if? Does it kill anticipation for the real story or fuel it? I really don't know because I think of these things anyway. Do any of you want to do that here?

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PostPosted: July 17th, 2013, 7:44 pm 
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ghostdiva wrote:
I have a question to ask.
Is it fun for everyone or not to speculate as to the plots of the next issues. I mean if I were to come out and say: I bet so and so happens or wouldn't it be wild if? Does it kill anticipation for the real story or fuel it? I really don't know because I think of these things anyway. Do any of you want to do that here?


Go for it. Remember how close you got with Roger looking like Egon?

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PostPosted: July 18th, 2013, 1:46 am 
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Well, let's not expect me to get close again, lol.

My thought was this, What if the test of bravery is really for Egon? What if the whole thing with Janine was a rouse to create a real challenge for him. Think about it, he would have known the legends and would have known, like Kylie, that it was a piece of cake. Maybe his bravery test is confessing his feelings for her. Like I said before the reasons Winston said for wanting to marry Tiyah are the same that I think Egon would hang on to to push Janine away. What if the grisgris did make them show up, as a signal that he was ready to face his challenge?

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Last edited by ghostdiva on July 18th, 2013, 1:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: July 18th, 2013, 1:54 am 
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Also I just wanted to through this out there, but the tv show Janine and Roger were talking about was a reference to Designing Women that Annie Potts was in rather than Desperate Housewives. I actually have seen anyone make that connection but the logos are similar and it ties with the real life references of the other two.
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PostPosted: July 18th, 2013, 11:02 am 
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ghostdiva wrote:
Also I just wanted to through this out there, but the tv show Janine and Roger were talking about was a reference to Designing Women that Annie Potts was in rather than Desperate Housewives. I actually have seen anyone make that connection but the logos are similar and it ties with the real life references of the other two.
Image


Yeah, "Zealous Ladies" as a stand-in for "Designing Women" does make a lot more sense, both for the timing (DW ran 1986-1993) and the Annie Potts in-joke value, but it also working for "Desperate Housewives' means it's an in-joke that more people will get as it's a more recent show. I like the DW idea better, I admit.

I really like your idea about the gris-gris and Egon, and it would be awesome if it was anywhere close to the way things shake down.

My own wacky thought came when I was looking at the cover of #6, which suggests that Egon and Roger get to do diving into Janine's head as part of whatever needs to happen. I guess it's because the combo of (sorta) Ramis-looking Egon and EGB Egon reminded me of my own story "Gemini Rising", where the two "imperfect" Egons are Ramis-looking Egon and EGB-looking Egon. I don't mean have them fusing into one guy...the flotsam that bubbled into my mind was a scene of them finding Janine's "perfect dream guy" and, of course, he looks exactly like RGB Egon, suggesting that they both resemble this ideal in their own ways.

I really doubt anything like that will happen, but it was kind of an interesting thought

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PostPosted: July 25th, 2013, 11:11 am 
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Double post, but it's my board...

One insight about the gris gris...

Marie Laveau made all sorts of direct mentions of "What about love, Son?" when she gave Egon the thing. He brushed it all off, but...

But...

Laveau never mentioned anyone by name.

Months later, Janine gets in trouble.

What's the first thing Egon tries when he gets Janine back to the lab?

The gris gris.

The association is obvious.

Gris gris = love = Janine.

Maybe it's a small thing, but it certainly suggests, much like the musing in #14, there's a lot more going on in Egon's head and heart than he's readily letting on to.

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PostPosted: October 18th, 2013, 10:53 am 
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Just a little corollary to the earlier speculation about "that guy who might not be able to read"

Character sketch for somebody who might be appearing in issue 10 or 11

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PostPosted: October 19th, 2013, 6:41 am 
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Good stuff. Unfortunately, it seems I have a cynical and highly suspicious nature. It's all too easy to misuse and misinterpret his character, as demonstrated by fans and EGB scriptwriters alike (some, by no means all, I hasten to add). So, I'll be interested to see what they do with him. Unless it actually is Steve Collins - then they can do what they like. Wha'evs.

I'd certainly be interested to hear what prompted this move. Perhaps Erik will reveal all once things are properly underway. Hope so! I also hope he asks for a top three of Eduardo episodes, as he did with Kylie. I've had my answer to that ready for a very long time. :geek:

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