Spook Central's Hand-Drawn Tristan Jones Ghostbusters #9 Comic Cover

It now exists! Into this world was born the very first (and so far only) piece of officially-licensed Ghostbusters Spook Central merchandise! The Spook Central patches were the first piece of Spook Central merchandise (not counting the Spook Central stickers which I produced as a giveaway for the site's 14th anniversary in August 2010), but they weren't officially-licensed by Sony and didn't carry the official Ghostbusters name :-)

For IDW's Ghostbusters #9 comic book, artist Tristan Jones (who designed all of the "Spook Central" title images you see atop the pages of this site) is hand-drawing many one-of-a-kind covers for various comic shops and distributors across the globe. 250 covers were intended, that there were only enough orders for 56 covers to be produced - with Spook Central's being #37. Yes, Spook Central is getting one of these super special covers. Today, Tristan uploaded the Spook Central cover, and it's a thing of beauty... (click it for supersize)


That beautiful cover features an assemblage of concepts that I should probably explain, though some of them are obvious.

Right at the top in green slimy letters is the original retro "Spook Central" title, as seen below. It's in the same Courier New font as it was back in 1997 when Bill Emkow presented me with it, only this time Slimer has slime-written it himself like he did of his name at the end of the Slimer and The Real Ghostbusters intro. Slimer was a part of the original Spook Central logo, so of course he'd be up there on the cover.


Underneath "Spook Central" and Slimer it says "Long Island, New York". The Spook Central website has eminated from Long Island since it was born in August 1996. Yours truly has eminated from Long Island since he was born in June 1977. What? You thought Zack Ryder started the Ghostbusters/Long Island connection? Puhleese! Spook Central and The Long Island Ghostbusters were reppin' L.I. long before Zack started vacationing at the Jersey shore!

If you're not familiar with this part of the world, I should tell you that Long Island, which is part of New York, is not a town. It's both the name given to the actual fish-shaped island, and the counties of Nassau and Suffolk that make up the right-half of the island. The left-half of the island is comprised of Queens and Brooklyn, which are part of New York City in spite of physically being on Long Island.

Long Island has been featured in Ghostbusters lore. The Extreme Ghostbusters came out here in the episode "Fallout". The South Shore Nuclear Power Plant that they visited isn't a real place, but it's obviously meant to represent the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant. In the episode "Till Death Do Us Start", their client Leonard Bates was "a tax accountant from Long Island". In "Darkness At Noon" (Part 2), wheelchair-bound Garrett Miller lobbed an insult at us and Jackie Chan fans by saying that "Jackie Chan's for whimps ... and people from Long Island." And, of course, the IDW Ghostbusters visited the Long Island town of Massapequa in Issue #8. I don't live in Massapequa, but my friends used to. They lived on the same block as the wrestler Taz, so there's another wrestling connection for you :-)

Speaking of Extreme Ghostbusters, that lovely young goth girl there on the left is the one and only Kylie Griffin. You might remember her as the Eight Grade Cheerleader Of The Year! Quite an accomplishment, Ms. Griffin. She's joined by first season Real Ghostbusters Janine Melnitz, whose trying to keep some nasty ghoulie with a wandering tongue under the hood of her Volkswagen Beetle (which was also the basis for Kenner's Highway Haunter toy). The car has the same "GB1 ZUL" license plate as Janine's car in IDW's "What in Samhain Just Happened?!" comic book. The license plate, of course, is comprised of the fan abbreviation for "Ghostbusters" and an abbreviation of "Zuul".

Hiding behind all of the other ghouls giving Kylie and Janine and hard time is the No Ghost logo ghost. Buster, as he's affectionally known by some, is there on the right. He's also appeared on the two Ghostbusters Fans covers in both his day job as a logo and his night job as a peoplebuster. With Buster appearing on all three Ghostbusters website covers, there's a nice connection between them all; like he's our secret mascot :-)

Remember how I said that the Extreme Ghostbusters came to Long Island in the episode "Fallout"? They were here to battle the giant Radioactive Ghost you see looming behind Janine and her car. The tentacles sticking out from the hood may be an homage to Ulyoth from The Real Ghostbusters episode "Short Stuff" since he appeared in a similar fashion under Ecto-1's hood.

All of the other creatures on the cover aren't direct references to anything, but rather creations of Tristan Jones' own twisted imagination! I got that on good authority from Tristan himself, so I can stop racking my brain trying to figure out references that aren't there :-)

This isn't Spook Central's first "appearance" in the IDW Ghostbusters comic series. Artist, and dapper gentleman, Dan Schoening gave me the honor of being in the Ghostbusters universe by drawing me into issue #11 wearing a Spook Central t-shirt. No, Spook Central t-shirts are still not available for sale, though maybe one day they will be if there's enough interest. And, no, THIS ONE-OF-A-KIND TRISTAN JONES SPOOK CENTRAL COVER IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR SALE either.

[UPDATE - 9/12/2012]
The Spook Central cover arrived in the mail today...after the United States Postal Service mis-shipped it to Brooklyn! Even though my address was typed on the computer-printed mailing label, was 100% correct, and included the correct +4 zip code, the postal service still decided that what is clearly a "5" in my zip code was a "2" and sent it to Brooklyn. Had they processed it correctly, I think I would have gotten it two days ago. At least it finally arrived, even with taking the scenic route through Brooklyn (and not bringing back a Nathan's hot dog). Here's a photo of my ugly, unshaven mug with the Spook Central cover and my appearance in issue #11 (my left hand is pointing to myself in the book).