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PTF Reviews Break-up Blues

Started by PTF, April 08, 2016, 12:22:57 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

PTF

 Love is such a wonderful thing—until the woman you love betrays you for your best friend, ruining years of friendship, burning a bridge that can never be repaired. Man, I'm going to miss watching NFL Games on that 70 in HD TV come Fall...

A misunderstanding has lead to the break-up of Riverdale's most true couple, Moose and Midge. Can Archie, Betty, and friends find a way to bring these two back together or drive them further apart.




The Good:

Moose and Midge: I really like when they get the focus of the story put on them without Betty going on and on about the message of the few pages. And the break-up is logical. Midge wanted to test her love while Moose didn't see  a need to; Midge wanted to hear the words steady, while Moose was of the mindset that he didn't have to say the words. These two hardly ever get any focus in the Archieverse so it was fun to have a story that centered around them. Both are likeable and well written. You don't really take a side because both had reasonable arguments and both are equally stubborn and prideful. You get backstory on how they fell in love and for how long. I understand they're not Archie or in the main cast, but if they had gotten more page time this would have been a much better story for it.

Good character moments from Archie and the gang. Yeah, they're normally boring and most of the fun characters (Veronica, Jughead, Reggie) don't get much page time like they should but you do have some good moments. Jughead relating how missing out on food is like feeling like it's a part of life you just missed, Veronica gets few pages, but she's super fun in them. Reggie is a cowardly rogue, Archie is clumsy and it factors into the story. My favorite would be the end in the dance club with Betty becoming jealous of Veronica and frustrated by her antics. Too bad most of the story is just Betty being boring and Archie following along.

Tod Smith: I like his art for the most part. Again the characters look like teenagers. I like how he draws Reggie. And I like some of the over exaggerated poses of Betty because—it's the few things I found interesting about her in this story. The body language for each character is spot on as Veronica just demands your attention while Jughead is slumped over. I really like how he draws Moose, almost like Frankenstein's monster. There is one problem: His Archie is kind of weird at points. But luckily Archie is normally with Betty so it's nice to be interested in something. Yes, Betty bores me this much in this story I'll take what I can get to find interesting moments.


The messages. I don't have a problem with stories giving a message. I think every story should have some lesson it was to convey. My problem is when you are beating the reader over and over and explaining it to them word by word without letting them put in the cognitive thought process on their own. And there are some good messages. Like sometimes you need to back off and let your friends work out their problems themselves. That's a good message. It's just that most messages in the New Look are teaching you a lesson instead of entertaining you. And, I got to be honest, I was used to Webb stories where Veronica is evil and Betty is super duper nice—it was nice where Veronica actually had the right idea compared to leave things be and let what happens happen. It was rare at the time.

Betty's cussing and overreactions. Seriously, she cussed in this?! I mean, it's censored but—at least it's funny to think of. And Betty's Home Alone pose when trouble happens or things backfire was funny. Seriously, if I was Tod Smith, and reading this script, I'd do stuff like this to have some fun when it comes to Betty in this story.


The Bad:

Betty: Exposition, exposition, tell the message, have no personalitttty...! That's her purpose in the story. She gives information on backstory, how long something has happened, we get to see what she is thinking and her thoughts. And for most of the story—yeah, she's as boring as you'd expect. And there's so much unnecessary information like how she worries about here feelings, or thinking something—and then a character tells the information. An example would be Rocco and the South side kids with her thining who they are and then Dilton and Jughead telling. And again it's the same problem of with Bad Boy Trouble—she's not involved in the crisis of the story, Moose and Midge is. Where we could have more focus on those two, we have Betty telling us what's going on and how we should feel.

The Writing. Just like Bad Boy Trouble you have really the same problem of this originally being a novel and it shows. It's unnecessarily wordy and the pacing can be just plain slow. And again it just beats you over the head with their messages that you just want to scream at points. And some of the dialogue—wow. We got some groan worthy stuff. And there's a point where Midge goes home, and the next page Midge's mother lectures Archie and Betty—how did Midge go over everything so fast?! She had to be in the house only ten seconds top! I mean I don't want to constantly harp on Melanie because she does some good things. Like Moose and Midge. When they get the focus or in the story it's really good. But key elements of the story are just not focused on. And I don't even know why Jughead was in this story at all. He serves no point and annoyed me all but once.

Characters that just exist. The Turner Twins are there to snitch about Midge's date with Reggie and then at the end...actually they didn't even need to be mentioned at all. Judy Johnson, whom Moose dates for a time, we don't really get much from her other than the standard boring new girl who a character falls for like you would in Save by the Bell. I guess I appreciate that she seemed really nice, but she's forgettable all the same.

Midge's hair: Okay, she has black hair on the cover, kinda redish purple, and brown...c'mon, we can do better than that! Stick with a hair color. I mean the rest of the coloring is fine, but this kind of thing is just inexcusable.



What I learned from reading this:

The Turner Twins are snitches.
  • Rocco from the South Side, while a punk, has a pretty good memory as he remembers Archie from over a month ago.
  • You can beat up whomever you want how badly...as long as it's in the boxing ring of the Riverdale Community Center
  • Betty knows a cuss word
  • Moose and Midge are the third best dancers in all of Riverdale with no practice together!
  • No empty seats, sit on a lap!
 
How to get your two friends back together? Fake a leg cramp and act like you need rescuing.
 
C'mon, Midge—you and Moose WERE ON A BREAK!!!
 
When a woman dates another guy not her boyfriend; she's experimenting.
 
Detention Room Romance is the number one rom-com that all women subject their men to. Multiple times.
 
This is weird because when Moose and Midge are in the story, I really, really like it. It's fun, energetic. But then you have the parts where they're not and most of them are boring because Betty is the relation point for the reader to convey information...and she's so boring for the most part. But again, I consider art more important than writing (Sorry, Stan Lee). I liked the last New Series story because of how bad it's funny Nick St. Clair was but Moose and Midge were actually fun and relatable characters. I'll go B-
So we're at least improving when it comes to the New Look stories. So how bad can MatchMakers possibly be?



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