While I stumbled upon Cobweb and Stripes first, shortly after I found another Beetlejuice comic simply titled "The Ghost with the Most." This comic is written and drawn by Blooeyedspazz. Lovely name. At least your parents were original. Yes, that is a terrible joke. Looking at her Facebook she is really into liberal things (if that's your thing ... I'm not into politics), art, and she's ... she's from Vermont!? Oh, no! She's from the upside down state! I'm from New Hampshire, we say that all the time. Just a joke. Actually, it's not. I live only 15 miles from the Vermont border and once you go into there, it's like bizarro world, man. Another New Hampshire joke. I have more, but you're not here for that.
Before I start the review; two things - 1. I will show some images from the comic, but unlike Cobweb and Stripes, I do not personally know the artist, so I couldn't get a hold of her. I looked at her Deviantart page and found no email address. Hopefully she won't mind, but the way I look at it, it's free advertising. If she does have a problem with it, then I'll take it down. No biggie.
2. I'm not sure whether I'm going to give you a complete overview of every chapter or just a little bit. I've done both with my reviews of Cobweb and Stripes, because sometimes it's really hard not to talk about the whole thing while critiquing it. We'll see how it goes.
Overview:
Prologue
Much like Cobweb and Stripes, this comic also follows the cartoon canon. We start off with Lydia at the mirror, reciting the favorite line that starts with, "Though I know I should be wary ..." The master of scare-a-monies, the Beetlemeister, shows up and wants a rematch of Hide and Go Shriek. Lydia says, "You're on!" and ... we don't get to see it. ... Okay. Fine. I guess we didn't have enough time for that, because it's montage time! We see Lydia asking Beej to promise her that he'll always be there for her. Beetlejuice says, he's stuck to her like glue. Lydia says she loves him and Beetlejuice says ... he loves her too. Huh. Was thinking he would be like, "Blech! Love?!" or something he would say from the cartoon, but okay, okay. This is an adaption after all.
Then we get to some touchy-feely material. They're having ice cream and Beetlejuice asks if she wants to get some tomorrow. Lyds says, no. She is super busy. To which Beetlejuice says sadly, "Okay." This next part, I need to remember, it's an adaption. It's an adaption. Remember. Remember! Okay. I'll let the strip explain it better.
I'll save what I think of this part for my review, so keep note of this particular piece.
We start off at BJ's Roadhouse in the Neitherworld. Ginger, Jacques, and the Monster Across the Street (who for now on, I'm just going to refer to as Monster, because I'm not typing that all out every time) show up, because Beetlejuice isn't acting like himself. Oh, so they also read the fan fictions where people completely butchered the Beetlejuice character! -clear throat- Moving on. To be fair, I actually did like this page, because the artist really does a fantastic job with the characters and I can picture them saying stuff like this. Very good. Anyway, Beej tells them to scram. Ginger asks why can't he just go see her? To which I'm assuming it's Jacques that says, it's only her who can call him.
An unspecified amount of time passes by. We get a funny couple pages where Beetlejuice wakes up and says he won't brush his teeth. He then asks why a dead guy like him still grows hair. Astute question, if I do say so myself. He questions how long it's been. Seems like forever. He doesn't remember the last time he pulled a prank. The last time he played some armpit music or ... -cue the dun dun dun- he ate a beetle. He then looks at a picture of himself and Lydia dressed up, holding hands (yep, you're doing this right from the get-go, aren't you?) Then says, "Friends forever ... my ass!" In a fit of fury, he zaps the picture, rendering it to just a singe mark. And then ... he wallows in self-pity. Okie-dokie. That was a quick relapse.
Until ...
"Though I know I should be wary ..."
It's her!
"Still I venture someplace scary."
She's calling him!
"Ghostly hauntings I turn loose."
Time to turn on the juice and see what shakes loose!
"Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!"
The portal in the mirror opens and Beetlejuice goes right into it like it's headless topless night at Dante's (their aim is a little off, so Beej can get away with some stuff). Beetlejuice comes flying out of the mirror and butts heads with the caller. He is so excited to see Ly --- Wait. It's not her. He drops her to the ground. Smooooooth. He questions where they are. That this isn't her old house in Peaceful Pines and who the hell she is. After she demands an apology for dropping her like that and to which Beej does a half ass apology, she reveals her identity. She is Lucy Stout ... went to school with a Stout. He was a dick. I kid, I kid. He won't read this, but if he did, it would be funny. Anyway, she is Lydia's daughter. What?! But her last name is Stout and Beetlejuice is bummed Lydia is married. Oh, no! Another one of those fan fictions where they can't just let them be friends! -Cue temper tantrum-, because it's unoriginal and everyone does it! Gah! Calm down. -Says through gritted teeth- it's an adaption. Beetlejuice asks how old Lucy is and she says, she's almost 20. Beej is bummed out (again) that it's almost been 30 years. Damn. He asks where her mother is and she says she's in the living room, and zoom! There he goes.
We then cut to Lucy finding Lydia's diary. It's not specified whether this was before or after she called Beetlejuice. I assume before, because that's probably how she found out about Beetlejuice's "calling card."
