Mike Ploog is the Drew Struzan of Ghostbusters. There, I said it. Imho, GB needed an illustrated movie poster, and Mike Ploog almost delivered us one. It’s a bummer that Columbia didn’t utilize Mr. Ploog’s art way more over the years. In any capacity, really. Especially as a proper theatrical one sheet poster.
Mike started out as an artist for another group of ghost catchers, doing layouts on the 1969 pilot episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?! As his career progressed, he shifted from animation to magazine illustration and comic art, working on Heavy Metal Magazine and co-creating Ghost Rider for Marvel Comics in the 70s.
After starting film work, Mike illustrated for animator Ralph Bakshi on Wizards and his Lord of the Rings adaptation. He was a concept and storyboard artist for Superman 2, Carpenter’s The Thing, and Henson’s The Dark Crystal.
In 1980, Ploog joined the production of Ivan Reitman’s Heavy Metal animated film, working alongside other Ghostbusters artists like John Bruno, Terry Wendell, Brent Boates, Michael Gross and producer Joe Medjuck.
Fast-forward to 1984, Ploog was brought in my Michael Gross during post-production of Ghostbusters to generate promotional artwork for the film. The art was used in a wide variety of products and merch, from puzzle games to calendars, magazine articles to static window clings. Considering the vasty array of uses, nice printed examples are often hard to find for collectors.
I’m curious if the illustration was ever presented to RGA for potential use as a one-sheet. Here’s a mockup of a UK Quad-sized poster I worked up.
Several examples of Mike Ploog’s original Ghostbusters pencil illustrations were consigned to Heritage Auctions, including an unused background! I wanted to see how it would look mocked up as a poster.
