Hope the tech gurus get Ectozone.com URLs get fixed ASAP.
Seems to be working now. Yesterday is technically the day a year’s lease expired, and upon digging in tech support I think they wanted me to verify that my contact info was still current. Once I did, it seems to have worked.
Halloween is the perfect time to release a Ghostbusters story, even if the story isn’t Halloween based:
The Real Ghostbusters 2024: The Sign Of The Twins, Part Two
June 13, 2024–Timeline Year Forty-Two
So just what did happen to Eden and John both on the day they were born and in the early morning hours of their twenty-fifth birthday? And why is John so incredibly terrified by the implications of it?
I’ll let you know in advance: this chapter is very heavy in reprising material from The Real Ghostbusters: Gemini Rising; I felt like as a story I did a whole eighteen years ago, I wanted some way to get readers either up to speed or refresh their memories without having to go back and read the entire saga (Though cool if you do, of course). There’s some material reprinted, but other parts are filtered through the perceptions of the involved parties, so I hope that keeps it a little more interesting than a simple dry infodump. At least a little bit?
As is often the case, I posted a larger version of the splash picture from “The Sign of the Twins, Part Two” on Deviantart. It’s slightly different–the split-world Ghostbusters aren’t in photonegative, as they are on the fan fic splash:
https://www.deviantart.com/ectozone/art/The-Real-Ghostbusters-Gemini-Rising-1116557093
As I explain on the Deviation:
I actually did this picture twenty years ago, while I was still plotting out the story. I actually envisioned it as being split into two “mock covers” of the kind I frequently post . I’m not 100% sure why I ended up not using it, and not even coloring it until I found it in my files recently, but as a strong guess I thought the depictions of the “Earth-2”/movie Ghostbusters were awful. I mean, Egon looks more like Eugene Levy that Harold Ramis. (The “Earth-1”/EGB Ghostbusters are just modifications of the RGB designs, which I can just about draw in my sleep)
The splash picture of the fan fic has a slightly different version of the artwork, with the two split-dimension Ghostbusters being colored photonegative. I though that fit the nature of the chapter–basically, a summary of “Gemini Rising” to either get readers up to speed or refresh their memories without rereading the entire saga. (Though awesome if you do, of course)
The Real Ghostbusters 2024: The Sign Of The Twins, Part Three
June 20, 2024–Timeline Year Forty-Two
As Eric, Marie, and TJ go on a bust, John has a meeting with the Dean of the Sons of Ether, a man who seems to have some surprsing knowledge of John’s situation with the mysterious Children of Zodiac.
Yeah, I know…I wrote an actual ghost bust into a story?! And one I had a blast writing, to be honest.
Larger version of the splash picture in mock-cover format:
https://www.deviantart.com/ectozone/art/RGB-2024-Sign-of-the-Twins-Part-3-1141209442
The Real Ghostbusters 2024: The Sign Of The Twins, Part Four
June 20, 2024–Timeline Year Forty-Two
John Spengler reels from what Enrico Amore has told him–and the questions that are still unanswered. Meanwhile, what has got Slimer so completely freaked out?
The Real Ghostbusters 2024: The Sign Of The Twins, Part Five
June 20, 2024–Timeline Year Forty-Two
A day they’d feared has arrived–the Herald of Gozer has returned. Driven by her own tragedies and trauma, the Lady of the Steady Waters moves ahead with her own agenda, and there is no way that’s good news for the Ghostbusters. Especially not the possible Child of Zodiac, John Spengler–or those dear to him.
Sorry this one took so long–I had really intended to get it out in April, as the previous few chapters had made it out about two months apart, but I kept finding myself questioning the direction of the story, and how to get where I was wanting to go. So it took some time to hash all of this out in my head, and I think I’m pretty sure where I’m going now.
Tales From the Ectozone: Monsters
Late 2022–Timeline Year Fourty
A Ghostbusters team in Paris recently met a werewolf. Back in New York, the Ghostbusters met a mummy with a terrible sense of humor, a zombie, and a magical cat. A mysterious meeting occurs somewhere in England, suggesting that these events may be related…
It’s not a chapter of “Sign of the Twins”, but it does give us a look at some of the antagonists of that story.
Couple related pictures:
Larger version of the Monsters splash picture as a mock cover.
Count Levant again done as a mock cover variant.
Pardon my language, but…
Folks, there’s some dumb bullshit going on at the Ectozone board with ■■■■■■■ AI spiders and shit basically screwing up the message board by descending on it in droves and causing “too many connection” problems. You may have noticed.
Until I get a better handle on it, I’m just gonna tell you to go to the forum URL ending in a BB3 and delete the “3”. I’ll let you know when things will work “normal” again.
The Real Ghostbusters 2024: The Sign Of The Twins, Part Six
June 20, 2024–Timeline Year Forty-Two
The Herald of Gozer strikes at the Spengler Institute! And she has a very specific target in mind…
As usual, a larger version of the splash picture of Part 6 done as a mock cover.
https://www.deviantart.com/ectozone/art/The-Sign-of-the-Twins-Part-Six-1255194375
As a bonus, since I covered so much of the drawing in black for the final version, I’ve added a black and white version of the original drawing, post “inking”* but before any color, shading, or other Gimp effects were added.
*–I draw almost everything in pencil, scan it, then “ink” it by using exposure and threshold to turn it into a pure black and white drawing.
There seem to be some problems going in with Lycos, the company I lease the Ectozone.com domain from; even their own website seems to be down.
Just a reminder, then, if the Ectozone.com urls don’t work for you, use Ectozone.net instead. That domain is leased from the same company that hosts the site, so if the site’s up and working that url should be too.
AS of today, after almost a week, Ectozone.com seems to be working again. But keep Ectozone.net in mind if this happens again.
I’m having two familiar problems at the same time:
The ectozone.com domain is not going through. I can’t even log into the site I lease it from; I’ve sent a trouble ticket, but who knows whether that will do anything. Just a reminder: Ectozone.net goes to the same site, and it’s leased from the actual web host, so it should work.
The message board was overrun with AI spiders again, leading to slowdowns and “Too Many Connection” errors. I moved it to the same url I did last time this happened; basically the message board url, just delete the 3 in the phpBB3
The Real Ghostbusters 2024: The Sign Of The Twins, Part Seven
June 20, 2024–Timeline Year Forty-Two
The race is on! The Herald of Gozer has kidnapped Eden Spengler, and there’s no chance it’s for anything good! Will the Ghostbusters find Eden before it’s too late?!
Sorry about the wait on this one. A medical situation and a period of involvement with other interests kept me from finishing this one on anything close to the schedule I wanted to.