TITLE: Ghostbusters International #6
AUTHOR: Erik Burnham
PENCILLER: Rachael Stott
PUBLISHER: IDW Publishing
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASED: June 29, 2016

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

If you’ll permit me, I’d like to gush about Dan Schoening some more.

I’ll never discount the work of Erik Burnham, Luis Delgado, or anyone else who has contributed to these IDW Ghostbusters books. As a lifelong fan, they’ve been an absolute joy to read. But what truly sets them apart is Dan Schoening’s stripped down, animated take on the world. That’s been the case from the start. So when a guest artist steps in to try and fill his shoes, they’ve practically been set up to fail.

Rachael Stott, for my money, is the first artist to buck that trend. The issue misses Schoening, but Stott fills his shoes better than any artist ever has.

This issue takes Egon, Kylie, and Melanie Ortiz to Puerto Rico to face the legendary La Llorona. What follows is pretty standard Ghostbusters fare. Exposition, search, discover, battle, capture. It’s not great, but it’s fine. I’ve never been enamored with the Melanie character. She’s always struck me as a very bland Dana Scully wannabe.

That being said, Melanie does have the best line in the issue. When a hospitalized teenager says “I thought [the Ghostbusters] were all guys,” she replies with a sigh and an eye roll. I think that’s a tip of the hat to the cast of the new Ghostbusters movie.

Stott’s characters look more like real people than Schoening’s ever do. It’s an interesting deviation from the norm. Her Kylie Griffin is particularly strong. But what really endeared her to me was her take on Egon. You can easily see Harold Ramis on these pages. Oddly enough, that doesn’t seem to be the case with the rest of the team. Though we only see them in a brief interlude.

I’m consistently impressed by how much research Erik Burnham puts into these stories. I had never heard the story of La Llorona prior to this issue. But its a significant piece of Mexican folklore. Though as Egon points out, similar legends exist in other parts of the world. Incidentally, I wouldn’t recommend Googling La Lorona if you’re by yourself at night…just saying.

There’s been so much unrest lately about the Ghostbusters remake, with people being upset that it’s not what they remember. As sexist as many of those complaints have been, I wish I could direct all those people to these IDW books. In a lot of ways, these are the sequels we never got. They have their flaws. But as a whole, I really can’t say enough good things about them.

Interior Image from comicsasylum.com.

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