In 1988, Topps released a 90 card, 11 sticker set entitled Fright Flicks. Each card featured a photograph from one of 14 horror movies of the previous 10 years, with a humorous caption beneath it. The card backs featured frightening "Did It Ever Happen?" urban legends, which told a Twilight Zone-like tale in 100 words or less. The stickers poked similar fun, with puzzle pieces on their backs. The set was a "modern" version of Topps' Creature Features set from 1973, which featured Universal movie monster film stills with funny and punny captions below them. The template for both of these sets goes back to 1959 with the Funny Monsters set, which featured drawings of monsters in various situations with a joke caption underneath.

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Next year is the 35th anniversary of Ghostbusters, and I suspect we'll get new Blu-ray releases of both original films in honor of the event (each including one new bonus feature to justify the re-purchase, like the recently-discovered Fort Detmerring scene footage). Hopefully, Sony will also see fit to finally release the entire series of Extreme Ghostbusters on DVD. Are you listening, Sony? Well, we may have gotten a look at the new master used for the Ghostbusters II Blu-ray.

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Insight Editions has been releasing high-quality collector's-worthy Ghostbusters books for the past few years, and last year we got two. Ghostbusters: Ectomobile Owner's Workshop Manual (reviewed here) was the obviously release, but Totally Awesome: The Greatest Cartoons of the Eighties was another, and it likely slipped under the radar for most. This 160-page hardcover tome was written by Andrew Farago (curator of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum), with a foreword by legendary voice artist Russi Taylor (Minnie Mouse, the kids in DuckTales, Baby Gonzo in Muppet Babies, etc.). Coming in at a nice size of 9.5" x 11.5" closed, in full color print on high-quality paper, the book comes factory-sealed, so you'll know that you're getting a new, clean, untouched copy.

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Ghostbusters: Answer The Call (2016). Just the mere mention of the name can cause some people to froth at the mouth. No movie has ever been as polarizing as Paul Feig's disasterpiece. Hell, not even The Phantom Menace - with its "Mannequin" Skywalker, Jar Jar Binks, and Midichlorians - divided its fanbase as much as the "all-female Ghostbusters". If I'm being completely honest, and as objective as possible, I can sum up Feig's film in one word: disappointing. In spite of the way it treats its audience, and especially the loyal Ghostbusters fanbase, I frequently saw glimmers of potential in the film. Of course, the film then (literally) vomited upon those glimmers mere seconds later, several times over. I always felt that if the characters were put in the hands of competent writers, especially ones who love Ghostbusters, that maybe - just maybe - the potential that was there could be realized.

IDW's Ghostbusters 101 trade paperback, which collects all six issues of the same-named comic book series that was released earlier this year, lets us see if my theory is correct, or if the nerd will be keeping the five bucks. Written by Erik Burnham, its a story about the original Ghostbusters (herein referred to as the "Prime Ghostbusters") and their new trainees (the titular "101 Class"), who are visited upon by the the 2016 team (whom Sony wants deemed, the "Answer The Call Ghostbusters"). As is already apparent, this book "corrects" one of the biggest faux pas of the 2016 film - it puts all of the teams together!

Artwork is handled by fan favorite Dan Schoening, with colors by Luis Antonio Delgado and Anna Chher, letters by Neil Uyetake and Shawn Lee, and edits by Tom Waltz. Although I am going to try my best to keep spoilers to a minimum, I will not be afraid to go into detail as necessary. With that in mind, here is your pre-requisite SPOILER WARNING if you read any further.

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If you've been following the Spook Central Facebook page - and if you're not, why? - you'd know that last month Loot Crate, the subscription box service that provides monthly boxes of geek and gaming related merchandise, had lots of exclusive Ghostbusters items. The kind folks at Loot Crate sent me a few of the items, which I will document in an "unboxing" article, as I have done in the past with other mystery boxes.

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