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About Ghostbusters Doom Patrolby C.J. LondonDon't Open Til Doomsday...You Might Not Like What You'll Find Inside. So it started off like this…way back in 2003, I was getting the itch to stretch my legs as a fan fiction writer into something a bit more lucrative. I'd received some kind of notice with my previous fan fiction stories "Ghostbusters Armageddon" and "A Boy Named Ray", so I wasn't a complete nobody to the realm of the series' fandom. The idea of the fan fiction team seemed very attractive, and why shouldn't it? Several online members from all over the globe getting together to do something similar to what the LARPers (Live-Action Role Players) do when they are in the same state, creating tales that were essentially continuations of story of the Ghostbusters' legacy past the year 1998 (with great respect to the critically acclaimed Omnibus Timeline created by veteran fan, Fritz Baugh). In that year, there were several groups whom I would consider the "Big Five" in terms of inspiration: Ghostbusters: Nightsquad, The Canadian Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters: U.K., Ghostbusters: West Coast (in their original twenty-person incarnation), and Ghostbusters: N.O.M.A.D., the first team to actually be recognized as a fan-fiction-only group. Despite having been present for around the same time as some of the members of these noted groups, I was never confident enough in myself to ask for a membership and I did not realize that none of these groups took themselves seriously. It was truly, in effect, one gigantic international role-playing game. Thus, I set about attempting to establish my own team. Initially I hit upon the idea of a Florida Ghostbusters franchise, but with very few actual Floridians on the boards at that time, the plan was abandoned to do something similar to West Coast or N.O.M.A.D.; hence, a ragtag group of rowdy guys fit together as a team to stop whatever menace plagued mankind. Simple enough, right? Well, the issue at hand was actually finding members, and therein laid the problem. As a shy teen, I was no better off online back on Ghostbusters.net. I rarely talked to anybody off the messageboards and for the most stayed out of board politics, making myself an 'Invisible Man' in all but my words. However, I did have a few associates whom I thought I could count on, and kept my eye on a few others for consideration. Among them was Andrew Williams. He had written a very good piece of Ghostbusters fiction entitled "Elm Street", unfinished, but still a very engaging tale. We began somewhat as comic-book rivals, butting heads over the Justice Society of America, Ultimate X-Men, and Green Lantern, before finally becoming friends in a professional wrestling thread on GBN called "Black Dawn". He was enthusiastic in his acceptance, and even brought onboard a friend of his named digitaltachyon. For a brief while, this was the original lineup of the Ghostbusters: Doom Patrol. As far as the name goes, nothing else sounded quite right until I actually pulled down from my study an old issue from author Grant Morrison's run on the D.C. Comics series "Doom Patrol" and adopted that moniker. Had I not, the closest name I would have come up with would have been Ghostbusters: East Coast. However, for reasons unknown to this day, digitaltachyon left the group, leaving just Andrew and me. As the guy who had the bright idea to start a team, I took it upon myself to go recruiting. Candidates included past community members such as Twister, riverofslime, and (I thought of, but never asked) Cliff Roswell. Cliff, at that time was a member of Nightsquad, who would aide us on and off the boards in later years. Of these, only one other guy came through, Brian Roig, then known as ProtonPack666. This started a long-running gag of Brian asking very long questions, picking the brain of each prospective member to get the literal sense of something suggested. It was his way of determining if these future Doom Patrollers had what they call 'the right stuff'. Through Brian, we amassed a roster in a similar manner that would make Danny Ocean of "Ocean's 11" proud and enlisted one more member, Mr. No-Ghost, also known as Robert Smith. Now, I've often had the wrong idea of many people in the past, and I initially judged Rob unfairly due to his very stoic appearance as being akin to the likes of a certain array of intimidating rogues in the Ghostbusters Online Community. However, given the chance to talk to him and ask what he thought of the team and if he would like to join up, I was surprised by how amicable and nice the guy was. What's more, he was also a graphic and digital artist, and a pretty good one at that, who could illustrate our fictional counterparts on the quality level of anything seen in mainstream comics. And he later impressed us with some very exceptional skills as a writer. Yet, out of all that, along with this cache of talents he possessed, he also revealed that he was Deaf! How about that? The man could draw, write, and curse a person out in spoken English and American Sign Language. Needless to say, I was excited when he responded to us with a resounding 'yes'. Things had shaped up better than anything we could have hoped for. We had put together a four-man team, just the right number...or so I thought. It was Rob's suggestion that we needed a female essence to the team. I was fine with that, thinking at the time, whom would he want to bring in? So, I left that choice up to him. He suggested a woman named Sarah Kryski, then known as EgonsBabe, as the potential fifth member. It was a shocking move heard around the community, but not without reason. Sarah had not exactly endeared herself to most people on the boards. She had been 'notorious' for her heated debates with Fritz Baugh over the canonical relationship between the characters of Egon Spengler and Janine Melnitz, as well as duking it out with the similarly named EgonsGurl. Sarah was a passionate writer, though despite some feeling of hesitation and misgivings of her place on the team for these reasons, she accepted after Rob extended his hand in a welcoming manner and said "trust me". The last to join our dysfunctional family more or less was Erin Cummins, who loaned us her name and personality for the character of our client administrator. While she is not a full-time member per se, her character has been a hoot to write, with or without her input. The first story, "Black Dawn" (the name paying homage to the messageboard thread that brought us all together), had the unfortunate distinction of never really being completely regarded due to background circumstances. But it would be our second adventure, "Till The Clouds Roll By" that eventually established the style for which we are best known: doom-and-gloom laden stories filled with gore, controversial dialogue, and, above all, a crackling good mystery for the creative team to work with. This noir-like style was developed by accident, but it gave us distinct footing. Sarah took it a step further with the crossover "The Day The Music Died", and Andrew with his own background story, "Unholy Beginnings". The darkness was complete with "Bohemian Rhapsody". Given that we are now in our fifth year of operation as a group, and the future is looking so bright, we gotta wear shades. Till then, friends, cheerio! ~C.J. |