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Merry Martian arrives!

Started by Cosmo, July 19, 2016, 11:27:33 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Cosmo

Well.....nice to be here and see what fellow Archie comics enthusiasts are  finding interesting. I'm a collector of all Golden Age and Silver Age Archie titles. Anyone here have more than a passing interest in Suzie, Ginger, Wilbur, Super Duck, Sam Hill, Cosmo and any of the other classic titles as well as Archie and the gang? I started out as a "type" collector a and wanted one copy of each different Archie Comics titles. Kept finding titles I enjoyed and expanded to filling in runs of the titles.

I have a lot of esoteric titles and interests in the Archie world, but I'm not sure this forum would find it all that interesting if the focus is geared more to current and recent issues. Just wanted to drop in and at least say hello.

60sBettyandReggie

Hello :)
I like Ginger and Wilbur, although I have only read a few issues.

Cosmo

Ginger was a great comic....mostly under appreciated until recently, but increasingly a hot ticket item in the last couple of years. While Archie books all had the Mirth of the Nation blurb, Ginger always had Sweetheart of the Nation in the same format. Its almost unsettling how Ginger looks more than a bit like a female version of Archie, but it works. Ginger had only 10 issues of her own book, but they are all pretty classic. Too bad her and Archie didn't meet....would have been an interesting side by side comparison of the two redheads.

Wilbur is a classic as well with a very long run and the transformation into that Wilkins Boy. Its a highly enjoyable body of work!

Archiecomicxfan215

Does That Wilkin Boy count? I enjoy those stories and its a treat when I see them in the double digests  :smitten:

DeCarlo Rules

#4
Ginger was around (beginning with ZIP COMICS #35) for years before getting her own comic, but those early stories just can't compare to the 10-issue run (particularly as drawn by Harry Lucey) in her own comic... and with SAM HILL, Lucey proved how versatile and adaptable he was to any genre of comics.

The old Wilbur was pretty bland, too. That is, until he received a makeover by Frank Doyle and Dan DeCarlo in 1958, in "The New" WILBUR #80. Those stories are great! The New Wilbur actually has more in common with JOSIE than it does with THAT WILKIN BOY. Alec from WILBUR is practically a trial run for JOSIE's Alexander Cabot. About the only thing they kept from WILBUR in THAT WILKIN BOY was the name Wilkin and the running joke about how Mr. Wilkin hates to be called "Wilkins". But I do love me some THAT WILKIN BOY (and the MADHOUSE GLADS).

I'm still a little underwhelmed by most of the SUZIE stories I've read. Maybe they just haven't picked the best ones to reprint?

COSMO THE MERRY MARTIAN was terrific, as written and drawn by his creator, Bob White, one of the most underrated creators working at Archie Comics in the late 1950s and 1960s.

I can take SUPER DUCK in small doses, as long as they pick the best ones to reprint... but Al Fagaly is no Carl Barks.

I love reading all the Golden Age MLJ superheroes at the Digital Comics Museum, and have been slowly downloading them and sorting them by character into my own little digital "Archives" collection. However, I have almost no interest in the humor stories from that era. Maybe it's because they just got SO much better as the 1950s led into the 1960s.

Cosmo

Hey...great to read some critiques of the golden age characters. 

Absolutely the ten issue run was the best of Ginger. I know Wilbur is often viewed as a pale imitation of Archie, but I always found him a bit more cutting edge than Archie. Again the later silver age were the best though...and getting tougher to find.

Now I'll have to take issue with your opinions on Suzie. A lot of good fun...screwball comedy type stuff...and interesting to see adventures beyond high school. Some of the best covers found on any Archie title as well. Of course that is what makes it interesting ...different stuff amuses different people.

For Example: Super Duck. Sometimes I'm hard pressed to explain exactly what I find so funny about those books, but I do crack myself up on just the covers sometimes. They are usually too violent...often rude....and just plain fun. I have always been a huge Carl Barks fan and... no ....Super Duck is nowhere near that caliber, but he is just ridiculous enough to bring a smile and more to anyone who appreciates the absurd. There is #32 with Super Duck and Fauntleroy out duck hunting and a dead duck floating down as Supes scolds Fauntleroy for his shooting technique telling him he'll never hit a duck that way. Its wrong on so many levels that is really very funny.

Ah...and Cosmo the Merry Martian...is great stuff. You are right...Bob White is definitely under appreciated. I have only 2 of the original issues in the 6 issue run and have not been rushing to pick up the remaining four so I still have some Cosmo fun to read in the future.

