The Real Ghostbusters Omnibus Volume 1

The Real Ghostbusters

by James Van Hise, La Morris Richmond, Howard Van Bender

Forget Egon's rules - the streams have been crossed, the dead have risen, and a free-roaming apparition is part of the gang! It's The Real Ghostbusters, ladies and gentlemen, and in this first volume omnibus collection you can score issues #1-14 of the classic NOW comics series. Be there as Ray, Peter, Egon, and Winston keep doing what they do. After all, they ain't afraid of no ghosts!

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Science Fiction, Ghosts, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics

360 pages, ebook

First published October 30, 2012

About the author

James Van Hise is an American popular culture historian and comic book author. He had a long connection with the popular fanzine Rocket's Blast Comicollector (RBCC), and was its editor/publisher from 1974 to 1983. He also had a lengthy association with Hal Schuster, owner of New Media Publishing and Pioneer Books. Van Hise is the author of more than ten books, many of them published by Pioneer Books.

Reviews

[Timbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weaker than the TV series, but the writing did get better as the stories continued. Even as the retro enthusiast that I am, I much prefer the IDW Ongoing series to these originals. My advice: Skip this unless your a diehard fan.

[I. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing earth shatteringly good here but there are a few gem issues. Overall it’s a step behind the first few seasons of the cartoon but hardly terrible or anything. Check it out or not. You won’t be disappointed either way but you also won’t be blown away.

[David Lipely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but prefer the other series and the mini series much more. Still some great stories tho!

[Matthew Fleming · Rating 5 out of 5]

Way more than simply nostalgia - this is near to comic-book perfection.

[Jj Flynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the IDW ones better. These are a little all over the place.

[Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember being five years old when I layed eyes on issue #4 of The Real Ghostbusters at the comics rack of my King Soopers grocery store in Evergreen, Colorado. By then, I had watched every episode of the syndicated show, had a roomfull of RGB toys and props, and proudly owned a vhs copy of the film Ghostbusters (I still had to close my eyes when the terror dogs took Dana). I, of course, immediately fell in love with the book and had my walls plastered with the pin-up posters. When I was 12 or 13 I began to believe I was too old for such things, and I remember selling all of my comics for $20 and ridding myself of many an action figure at a garage sale.
I have, honest-to-God, been hoping for the past 12-15 years that someone would reprint the NOW Real Ghostbusters book for me to enjoy. I hold it in my hands and it is everything I remembered it to be and more. Maybe I'll never get that third movie Dan Akroyd's been promising us for what seems like decades, but as long as IDW keeps the boys alive in print, I will gladly keep these beloved characters in my heart.
Admittedly, I am seeing these through rose-colored glasses. The inking is a mess. A handful of issues seem like rather slap-dash affairs.
The wry sense of humor intermingled with the macabre is still a most original and delightful mixture, one that that the comic replicates perfectly from the movie and cartoon. The three part "Demon-Son Trilogy" arc elevates the series from really good to classic, and left an indelible impression on my childhood. It still holds up surprisingly well over 20 years later. Grade: A

[Bradley Milton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised to see a collection of NOW Comics' The Real Ghostbusters in an omnibus. I can finally relive my past childhood as most of my old Ghostbusters comic issues were badly torn, mistreated or simply lost.

IDW's first volume of The Real Ghostbusters is wonderful to see but disappointed at the quality of making the collected issues into a book. The color seems washed out, blurred or has some sort of red-pinkish hue to them. It's a very poor job. Dark Horses' The Terminator omnibus and EC Archives' Tales From The Crypt were really well done as far as coloring & quality goes. So why couldn't IDW do the same?

I hope the second volume is far much better than this one.

[James Bowman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collects the first 14 issues of the NOW Comics Real Ghostbusters title from the 1980s. Unfortunately, while the author does come up with fun ideas (such as the Ghostbusters teaming up with pulp heroes against ghost gangsters), the actual stories tend to be mediocre, and often have rushed endings. Also, the earliest issues are more weird than anything else, and one story (featuring Lovecraft's deep ones) alludes to material not really appropriate for a kids' comic. I did like a few stories - most notably one featuring a werewolf and a mummy - but overall I was disappointed in this collection. (B-)