Ghostbusters Holiday Special: Tainted Love is an IDW Comics release, which is written by Dara Naraghi, with artwork and lettering by Salgood Sam, colours by Bernie Mireault & Salgood Sam, and covers by Salgood Sam & Nick Runge. The 28-page one-shot comic is released on February 17^th, 2010, and costs $3.99.

The Story (Spoiler free)

Love is in the air-literally!-as Winston befriends an attractive woman with a ghostly problem in her apartment. But trapping the love-struck apparition proves to be more complicated than the Ghostbusters originally thought. Can Winston step up and save the day? Just how far will Peter go to find a date? And do Ray and Egon ever stop to think about girls, or is it always about trans-dimensional ectoplasmic anomolies with those two?

The Rating

‘Tainted Love’ is straightforward and fun adventure story, which delivers everything that you would expect from a Ghostbusters story. The story is definitely all-ages appropriate, and can be enjoyed by both children and adults. The plot of the comic is pretty simple, but Naraghi manages to keep things interesting with an unique solution to get rid of the apparition, and some intriguing new additions to the Ghostbusters arsenal, like arm-mounted proton packs that minimize the damage caused. Naraghi manages to get the characters and their dialogue just right, and they all behave like they do in the movies: Ray and Egon are socially inept nerds, Peter is a lecherous joker, and Ray is, well, I’ve always thought of him as the straight man in the comedy troupe. The story is well paced, and has a good balance between action, comedy, and character moments. There is never a dull moment, and the fun never stops!

The artwork on the book is from Canadian artist, Salgood Sam (Max Douglas), whose artwork you may know from a variety of great projects, such as Seas of Red, Therefore Repent!, Comic Book Tattoo, Awesome 2: Awesomer, and he’s also set to have a story in Popgun 4. If you’ve not seen his artwork before, I’d highly recommend starting with Therefore Repent!, which is an amazing piece of work! His artwork here is a little more cartoony than anything I’ve seem from him before, and please don’t think I mean that in a bad way! For some reason ‘cartoony’ has become a dirty word these days, and I really don’t know why. Some projects call for a more cartoony style, and Ghostbusters is definitely one of those comics! The artwork on this comic is absolutely perfect for the subject matter, and Salgood Sam does a beautiful job of bringing the world of the Ghostbusters to life. The characters don’t look exactly like their screen counterparts, which is fine, but they do look very similar. He also does a great job of drawing convincing ghosts, and a top-notch job of drawing things like the proton beams, and the effect of ghosts being sucked into the ghost traps. He also keeps the art looking interesting throughout, by using inventive, and sometimes unusual, perspectives for certain scenes. It’s some great artwork, and you couldn’t ask for a better looking Ghostbusters story!

Ghostbusters Holiday Special: Tainted Love is a thrilling adventure story, which delivers everything that you would expect from a Ghostbusters story and more! The story is brought to life with fun and vibrant artwork, that really does the piece justice. Recommended for Ghostbusters fans of all ages!

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