GBI: The Spirited Drizzlepuss

[Fritz]

Ghostbusters International: The Spirited Drizzlepuss

January 2007--Timeline Year Twenty Five
Winston takes the two newest members of the Ghostbusters West Coast, Jason Knetge and Aidan Munroe, on a bust that goes awry. As they deal with the watery entity, Winston has an encounter with an old enemy that threatens to topple the pillars of his faith.

[SuperStantzio]

Great story. I enjoyed it nice work!

[EGBFan]

It's interesting to see Winston without the rest of the staple quartet - between them, he and Fritz have successfully been able to carry a story without them (Jason and Aidan helping out as well, of course).

Fritz mentions the religious issues in his synopsis - I think it's a brave issue to handle. Without wanting to make this about me, I mentioned to Fritz in e-mail that I've thought about it a couple of times, but never had the follow-through to deal with it myself. It's good to see those issues and debates gone into in some depth in this story - on the surface of it, it really seems that Ghostbusting and Christianity just sometimes don't mix.

[Fritz]

I was quite pleased with the way this story came out. I'm not going to comment much on the faith issues yet--I want to see what others think first.

It was also a lot of fun doing the rather more slapstick part of the story, the chase of the Drizzlepuss, and try to get a handle on the new characters.

As I mention in the credits, the Drizzlepuss itself and some of the gags come straight from a Mickey Mouse story from the 50's (I have a reprint Gladstone did in 1988). In that story, Mickey and Goofy are chasing their kite and end up at a house that had been recently purchased by an unnamed guy who complains about the Drizzlepuss keeping him soaked. After some silly antics--Goofy gets his hat filled with water just like Jason's ectogoggles; Mickey and Goofy catch it in a sponge, then Goofy gets mad and stomps it, releasing the ghost--the story ends when Mickey leads it to the river, where it finds a female water spirit and they swim off together.

I told myself for years "The Spirited Drizzlepuss" could be adapted into a Ghostbusters story, and here I finally did it. There's one panel of art from the original story on the TOBIN page for the Drizzlepuss:
www.gbwc.net/tobin/drizzlepuss.html

Colonel Bassett is from another Mickey Mouse story, "The Seven Ghosts" plotted and penciled in the 1930's by legendary cartoonish Floyd Gottfredson. Loosely inspired by the animated short "Lonesome Ghosts" (which features Mickey, Goofy, and Donald as, **cough** ghost busters) Mickey, Goofy, and Donald are contacted by Bassett, who's pompous and overexaggerated devotion to "gentlemanliness" are transferred straight to the character I put in my story (though my Bassett doesn't have a dog nose and ears ). In a twist that would later be repeated in every episode of Scooby Doo, the ghosts aren't supernatural, just crooks with some nifty tricks.

So yeah, I cribbed a lot of stuff for this one.

[Jason Knetge]

finely I have some time to type

hurray it's a story with me

you have no Idea of how hard it was for me to whate for this .

man do I love this story

Fritz I just wont you to know that when I'm working at home I'm ether listening to a DVD or the fan fix

so for I'm on my third rotation of GBWC and the Ectozone fix

they make a hole evening of work fly by

so I do appreciate the hard work that go's in to these story's
PS

I have something if you wont to take it and tern it in to one of the dominos

I will PM you as soon as it;s spell checked

[EGBFan]

admin said:

I was quite pleased with the way this story came out. I'm not going to comment much on the faith issues yet--I want to see what others think first.

Honestly, I'm reluctant to "think" anything very much. How does that sound to someone who doesn't know what I mean? Terrible, probably. Let me try and explain (yikes ).

Faith, God and religion seem to be issues that a lot of writers are afraid of.* I've seen a few amateur stories on-line that deal with religion, most of which start with a disclaimer along the lines of, "Please bear in mind that the opinions of the characters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the author." There seems to be a fear of offending people, which is why I described Fritz's handling of the issue as "brave".

But honestly, why be afraid? Surely one's readers have the intelligence to realise that there are so many different people in this world, all with different beliefs and opinions, and that characters in stories are just the same - or at least they are if there's any degree of talent in the writer (I'm not just talking religious beliefs here - I'm just saying that a well developed character has to think and/or believe something). Whatever a reader's beliefs, they need take no offence in a fictional character thinking something different - not even if they totally trash one's beliefs, as indeed happens to Winston in this story (who, incidentally, I realise is also fictional). Whatever the character thinks, the writer has a duty to communicate it.

