Ectozone

Yeah, yeah, here we go again...

1984 Thirteen year old Fritz Baugh hears a lot about a movie called "Ghostbusters", but he doesn't get out much and doesn't go see it, though the catchy theme song from Ray Parker Jr. plays on the radio every ten minutes. His brother "OgreBBQ" does get to see it, and tells him it's really cool

1985 Fourteen year old Fritz catches "Ghostbusters" on HBO. He loves it. Bill Murray's character, Peter Venkman, becomes his favorite at first, though even then he thought the cutest scenes in the movie were between Harold Ramis and Annie Potts

1986 Fifteen year old Fritz notices his three younger brothers watching a cartoon about four really wierd looking guys in Ghostbuster proton packs battling a monster with a pumpkin for a head. "What is this?" he asks. "It's the new Ghostbuster cartoon!" they tell him. By the end of the episode, he's already decided to get up early every Saturday to watch it.

After figuring which movie guy they were supposed to be, Fritz discovered he had a new favorite: the guy with the wierd blond hair. And hey, they didn't forget the fact that the secretary had the hots for him! And she's really cool too--gutsy, abraisive, sarcastic, so so different from those bland Mommy figures he grew up with! And they have such superb chemistry--weird and touching, Egon and Janine become one of Fritz's favorite fictional couples ever

His Mom solidifies his new favorite at Christmas time. Four boys, four Ghostbusters action figures. Ogre gets Ray. The sarcastic twin gets Venkman. The practical twin gets Winston. Fritz gets Egon. And they also get the Ghostbusters role playing game! RPG adventures ensue, off and on (with some changes to players), for five years after that

1987 Nirvana! Ghostbusters every day on WXIN 59! And let me check out the new episodes on Saturday morning...

For the first, but certainly not the last time, Fritz discovers a sudden urge to throw things at the television set. "WTF DID THEY DO TO VENKMAN AND JANINE?!"

1988 A Ghostbusters comic book!!! Cool and a half!!!

September: "WTF?! SLIMER AND..." Fritz again has to supress an urge to throw things at the television

1989 Fritz wants to throw things at the television, but this time it's the Arsenio Hall show, when Annie Potts says "Rick Moranis and I're an item in this one" Frankly, I felt like someone had kicked my dog.

June 16. Newly graduated from high school, Fritz and the three brothers go see Ghostbusters II on opening day. The movie was enjoyable, save one stomach-churning scene between Janine and Louis in Venkman's apartment, but just seemed too...derivative of the first one. But Fritz smirks on the ride home...realization: "Y'notice how Egon and Janine don't actually appear on screen together?" A loophole that James Van Hise and J. Micheal Straczynski would drive a truck through.

September: Fritz wants to beat up ABC executives once more when Louis Tully turns up in the cartoon.

However, right around this time, RGB#16 comes out, with James Van Hise driving aforementioned truck through aforementioned loophole. "Louis is sweet, but he's harmless. He just happened to be there while you were too wrapped up saving the world to pay any attention to anything else!!!"
"

1990 For the first time ever, Fritz gets a fan letter published--in Now's RGB#22. And his second two months later in #24. The editor made note of how long but insightful they were. He'd get a third a year later in RGB Vol.2#1

For what would be the last time, Fritz is overwhelmed with joy at an episode of the cartoon: "Janine You've Changed". Egon: "Remember this: I love you" ABOUT DARN TIME. Unfortunately, by three weeks later it's the Same Old Crap. A few months later RGB#28 would add to that warm fuzzy feeling.

1992 It's gone. The show is cancelled. The comic book is cancelled. The game was on it's last legs.

1997 The new layouts at K-Mart have..."Ghostbusters" figures? WTF? Here it is on Channel 4: "Extreme Ghostbusters" Oh my God! That's Maurice LaMarche doing the voice of a rather strange looking Egon! And there's Janine--while it's not Laura Summer it's better than Kath Soucie! But why the hell aren't they married? "Janine You've Chagned", hello?

1998 Twenty-seven year old Fritz finally gets access to a computer. He starts compiling notes about the movies and both shows, and how they might fit together into one coherent timeline. The "Ghostbusters Omnibus Timeline" he dubs it. He works on it off and on over the next five years, even after XGB fades away.

