Spook Central 30th Anniversary with Exclusive Merchandise!

August 2026 marks 30 years since the creation of Spook Central, which is now the longest-running, still-active Ghostbusters website on the entire Internet... and parts of France. To commemorate the occasion, some exclusive merchandise is now available. Read on to learn more...

This article is being posted a few weeks later than planned, due to personal health issues and delays with the horrible coin company. At least it's still being posted in August. So, YAY!

I should probably open with some kind of personal recollection or something poignant, but honestly, I don't even know how many people will even read this. Over the past five years, whenever I've met fellow fans at events, after I introduce myself, or they notice my Spook Central shirt, they usually say to me, "I used to visit Spook Central when I was a kid." Two thoughts immediately pop into my head. (1) "Gee, thanks for making me feel old." and (2) "What do you mean 'used to'?" Spook Central may have moved around a lot in those first five years, but for the past almost 25 years, it's been at the same place*, thanks to the kindness of Raffaele Ruffaldi. (* Raffaele originally put Spook Central on his ecto-web.org domain in 2003 or 2004, then moved it to his theraffon.net domain in late 2010, but it could always - and still - be accessed at spookcentral.tk for the near entirety of the past quarter century, and now can be found directly at spook-central.com.)

More egregiously, I recently found out about a Ghostbusters podcast using the Spook Central name. When I approached the host about it, he told me that he never even heard of my Spook Central. How can you be part of an online fandom and not know of a website that's been around for three decades in that same fandom?!?

This has really made me feel like a forgotten member of the Ghostbusters Online Community (trademark still pending). I don't know why. Maybe it's because I show my love of Ghostbusters from behind a computer instead of in front of a camera or by dressing up, like so many others do. I hope that's not the reason. All members in a fandom should be equal to each other, no matter how they choose to participate in the fandom. In any case, I'm still here, and I'm still keeping Spook Central going, even if the content is split between a reference library, a blog, a Patreon page, a non-Ghostbusters subsite ("The Corner Penthouse" of Spook Central), and a Shop.

I don't know how many more of these milestones I will achieve, and since this will, quite likely, be the last one I will commemorate, I felt that I should do something really special to honor the occasion. Back in 2011, I marked the 15th anniversary with a patch. For this tricennial anniversary, I felt that I should take it one step further.

I commissioned world-renowned fan-favorite artist Dan Schoening to draw an exclusive 30th Anniversary rendition of Slimer, Spook Central's "mascot" since nearly the beginning. (Don't tell Eleanor Twitty, the site's first cover model.) This beautiful little spud adorns the front of the Spook Central 30th Anniversary Commemorative Coin, first revealed this past Ghostbusters Day. This 2" metal coin features a subtle glow-in-the-dark effect on both Slimer and "Spook Central", giving the coin an extra spooky appearance! This beautiful trinket is LIMITED TO A TOTAL PRODUCTION RUN OF 102 COINS. No more will ever be made because I will not deal with the horrible coin company ever again. Once they sell out, they will be gone for good.


Click on the image above to order one in the Spook Central Shop for $20 plus shipping and processing. I'm using a "one size fits all" shipping table (based on total price) for U.S. and International territories. I don't usually ship outside the U.S., but I wanted to make sure that everyone who wants a coin would be able to get one. Note that orders and pre-orders are non-refundable and non-cancelable.  Orders will ship in batches, generally every two weeks, starting mid-September.  If all sell out before then, they will ship sooner.

With the coin, you will receive one, two, or three free Ghostbusters Afterlife and/or Frozen Empire 11"x17" mini-posters; as shown below. The posters will be given while supplies last. The majority of orders will be given all three posters, but as the poster quantities diminish, two posters will be given, then one poster, and finally none.  The coin will not be sold without the posters as I'm using the 100 flat rigid mailers I had already purchased for the posters to also mail the coins. Plus I have all of these posters to give away :-)


Eligible* Spook Central VIPs will get one coin (no posters) in December as the final Spook Central Holiday Gift. I have to end that benefit after this year due to Patreon changing their billing practices.
(* To be eligible, you need to have been a VIP from this past January 1st (or earlier) through December 1st of this year.)

If coins aren't your thing, I have added the "Spook Central 30th Anniversary" design to my TeePublic store. This allows you to get it on a t-shirt...


...a magnet...


... a sticker...


...or many other products: socks, shorts, fanny pack, ball cap, phone case, pin/button/badge, tote bag, coffee mug, and pillow. Hopefully you'll find something to your liking.

I'll wrap this up by saying THANK YOU. Thank you to all of the friends I've met over the past 30 years from working on Spook Central. The late, great Doreen Mulman and her Ghostbusters Fan Forum bestie (and my closest friend) Nora Salisbury. The Italian Stallion Raffaele Ruffaldi, who along with Doreen and Nora, is one of my few online friends that I've actually had the honor of meeting in real life. Matt Jordan and Michael Tanaka from the Ghostbusters Wiki, two like-minded individuals who have delved in the minutia of Ghostbusters far greater that I ever have, or wanted to, on Spook Central. Thank you to Bill Emkow, AJ Quick, Troy Benjamin, Chris Stewart, Adrian Adams, Sheila Paulson, Jason Fitzsimmons, and anyone else I may be forgetting, who was there from the beginning (or close to it), back when being an "online community" meant exchanging links and having a "webring" on each of our websites that would connect us to each other. Finally, thank you to everyone reading this. Whether this is your first visit to Spook Central, or you've been here for every step of the journey, I appreciate that you're here. I hope you've found something on Spook Central that has made it beneficial to you, and that you come back again. See you on the other side.