This November, The Real Ghostbusters Online and the Long Island Ghostbusters are looking to put together Ecto-Con 2008, a gathering of Ghostheads at the next Big Apple Con in Manhattan - a con within a con, so to speak. What they need are people who would be interested in attending, in order to demonstrate in their application to the BAC that it'd be a humdinger of an event. (The preceeding text was shamelessly ripped off from Proton Charging.)
As a Ghosthead who lives on Long Island, it is my civic duty to support the con, though I would encourage ALL Ghostheads to support it. By the way, for those people who may be wondering, I plan on making updates to Spook Central very soon. The first order of business is going through the past three weeks worth of GB Game news and get that section of the site up-to-date.
During last night's (4/28/2008) X-Play "Grand Theft Auto IV Special", the first item in the Gaming Update segment was about the downloadable content for Ghostbusters: The Video Game.
Morgan Webb: Ghostbusters: The Video Game will feature unique downloadable content exclusive to both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Terminal Reality, the game's developer, revealed that the game will feature a timed online multi-player mode that will allow gamers to try blasting more ghosts than their opponents. However, a campaign co-op mode will not be included. The developer says co-op wouldn't allow them to control the comedic timing of the game's storyline. Ghostbusters: The Video Game is expected to be released this October.
As you can see in the screen shot above, the on-screen caption accompanying the story was "Ghostbusters" DLC Free. Does this caption mean that the downloadable content (DLC) is going to be offered free of charge? That would be great if it is.
Also, you'll note that Morgan only mentioned downloadable content for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 versions, but not for the PC version as well. Does this mean that there will be no downloadable content for the PC, or has it just not been mentioned yet?
This news piece leaves more questions than answers. Stay tuned...
First, AJ Quick's new site, Ghostbusters Fans, is now open. There isn't very much there, but the groundwork has been laid. Sign up so that you can get all of the benefits, such as the ability to post something, edit something, watch streaming content (when it's added), or have your own profile page ala MySpace. Feel free to check out my profile page. Hey, it's a start.
Second, as previous reported, issue #3 of Cereal:Geek magazine is out and available for purchase. US customers (and anyone else NOT living in the UK) can buy a copy at Graham Cracks Comics. UK customers can buy a copy from the Cereal:Geek website.
Someone by the screen name Smwance (aka Scottmw1971) recently posted a collection of Ghostbusters Successories. What are Successories? Well, it's a company and a name to describe an iconic product that company produces. Successories is a producer and retailer of motivational office decorations, mostly featuring photographs paired with sentiments about motivation, teamwork, and perseverance.
You can find all 18 of Smwance's Ghostbusters Successories at Flickr (extremely large) and LiveJournal (medium at best). The extremely large images are desirable if you want to print them out and put them on your walls.
Scottmw1971 made a lot more Successories than just the Ghostbusters ones. You can find them all at Flickr and LiveJournal.
Oh, and if you'd like to make your own, go to Despair.com. I've made one so far, but it's not suitable for family viewing :-)
[UPDATE - 2/29/2008]
Spengs from Ghostbusters International wrote in to let me know that there are other Ghostbusters Successories out there. More serious, motivational posters were created last year by a fan whose name he does not remember. These 17 Ghostbusters Successories, which were originally posted to Proptopia, were archived by Spengs and can be downloaded from his site.
I gave Sebastian enough time to publish the book, but it's obvious he scammed us all. I've been very patient, but I've reached my limit. So I have finally decided to ask John Robinson of Graham Cracker Comics for a refund, and thus close my active order.
I'm not asking for the refund because I urgently need the money back (though obviously I *DO* want it back since the book is AWOL). I'm asking for it because I don't like to leave unfinished business open for very long, and three years is WAY too long. It's about time I closed this matter and put it to rest.
If the book is ever published, and John definitely has copies in his possession, by all means I want him to put one aside for me and let me know so I can reorder it. However, I will only do so when I know for a fact that he has the copies in stock. No more of this pre-order nonsense - at least not as far as anything from Sebastien Clavet or his company 88MPH Studios is concerned.
However, I don't put much faith in the book ever being published as just last week Sebastien started offering four individual lithographs for sale (one of each Ghostbuster) on his website. Granted, he started soliciting the Venkman litho back in October, but the other three are new. Obviously he still doesn't care to publish the book he promised to publish THREE YEARS AGO. I guess he'd rather waste money on other stuff than on what he actually TOOK PEOPLE'S MONEY FOR.
I will still continue to update the Legion Hardcover News Archive page from time to time to keep other folks abreast of the latest. I won't bother making notations of the future anniversaries of my pre-order date since the order is no longer active.
If you'd like to read my further views on this topic, and to see how Sebastien has been scamming us all since 2005 in his own words, check out my forum post (alt url).
Since the Legion hardcover isn't going to be published, and if you never bought the original four individual issues, you can now download all four issues (regular covers) and read the entire Legion story on your computer. Someone actually scanned in every page of all four issues and compiled them into nice, neat files - then zipped them up into one 67 Megabyte file. Inside this one RAR file are four files (one for each issue). The first three have the extension CBR, and the last one has the extension CBZ. You have two options on what you can do with these four files.
1. Extract them as is and use this program to view them. Since this program is only for Windows, and I do not know if there are ones for Macintosh and Linux, you might have to resort option #2 if you use a non-Windows system.
2. Extract them from the RAR into a folder on your hard drive. No go to that folder and rename each file, just changing the CBR to RAR and the CBZ to ZIP. Now you can open up each newly renamed RAR and ZIP file using your favorite archive utility (whatever you used to open the original RAR should work). Inside each one you will find the JPG image files, which you can extract to your hard drive and view with your favorite image viewer.
