Print Isn’t Dead, Just Digitally Preserved

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When Ghostbusters was celebrating its 24th anniversary I began to preserve out of print Ghostbusters content, adding it to then Ectocontainment. Trivia: I’m pretty sure it was The Real Ghostbusters Jumbo Coloring Book. (PDF file) I didn’t even have a physical copy of it! In 2011 I did have plenty of physical Real/Ghostbusters out of print materials to preserve. Mainly my legacy with The Real Ghostbusters Magazine(s) and NOW The Real Ghostbusters comics. They were originally hosted at Ectocontainment, later Ecto-Containment. The digital files would evolve thanks to ghostheads Matthew Jordan and Paul Rudoff. From then to present day as I had or was given permission to share “newer” physical content I did and would.

Originally my files were so large I didn’t have enough space to host them all at Ecto-Containment. Even with a team effort and so I could host other files here I made the decision to move all the preservation files from the basement to upstairs. (Ecto-Containment Blog Post, April 22, 2015)

All periodicals have been at Ghostbusters Firehouse for the last 4 years to this day. I’ve always wanted to bring it all back to Ecto-Containment. That was my plan. Today on my day off that’s exactly what I did. Continue reading

Updated Ghostbusters Official Fan Club Membership Card

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On July 3, 1984 as The United States was celebrating independence, Mark Lister and Jim Garvey founded the official Ghostbusters Fan Club. (GBI Blog Post, June 8, 2014)

Related: Ghostbusters Official Fan Club. (Spook Central)

For about the price of a streaming subscription today, ($8.95 USD in 1984) ghostheads received a number of items, including a membership card. A high res version surfaced on February 2, 2018 thanks to Lance Dobersek. I wrote more about the original membership card (GBI Blog Post, April 28, 2018) at Ghostbusters International..

Since Lance Dobersek tweeted his scans I wanted to recreate the ID card as original as possible. The was the idea until I was looking at Pixelmator and was thinking if Mark Lister and Jim Garvey were creating the club today they would have more “tools and talent.” For practically free.

The original card is Ghostbusters history. That’s why I uploaded Lance’s scans and with very little touch up created a blank for ghostheads to fill in their own names.

With my thinking and 2018 in mind I created a version in the spirit of the original. With a lot of text it took time to “get it right.”

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The Real Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary

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30 years ago today The Real Ghostbusters aired to the delight of ghostheads. Episode 1, the infamous Ghosts ‘ R Us is somewhat of a origin story and in 21 minutes explains why they’re The Real Ghostbusters!

For 7 seasons our animated Ghostbustin’ heroes went on adventures (along with originally that green guy) 6 days a week. The guys couldn’t do it alone. Janine not only ran the office, (equipment not standard at other offices) when the need arose was a Ghostbuster in her own right. With animated business mostly good on and off screen Louis would join the team to handle the fictional records. And continue practicing his Ghostbusters skills.

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Japanese Magazine Quanto Issue 269

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Last month Matthew Jordan from Ghostbusters Wiki shared scans he had from a Japanese hobby/toy magazine (Ecto-Containment Blog Post, December 12, 2015) called Quanto.

At the time all we had were photos of scans which weren’t all full pages. Ghosthead and member of NYC Ghostbusters Christopher Beaumont added a cover image from an eBay auction. If that was it, I’d still be happy I found out about Quanto and see what and how they advertised Ghostbusters.

Fortunately for ghostheads copies were available to purchase. Christopher Beaumont was able to get Issue 269 from April 2011. This past week Christopher uploaded his scans to the NYC Ghostbusters Facebook page. Continue reading

Japanese Magazine Quanto Ghostbusters Advertising

A Japanese toy and hobby magazine called Quanto, (no exact English translation that I’m aware of, if it isn’t Spanish) had a 2011 issue where they had photos of Ghostbusters merchandise from Diamond Select Toys, Factory Entertainment, Hot Wheels, Matty Collector, Rubies, and whomever has a license for Ghostbusters t-shirts in Japan.

