Ghostbusters News Feed

IDW Previews new Ghostbusters Con-Volution One Shot

GBFans.com — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:17:56 -0600

IDW Publishing's editor Tom Waltz has posted a preview to the next Ghostbusters Comic release called "Con-Volution". This Holiday one-shot will come out around July 4th 2010, features the work of Keith Dallas, Jim Beard, and Josh Howard. Here is a varient B cover by artist Nick Runge (who was responsible for the awesome varient cover for the Tainted Love comic this past February).

Look for this comic available in the GBFans Shop in late June.

Ghostbusters Fans Membership Badges Now Available

GBFans.com — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:12:11 -0600

Today is a day of contest winner announcements! We have finally picked a winner of the contest to Design a new Ghostbusters Fans Membership ID Badge. It was a very touch decision as there were plenty of great new designs, but only one design could make it through to be the new official Ghostbusters Fans Membership ID Badge.

Use the Badge Generator to put your name and photo, and order an official membership badge. They are $10 for Supporting Members, and $15 for Non-Supporting Members. (All non-Supporting Member purchases include a trial Supporting Membership).

http://www.gbfans.com/fans/id-badge/create/

Dan Aykroyd named Grand Marshal

GhostbustersNews.com — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:08:26 -0600

Dan Aykroyd has just been announced as the official Grand Marshal of the 23rd Annual Art Car Parade. Aykroyd will also be doing a meet and greet for anyone who may be attending.

The Annual Art Car Parade weekend is the Orange Show's biggest outreach program, a vehicle for the message that art is an integral part of everyone's everyday life.

You can click here for additional information.

PKE Surge 2010 Logo Contest Winner Announced

Dan AKA — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:20:01 -0600

To begin, I must extend my sincerest apology to all those anticipating artists who await the announcement of the winner of the PKE Surge logo contest. When we first set out with the contest we had anticipated having some new content to run alongside of the winning logo; which still remains to be announced. Then after getting so many wonderful entries we found ourselves in a dead lock over which new logo to choose. I speak honestly when I say that this community has a surplus of great and talented artists who are constantly offering their talents to the community, and that there is no end to the respect for those who put their pen to the paper and then to the Internet for thousands of people to judge. Luckily for this contest only a handful of people had to judge your work, and boy was it hard! If memory serves the PKE Surge Staff spent hours debating on all the pros and cons of each individual entry for this years logo contest, and after all this time we have a winner.

Ladies and Ghostheads, on the behalf of PKE Surge 2010 presented by GBFans.com I present to you the 2010 No-Ghost logo that will be representing us at Dragon Con in Atlanta Georgia and winner of the contest, lordgilpin!

He will be rewarded with a free PKE Surge 2010 Prize Package which will include the official 2010 t-shirt with his logo screen printed on the front! Along with this his logo will be featured on the brand new PKE Surge website http://www.pkesurge.com

On behalf of the PKE Surge staff I want to thank all of the contest entries, I hope that you will re-enter next year when we pick a new logo and a new artist to represent us at PKE Surge 2011.

Aykroyd talks GB3, Vodka, Ramis vs. Murray, and more

GhostbustersNews.com — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:47:30 -0600

Las Vegas Review-Journal have just posted a brand new interview with Dan Aykroyd, and it didn't take long for Aykroyd to get asked about Ghostbusters 3, as he said “the status of the script is, hopefully, writing and completing it within the next few months. It’s closer than it’s ever been now."

The aging actor also went onto speaking about the falling out that both Harold Ramis and Bill Murray had around the time of Groundhog Day, saying "Groundhog Day’ was one of the greatest comedies ever made. They collaborated together on that, and they’ve always done great work together - going back to ‘Caddyshack’ and ‘Stripes.’ And its always a shame to see a collaboration like that become impaired. But I don’t think it’s going to be a problem for us. I think they patched things up.”

If you'd like to read more, you can click here to check out the full interview.

DenTheGeek.com takes a look back at Real Ghostbusters

GhostbustersNews.com — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:15:43 -0600

DenTheGeek.com just posted a look back at the Real Ghostbusters phenomenon. It touches on everything from the cartoon series, action figures, and more.

Click here to check out the article.

Original Ghostbusters II/Five Alive marketing campaign brings back memories

GhostbustersNews.com — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:02:40 -0600

Click the above image to view the full image
The above marketing campaign by Five Alive was found on Pen2Paper Productions Deviant Art profile.

Ah, the memories!

