Plot
The issue opens in the weeks following the Ghostbusters' defeat of Gozer. Publisher-commissioned journalist Rebecca Morales has been sent to interview each of the original four Ghostbusters for a biography of the newly famous team. She starts with Winston Zeddemore, the most recent hire, seeking the perspective of the first ordinary person to work alongside three scientists who had dedicated their careers to the paranormal.
The framing device lets the issue revisit key moments from the first film through Winston's eyes: his application and interview with Janine Melnitz, his introduction to the team, and the general chaos of a business trying to find its footing after an overnight explosion of demand. Winston recounts his job before joining, working construction for a few weeks, and finding the Ghostbusters classified ad in the newspaper job listings while on a break. He makes clear he had no prior supernatural background. He had served in the United States Marine Corps for six years prior, but construction was what he was doing when he answered the ad.
The main story-within-the-interview follows Winston's first solo call alongside the rest of the team. Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler have been tracking disturbances at Excelsior State University, specifically at Thurman Hall, a building with a long-standing haunted reputation. The ghost turns out to be that of Edgar Allan Poe, whose connection to the building runs deep: the structure sits on the site of a house Poe once occupied, and his ghost has reportedly been spotted in several real-world locations. The capture does not go smoothly for the newcomer. Poe's manifestation shifts forms, cycling through imagery pulled from his most famous works. After the team disperses the entity and Winston fires his Particle Thrower for the first time in the field, Peter Venkman and the others have to remind him at the last second not to look into the open Trap.
The issue closes with Winston back in his apartment after the interview, reflecting on what he has signed on for, with one of Poe's ravens perched at the window as a coda.
Covers
Cover A (Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado): Features Winston and the Zombie Taxi Driver from the first film. The composition recreates two specific moments from Ghostbusters (1984): Winston driving in Chapter 20 (Keymaster) and Winston about to declare "I love this town!" in Chapter 28 (Crossing Streams).
Cover B (Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado): Designed as Winston Zeddemore's Ghostbusters employee file folder. The prop-styled cover is dense with in-world details: a photo of Winston firing his Particle Thrower; a photo of Winston holding the Traps from Chapter 14 of the first film; a photo of Ray and Winston arriving at Fort Detmerring from a deleted scene; a Second Dan Black Belt in Karate credential matching Winston's listed resume from the first film's shooting script and from the novelization Ghostbusters: The Supernatural Spectacular; a U.S. Marine Corps reference; his title of Rifle Expert (requiring a combined score of 305-350 at a qualification event); Winston's listed birthday of June 17, 1945, derived from Ernie Hudson's real birthday of December 17, 1945; Winston's middle name Ramsey (the original character name from early film drafts, also established in Volume 2 Issue #13); Employee I.D. 171945; a start date of October 22; a first review date of January 26; pay grade of $11,500 (referenced in the first film); and emergency contact Edward Lee Zeddemore. The classifieds section includes references to Sargassi's from Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Tavern on the Green, Columbia University, the original Ghostbusters phone number 555-2368, and the Firehouse address at 14 N. Moore Street. The Ghostbusters ad notes applicants must be able to carry 70 pounds on the run, a nod to the real-world weight of the Proton Pack props.
Cover RI (Timothy Lattie): The four original Ghostbusters with their standard equipment: Proton Pack, P.K.E. Meter, Ecto Goggles, and Trap. Also appearing are the Library Ghost in her transmogrified form, the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, Ecto-1, and Slimer. Studio 84 appears in the background, a stand-in for Studio 54 with the year 1984 embedded as a nod to the first film's release year. The Tobin's Spirit Guide shown on the cover matches the version that Jason Reitman posted on social media during the Ghostbusters: Afterlife principal photography period.
Development
Erik Burnham dropped early public hints that he was working on something new on August 23, 2019, then teased he was writing material for Dan Schoening to draw on September 5. Schoening's thumbnails were in Burnham's hands by September 16.
Tom Waltz brought the series into public view on October 4, 2019, posting a reveal that tagged Burnham, Schoening, Luis Antonio Delgado, and Timothy Lattie and showing four Cover A variants, each featuring one of the original Ghostbusters with callbacks to the first film. Waltz followed with a second teaser on October 21, then on October 22 posted the Timothy Lattie variant cover along with several interior panels: Winston holding a P.K.E. Meter, a pumpkin being blown up by a Proton Stream, the Ghostbusters classified ad, and a three-panel page with the Archbishop, the Deputy Mayor, and the jail guard. On the same day Burnham noted he had a second title also releasing in January. October 23 and 24 brought further teasers from Waltz, including a group shot of the Ghostbusters and individual shots of Winston, Louis Tully, Dana Barrett, and the Sedgewick Hotel manager.
