Erik Burnham and Dan Schoening are back! After a year and a half of Ghostbusters miniseries, the dynamic writer and artist duo have returned to telling stories about our boys and girls in grey in a new, ongoing comic series. Picking up where 2014’s Mass Hysteria and the crossover miniseries with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the 1990s The Real Ghostbusters cartoon left off, business is getting back to normal. Or is it?
Ghostbusters: International #1 is all about change. From the Ghostbusters’ new warehouse offices to the 101s of ghostbusting to the staff themselves, International #1 is laying the foundation for something fresh and bigger than ever before. New characters and no fewer than three plots get their start right off the bat. If there is one criticism for this first issue, it’s that it spreads itself thin in an effort to lay all of the pieces out on the board.
The biggest success of this first issue is opening the firehouse doors wide for new readers to jump aboard. A one-page synopsis touches on prior events pertinent to this issue, and a timeline at the back lays out which comics came when for those who want to catch up. Even if you’ve never seen Ghostbusters, the dramatis personae sheet covers the basics of who these characters are so you can get straight to the action. As someone who missed all of the 2015 releases, this was a huge help and as someone who did read the 9 volumes that came before, I am thrilled that the continuity has been preserved and the creative team has made the leap into a new adventure.
Burnham captures the voices of the original movie characters from the snark of Peter Venkman to the idealism of Ray Stantz to the backstabbing Walter Peck. Burnham’s dialogue is funny and clever, dropping in sly references to the source material while laying out the new plot(s). Schoening’s art style is delightfully cartoony with gorgeous colors and effects for the team’s gadgets and ghosts by colorist Luis Antonio Delgado. Schoening deserves an extra helping of praise for the travel poster-style covers for this series that are worth being hung on your wall.
Ghostbusters: International #1 is available in stores on January 27th.
Five Big Twinkies out of Five
