Comic Review: Ghostbusters: The Other Side #1-4
Ghostbusters: The Other Side # 1-4
IDW Publishing
Written by: Keith Champagne
Art by: Tom Nguyen
Review by: Bryce Holland
Every once in a while, a book comes along that I just know I’m going to like. I can just look at the cover of any given issue in the series and pretty definitively tell that I am just going to love what lies inside. Usually, this feeling comes from seeing a certain writer or artists’ name emblazoned on the front. Sometimes, its just an eye catching visual that can do it. But, every so often, the title of a given series is enough to get me to fall in love with it. Such was the case with Ghostbusters: The Other Side. Unfortunately, my instincts were far more off than I could have ever imagined.
I wanted to love this series. I really, really did. I even had some groan inducing Ghostbusters puns and references I wanted to include, but I just can’t bring myself to use them. Ever since I was a little kid, I have loved everything even marginally related to the Ghostbusters. I’ve seen the original film about 1376 times (of course, that is just a ballpark figure), and despite the drop-off in story quality I really liked the sequel. I’ve seen just about every episode of The Real Ghostbusters animated series, and I used to own damn near every toy based on the property. My mom has loads of pictures of me even wearing my shitty plastic proton-pack and scanning things with my faux PKE meter. It’s safe to say that I am just a little bit of a Ghostbusters fanatic, and that makes my disappointment with this series just a little more intense.
Let’s start with the writing. Nothing in the Ghostbusters canon has ever lived up to the quality of the original film, so I was willing to give some latitude to the story. All I was really hoping for was a narrative that would at least be as good as an episode of the animated show: some goofy humor, a few out-of-this-world ghosts/demons, maybe a couple creepy scares, and some old fashioned proton blasting action. For the most part, the first issue of the series lived up to many of my expectations. The plot begins with the familiar line-up of Ray Stantz, Peter Venkman, Winston Zeddmore, and Egon Spengler busting in on a supernatural meeting of ghostly gangsters. They quickly dispatch the group, but not before Peter gets possessed by one of the specters, ultimately leaving him in a catatonic state. The rest of the group tries to figure out how to bring back to the land of the living, but are later attacked by a marauding group of criminal ghosts. After a heated standoff, the remaining trio are beaten down, and it looks like it may be for good.
Sound promising? It should, and at first I thought it was. But after a decent enough setup in the inaugural issue, things go downhill fast. The rest of the series follows the Ghostbusters around in Purgatory as they reunite with their comrade Peter, who has gained some mysterious super-powers. They also team-up with the ghosts of famous lawmen like Elliot Ness and J. Edgar Hoover to combat a ghost-trafficking ring run by the ghosts of notorious gangsters, including Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel. While the entire series plot has some promise, none of it is ever realized. Writer Keith Champagne just clearly has no idea what makes this universe so fun, smart, and subtly creepy. The story just seems to drag on pointlessly, with no clue as to what its own payoff might be. There’s also the weird, apparently pointless subplot involving some of Winston’s back-story that pops up for no apparent reason and then never really resolves. The ending, involving some weak religious metaphors, also seems very tacked on. But, the worst part of the whole experience was the dialog. After sitting through four issues of this series, I got the distinct impression that Champagne had never even seen either of the Ghostbusters films. When Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis crafted their narratives, they injected the stories with subtle humor and some of the funniest one-liners ever put on screen. They also put in enough techno-babble and faux mythology to make their universe feel new and strange and exciting, yet also somehow believable. Champagne’s story reads weakly and doesn’t pack any of the heart or intelligence that highlighted previous outings in the realm of ghost busting. The main four guys sound passable enough, but the villainous gangster ghosts and the supporting crime fighters are just downright unbearable. His depiction of J. Edgar Hoover may very well be the most repellant character I’ve ever seen this side of Jar Jar Binks.
With the story as bad as it, one might hope that the art would be enough to keep you turning pages. Alas, Tom Nguyen’s pencils are no more serviceable than the words that they are depicting. I’m all for stylized depictions of established characters, but the ones here are just….weird. The rest of the book just looks very plain. Nothing is very detailed, and the color palette is very flat. Even the ghosts and demons, an area that one would think an artist would just cut loose on, especially in a Ghostbusters, look average and completely uninspired. After some of the amazing creations seen in the films and cartoon, any reader should expect far better than what is rendered here.
Like I said before, I really wanted to love this book. Ghostbusters is one of the most original works of horror, science-fiction, and comedy ever conceived, and just about everything that has spun off of it has at the very least been a little entertaining, but The Other Side just falls way too short. If you’re looking for a fresh taste of some spook trapping action, go check out the new video game that just came out, or maybe just re-watch the movies. This book is as bad as getting slimed.
