Two Yuletide Comics Reviews

Here are reviews of two comics with Christmas themes. They are Ghostbusters: Past, Present, and Future and The Tick New Series. Both reviews are short snippets.

Ghostbusters Past Present and Future is a one shot Christmas special. In a nutshell its a modern day A Christmas Carol with a twist. As someone who grew up with the Ghostbusters this was nice nostalgic trip that didn't feel re-hashed. Honestly, I didn't expect the twist at the end as Venkman figures out what is going on. The characterization is adequate and the 'continuity' feels closer to that of the movies than the cartoon. What I found amusing that I kept imagining the Real Ghostbusters Ray's voice instead of Dan Akroyd every time I read Ray's line of dialogue. Story-wise it as a decent Christmas story. As for the art, it was good. The storytelling and backgrounds were rather good. The only downside was the character likenesses. Both Peter and Ray looked awfully alike. Furthermore, the main characters don't resemble past incarnations although both Egon and Winston come close. It was also neat to see that penciler Diego Jourdan's work outside of the occasional Tales of the TMNT foray.

Rating 3 out of 5 stars. Read this if you're a fan of the Ghostbusters, Christmas stories, and/or A Christmas Carol pastiches.

The Tick New Series #1 serves not only as the first issue of a new, bi-monthly full color on-going series but as the Christmas special as well. I found it amusing that intsead of putting 'new' in front of 'the Tick' they put it at the end and then discussed that reason. Other than that this issue concerns The Tick, Arthur, and some of the Tick's rogues gallery at separate Christmas, or not, related gatherings. There's four recountings of the Tick spoiling four different Christmas or winter themed evil-doings of several ne'er do wells. Of them Chairface's struck me as the most hilarious and ironic. The reader need not have too much familiarity with the Tick to enjoy this issue as this story wasn't all that continuity heavy although it may help.

Rating 3 out of 5 stars. Read this if you're a fan of The Tick, Christmas stories, humor, and done -in -ones. Its also accessible to both new and old readers.