Back To The Future: Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines by Bob Gale, John Barber, Erik Burnham

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a graphic novel, created by Bob Gale, John Barber, Erik Burnham. Gale co-wrote the Back to the Future movie (and the two sequels) with director Robert Zemeckis, and he also produced the movies. Barber is a webcomic writer and artist with whom I am not familiar. Erik Burnham is a writer who's been associated with Ghostbusters and TMNT comic book, including this one that I favorably reviewed back in February 2015, even though I am not a TMNT fan.

This collaboration worked well. The book is filled with issues one through five of the individual comics, offering a handful of short stories linked by a narration from Doc as he modifies the steam engine which he will convert into another time-travel machine. We get to see how Marty and Doc first met, how Doc became involved in the Manhattan Project, how Marty had to deal with yet another school bully in his own school when he was younger, how his parents came very close to breaking up after Marty had gone back to the future, and so on.

The dialog is just like the movie, and Doc Brown and Marty come off exactly like they did in the movie. The artwork is excellent and very colorful. The stories are entertaining, funny and well done, and the overall graphic novel is wonderful. I recommend this one.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ghostbusters by Erik Burnham

Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ghostbusters
Author: Erik Burnham
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Rating: WORTHY!

Very ably illustrated by Dan Schoening

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

I have to say up front that I'm not a TMNT fan and neither am I a Ghostbusters fan, but this comic seemed like such a bizarre mix of characters that I couldn't help but want to take a look at it. As it happened, I thought it was just fine. It was beautifully drawn and colored, and the dialog wasn't bad at all. The adventure was fun and sensible (within its framework) and it was an all-around great comic. Added bonus - although women are way under-represented in both of these franchises, the women depicted here actually looked like real women (within the confines of graphic novel illustration!). There were no ridiculous body proportions, so that was welcome.

The Turtles are being experimented on once again as a new teleportation device is being tested. They think they're going to pay a surprise visit to their mentor, but end up in a parallel New York City - home of the Ghostbusters, and inevitably, the two teams encounter each other, both tracking down the same phenomenon.

It was actually quite fun to see how they interacted and got along (or didn't initially) and how they eventually realized they had a common enemy and began discovering ways to work together to bring this foe to book. The antique Japanese foe wasn't exactly very threatening as it happened. It felt like he was there more as a place-holder to allow the two teams to bond rather than that he was actually capable of any serious villainy, and the banter could have been funnier. I saw the original Ghostbusters movie (last Halloween actually at a dinner movie theater, and Venkman was way more amusing there than he was here. of course, it was Bill Murray.

Of course the villain is dispatched and the good guys triumph, and the Turtles are returned to their own dimension. None of that was ever in doubt, so the only question here was how well it was delivered, and it wasn't brilliant but it was, in my opinion well done and a worthy read.