The awards ceremony airs February 24th on ABC, regardless of whether the writers strike causes it to be scaled-back or not. Although I personally can't stand ANY awards show, especially the Oscars because of the phoniness and BS of it all, I do hope that at least Jason and Ellen win their respective awards.
[UPDATE - 2/24/2008]
Juno only won one of the awards it was nominated for: Best Writing (Original Screenplay). So congrats to Diablo Cody. Very sad that Jason and Ellen did win as well.
As you may have heard, the members of the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) are on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP). (To better understand the WGA's position, watch this short video.) You probably also know that the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) has lent their support by encouraging its members to not participate in any productions in the interim, effectively shutting down Hollywood. The WGA has met numerous times with the AMPTP to have the issues resolved and a new contract drafted, but the AMPTP has steadfast refused to meet the WGA's demands. The last time they met was at the beginning of December 2007, where the AMPTP gave the WGA an ultimatum: take certain demands off the table or we have nothing to talk about. Thus the two sides haven't met since.
Now you may be wondering why I've brought all of this up. Well, I'm getting to that. Besides picketing the studios represented by the AMPTP, the writers and actors have taken to other means to get their point across. One such way is to use the very medium for which they want to get paid for in the first place: the internet. The writers and actors have banded together under the banner United Hollywood, and have started a short film contest, with the grand prize winner receiving an authentic WGA strike poster with over 175 signatures by writers, actors, and directors who autographed it while on the picket line and a copy of Final Draft scriptwriting software (1st and 2nd place runner ups just recieve a copy of Final Draft). Looking over the names of the folks who signed the poster, it makes me wish that I were a writer, actor, or director and thus were eligible to submit an entry. The Ghostbusters cast and crew members who signed the poster include David Gerrold, Walter Koenig, Michael Reaves, and Patricia (Patti) Carr - plus there are a lot more really cool people who signed it as well.
One of the entries is a short film entitled The Creature From the Black Casket, written and directed by David Twohy (Pitch Black, Chronicles of Riddick) and starring Kurt Fuller as Count Nicholas III (a parody of J. Nicholas Counter III, the President of the AMPTP). Kurt, as you may recall, played Jack Hardemeyer in Ghostbusters II (now you see why I wrote about this?).
To fully understand the video you essentially have to know what I wrote about in the preceeding parahraphs. Namely that Count Nicholas III is a parody of J. Nicholas Counter III, the President of the AMPTP; that the AMPTP broke off negotiations because the WGA would not take some of their demands off the table; and that one of the WGA's demands is to get a share of residuals for internet distribution of the works they wrote. Once you understand those points, you should be able to find the humor in this video which has been described as "Ed Wood meets The 2007-2008 WGA Strike".
Personally, I enjoyed Black Casket very much. I thought Kurt did a great job in the role, and wouldn't mind seeing him play a comedic Count Dracula in some movie in the future - once this stike is over with, of course. I also got a kick out of the count mentioning the new revival of American Gladiators, which is hosted by Hulk Hogan, because in 1989 Kurt played Hulk's nemesis Mr. Brill in No Holds Barred. Though I'm sure it wasn't meant to be an inside joke, and I'm sure Kurt would much rather forget that he was in No Holds Barred anyway.
Free free to view the rest of the contest entries. The contest ends on February 20th, with the winner announced on the 28th. Sadly, the public can't vote on which film they'd like to win. A panel of writers/directors will determine the winner.
[UPDATE - 2/29/2008]
First, the writer's strike officially ended on February 12, 2008. Second, the winner of the First Annual United Hollywood Short Film Festival is "The Creature from the Black Casket" by David Twohy. Although it technically broke the "four minutes maximum" rule, I am glad that it won.
James Eatock, publisher of Cereal:Geek magazine, wanted me to let you all know that issue #3 is "due out in the next few weeks". The mag will feature "an article summarizing all seven seasons of The Real Ghostbusters, along with a small article about Slimer's role as a sidekick, and even an article about why Filmation's Ghostbusters is disliked. Also, there's one double page spread showing Janine fighting another redhead of the eighties!"
As for what the future holds for Cereal:Geek, James says that "IF there is an issue four it's going to be the "horror" issue, and already there's a WEALTH of Ghostbusters articles and illustrations planned!"
Be sure to regularly check out the Cereal:Geek blog for the latest.
Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew
* Ghostbusters Cast Member: Jaimee Foxworth as Herself
* Date: January 10th
* Channel: VH-1
* Time: 10:00 PM
* Links: Journal previous mention
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
* Ghostbusters Cast Member: Thomas Dekker as John Connor
* Date: January 13th
* Channel: Fox
* Time: 8:00 PM
* Links: IMDB, Fox, Official Site.
The holidays are fast approaching, and if you're looking to buy something for the Ghostbusters fan in your life, I still have some Ghostbusters items from my personal collection that I'm selling. I also have lots of items for non-Ghostbusters fans as well. And if you haven't bought your Christmas decorations at this point, or want to add more to your collection, I have a Christmas village for sale in excellent condition.
(To keep this message at the top so it can always be seen during this relevant time period, I've pre-dated it for December 25th. Any new news will appear immediately below it.)
I'd like to wish all of my Christian friends a Merry Christmas, all of my Jewish friends a belated Happy Hanukkah, and everyone a very Happy New Year.
I'd like to thank Troy Sundt for making and sending me the amusing holiday Flash video (click the link above). The sounds not so great, but Bill is saying "GHOSTBUSTERS!"... and I think he hit the strong egg nog a little early judging by the burp-ish sound that occurs afterwards 
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