Ok, I'm beginning to labour the point now. So what is the faith issue here? It's been pointed out to Winston that the very nature of his job seems to contradict the teachings of his faith. Honestly, a good argument is put forth - logical at any rate. Now personally, I find Winston's reaction very believable. He doubts for a moment. Well sure, why not? He clearly chose his system of beliefs before he took the job, and then a whole load of crap comes along to undermine it. Anyone would ask questions.

Then, of course, he comes to the conclusion: it's not my place to know, and there's no reason not to hang onto my beliefs (to paraphrase). This also seems very believable to me. I'm an atheist myself, but I've known a fair few Christians, and as I said to Fritz in e-mail, there's an air of familiarity about this. But then again, so what if I've heard something like it before? Not all Christians think alike, which is why Winston was able to find some peace of mind on the issue when others perhaps would not.

*As a writer, I don't like to be afraid of anything. For some reason I don't seem to deal with religion very much. I honestly don't think it's fear; it's just not something I think about much.

[ghostdiva]

I liked this story, I can definately catch the Disney vibe from the original concept and I really liked the idea of trapping the ghost in the sponge, it was very clever.

As far as Winston's faith is concerned I would hope that Winston's belief system is too solid to be taken down like that, which I think he realized. I think every Christian's faith, no matter what they do for a living, is challenged at some point in their lives, even Jesus was tested by the Devil himself. It is a very realistic story line, for GB. It was shown in GB that Winston has a strong backbone of Christianity and that he feels what he does only solidifies his beliefs, not negate them. I will just go ahead and say that I am a Christian and that I do believe in ghosts and demons and that people have the ability to either fall sway to them or combat them, life is sort of a war between good and evil all of the time anyway and Winston is just more exposed to it than others.

I also get the feeling that this is a setup for a later story with Eventide. I look forward to seeing that.

I also liked the intro to the GBI training camp, I always thought that they would have to come up with something like that eventually. Would John and Eden and Eric have to go through it too? That would be strange for them, I can see how everyone would whisper behind their backs (How are we ever gonna pass when we have to compete with THEM, they've been LIVING in the firehouse all their lives. lol)

ghostdiva

[Fritz]

I know a lot of people do get afraid of dealing with religion--hey, it's an issue frought with deeply-felt positions, and when people disagree it can get messy. From argument, hurt feelings, all the way to the extreme of grudges lasting hundreds of years and people trying to solve those differences by lashing dynamite to their waists or plowing airplaines into office buildings.

As for Fort Arnold that's actually something Rich Roy came up with on the GBI boards a few years ago. The name is a tribute to the Bill Murray/Harold Ramis movie "Stripes" (Or at least that's what I assume). This is the first time I've done anything with it, but it made a lot of sense as a way to get all the ingredients of the story together, and get a little more narrative linking going on (ie the part where Winston thinks about some of the GBI members lost in recent years, like Doom Patrol's CJ (though he's probably not dead forever) and South Coast's Julie Madison)

As for the second generation Ghostbusters...yeah, probably some behind the back sneering like any "legacy"

[TheRazorsEdge]

ghostdiva said:

As far as Winston's faith is concerned I would hope that Winston's belief system is too solid to be taken down like that, which I think he realized.

Perhaps...but just how DO you reconcile that faith with what Winston feels is solid proof of reincarnation?

Not that I'm trying to start a debate or anything, I'm just genuinely curious .

[ghostdiva]

Perhaps...but just how DO you reconcile that faith with what Winston feels is solid proof of reincarnation?

Not that I'm trying to start a debate or anything, I'm just genuinely curious .

[/blockquote]

This is an interesting question, and one I don't have a specific answer to, in my religion reincarnation is addressed as, "it doesn't happen...next question" but to attempt to answer the question there is a passage in Romans that basically says that God will only give you as many fundemental truths as he thinks you are capable of handling. Perhaps there is reincarnation and He has found no one that he thinks could use that information to improve their faith, like a mute point, or maybe it only happens a very rare once in a while and that it holds no meaning to the vast majority, maybe it is one of those many secrets that God holds to himself and does not wish to share with you until the day of judgement.

Like I said before, just because something isn't addressed in religion, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Prayer and meditation are methods people use to further their faith above and beyond religious principles (faith and religion are NOT the same) and God will use these opportunities, when he feels that you are ready, to help you understand what you have been taught, thinking about, praying about, or meditating on so that you can become stronger in your walk with Him and improve your daily walk with Him.

So basically, it may or may bot exist, and I don't have the knowledge to make that judgement call, though I have no problem discussing it or using it in fanfiction.

ghostdiva