[joezlo]

Erik and Dan get a ton of credit for sure, expanding and building upon a GB universe when fans had nothing for a long time - even effectively adding ATC to the mix, writing those characters possibly better than the film.

Give the new crew some time.

Erik and Dan probably want to move on anyway.

[timeware]

What's the cost of comics these days? I haven't been to my local comic store in like 15 years but the last Sonic i bought was nearing five dollars. My complaint isn't with the writing team it's the quality of art. It looks like inserts from a coloring book someone traced over in MS Paint. I don't want to sound like an ass I just want something that would inspire me to copy the artists style. I can go to Barnes and Noble and buy a manga for half the cost with better hand drawn art from twenty years ago.

[ccv66]

I'm not sure i liked the old art style, but the style was done well. Back in town looks like a school project

[mrmichaelt]

The variant cover artist Colin Lorimer for #4, I'd like to see him do interiors.
https://previewsworld.com/Catalog/MAR241077

What's the cost of comics these days?

In the $4-6 range nowadays.

[timeware]

That's a tiny bit of scratch for a poor product.

[mrmichaelt]

That's a tiny bit of scratch for a poor product.

It sort of varies from store to store when it comes to the variant cover because the store has to order x amount of regular covers to get x amount of variants. So depending on the type of variant cover and the comic book store having to manage their finances, the variant cover could be in that $6 range or double digits when you get into the Retailer Incentive variants. I think these Back in Towns were $3.99 for the regular covers. Variants were pretty reasonable between 4 and 6 on the low-end of prices I saw.

But I noticed after a long gap of not buying comics on ebay after the IDW run ended, the prices are still reasonable but the shipping has jumped to the point that with shipping included you're paying at least double versus going into a physical store and getting the same comic. Sellers on ebay used to be pretty generous and even threw in free shipping with USPS First Class just 6 years ago.

[Kingpin]

That's a tiny bit of scratch for a poor product.

Blame the economy.

[timeware]

I'll blame the economy for the price, not the quality of art. You have to start somewhere I suppose but you, Fritz, and I can draw circles around this dude.

[Kingpin]

but you, Fritz, and I can draw circles around this dude.

Blue would draw circles around me when it came to people, they have a broader handle on things... Whereas I specialise in buildings and inanimate objects.

Based on Blue's other work, I don't think Back in Town represents their work nearly as well as other examples, like O Human Star, Across a Field of Stars, or The Stan... I'm not sure if it was maybe tighter deadlines, or Sony keeping a close eye on things, but I'd like to believe some of the issues people have complained about could've been improved potentially with more time to work on the project, and maybe better reference for the equipment.

I can't provide an explanation for it, but I do believe Blue is a better artist than Back in Town presented

[timeware]

I'd have to see examples of their work . Drawing for fun is a bit less stressful than drawing professionally. If you have a company that doesn't want the best from their employees that can be an issue to. Companies not utilizing their time to complete a project they were hired for is kind of BS.

As for not having good reference pics, yeah I could see that being on Sony, but really people do have access to smart phones with web browsers these days.

[mrmichaelt]

I'd have to see examples of their work . Drawing for fun is a bit less stressful than drawing professionally. If you have a company that doesn't want the best from their employees that can be an issue to. Companies not utilizing their time to complete a project they were hired for is kind of BS.

As for not having good reference pics, yeah I could see that being on Sony, but really people do have access to smart phones with web browsers these days.

Unless they lied during that one interview, which I doubt, Blue said they had photos from online - A LOT - of the equipment and also from looking up New York photos. So it's not an issue of quantity of reference pics. And they got descriptions of the entities and was to told to design them like it was practical for puppets on a movie set. And got to deliver the art in stages, such as a thumbnail stage in a page as a rough pass to show staging of angles and such. They got notes to like add more slime here, change angle, or "great, love it!"

edit: 11/21: Nothing in the February solicits.

edit: 12/24: Nothing in the March solicits. Nothing in April and May but those are an incomplete listing on DH's upcoming page.

[mrmichaelt]

Devilmanozzy brought this to my attention. A friend of his was doing a search on Previews World and found promo images for two covers for Issue #1 of the next mini-series (but no pages were created yet). It is titled Ghostbusters: Skeleton Crew. So we got's pirate ghosts. It looks like the artist for this mini is Aviv Or. Presumably April or May if PW uploaded images already. We'll see.

Here's the 2 covers.
Mod Edit: Cover images removed following request by Dark Horse Comics.

[Bison256]

That looks bad, I really miss the writers and artists of the IDW series.

[mrmichaelt]

You literally judged a book by its covers...

There's no indication either is done by the new main artist. The one with the GBs on it though is clearly a guest artist, I've seen that art style before. Just can't place whose. Maybe did some work on the TMNT comics. If the other is Or, it's a vast improvement already. Ecto-1 at least looks better. I think it's got the Drone Trap drone on the roof.

Story-wise, pirate ghosts have been done. On RGB, a couple times notably with "Sea Fright". On IDW, a couple times notably during the 101 mini utilizing the history of Ellis Island. Phantom ships as well like the John Milton in volume 2 of the ongoing. Curious what Booher's got cooking for these ones.