We now go to Lydia - 30 years later. She is singing "Day-O", moving boxes around, until Beetlejuice finds her, and she is surprised to see him.
And we end on a cliffhanger.
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My review:
Before I start my review, let me bring up two things: remember that part where I said, keep this in mind? The one where Beetlejuice was emotional? K. Now, let's also take that temper tantrum part. The latter was part actual opinion/part humor. If people who have read my Cobweb and Stripes reviews (and there are people who do. My last reviews for Chapter 7 & 8 brought in over 100 hits. So take that, you lousy doubters!) they know I knit-pick about the whole them always getting together. Cobweb readers don't necessarily agree with my views, but they're mature about it. So, that part was for them. I wasn't trying to insult the artist or anything. It's just it does get tiring to see the same old fan fiction of them getting together. My main issue with that is out of all the fan fictions I've read where they get together, the Beetlejuice character turns into a whiny little emo, and that's not how Beetlejuice should be portrayed. I'm sorry, but it's not. There is such thing as keeping it close to the source material, because it isn't your character.
However, if they keep Beetlejuice, well, Beetlejuice, then fine. He's still the ghost with the most, he's still the dirty, foul-mouthed goul that I feel in love with (not THAT type of love) when I first saw him in the movie. As long as they keep his character, fine. It's when they do a complete contrast is when I roll my eyes and never bother reading any more. But this comic doesn't do that. Yes, Beetlejuice wallows in most of this, but I remember episodes of the cartoon where he did the same thing. The episode where Lydia is sucked into Beetlejuice's mind is a great example of Beetlejuice actually showing emotion and this isn't that far off from that episode.
Also, considering they were great friends, thirty years without any contact or why she cut off contact would drive someone, even the likes of Beetlejuice, to the brink of depression. Here it's understandable. That's why it get's a pass. Just wanted to explain that, so in case the artist reads this or fans of the comic they won't think I was actually bashing it. It was more of a live read to put suspense that, "He may not like it." I didn't mind.
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The Good
- Lucy. She is definitely someone I would love to hang out with. She's gothy or alternative - I think is a term you can use? I mean, Suicide Girls are referred to as Alternative Models, so why not? I guess. She's like Lydia, but has a razors edge to her attitude and to me, that's awesome. She's also cute, which I don't know if that's weird to say considering she's a comic book character. I mean, people think Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Emma Frost are hot. I think I can get away with saying I think Lucy is cute. Why am I so interested in defending that?
- The whole thirty years without contact blew my mind. Wow. Well, I guess if they ever do a Beetlejuice sequel (which I guess they're not doing anymore, according to recent news) it would be thirty years since these two characters have seen each other. That causes intrigue. How much has changed in thirty years? Is Lydia different? Does she hate Beetlejuice? Who is she married to? What does she do for a living? Does she still have contact with the Maitlands? Is she a forty year old goth? Which I would still find attractive. I mean, if Harley Quinn was forty and was still wearing the gettup from Arkham Knight, I would still --- stop defending yourself. You think cartoon women are hot. Get over it.
- The part with Monster, Ginger, and Jacques was excellently done. It was mind-blowing how acute to the characters the artist did this and like everything they said is something they would actually say in the cartoon. She gave all of them their own accents and the characters were flawless. Complete copies from the source material. Bravo!
- The art style was different. Definitely different from Cobweb and Stripes, which is fine. Everyone should have their own style. It was pretty good.
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Middle Ground:
However, Beetlejuice's character design though is quite different than what he normally looks like. He looks more like an anime character than anything else. I have mentioned before that Beetlejuice from Cobweb and Stripes looks like a cross between Beetlejuice and Bigby Wolf from the Fables series (or Wolf Among Us for gamers), but he still resembles Beetlejuice. The reason why this is in Middle Ground is, again, this is an adaption. Things are bound to be a bit different. But also, maybe I'll warm up to it eventually? We'll see. I did warm up to Cobweb Beetlejuice relatively quickly, so I could with this one.
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The Bad
I think the only bad thing I have to say about this chapter is Beetlejuice's bi-polar attitude. One panel it shows him blowing Lydia off (the "Best friends, my ass" part) and then the VERY NEXT panel he is back to being depressed. This only happened once, so I wouldn't really make it a huge X on the what's good, not good, but I figured it was worth mentioning.
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Final words:
Although this is much different from Cobweb and Stripes, it still kept my interest. What happened between Beetlejuice and Lydia and why she abandoned Beetlejuice raises questions. I would like to see Beetlejuice act more like himself and consistency with his emotions, but I have read ahead and it does get better. Much like C n S, I need to give the artist a chance to find her niche. Lucy seems like an interesting and fun character. We'll see what happens, but I'm still intrigued.
Until the Chapter 2 review, take care.
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Read more of my reviews as they became available.
---> Chapter 2 (coming soon)
Related Reading Material
Nice *Bleeping* Sequel! (A blog I wrote when news was running rampant about a Beetlejuice sequel)
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Check out more of BlooeyedSpazz (that's the artist of The Ghost with the Most) at these links:
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