January solicitations, revealed on October 25, 2019, published the series logline, premise, and crew details. Dan Schoening was confirmed on Cover A and B; Timothy Lattie on Cover RI.
Waltz posted two full interior pages and Cover B on December 4, 2019. In January 2020 the rollout continued: panels from Winston's first bust appeared January 14; a cover and five-page preview on January 21; Delgado posted panels of the Ghostbusters departing for a bust on release day, January 22; and on January 23 Waltz posted a panel featuring Winston.
On January 27, 2020, in a post-release interview, Dan Schoening revealed the ghost designs drew from three Poe works: "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Raven," and "The Masque of the Red Death." Delgado posted additional panels of Winston firing at the ghost the same day. A final panel showing the ghost being trapped was posted by Delgado on January 28, 2020.
Continuity and Annotations
The issue is set explicitly a few weeks after the conclusion of Ghostbusters (1984), established in dialogue on page 1. The opening pages revisit Louis Tully and Dana Barrett in the aftermath, with Louis wearing an outfit visually derived from Rick Moranis's character Billy Fish in "Streets of Fire" (released June 1, 1984, one week before Ghostbusters). The Sedgewick Hotel manager, unnamed in the first film, is given the name Bennett Davis in this continuity; the novelization Ghostbusters: The Supernatural Spectacular had previously identified him as J.M. Shupp. The Archbishop is named O'Sullivan; the jail guard is named Tim Carlson.
Winston's biography in the Dramatis Personae section states his Marine Corps background and religious foundation. His middle name Ramsey had been established as early as Volume 2 Issue #13 but is foregrounded here as the name used in early drafts of the first film. His father's name, Edward Lee Zeddemore, echoes both the first name used in The Real Ghostbusters and the middle name of Roscoe Lee Browne, who voiced that character. Winston's apartment, seen briefly in Volume 2 Issue #1, is depicted in more detail here; Schoening visually modeled Winston's father on his Real Ghostbusters counterpart.
The scene of Winston's hire from Chapter 14 of the first film is reenacted on page 7, with a deliberate continuity detail: Janine wears her blue-rim glasses from the IDW continuity rather than the red-rim glasses from the film.
The main ghost sequence takes place at Excelsior State University's Thurman Hall, standing in for NYU's Furman Hall. The real Furman Hall was built on the site of Edgar Allan Poe's house at 85 West Third Street; as a compromise, the facade of the house was preserved and incorporated into the new structure. Law students at the real building have reported sightings of Poe's ghost on the banister. The ghost's design draws from multiple Poe texts: the Black Cat story for the feline form (including the gouged eye and exposed heart), "The Tell-Tale Heart" for the exposed heart detail, and "The Raven" for the transformation into birds. Peter quotes from "The Raven" during the encounter. Egon notes during the bust that the site sits on a former graveyard; Washington Square Park was historically a potter's field until 1826.
The newsstand on page 5 is populated with accurately researched October 1984 magazine covers, including Rolling Stone (Tina Turner), People ("Farrah's Shocker"), Cosmopolitan (Annie Lennox), and dozens of others. The USA Today newspaper from Chapter 14 of the film ("Ghost Fever Grips New York") appears. Egon uses the Gamma Rate Meter during the bust, the same device seen in Chapter 26 of the first film before Gozer demanded a Destructor Form.
Page 15 shows Harlan Bojay and Robert Learned Coombs, the characters played by Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd in deleted scenes from the first film.
Egon remarks during the issue that he might write an employee manual, a detail that carries ironic weight given the real-world existence of several Ghostbusters employee-training novelty publications over the years.
Winston's final observation, that he wants to learn more about computers because they are "the wave of the future," was written by Burnham as a deliberate nod to the Ghostbusters: Afterlife storyline he was aware of at the time.
References
Ghostbusters Year One #1 (IDW Publishing, January 22, 2020). Written by Erik Burnham, pencils by Dan Schoening, colors by Luis Antonio Delgado, letters by Neil Uyetake, edited by Tom Waltz and Megan Brown.