2002 Now Thirty one years old, Fritz on a whim enters the phrase "Real Ghostbusters" into Google...he starts visiting places like The Real Ghostbusters Fan Page and Tobin's Archive...and then finds a place called Ghostbusters.net...where there was a furor going on about "It's Coming!"

2003
The rest, as it might be said, was history. On February 3, 2003, Fritz registered on GBN under the user name "Veedramon" (Fritz is also an anime junkie, and thought Veedramon was a lot cooler than "ExVeemon", the one that made it on TV)

And here was the first post I ever made.

http://archive.ghostbusters.net/disscus ... /1/110365/




2003 (continued)

On May 13, 2003, The very first incarnation of the site that would evolve into Ectozone.com opened, featuring the controversial Ghostbusters Omnibus Timeline. Fritz pisses some of the Movie Purists off by suggesting that the battle with Gozer took place in 1983 instead of 1984, as suggested by the animated episode "Take Two". Still, the Timeline is a success, and over the years other writers end up sharing the continuity ( http://ghostbustersff.proboards24.com )

Fritz is asked to join the Ghostbusters West Coast, a fan fic team. He writes "Opening Night", the GBWC origin story, and annoys some people by insisting on sticking to his Timeline.

"Future Shocks" introduces some of Fritz's concept for the future of the Ghostbusters, most notably the Spengler twins and Eric Stantz.

Fritz is elected to be a Moderator at GBCentral.

Kingpin, Doc Ryedale, and Fritz release The Ghostbusters Fact List

October: Fritz buys the domain name Ectozone.com

2004

Feb. 3. Fritz makes a self-indulgent post on GBCentral, marking his first anniversary, but it's wiped out when the server crashes and Chad restores the board later with a January backup.

The 88MPH comic finally comes out. It only takes them a year to put out four issues. And the characters don't look right to him. But it was a well written story that even managed a cute Egon/Janine scene or two.

GB: Legion looks like it comes out at a breakneck pace compared to "Chronicles Of Gozer", an epic fan fic that came out in 2004 and is still unfinished. (But I promise you--the end is within eyesight on this one!)

May 13: "Ectozone 2.0" Fritz upgrades the look of Ectozone.com and the GBWC site, using tables. In June, he opens the first version of the Ectozone Message Board

Fritz is fired as a Mod on GBCentral (like a lot of them were) but Netsolo asks him to Mod at his board, GBHQ. Which is better, anway.

Fritz undergoes a rather massive medical trauma, but the outpouring of support from the GB community is of vast help.

2005

Fritz gets hold of "The Return". It's a bit uneven, and incurs a major black mark by being the first official work since Gb2 to include the vomitous Janine/Louis relationship (though even then, perhaps unintentionally, it throws a few bones to the Egon/Janine believers).

Fritz clutters up his board with another self-indulgent anniversary post on Feb. 3.

Fritz buys the domain name GBWC. net. "Act Two" introduces a whole new status quo for the team--including Fritz's fictional counterpart being the new leader.

Netsolo decides, for whatever reason, to let Fritz be an Administrator at his board.

In August, Fritz actually gets to meet some of the characters he interacts with on the Internet: Vincent Belmont, Kevin Kemarly, and Greg Justis.

2006

Fritz releases the fan fic "Forever", an account of the wedding of Egon and Janine Spengler in the GBOT/Ectozone continuity.

Feb 3. Marking his third anniversary as a Ghosthead, Fritz makes yet another self-indulgent post about the matter. And like he did the preivous year, he readopts his original screen name "Veedramon" for about a week.

Fritz follows up "Forever" with the collossal brain-f**k he calls "Gemini Rising", featuring the birth of the Spengler Twins, alternate timelines with features like Mayor Zeddemore from "The Return", the Aykroyd characters from the original GB3 treatment, and Slimer as action hero. He tops it off with a bunch of revelations about villain Josiah Nodus and his true agenda.

"All Hell Breaks Loose" is a rewrite/reworking of a story originally by Bo Holbrook and Kingpin, and featured the dramatic deaths of two Nightsquad founders.

