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Tobin (full name John Horace Tobin in the tabletop role-playing game and Jonathon "John" Horace Tobin in IDW Comics) is the author of Tobin's Spirit Guide, the paranormal compendium that Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler consult whenever they face an unfamiliar entity. Tobin spent decades traveling the world to catalog supernatural beings, completing the definitive edition of his guide in the early 20th century. In Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, Tobin was voiced by Rahul Kohli.
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The West End Games sourcebook Tobin's Spirit Guide (1989) presents the most detailed biography of John Horace Tobin. Born in London in 1870 as the only child of an affluent family, Tobin studied at Oxford University and earned two degrees: one in Obscure Ancient Languages and one in Psychology.
In the late 19th century, Tobin worked in middle management for a British trading company in Egypt, handling record keeping. An encounter with an Egyptian spirit named Ahagotsu in 1899 proved transformative. Together with a new friend named Shrewsbury Smith, Tobin vowed to spend the rest of his life researching and fighting supernatural entities.
From 1901, Tobin and Smith operated out of an office in London before embarking on a multi-year expedition through France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Subsequent field seasons took them to Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Mesopotamia. They returned to Egypt from 1914 to 1916, traveling the Nile from Alexandria to Aswan and departing the Middle East months before British forces began driving Turks out of Palestine. After another stint in London, Tobin and Smith explored the eastern seaboard of the United States for two to three months.
In mid-February 1920, Tobin missed his book's publication deadline. On March 6th he wrote the introduction, and the first edition of Tobin's Spirit Guide was published that October. Little is recorded about the remainder of his life; the death of Shrewsbury Smith in 1924 is the last documented event from this continuity.
In the IDW Comics continuity, Tobin is named Jonathon "John" Horace Tobin and studied at Cambridge University rather than Oxford. He made a name for himself exposing fraudulent spiritualists before turning to field research.
In the early 1900s, Tobin was called in to investigate a creature preying on children in an East German village, where he encountered a Grundel. In 1909 he journeyed to the Tunguska region of Russia to meet with a contact named Vladimir Belascu. Something catastrophic occurred during that visit, now known as the Tunguska Blast of 1909. In 1912, Tobin stayed at the house of the alleged Witch of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, where he met an explorer named Mikhael Gallon investigating reports of Woolly Mammoths. Tobin had glimpsed one himself, and the two men mapped possible Mammoth territory together. While traveling deeper into Siberia with Mikhael's group, Tobin recounted the Russian folktale of the Undying Soldier and remarked, "Every myth grows tall from the tiniest seeds of truth," noting that historian Leon Zundinger had documented the actual existence of Vigo from that folktale. The group discovered an old tower; Tobin explored it alone, found the corpse of the Undying Soldier, and led Mikhael to the room, though he himself stared at something beyond: Death.
Later, Tobin went undercover in the Cult of Gozer to document their practices and history for his Spirit Guide. He published a more focused account in a slim volume titled "The Gozerians Among Us," though the print run was marginal and no copies are believed to survive. The research eventually informed the Schoening Omnibi. Tobin completed the full text of the Spirit Guide in 1929. He died while conducting research on an entity named Senta, having made an illustration of it based on descriptions in the journals of Heironymus Van Aachen.
In 1934, a figure named Sam Hain purchased Tobin's former home, nicknamed Tobin's Mansion, described as the largest occupied residential compound in America, located in East Hampton, New York. By the 1990s, the Paranormal Contracts Oversight Commission maintained a file on Tobin labeled #P012.
In Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, Tobin has become a ghost himself. His involvement was announced on May 24, 2022, when it was revealed he is voiced by Rahul Kohli.
As a safeguard against his work being used for harmful purposes, Tobin secured the first edition of his Spirit Guide with a Binding Relic, a leather strap, and was buried with it. In death, he took on the appearance of the book itself and serves as a gatekeeper between the world of the living and what lies beyond, as well as an instructor for newly arrived ghosts.
When Ray Stantz finally acquired the first edition, a new ghost arrived in the Ghost Realm and Tobin addressed it, opening a Rift and teaching the entity how to haunt, possess, phase, and counter Proton Streams. Tobin emphasized that psychokinetic energy is a precious commodity and warned against underestimating the value of running away and hiding.
Against his own better judgment, Tobin assisted the Ghostbusters in confronting Samhain, reasoning that Earth's destruction would ripple into his realm and disrupt his ghost-training operation. He provided information on Samhain's origins in early medieval times and, after the team trapped and bound Samhain, appeared to congratulate them before teleporting them back to their Firehouse. Additional dialogue for Tobin was added in the second DLC release on April 20, 2023.
The achievement "Tobin's Prodigy" in the game is earned by fully haunting 10 locations as a Ghost.
In The Real Ghostbusters animated series, Tobin himself never appeared. He was referenced only through his book, which Egon Spengler and Ray Stantz consulted throughout the series.
Tobin did appear in the companion NOW Comics run. There he worked as a chronicler for the Council of Eight but was imprisoned by a demon named Evil. During his imprisonment he rapidly aged and reached out to the Ghostbusters for help. The team located Tobin and Evil but could not save Tobin. They succeeded in defeating Evil, however, and the comics imply that Tobin survived anyway: Egon remarked he did not think they had seen the last of him, and Tobin's portrait on the back of the Spirit Guide smiled and winked.
Mikhael Gallon, who met Tobin during his 1912 Siberian expedition, described him as having a somewhat solemn and guarded demeanor that gave way to an almost childlike enthusiasm. A Siberian figure named Chekaren regarded Tobin as "a man who stares into the shadows beyond the shadows."
In Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, this quality carries through in Tobin's voice performance by Rahul Kohli: measured and authoritative, but lit by a genuine curiosity about what lies beyond the physical plane. The ghost version of Tobin is also pragmatic, helping the Ghostbusters only when his own interests are at stake.
