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A totally valid YF comic setup – a ghoulie-huntin’ set of girl / boy scouts rooting out the cause of said ghoulies on their town – that unfortunately doesn’t make the most positive impression due to a lack of polish from its creators.

But let’s speak to some of the pluses, first.  First and foremost, although the Goonies-type setup is essentially cliche, writer Steve Bryant dribbles Ghoul Scouts with some beyond-the-call mythology-building stuff that shows some promise, even if it wasn’t worked into the narrative too effectively.  Secondly, I appreciated that we had a mixed gender cast that wasn’t evenly split (it’s three guys, two girls) and that the story doesn’t even come close to try and pair couples off.  There’s way too much assumptive “you should like someone on your group” writing in all forms of media, for all age groups, that directly and indirectly enforces societal “norms” we would otherwise claim to want to discourage, so I appreciate that this was really just about same-age people with the same goals teaming up.  Along these lines, the script and artist Mark Stegbauer represent males and females and a mixed race cast without pandering to any.  There are no girl power glory shots, or any dunderheaded attempts at mixing in cultural “style.”  Again: Just kids, same place, same time.  While culture definitely has its place in our media landscape, especially during these times when we’re growing more aware of our inherent biases, one method of representing diversity is simply by normalizing it: Here’s your cast, and they happen to be mixed, and it doesn’t affect the story at all.  I think especially for kids this can he a positive symbol.  (But I do want to underline that Im not suggesting this is the sole way to approach this, or even always a good way, as, mis-used, it can equate to the same ignorance.  But it’s done well in Ghoul Scouts.)

And all of this socially aware stuff aside, as our story deals with a zombie invasion, there’s a really smart bit where all of the kids must that all of their previous problems will still exist once this particular problem is resolved.  This is shifted into a pat “so life’s not so bad” conclusion, but the very notion that this very mature concept finds its place in the story shows that Bryant has good intentions and that there is some thought behind GS.

…Unfortunately this doesn’t elsewise come across.  The story picks up and goes without much concern for establishing character or setting.  Those can be high level in youth fiction, but we really just come across with a cast of generic “good” kids on a generic town fighting a generic (and non-threatening) evil.  And those mythology details are so shoe-horned in that it feels like two separate plots.  Stegbauer’s art doesn’t add much life.  His character work is acceptable (though he struggles with placement during action sequences), but his backgrounds leave a lot to be desired,  to the extent where splash colors might’ve been more effective.  Buildings, set pieces: They feel like rushed concepts.  This is part of the overall lack of grounding the book suffers from.

And then there are the odd details, like how all the zombies are males, that Claudia carries a baseball bat with a shoulder strap (is that a real thing?), or that there’s really not much explanation as to where EVERYONE has gone (e.g. all the adults save one…), except maybe an offhand “zombies chased ’em off” comment.

Ghoul Scouts definitely is a sincere effort, but it’s an amateur one.  These creators have skills, so by all means I hope they continue to hone them, just as I hope GS gets time to act as a home to show off these skills, as it has promise bubbling ‘neath its surface.