Ghostbusters

However you first came to it, Ghostbusters was a classic of the 1980s. Its special blend of action and comedy, sci fi and the supernatural, made it unlike anything else at the time, and nothing that tried to imitate it really came close (not even Ghostbusters II). In celebration of the new Ghostbusters and the classic film that inspired it, here's some great fan art of characters and scenes from both movies. A lot Egon Spengler, a lot of Jillian Holtzmann, some Slimer, even a Gozer or two. This is the gallery to scroll through while you're deciding who you're going to call.

If you’ve been to the supermarket or the toy store lately you’ve seen a lot of Ghostbusters tie-in merchandise. Action figures, beverages, snack cakes, stuffed dolls; you name it, they’re making it to promote the new Ghostbusters movie opening in theaters this Friday.

Everyone loves comic book trivia, but with over 75 years of superhero comics behind us right now, there’s always some new obscure fact to learn. That’s why ComicsAlliance is going deep into the minutiae of your favorite names in comics in our continuing video series. You think you know comics? Well, here’s a few things you might not know! This week we're taking a look at those boys and/or girls in gray who definitely ain't afraid of any amount of ghosts, the Ghostbusters! But not, like, in the movies, or the cartoons, or video games. In this comics. This video runs through the comic book history of the Ghostbusters from their debut in a British comics magazine to various 3-D specials to their time in manga up to the present day, where there has been a whole new team of 'Busters, and an expansion to fight vapors, entities, and slimers across the globe. Bustin' out facts makes me feel good!

Since I was a kid, nary a day has gone by that the dream of being an actual, for real Ghostbuster hasn't crossed my mind. Growing up with the franchise, my household was a treasure trove of almost all the Ghostbusters goods you could imagine. Never got that Firehouse playset, but I did have that sweet role-play proton pack, trap and Ecto goggles. I don't quite fit into those anymore though, so it's a little hard for me to pretend without investing the time and effort into building my own proton back and kit as a number of similarly aged Ghostbusters fans have already done. Until now, that was pretty much the only way to indulge the fantasy. Then The Void came along with its new hyper reality experience. Teaming with Sony and Madame Tussaud's, The Void opened up Ghostbusters Dimensions as part of the new Ghostbusters Experience at the Times Square location of the wax museum franchise. While virtual reality is breaking through in a large way this year, Void ramps things up by completely immersing you in not just a visual experience, but a completely interactive one. Once you suit up with your headset, backpack and blaster, you are in the world of the Ghostbusters, and it's up to you to explore the space and eliminate the spectral menaces inside. All those hours of running around my neighborhood blasting phantoms was finally going to pay off.

The new Ghostbusters remains untested at the box office, but that isn’t about to stop Sony Pictures Animation from busting the franchise wide open. Realer than The Real Ghostbusters, more extreme than Extreme Ghostbusters, the paranormal paladins are headed back to TV with a new animated Ecto Force series sending the Ghostbusters into the far-flung future.

I was almost too scared to open the box of Ghostbusters goods Mattel dropped on my doorstep. Those girls and guys might not be afraid of no ghost, but that doesn't mean I am... am not... I am not not afraid of no ghost? Ghosts are very real and very spooky. I've seen movies like The Conjuring and Insidious. Those are based on true events so you know they are telling honest narratives and portraying the supernatural elements with the correct amount of realism. I know Ghostbusters is primarily a work of fiction because it doesn't come with that same disclaimer, but I was still wary about the potential for a haunting to happen in my home once this box's contents were spilled on the floor. I can say with some authority that after opening the box, everything appears to be in the clear. This is despite Mattel sending over a package filled with specters of unknown origin, which could have sunk their ectoplasmic hands into the foundations of my apartment to haunt it for the rest of time. Fortunately, that's not the case (yet), and instead of a gaggle of living impaired vaporizing in and out of existence in the halls, I've got a decent little collection of Ghostbuster toys.

If you thought the first year of Lego Dimensions brought together more characters and franchises than you thought humanly possible, wait until you get a load of what TT Games has in store for 2016. The first official trailer for Lego Dimensions: Year Two (my titling, not theirs) arrived today and with it came a wealth of unexpected surprises. Yes, Batman, Gandalf and Wyldstyle are back again, but the portal has opened in new worlds featuring Harry Potter, Teen Titans Go!, Adventure Time, the A-Team, Goonies, Gremlins, the Powerpuff Girls and like a bajillion others. Lego is not playing around. What's more, every single new set is 100% compatible with everything that's already been released. You know what that means? You can have BA Baracus drive the Mystery Machine. You can have the Joker and Voldemort fight over who has a pastier complexion. You can have Beast Boy and Mowgli take down Beetlejuice. Dogs and cats living together; mass hysteria!

On paper, it seems like there are a lot of reasons to be suspicious of IDW's Ghostbusters comics. As much as that company's done really well by its licensed properties, there's so much of Ghostbusters that doesn't feel like it would translate well to comics, that's all tied up in being a movie and carried by the charisma and delivery of the actors. In practice, though, Erik Burnham and Dan Schoening have somehow managed to take everything that is Ghostbusters, from the movies to the video game, and make an expanded universe that works beautifully. But if you want to see how well it works for yourself, now is your chance: This week's Humble Bundle has a whole bunch of Ghostbusters stuff, and you can pick up everything they've got on offer for fifteen bucks.

Back when the sequel to last year's Ghostbusters board game was announced, the first big question that came to mind for me was "what's left to add?" The success of the initial Kickstarter campaign meant that the first one was full of add-ons, adding a roster of new characters and adversaries. Of course, the obvious answer was that Ghostbusters II would include elements of, y'know, Ghostbusters II, but as designer Mataio Wilson said in our interview, they had access to everything from the source material, from the movies to the comics to the cartoon. And now, the campaign is making good on that potential. This week, Cryptozoic Entertainment announced an expansion for Ghostbusters II: The "Get Real" pack, which adds five new characters based on the 1986 Real Ghostbusters cartoon.

If you had told me the new Ghostbusters movie would lead to a new four-player, co-op, isometric RPG shooter meant to tie into the film's release, I probably would have given a speech much like the OG GBs gave to the mayor of New York in the original film. Rumors of a Ghostbusters game have been flying around since the updated feature was announced, but this week Activision confirmed plans to support the Paul Feig film with an original game that takes place after the events of 2016's Ghostbusters. Which is interesting considering the game comes out before the movie hits theaters. As if enough Ghostbusters media and merchandise branded with that simple name wasn't confusing enough already, the game too will rely on just the default team name coined by the original paranormal investigators back in 1984. No real prior knowledge of the franchise will be necessary though, as Ghostbusters will feature an entirely new cast of characters, different from the new cast of characters in the movie, which are all different from the comics and cartoons based on the first Ghostbusters. Still with me?