Nice hearing from folks who share an interest in Archie comics history!

irishmoxie

Quote from: Cosmo on July 19, 2016, 11:27:33 PM
I have a lot of esoteric titles and interests in the Archie world, but I'm not sure this forum would find it all that interesting if the focus is geared more to current and recent issues. Just wanted to drop in and at least say hello.


You'll be right at home here. Most people like Classic Archie better here.

rusty

A friend of mine has quite a few Super Duck issues, but I've never had much interest in the title.

I have all of the Cosmo issues.  I only have two of the Ginger issues, though the rest are on my want list and I'll pick them up if the price and condition are good enough.  I have 18 of the 52 issues of Suzie and 59 of the 90 issues of Wilbur.  Most of the Wilburs that I need are from #58 and up.  I have 48 of the first 57 issues.  Just like Ginger, Suzie and Wilbur are ones that I would like to have and will buy if circumstances warrant, but they aren't as high a priority for me as the other Archie titles with the main cast or Harveys and some Dells.

DeCarlo Rules

#8
Quote from: Cosmo on July 20, 2016, 06:35:10 PM
Now I'll have to take issue with your opinions on Suzie. A lot of good fun...screwball comedy type stuff...and interesting to see adventures beyond high school. Some of the best covers found on any Archie title as well. Of course that is what makes it interesting ...different stuff amuses different people.

I don't claim to be any great expert on SUZIE... pretty much all I've read are the stories infrequently reprinted in the digests (sans credits, alas), and some of the public domain ones available at DCM. SUZIE just sort of strikes me as the most Marvel-like (or Atlas-like, if you prefer) of all the Archie Comics titles, and suffers by comparison to the better Marvel ones (although they had the likes of Dan DeCarlo, Stan Goldberg and Al Hartley working for them in the 1950s, so...). I can't even quite figure if there was one pre-eminent artist on SUZIE. Was there a definitive Suzie artist, like with Harry Lucey's GINGER? It's not like I'm saying they're absolutely dreadful or anything, just... compared to what Harry Lucey did with GINGER, or ARCHIE, or even the older BETTY AND VERONICA stories by Dan DeCarlo from the early 50s?? All I'm really saying here is that for the time period, stuff like SUZIE and WILBUR wasn't even ACP's "A"-game, never mind what Marvel/Atlas was doing at the same time. So, yeah, for me... underwhelming. I mean, sometimes the covers aren't bad, but like a lot of comics, the covers tend to be the best part of the comic. I wasn't really even considering that, just thinking of the various Suzie stories I've read, none of which were particularly memorable.

Maybe it's a little like Super Duck, where there are better ones, and not-so-better ones. Super Duck actually morphed through a lot of different character designs over the years* -- personally, I prefer the earliest (ever-so-brief) iteration of the character, when he actually WAS super, but then I always did like Mighty Mouse, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, and other super-animal characters.
*(See>> http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics136.html)

I guess it's all in the yardstick you're using for comparison purposes. With the '50s Archie Comics, I have to stack them against their competition at Marvel/Atlas, and with Super Duck it's obviously going to be measured against the Western/Dell/KK Disney ducks, or for that matter, even the better Harvey funny animal comics, like Baby Huey. So maybe it sounds a little flip and dismissive to compare Al Fagaly to Carl Barks... but honestly, Fagaly was no Al Taliaferro, either, to choose a maybe fairer comparison. When they pick the better stories to reprint in the digests, it helps to give a digest some variety, so 12 pages or so of Super Duck isn't necessarily a bad thing, possibly more like a welcome replacement for what I'd consider some of the "lesser" Archie reprints.

Cosmo

Ah...pretty fair comparisons on Suzie and Super Duck to other contemporary titles and thanks for the link to stupid comics. First time I had seen it and really enjoyed reading through
the Super Duck stuff and more! Perhaps it says more about my easily amused nature than the quality of the titles, but good old Supes does make me laugh. I agree some of the most interesting issues in the run are the earliest where Super Duck was actually super. There were some good stories in Jolly Jingles before he graduated to his own book. How about his brother Fauntleroy who enjoyed a three issue run of his own?  While Huey, Dewey and Louie were maybe mischievous in setting up Uncle Donald....our little buddy Faunt had an almost brutal way of pulling pranks on Super Duck. So you'll get no argument from me that Super Duck had plenty of competition from the Dell, Harvey , Avon and even Charlton talking animal funnies...most of which I enjoy as well....but Super Duck is just one of my guilty pleasures. Actually I should be grateful that his fan base is kind of limited. Its been allowing me to close in one completing the run at a pretty reasonable cost.

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