Friday 3 November 2017

Ghostbusters: Answer The Call #1 - Comic Review



Originally published on Set The Tape

Kelly Thompson (Writer) – Corin Howell (Artist) – Valentina Pinto (Colourist) – Neil Uyetake (Letterer) – Tom Waltz (Editor) – Ted Adams (Publisher)

Following the events of Ghostbusters 101, the team from the 2016 Ghostbusters Reboot are back in their own universe and are hunting down ghosts in a haunted New York brownstone in the first part of a five issue story.

On a routine house call to dispose of a simple Class 3 spook, Abby, Patty, Erin, and Holtzmann encounter a truly terrifying Class 7 that appears to be feeding on fear. Able to create illusions that prey on their greatest fears, and with designs on turning the world into its own nightmare dimension, our ladies may have finally met their match!

Ghostbusters: Answer The Call manages to capture a lot of the fun and humour of the film, recreating the characters and tone of the latest film in such a way that it felt like a very natural continuation of the film universe, rather than a simple cash-in book.

The comic has Holtzmann as the hyperactive mad scientist, Patty as the straight talking no nonsense member of the team, and Kevin as the adorable idiot. Whilst Erin and Abby don’t get as much of a chance to shine in the first issue as the other characters, having Abby be possessed again, and having the characters make a point of it being her again does add a huge amount of charm to events that don’t feature the character a great deal.

This sense of humour is used throughout the book, such as when Patty points out to a calm Erin that she should be afraid of the little kid ghost because little kid ghosts are always used in horror films, before listing films, as the moment where Holtzmann responds to the ghost being called Doctor Kruger as ‘too on the nose’ and ‘very tacky’.

These kind of moments mean that not only does the book get to poke some fun at horror conventions, but also gets to use them itself without it feeling like a cop-out. Kelly Thompson manages to balance the humour and character development well in this first issue, and is hopefully a sign that this quality will continue for the rest of the series.

Corin Howell’s artwork is gorgeous throughout, and the ghosts look absolutely great, with the choice of colours making them stand out on the page. It’s also easy to tell who each character is straight away as the book manages to capture their looks well, something that’s important for any team book, but especially one based upon real actors likenesses.

Having established a strong foundation for the rest of the series, introducing an interesting antagonist for the team, Ghostbusters: Answer The Call is sure to be an interesting and fun book.


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