My local Barnes & Noble has expanded their comics selection (as has your local B&N probably).  After turning up my nose at the Fearful Crisis of Infinite Crossovers from Marvel and DC, there, behind a dozen copies of some guy who’s taken over Veronica’s title, I pounced upon this issue of Betty.  The stylish, eye-catching cover design and breathtaking fashion centerfold were all it took to sway my purchase.

This issue featured the Spy Girlz, who appear to be a recurring favorite of writer and artist, Dan Parent.  The premise of Betty and Veronica as uncover crime fighters (sans masks, which would obscure the lovely countenances of our heroines) is a little sketchy, but entirely cute.  This is Part Two of a storyline, continued from last month’s Veronica (which I was unable to pick up), before some unknown guy took over her title.  (She must be furious.) 

I can sum up the action in this issue quickly: completely gonzo.  Dan obviously had a good time with this.  If one could define a “serious” Archie comic, this issue would have none of those traits.  I think the gang is flexible enough to accommodate pretty much any concept and this one proves it. 

The girls are trying to thwart the evil scheme of their arch-nemesis, Cheryl Blossom, and her sidekick, Ginger.  All of the ladies are decked out in full-body, skintight suits, so you know they’re super-characters.  Dilton and Veronica’s cuz, Marcy, are in full support.  Archie, minding his own business, somehow gets in the middle of the action as a hostage. 

The revelation of this issue for me was Ginger’s portrayal: vicious, vindictive, and slightly insane.  Someone else on the boards here pointed out the best line of the issue, with Ginger ranting, “Everyone thinks I don’t have a mind of my own!  Like I’m some sort of second rate Cheryl Blossom substitute!”  A nice in-gag referring to Cheryl’s re-imagined adventures as Ginger, in what had to have been an editorial decision right on par with some of DC and Marvel’s recent character decisions.  (In sneaking that joke through and the rest of the wackiness, I wonder if Dan somehow bypassed the editors and sent this directly to the printer.)   

I’d been asking for more personality in the Archie secondary characters and it showed up here.  Ginger even abducted Archie for a psychotic date at Pop’s.  Doesn’t sound like a bad evening to me, but Archie was pleased to be rescued.  I doubt Ginger will be this extreme in the future, but I hope she will be more assertive (and devious) in future appearances. 

Overall, I rate this issue of Betty to be a lot of fun.

Beyond the review, I noticed on the subscriptions page that Archie is offering the Life With Archie magazine, six digests, and eight comics.  Of those comics, three are Sonic and Mega Man, and Veronica seems to have lost her own title to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.  In spite of the floppy market finally opening up a bit (thanks to Hastings and B&N), this format is declining.  It doesn’t matter what Archie or other publishers do as long as Marvel and DC keep chasing away their customers with their eternal mega-crossovers and publicity stunts.  I’m not a publisher, but I have to make a suggestion: drop the comic book format. 

I think the Archie floppy titles could be replaced by two magazines.  Archie and Jughead magazine could feature one story with each of the guys and another story featuring the whole Archie gang, the Archies, Reggie, Little Archie, and so on.  Betty and Veronica magazine (whatever happened to the Veronica and Betty magazine that was announced?) could feature a story with the girls together, a solo story (alternating each month), and a story featuring Cheryl, Sabrina, Josie and the Pussycats, or Katy Keene. 

The stories with the alternate characters could be used as tests for potential digital-only series.  In any case, these magazines would need to have the same level of quality in art and stories as the Life series.  If you’re only publishing a couple titles, you can’t afford to have a weak selling one.

I was harsh?  I liked the issue.

There are already nice characters like Betty and Maria in the Archie gang.  You need some different personalities to contrast them to.  Maybe Ginger could be a little naughty.  It would help if she had better motivation than just an inferiority complex to Cheryl.

I haven't noticed an announcement that Jughead was ending, but I did notice that it wasn't offered in the subscriptions form.  I like the floppies too, but the market seems to be moving away from them.

 

Jughead is still being offered via subscription on the Archie website. But is is the lowest seller of the floppies and is certainly in danger of being the next title to go.

If they get rid of the Jughead title, I'll be very, very sad. 

I know!!   

Quote from: jcgreen on May 27, 2012, 07:33:17 PM

Jughead is still being offered via subscription on the Archie website. But is is the lowest seller of the floppies and is certainly in danger of being the next title to go.

I would go on strike!!! I would petition the government!! I would hold protest marches!!!!

You should organize hunger strikes throughout the country. The irony of this would attract media attention and certainly contribute to some humorous headlines.

