So, ever since last year I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for anything that seems to fall within the realm of Halloween-y goodness, particularly from the 80s. Last year one of the only things I managed to find from my favorite decade was a monster themed Muppets comic from a weird magazine-like children’s book called Muppet Madness. I was curious at the time if the material in the book was culled from the run of Muppet Magazine, and I’ve since learned that it wasn’t as the magazine was published later on in the 80s. I lucked out and my good friend Kevin has had a copy of said magazine tucked away for the last 23 years, which he let me borrow for some site content…
Well, even though there’s nothing that really screams Halloween (in Jim Henson’s Kermit voice as he shakes his head about in exasperation no less), but there is something that kind of qualifies. Since I’m going to talk a bit about the Real Ghostbusters cartoon this month (all next week so be prepared), I wanted to share this Muppets movie spoof comic called groaningly and punnily enough Grossbusters, written by one Jay Itzkowitz and illustrated lovingly by Jon McIntosh.
Honestly, I’m sort of surprised that Itzkowitz didn’t make use of the Muppets own weird science wonders Bunsen and Beaker, who I think would have made an awesome addition to the spoof Grossbusters cast (especially instead of Rizzo and his pals on page 4 panel 3.) I did however think that Janice was a great stand-in as the Janine character. I also really dig that their Grossmobile was modeled off of the Muppets bus more than say the original Ghostbusters Ecto-1. Lastly, how about Gonzo really pushing that peanut butter & macaroni sandwich with a side of coleslaw joke? Man, he must have been storing that one up.