"Where In The World Is Chelsea Aberdeen?" comes to an emotional conclusion. "Transition" ties up the loose ends and completes the change of status quo to the one introduced in 2005's "Act Two"

Fritz starts an exploration of the Peoplebuster world in "Flipped Out"

November: "Ectozone 3.0" is rolled out; the use of cascading style sheets and javascripts makes the sites more unified in appearance, and easier to update.

2007

Fritz released a brainf**k of a different sort, the savage Mary Sue parody "The Legend of Mary Sue"

"Pandora's Box" begins. Two parts of this story were released by Now, and for some reason Fritz thinks he's good enough to finish this story that a real pro who was paid money for it started.

A new set of rumors start to swell around as Dan Aykroyd claims that a CG Ghostbusters movie is in the works, allegeldy featuring the original movie actors as the voice cast but possibly using the animated likenesses to avoid the Murray likeness issue.

Feb. 3. Fritz once again makes a sel-indulgent post about his anniversary signing up at GBN...

"Ectozone 3.5" is rolled out. It's mostly a change in host from Angelfire to GoDaddy, but it allows the use of php scripts, and increases disc space by a factor of 250. The site itself doesn't change much, but it does allow him to create the current Ectozone Message Board (the one you're reading right now) in the state-of-the-art PhpBB3 software, completely self-hosted.

November: Announcement by Sierra and Sony that a new Ghostbusters Video Game will be released, featuring most of the original cast (with Moranis and Weaver passing on the project) and a Marty Stu as "a new recruit to the Ghostbusters". Seeing another fricking retcon/reboot in the works, and remembering Aykroyd and Ramis's .500 batting average, Fritz finds himself unable to splooge all over himself at the announcement the same way 99% of the community does.

Fritz begins to seriously consider dropping the fan fic game, and let this Quesadaing of the Ghostbusters universe commence unopposed. Half jokingly starts considering doing a fan fic called "Ghostbusters: One More Day" where Egon sells his romance with Janine to Dib Devlin to save Venkman from syphlis, thus resetting everything from 1991 on. But realizes that would be incredibly, unbelievably stupid.

2008

Feb. 3. This being the fifth anniversary of his debut on GBN, yet another long-winded self-indulgent post is written...

Five years. Grife. Half a decade. Back then I was a thirty one year old loser who worked at K-Mart. Now I'm a thirty six year old loser who's missing part of a leg.

I'm not going to compose another Academy Award thanks speech like I did on the old board--it's all still there, and I keep being afraid of missing someone--but I do give a special thanks to everyone who's bothered to come to my own little back alley of the Internets to see this. And I apologize for taking up some of your time with this nonsense.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a Sugar-Free Twinkie with two candles on it and a fresh, cool Diet Coke waiting for me...

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Double post, but hey, it's my board...

As luck would have it, I was going through my files yesterday and found the original anniversary post I made on GBCentral on Feb. 3, 2004 (as mentioned above, it was lost when the server crashed in early 2004 and Chad restored with a January back-up)



Lol...I'll stop now, I promise.

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2008 Continued

In July, after only four years, the conclusion of "Chronicles of Gozer" is released. It's a massive epic in and of itself, and Fritz personally considers it almost worth the massive wait. He also snidely reminds everyone that he did beat Sebastien Clavet's hardcover. CoG Book Six is also, can you believe this, Fritz's one hundredth fan fic release.

"Flip Side War" begins, a crossover between the GBWC and the Extreme Ghostbusters, introducing the Extreme Peoplebusters, Peoplebuster versions of Mick Nielson and Jason Knetge, and a GBOT version of Remils from the crappy Marvel UK comics.

"The Eye Of Aretpo" begins. Taking place in 2021, it's the origin story of the future Ghostbusters team seen in "Future Shocks", "Seperated At Rebirth", "Gemini Rising", and "A Different Kind of Hero"

Activision buys up Sierra, and dumps the Ghostbusters video game. Atari picks it up, but it's delayed to June 2009. Fritz breathes a sigh of relief that he can hold off on quitting fan fic writing a little longer.

