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spirit

Original: spirit on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Transcript

Panel 1: A man stands looking surprised, no dialogue.

Panel 2: A ghost (a soul that has left the body) appears.
Ghost: I'M DEAD, BUT... I'M STILL HERE.

Panel 3: The ghost realizes its situation.
Ghost: I'VE BEEN HELD UP FOR A PURPOSE. I'VE COME BACK TO ME... I'M THE BUSDRIVER! THE BUSDRIVER?

Panel 4: The ghost recalls how it died.
Ghost: AND THAT MAN... HE WHACKED MY BUS AND TOOK ALL THE CHILDREN!

Panel 5: The ghost resolves to act.
Ghost: I CAN'T STOP HIM MYSELF. I'M A GHOST. BUT... AW! THAT'S IT! I'M HERE ON EARTH TO TELL THE POLICE TO WHISPER IN THEIR EARS! MAKE THEM KNOW! TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT!

Panel 6: The ghost urges itself onward.
Ghost: QUICKLY! WHILE THERE'S STILL TIME TO SAVE TH--

Panel 7: The ghost is suddenly captured/zapped, caught in a glowing energy beam (as if hit by a proton stream), arms splayed, surrounded by red light.

Panel 8: The captured ghost.

Panel 9: The ghost is bound/wrapped up with a glowing rope or stream, trapped.

Panel 10: A view of a containment unit / metal trap device.
Text (from off-panel/the trappers): GOT 'IM!

Panel 11: The Ghostbusters logo -- a ghost inside a red circle with a red slash through it.

Alt text

An eleven-panel SMBC comic. A startled man stands as a ghost rises from a body. The ghost narrates its realization: it is dead but still present, it was a bus driver whose bus was attacked by a man who took all the children, and it has returned to Earth as a ghost with a purpose -- to make the police know the truth and set things right. As the ghost cries 'Quickly! While there's still time to save th--', it is abruptly caught in a glowing red energy beam, splayed and helpless, then wrapped up and trapped. A containment device is shown and an off-panel voice says 'Got 'im!' The final panel is the Ghostbusters logo (a ghost in a red no-symbol). The joke: a well-meaning ghost trying to do justice gets busted by the Ghostbusters before it can help.

Votey: A hand-drawn line graph. The vertical y-axis is labeled 'unsolved murders' and the horizontal x-axis is labeled 'ghostbustings'. A straight diagonal line rises from the origin, showing that the more ghostbusting happens, the more unsolved murders there are -- implying the Ghostbusters keep capturing helpful ghost-witnesses before they can solve crimes.

Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.