[timeware]

Who drew the second variant cover for skeleton crew? I like the cover. Gives off a Scooby Doo vibe to it.

[mrmichaelt]

Who drew the second variant cover for skeleton crew? I like the cover. Gives off a Scooby Doo vibe to it.

I'm 99% sure that artist is Max Sarin. Did some Harley Quinn comics based on the Max animated series a while back.

[Bison256]

The cover of comic book is there is sell the book. It's not unfair to judge it. I am not a regular comic reader, but the last ten year or a lot of comic book art has become simple, less detailed and for lack of a better word "tumblr-y" and "cal arts." I really don't like that style, at all.

[mrmichaelt]

The cover of comic book is there is sell the book. It's not unfair to judge it. I am not a regular comic reader, but the last ten year or a lot of comic book art has become simple, less detailed and for lack of a better word "tumblr-y" and "cal arts." I really don't like that style, at all.

You mean the really simplistic character design without a lot of lines and detail? Yeah, seems to come and go every 20 years or so.

[Rookie99]

A series called Skeleton Crew...focusing on pirates...why does that sound so familiar?
Anyways, just seeing Callie and Phoebe dangling for their life gets me on board with this. Didn't really like Back In Town, but I am hungry for this new team. And if ever there were a time for a proton broadsword...

[Kingpin]

Hopefully the quality of the story will be more Sea Fright and less Future Tense. Ghostly pirates have so much potential for storytelling hijinks.

[Chicken, He Clucked]

The cover of comic book is there is sell the book. It's not unfair to judge it. I am not a regular comic reader, but the last ten year or a lot of comic book art has become simple, less detailed and for lack of a better word "tumblr-y" and "cal arts." I really don't like that style, at all.

Doesn’t really apply to either of those covers imo.

They’re both an improvement on the art style of the previous series.

My preference is the second one - that would suit the comic (and animated series) very well.

[mrmichaelt]

Doesn’t really apply to either of those covers imo.

They’re both an improvement on the art style of the previous series.

My preference is the second one - that would suit the comic (and animated series) very well.

It's naive of me and I'm ignoring a lot of legalities like possible likeness rights if they are even still an issue but if these comics are canon to movies, why not go for a realistic to near-realistic art style with the level of detail in the equipment and locations Dan and Luis were able to pull off in the IDW comics? How are they picking the artists? Do they just approach one? Many artists are chosen then Gil and Jason look at art tests and pick one?

[zeta otaku]

I was discussing this with someone tangentially in the comics industry and the Back in Town comics were listed as "all ages" books, which basically translates to "kid book". For what it was worth, the story in the last run wasn't bad, it just needed way more meat to it... which was impossible due to the classification of "all ages" and they're limited to how wordy a comic can be. While I'm not privy to all the legalese when it comes to likeness rights, at least two of the covers had very close likenesses to the Spenglers... though no Grooberson, so I'm assuming Paul Rudd has a different deal when it comes to his likeness being used.

Anyway, here's hoping this new comic doesn't get slapped with the "all ages" category and can tell a fuller, more robust story.

[mrmichaelt]

I wonder why they went with "all ages" in the first place when movies are everything but.

Well, few of the covers on Back in Town were pretty close to looking like the actors...

[zeta otaku]

Without beating the answer out of the powers that be over at Dark Horse (okay, I guess we could just ASK... but that's boring), I can only theorize it was a misguided attempt to hook in a younger crowd and sorta bake them into the fandom so they have more butts in seats when more movies/shows/puppet acts/whatever happen in the future.

That said, after re-reading Back in Town, I couldn't help but chuckle thinking that it was also an over-reaction to the "OMG! Afterlife is retconning GB2 out of existence!" claims by cramming in as many GB2 references as possible.

[Chicken, He Clucked]

Hopefully the quality of the story will be more Sea Fright and less Future Tense. Ghostly pirates have so much potential for storytelling hijinks.

Well I thought Future Tense was one of the better post-Lorenzo Music episodes…

[Kingpin]

It wasn't a terrible episode, but the pirate ghosts in that episode just didn't quite have the screen presence that Captain Jack Higgins and his crew had.

[robbritton]

Who drew the second variant cover for skeleton crew? I like the cover. Gives off a Scooby Doo vibe to it.

I'm 99% sure that artist is Max Sarin. Did some Harley Quinn comics based on the Max animated series a while back.

Definitely looks like Max Sarin. Their work on Giant Days was just joyous, so I'm more than happy to see them enter the GB world in any capacity.

[mrmichaelt]

Despite what your opinion may be so far, please send some well wishes to David Booher. Not only did he have to undergo open heart surgery to repair a valve this past week but he's one of the unfortunate people who lost their home in the LA fires.
https://www.instagram.com/davidmbooher/p/DEVZIG2SYDu/
https://www.instagram.com/p/DEqIr_JzlEm/

https://www.instagram.com/davidmbooher/p/DElClkAzVXK/
https://www.instagram.com/davidmbooher/p/DElxyZCRi37/

[Kingpin]

I've removed the covers that were posted a few days ago, as a little earlier today AJ received an email from Dark Horse Comics requesting their take-down.
It looks like they'd been unintentionally leaked when they were first posted on Previews World.

Further updates will hopefully be coming soon.