Rumors start swelling again about GB3. Eventually, it's confirmed that writers of The Office are attached to it, leading to all sorts of rampant speculation that is mostly debunked as unfounded. That doesn't stop some zealots from posting ad nauseum that GB3 will definitely be out in 2010 because it says so on IMDB, and everyone knows IMDB is never wrong.

In October, IDW releases the first issue of Ghostbusters: The Other Side. Even more amazingly, for the next three months they release the other three issues. Consecutively! Every month! Unfortunately, other than showing up on time, Fritz (and a lot of Ghostheads) find it lacking compared to Ghostbusters: Legion. Janine, for example, only appears for two pages.

That same month, manga publisher TokyoPop (previously Mixx Communication) releases a one-shot graphic novel called Ghost Busted. It features some delightfully surreal storytelling and some great art; Fritz's personal favorite in both regards was the last story as a transvestive Sumerian god tries to turn everyone in New York into a fashion victim, featuring appealing art by artist Chrissy Delk. (And much to the relief of many, Janine is back to hitting on Egon. Louis isn't even mentioned in this book.)

Something else starts rolling, but Fritz isn't allowed to talk about it yet.

2009

February 3. This being the sixth anniversary of his registration on GBN, Fritz makes another long, self-indulgent post where he refers to himself in third person, and wonders why.

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Some day I may get tired of doing this, but not yet.

One Ghosthead's impressions of life in the fandom continues, narrated in third person

2009, Continued.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game comes out. Fritz doesn't get it. He's not a video gamer, and as much as he disdains the Rookie and his blatant invitation to self-insertism, (And don't think nobody took them up on it), he nevertheless realizes that Gary Stu might as well just trip the self destruct on his proton pack, as it would be a quicker, less painful death than Fritz trying to guide him.

New Ghostbusters merchandise appears: Mini Mates and on-line exclusive 6 and 12 inch figures from Mattel. Fritz, who realizes he must be a pretty bad fan for not wanting to shell out 20 bucks for a little plastic Dan Aykroyd, passes. He'll take a much stronger look at hinted-at animation-based figures, though.

IDW follows up The Other Side with Displaced Aggression. Despite a few problems--the oppressive trend of putting Gozer cross-references in every story, a rather blatant Mary Sue, and the unfortunate one-panel return of GB2's Ho!Janine--it's about 500 times better than it's predecessor.

IDW also released a Christmas special, Past, Present, and Future, which while it draws from the same Dickensian well as the classic episode "X-Mas Marks The Spot", is nevertheless different and enjoyable in it's own right.

Fritz regretfully realizes his fan fic writing is slowing down. He completes "Flip Side War", but at this writing the conclusion of "Eye of Aretpo" is not yet finished. Even though at one point he'd hope (sigh) to have it ready for release today.

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every ones fan fic writing are slowing . I feel bad that I don't have anything up but its hared to get in the mood for anything right now .

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pleas parden my speling but I'm a littel dislexik and can't tipe whel

I know, but it really bugs me having stuff unfinished. I was doing well on it until the last week or so--some stuff has been happening in Real Life, add onto that my computer having some problems, and...yeah. I'm still going to get this thing done, though--there's some great scenes and bits in it that I'm proud of and hope everyone else gets a kick out of.

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Well, happy anniversary Fritz, thanks for helping me not feel like a lone wolf on a sinking E/J ship for the last 7 years.

And even if you don't write any more, I, for one, will still expect you to stick around and post about our innane obsessions.

Maybe you can take a break but help me finish the several stories I've started and can't seem to finish.

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Peter: "Huh. Guess we're not welcome."
Winston: "Not welcome, there's a first. We should all get nametags that say, 'Hello, I'm not welcome'. Or maybe Tshirts or mugs or something."
--Ghostbusters the video game

Jason: Don't feel bad. I haven't wrote a fan fiction since last year. Been busy with other project,including some prop work.

Everyone has been busy. I'm working on a graphic novel getting published, a movie I start shooting in 2 weeks, my regular job, and doing appearance gigs with the Orlando Ghostbusters (whom I'm now part of in real life gigs, no worries though, my fan fic home will still be here!)

Enjoyed the read of your life story, Fritz. Sorta took me back to my own childhood experiences of Ghostbusters, discovering it and whatnot.

