Book Review: Tobin’s Spirit Guide: The Official Ghostbusters Edition

Picture the scene if you will. The Ghostbusters are in jail. They’re planning their next move and Spengler mentions that he found the key to defeating the spooks that haunt their client Dana Barrett’s apartment building, in the pages of Tobin’s Spirit Guide. It’s just a quick mention, and you’d be forgiven for forgetting about it. But for some of us – especially those among us that grew up immersed in the culture of Ghostbusters, it was a fascinating tidbit that exited our impressionable brains. Seeing it reappear in the classic animated series only meant we coveted the book even more.

Sadly, despite my searching, I never found this elusive book in any of the libraries I visited as a child, and was met with blank expressions when I asked for it by name at the counter. But now, after searching for what seemed like an eternity, the hunt is finally over. Tobin’s Spirit Guide is finally available, in a dramatic blood red hardcover edition, thanks to the wonderful people at Insight Editions.

Presented as an in-universe text book, co-written by Erik Burnham, Dr. Ray Stantz and Dr. Egon Spengler, Tobin’s Spirit Guide is the essential encyclopedia for any prospective Ghostbuster. It features the many ghosts, ghouls and gremlins the team have encountered since their inception, as well as countless other terrifying supernatural phenomena that we have yet to see on screen, all with exciting images by the fantastic Kyle Hotz (Ghost Rider 2099).

Believe me when I tell you, you’re going to want to see how Hotz and Burnham interpret old favourites like Slimer and Prince Vigo the Carpathian, as well as breathing new afterlife (pardon the pun) into some of our favourite creations from the animated show, such as Samhain and the frankly terrifying Grundel.

This is one of those books that will look equally at home on a bookshelf or among the many other pieces of memorabilia you have in your home. You’ll be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive collection of nastiness than you have in Tobin’s Spirit Guide.

For lifelong fans of the Ghostbusters franchise, this is an immersive and essential purchase, worth every penny of the $19.99 ticket price. And let’s face it, $20 is a small price to pay in your preparation of the second coming of Gozer the Gozerian!

Pick it up on Amazon now!