Column: The Private Sector – The Kenner Liberation

ProtonCharging.com — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:01:46 -0600

The Private Sector - The Kenner Liberation

netsolo — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Hey there, folks. After a bit of a hiatus so that you wouldn’t get any more fatigued of my gibberish than you probably already are, The Private Sector is back. And this week, I’m going to come clean by getting something off my chest. Something that’s been weighing on me heavily since age eight… try not to hold it against me… all right… here goes… I stole Winston.

Whew… that felt good. Literally confessing your crime to the bajillions of good folks that read these fine Ghostbusters fansites (and most likely my mother, who will be reading this after hearing that her boy is a thief through the grapevine). I guess that a story is in order.

I was eight. And while my family lived comfortably, admittedly it was difficult for my wonderful and remarkable parents to keep up with my hungry appetite for the fine Real Ghostbusters related products that Kenner was releasing en masse. I wanted desperately the Ghostbusters’ trademark firehouse headquarters, but such a luxurious purchase just wasn’t possible at the time (for the record, I built my own firehouse out of spare house siding that was in my father’s garage, probably far more rewarding for my creativity but not for my Dad who had purchased said materials to patch holes before the winter). Even purchases of the individual action figures were very selective and planned out because my parents were able to buy the figures for me so infrequently…

Egon Spengler (the original blue jumpsuit version with Proton Pack) was first. He was my favorite character, so his priority as a purchase obviously was elevated. For the longest time, he was the only Ghostbuster (with the help of Robocop and Batman) to fend off Granny Ghost (whom I had received as a birthday present from a friend) and all of the invisible ghosts in my imagination. Egon was the lone Ghostbuster, breaking the first rule by venturing out into business on his own. Fighting ghosts in lands foreign to New York like an old Fisher Price castle my parents purchased for me several years before… or the bathroom.

Egon was soon joined by the original brown suit release Pete Venkman, and then quite a bit later the Fright Features Ray Stantz (because Ray just wasn’t Ray to me without the Ecto Goggles). A few other ghosts joined them including a Kenner Stay Puft I had fortuitously come across at a neighborhood garage sale, for the then hefty price tag to me of fifty cents.

But Winston, the heart and soul of the Ghostbusters, was always noticeably missing.

By the time another purchase was granted by the folks, the original Winston with proton pack and jumpsuit was long gone from stores – replaced by the horrid Fright Features Winston who always looked like a strange ventriloquism dummy with his unhinged jaw. And why was he in a Formula One racer outfit? Fright Features Winston felt like a fraud to me. An imposter sitting on the pegs among his Kenner brethren. When given the opportunity by my parents to finally pick up Winston, I was stubborn and always passed said Fright Feature figure up.

Until one day… at a yearly check-up at my pediatrician’s office… I was sitting waiting in a patient room for the doctor to arrive. And there he was…

Sitting, surrounded by Fraggle Rock McDonalds toys and a couple Ninja Turtles in a box of toys conveniently placed on one of the exam tables (presumably to distract the patient from the terrifying injection the nurse or doctor was preparing to stick you in the arm with) – was the original teal green suit release Winston.

Now, I was raised Catholic so things that I haven’t even done already unexplainably weigh heavily on me. So the first thought in my head wasn’t “I’m going to steal this thing”, it was actually, “No way! That’s such a rare figure that I can’t find, what’s it doing here?” That figure sitting in the Tupperware tub might as well have been the Lost Ark of the Covenant to me after the couple of years that I had pined for it.

But as much as I eyed the figure, I did nothing during that visit but marvel at its presence.

Until a year later, once again – by chance the same exam room, the same tub of toys, Winston still in there (but noticeably a lot of the Ninja Turtles toys missing). Once again, first thought was, “No way! Him again! How cool!” Nowhere near, “I’m going to deprive dozens of Ghostbuster fan kids at this doctor’s office of a moment of joy getting to play with a Winston figure by stealing it…” And besides, I was (then) eight years old. Do you know what the punishment for stealing is to an eight-year-old kid in the late 80s? No, are you kidding me, man… not a stern talking to or a time out, my God, this was the time when parents weren’t all politically correct and bashful about sprawling you over their knee and beating the snot out of you. Children actually feared and respected their parents instead of dragging them around on a leash. There was no way that this good kid would even think of such a thing let alone do it…

Until the doctor injected me with one of those aforementioned needles in the arm.

Then I wanted vengeance.