Beyond the review, I noticed on the subscriptions page that Archie is offering the Life With Archie magazine, six digests, and eight comics.  Of those comics, three are Sonic and Mega Man, and Veronica seems to have lost her own title to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.  In spite of the floppy market finally opening up a bit (thanks to Hastings and B&N), this format is declining.  It doesn’t matter what Archie or other publishers do as long as Marvel and DC keep chasing away their customers with their eternal mega-crossovers and publicity stunts.  I’m not a publisher, but I have to make a suggestion: drop the comic book format.

I think the Archie floppy titles could be replaced by two magazines.  Archie and Jughead magazine could feature one story with each of the guys and another story featuring the whole Archie gang, the Archies, Reggie, Little Archie, and so on.  Betty and Veronica magazine (whatever happened to the Veronica and Betty magazine that was announced?) could feature a story with the girls together, a solo story (alternating each month), and a story featuring Cheryl, Sabrina, Josie and the Pussycats, or Katy Keene.

The stories with the alternate characters could be used as tests for potential digital-only series.  In any case, these magazines would need to have the same level of quality in art and stories as the Life series.  If you’re only publishing a couple titles, you can’t afford to have a weak selling one.

I think the "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" comic is one of their better selling floppies now.  If they didn't launch that it, probably would've been a loss of even more floppies total.  This was actually one of the smarter more cutting edge decisions they made recently I think.

I also think dumping the floppies for magazines is a terrible idea.  The magazine format I don't think can support multiple titles.  As you mention, they were planning to launch a second magazine, but they canceled it.  There are reasons for that, I'm assuming.

The Archie and Jughead Magazine idea I don't think would float personally, because I highly suspect the majority of the people picking up the other magazine are female, and a guy-centered magazine isn't going to fly as well.  This is why the proposed idea was a Veornica and Betty magazine.

What Marvel and DC does should probably be irrelevant to Archie gang, since the demographics are obviously wildly different on average.  Archie should be concentrating on ways to get more issues in different pipelines and making the floppies seem cool again to their core demos I guess.  I really don't think girls are resistant to reading things in print these days, just my opinion.  I don't see this an insurmountable task.

I don't know about that.  The Jughead With Archie Digest managed to run for 200 issues between 1974 and 2005.  Putting them together in a magazine might not be as bad as some would think.

The magazine format is just, I dunno, girlier than the digest format somehow.  They started out with like Hannah Montana, Justin Bieber, etc. in it before that was phased out like they were going for the teeny booper teen hearthrob magazine market.  So it sort of tapped into a market that was already there on some level.  I don't really recall boys buying magaiznes like that.  I mean you have videogame magazines, Fangoria, etc., but those are very specific.  I could see something like a Jughead/Archie magazine flopping.  They would really need to troubleshoot how to get that to appeal to boys if it really isn't going to be a girl-centered title.

The digest format, on the other hand, has always had this weird niche it fits into along side crossword puzzle books and other stuff at the checkout counter.  I don't know if it's the greatest comparison to make.  There should be a case study to explain how Archie moved into this area and dominated this market, because it's definitely why they survived to modern day as a company.

To be perfectly honest, as much as I do like the Kevin Keller floppy, they should not have eliminated the Veronica title to make it happen.  If anything, they should have had Archie, Jughead, Betty, and Veronica keep their own titles, and had Kevin Keller replace the redundant Archie & Friends title.

I'm pretty sure they were going to cancel Veronica anyways.  It may have already been in the cards, so using her to launch Kevin was actually a smart idea I think.  I suspect Kevin's readership is very female too, so using Veronica was probably the best way to go about it.  Veronica is my favorite Archie gang character, but I don't see the point of being resentful about how this played out.  It's like being mad at Frasier for Cheers being canceled or something.  I don't think there's a point to blaming it on Kevin.

Of course, one could also argue that with Betty and Veronica having their solo titles that the Betty & Veronica comic should disappear...but since it's on the high end for sales, I doubt that will happen.

People just like reading them together better.  Honestly, I agree with them.  I  like the comics most where it's just them in the plotlines together best.  They're far more entertaining due to the contrasting personalities, etc.

The way I've heard it, Archie Comics actually helped pioneer the checkout stand, small magazine format.  I've also heard that the reason the digests are still there is only because of that.  Otherwise, they'd be bounced for low sales (comparatively). 

They don't sell Archie digests anymore on those stands where I live.  They only carry the floppies at Barnes & Noble (and I'm not even sure about that at the moment).  My magazine suggestion was basically for the purpose of getting the material into a standard, easy to display, widely distributed format.  They could be displayed with the other kid's magazines (and cause some embarrassment to older people looking at them).   

I love floppies too, but price, content, and availability-wise, they're just not viable anymore.  Digests would be great, except that the content, new and reprint, mostly tends to be crap (sorry to everyone I'm offending, nothing personal).