Matthew Jordan who oversees Ghostbusters Wiki shared the scans he had. It’s possible I had seen the scans before this week as I had a slight dejá vu feeling about it. With my interests in Japanese culture and international Ghostbusters merchandise I wanted to know more.

Ghosthead and member of NYC Ghostbusters Christopher Beaumont added a cover image from an eBay auction and provided additional information.

In the meantime Matthew shared an article with two videos about the photo shoot for this issue of Quanto.
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Print Isn’t Dead, It Moved From The Basement To Upstairs

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About two months ago as I was working on the Ghostbusters NYC website (also known for web site purposes as Ghostbusters Firehouse) I decided to begin moving the once scanned/current PDF files of Ghostbusters/The Real Ghostbusters reading material to Ghostbusters Firehouse for realism and to save space at Ecto-Containment.

Every smaller PDF file wasn’t complete in February. Something I hadn’t realized during most of the uploads. Naturally as is the case when one runs multiple web sites, that project had to be put on hold. I became busier with at least one other Ghostbusters “thing”, the franchise I’m part of, Ghostbusters NJ.

As I looked ahead to getting back to all the Ghostbusters sites I run it was Easter. Within a week I was preparing to go on vacation. I had a great time, thanks for asking. 🙂 Continue reading

Ghostbusters Japanese Movie Program Merchandise

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Yesterday I wrote about and shared our Ghostbusters Japanese Movie Program. If you were wondering I don’t have a Ghostbusters II Japanese program to archive and share. Today I wanted to discuss (well talk about) that internationally Ghostbusters merchandise and collecting was ahead of its time (or got the ball rolling…wait, was their a Ghostbusters ball?) compared to GHOSTBUSTERS™ merchandise in the North American markets.

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With GHOSTBUSTERS™ rushed production schedule and narrow minded executive thinking, movie suits couldn’t see much of a market for Ghostbusters. Thankfully (though not for our wallets) that would change in the next three decades.

The best we had early on was the official fan club, (GBI) followed by cereal. Of course their was the usual merchandise. i.e.: t-shirts, vinyl records and tapes, and your new dinnerware. (GBI)

North American ghostheads couldn’t have imagined they would have wanted nor possibly needed more functional Ghostbusters merchandise.

Beyond the soundtrack and Ray Parker Jr. were an assortment of logo t-shirts, a sweatshirt, and two choices of baseball caps/hats. Sweet, wait their’s more!

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ゴーストバスターズ映画プログラム Ghostbusters Japanese Movie Program

Note: Originally written for Ghostbusters Inc. in 2015 as part of an unofficial Japanese Ghostbusters month.

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Ghostbusters Incorporated’s unofficial Japanese Ghostbusters month continues with a ゴーストバスターズ映画プログラム. Or Ghostbusters Japanese Movie Program.

By the way, if you speak and/or read Japanese and know Google Translate got it wrong, its ok to laugh. We’re just trying something here for Ghostbusters and some level of effectiveness.

I don’t personally know about these days, during the ’80s if you saw GHOSTBUSTERS™ or GHOSTBUSTERS II™ in a Japanese movie theater you’d receive a movie program. Which maybe was or wasn’t meant to be collectible.

The glossy pages Ghostbusters program is more like a magazine. With articles for just about every aspect of Ghostbusters. With great photos overall to accompany the information.

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30th Anniversary: Print Isn’t Dead

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Note: Originally appeared at my personal site, iRich.

If you’ve long lost track of how many times you’ve seen Ghostbusters in 30 years, you might want to try a different way to experience Ghostbusters phenomenon, through the printed word. That would be physical print, not computerized robot text. When Ghostbusters was in theaters the first domain hadn’t even been registered yet. That wouldn’t happen until the Ides of March in 1985. If you’ve been a ghosthead for three decades or nearly as long, you’ve probably owned a Ghostbusters book, magazine, or comic.

If you were old enough you could have joined the Official Ghostbusters Fan Club (GBI) within a month of Ghostbusters June ’84 release. I wasn’t, sadly missed out, and wouldn’t remember the club until my twenties. Ghostheads which do include myself are trying to get that printed material to put on-line, if it exists. 4,000 years from now we’ll have an answer.

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