They had inflicted pain and drawn blood from me. They took something forcibly from me without my permission. It hurt emotionally and physically and, to quote an immortal movie, “Son of a bitch must pay…”

So I took him.

Teal jumpsuited Winston was smuggled away from that hellish prison where children were tortured with no reward. He wasn’t stolen. He was freed. Or so I told myself at the time… until later when Catholicism kicked back in and the guilt weighed so heavily on me that Winston taunted me. He remained on the shelf because I felt guilty to play with him. I couldn’t sleep at night in fear of the punishment to come for what I had done.

It was a long and difficult year until I had made up my mind that, on next return to the doctor’s office, I would return Winston to where he came from. Just as I had smuggled the action figure from the pediatrician’s office a year prior, I snuck him back in and despite not being in the same exam room that time around, deposited him back into a tub of toys.

And funny enough, there he stayed and remained. Each and every year that I visited my pediatrician (healthy, of course – as they had special quarantined lobbies and exam rooms for the sick kids), Winston would be spotted occasionally.

For all I know, he’s still there to this day.

Unless some new generation of young Ghostbuster fan is considering liberating Winston from his sterile confines…

Don’t hurt me, mom.

(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on GB Fans, Proton Charging, and Ghostbusters.net as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)

Ghostbusters 2 jab in The Big Bang Theory

ProtonCharging.com — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:12:29 -0600

I’ll admit I’m a late-coming fan to The Big Bang Theory – it’s kind of like Good Times for nerds. Funny and loving, but at a core level, a little demeaning. But hell, if they’re going to keep making stupid pop culture references I like, then I’m in. Last night (@protoncharging Twitter followers would have known [...]

Vigo makes cameo in Oscar winning documentary

ProtonCharging.com — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:31:58 -0600

Weird. You know it was a big year for Ghostbusters when it pops up in not one, but TWO Oscar winning films. This time, the documentary The Cove, which follows a group of Dolphin activists, has a cameo by Vigo’s painting, as the activists enlist the help of friends at ILM – there in the [...]

Listen… do you smell something?

TheRealGhostbusters.com — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:30:59 -0600

That smell is the smell of victory! Over the last week, news hit the wire about Dan Schoening and James Eatock’s Ghostbusters comic pitch to IDW Publishing. As previously reported their pitch wasn’t successful and fans were left to wonder why? Well it seems that IDW heard us loud and clear because James Eatock posted [...]

Fan art: Venkman lighting things up!

GhostbustersNews.com — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:48:36 -0600

The above piece was done DeviantArt.com user Evan Bryce, and you can click here to check it out in it's original full size.

Custom painted Kenner Ghostbusters Fire House is a thing of beauty

GhostbustersNews.com — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:43:44 -0600

Who doesn't love the original Ghostbusters Fire House that was made by Kenner? It came with everything your slime covered heroes needed, but what about the new Mattel line? They haven't been given a place to hang their proton packs yet!

It seems as if GBFans.com user CaptCyan has fixed that issue. Pretty amazing work on his part!

You can click here to check out additional images of the headquarters.

Schoening and Eatock connect with IDW – different project in the works!

ProtonCharging.com — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:34:35 -0600

Well, that’s two-oh for the Internet this week. Last week Atari reached out to owners of the Ghostbusters video game to examine the possibility of addressing some game issues. And now, Jame Eatock has posted this; IDW obviously had an editorial plan in mind for the Ghostbusters license, and the 10 issue series laid out by Schoening [...]

More behind-the-scenes photos on Facebook.

ProtonCharging.com — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:15:32 -0600

Ectofiend has scoured out dozens more photos from Steve Johnson’s facebook page, as well as the Boss Film Rules Facebook group. Buckle up; - Slimer mugging - Rigging Slimer - Toasted Stay-Puft - Stay-Puft blue screen - Slimer’s hallway flight - Second base with Slimer (under the costume, over the performer – ) - Stay-Puft head melt 1 - Chug-a-lug [...]

Ghostbusters makes cameo in Oscar-winning short

ProtonCharging.com — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:30:33 -0600

Last night’s animated short winner, Logorama, is a fantastic idea – demonstrate just how saturated our world is with logos and brands, by making them elements in a world. That they are able to fill out an entire city is amazing. And super cool is the fact that the Ghostbusters no-ghost logo put it an appearance [...]

Fan art: Ghostbusters mural

GhostbustersNews.com — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:35:12 -0600

Click the above image to check out the full image
The above piece of fan art was done by Hunter Huskey on DeviantArt.com. You can click here to check out his profile.