Ghostbusters, Volume 7: Happy Horror Days! by Erik Burnham has an end of the year holiday theme Ñ roughly speaking, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year's. But it's a more interesting take on all three of these times than the typical holiday themed book. The traditions drawn from are regional, culturally based, and thankfully non-derivative.

The Halloween, or more broadly, late October, early November, holiday section is comprised of two stories. The first happens on Devil's Night (October 30th) and the usual pranking is taken up a notch by the arrival of a malicious ghost named Stinky Jack. The second event comes during Día de los Muertos, an offers a chance for the Ghostbusters to contemplate whether or not all ghosts need to be "busted" even as an obviously malicious entity is trying to pervert a family event to its own devious purposes.

The next two, roughly Christmas and New Years looks to the winter traditions and the ways in which "Santa Claus" has lost a lot of his sting over the generations. Here there is a return of Sinterklass who is more vengeance demon than rolly, polly, jolly old man.

After two volumes that were very character centered, Happy Horror Days was a welcome departure. These events are more typical Ghostbuster adventures (like from the Real Ghostbusters series). ( )