Fritz's Self Indulgence, Year Eight:

2010

Fritz finally releases the end of "Eye of Aretpo". He then basically declares a sabbattical period, though he does eventually release a Ghostbusters 2022 story, "Ghosts Can't Do It", which he tinkers with pretty much to the moment it's released because he's afraid he's made it too porny. The readers tell him he's overreacting, and he realizes they're right--compared to some of the stuff on FFN, it's tame.

Mattel releases a toy PKE Meter. Thanks to the generosity of a fellow Ghosthead, the financially...troubled Fritz manages to get one as a Christmas present. It's awesome. It still isn't good enough for some of the people on GBFans, though, who seem to be taking nitpicking and whining to the level of an art form. Some posters there whine about it not being teleported into their mailboxes before they even ordered it. Others point out a measurement being .065 inches off.

Mattel also releases a GB2 set, with all four of their GB movie figures (including the actual first release of an unslimed Venkman) and it is also awesome. GBFans posters make a big deal about the slightly darker skin tones of the figures in the set.

Biggest toy news for Fritz, though, is the announcement of a Mego-inspired line using the cartoon likenesses. Again, much whining on GBFans, but Fritz doesn't care, probably because he's old and had real Megos back in the day, and knows how cool they are/were.

IDW continues some neat comic releases. "Tainted Love" gives some well-deserved screen time to Winston. "Con-Volution" is stuffed with nerd in-jokes and a tribute to comic legend Jack Kirby. "What the Sam Hain Just Happened?" features the writing of Peter David (one of Fritz's longtime favorites), art by "Dapper" Dan Schoening stuffed to the gills with cartoon in-jokes, and some well deserved screen time for Janine Melnitz, who has been mostly ignored the last few years.

2011

Fritz is currently working, perhaps not as quickly as he'd like, on "Toy Soldiers", which will be an epic return to fan fic form (he hopes). Two lead-in chapters are already done, but he's waiting until more of the whole story is done before releasing them. He does, of course, pause to make a self indulgent third-person post on February 3, marking eight years since his registration on Ghostbusters.net

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Indulge; you deserve it!

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Tonight you will be visited by 3 ghostbusters.

Yeah, it's that day again...

2011, Continued...

Just after making his self indulgent February 3 post, Fritz manages to get all four of the Retro Action Ghostbusters at once for a great price at a comic convention. They're the coolest toys he's bought in years. The coolness only increases in July, when the two-pack Retro Action Janine and Samhain makes it to stores. You won't believe some of the filthy poses Egon and Janine can be put in--those faux Mego suckers are limber.

IDW releases Ghostbusters: Infestation and begins an ongoing series, both written by Erik Burnham, the latter featuring the injoke laden art of Dan Schoening. It's a great series even though the first arc is the inevitable and overdone mining of the Gozer mythos (though with some very creative twists); thankfully, starting with #5, things start moving in a different direction. Fritz is seriously flattered when both Burnham and back-up feature writer/artist Tristan Jones actually post on the Ectozone message board (also allowing him to finally dust off and use the "Ectozone VIP" rank at long last)

Fan fic writing's still been a little slow. Fritz did get one RGB story, "Mister Stay Puft's Christmas Adventure" out, which was somewhat inspired by "Infestation". He had a ball writing this "Retro" story set very early in the Ghostbusters' careers. His big GBWC story "Toy Soldiers" is a bit moribund, though, because Fritz realizes he's set up a massive vampire epic at the exact same time the popular culture has made him fucking sick of vampires. (So another round of apologies to everyone who still reads my shit)

2012

The year gets off to a curious start when, for the first time since GBHQ went under, Fritz is offered a Mod job at a board people actually visit, namely GBFans.

And inevitably, on February 3, he makes jokes about "A self indulgent post where he talks about himself in third person"

But darn it, I guess I kind of like doing this little annual mini-examinations.

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I almost choked on my sweet potato fries. I think this counts as a pretty good lunch.

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By Sentient Solipsising Schroedinger's limping cat!

Just be glad my celphone is so cheap and old it doesn't even have a camera in it...

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you need a new phone.

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pleas parden my speling but I'm a littel dislexik and can't tipe whel