I've been fine with the Archie reboot, but I have to say I'm kind of surprised it's made it to issue 31.  I haven't looked at the sales, but I can't imagine they're that great these days.  Other than that, pretty standard stuff: overpriced digests that keep getting smaller and a horror title but NOT Afterlife or Sabrina and the last gasp of Cosmo and The Archies.  Oh yeah, and Vixens which I can't imagine will be long for this world either. 


https://www.newsarama.com/38706-archie-comics-may-2018-solicitations.html

Hmm. Apparently I was wrong about VIXENS. It just skipped one month's solicitations between story arcs and #6 begins a new story... so I guess it's probably going to go until at least issue #10.

I'll be surprised if ARCHIE makes it as far as #50, but somewhere around #40 I can see it running out of steam. Which is still actually pretty good for ACP, for just about anything in the last couple of decades.

Cool retro variant cover on COSMO #5!

The longest-running ACP title of the 2000s is actually SABRINA, with 104 issues -- but despite the continued numbering, it's really four different series. SABRINA The Animated Series ran for 37 issues from 2000 to 2002, followed by SABRINA The Teenage Witch (by Holly G) for 20 issues from 2003 to 2004, followed by SABRINA The Magic Within (the manga by Tania Del Rio) for 43 issues from 2004-2009, followed by a 4-issue miniseries for YOUNG SALEM in 2009, wrapping up the 104 consecutively-numbered issues. The 43 issues of Sabrina the manga still holds the record for longest-running ACP series of the 2000s so far, unless the new ARCHIE can beat that record. (If we were to go back as far as 1995, the winner would be CHERYL BLOSSOM, adding up all of the issues of her various miniseries to her ongoing series of 37 issues, for a total of 50 Cheryl Blossom comic books.)

Even if the new ARCHIE title's run were to match Sabrina the Manga's previous record of 43 issues, I suspect we'd never see an issue #44. What would seem more likely is that the following issue would be numbered #700 (adding the previous 666 issues of the original ARCHIE's run to the new numbering), so that they could ballyhoo that, and benefit from a temporary sales bump (because that's just the way floppy comics marketing tends to work). And indeed, that's exactly what happened when the final issue of BETTY AND VERONICA was published.

In comic book shops, for January 2018, ARCHIE #27 sold 8,288 copies (making it the 208th best-selling title out of the 500 titles whose sales were listed), narrowly beaten out as the top-selling ACP title that month by JUGHEAD THE HUNGER #3 at 8,337 copies. For comparison's sake, in that same month, VIXENS #3 sold 5,435 copies, THE ARCHIES #4 sold 4,648 copies, RIVERDALE #10 sold 4,466, COSMO #1 sold 3,626, and MIGHTY CRUSADERS #2 sold a measly 2,226 copies*. Of course, we need to remember that that's ONLY the sales figures for comic shops (which is still a reliable majority of a floppy comic's sales numbers), and that the numbers represent the amounts of those titles ordered and paid for by RETAILERS, not the number of copies that were sold to CONSUMERS by those same retailers (although, that said, the lower the number of copies cited, the more likely it closely represents the actual number sold to consumers). We already know the fate of THE ARCHIES, COSMO, and MIGHTY CRUSADERS, so judge accordingly. THE ARCHIES might have been affected by factors having to do with securing the rights to the various bands appearing therein, which is why RIVERDALE, a slightly lower-selling title, could still continue where THE ARCHIES won't. At the moment, ARCHIE seems to be holding fairly steady at 8k+ copies per issue, which is sustainable at that level. Next year at this time, who knows. If ARCHIE sales were to dip to the 4k level, it would become an endangered title, but for now, it's good. VIXENS is closer to the borderline (if COSMO can be taken as an indicator), but they may be banking on the trade collections as the better-selling revenue stream, so it seems like (barring a sudden drop in those numbers) we'll get at least 10 issues to make up two TP volumes. Floppy comic sales generally trend downward over time as a rule, and a lot can happen within the space of 4 or 5 issues. RIVERDALE, of course, may continue simply because of the TV series, and to not publish a comic book tie-in would seem to make the company lose face, unless it really begins to bleed.

In trade paperback sales, ACP's best-seller for January was CHILLING ADVENTURES IN SORCERY, a collection of black-&-white reprints of ACP's 1970s horror comics, at 1,071 copies. Which doesn't sound too impressive until you stop to think about the cover price of $20, and realize that it ranked No. 68 out of 509 trade collections listed, putting it ahead of even a lot of Marvel and DC's trade collections in sales, so it seems likely that we'll see another such black-&-white collection of 1970s ACP horror comics -- and remember, without the additional cost of color printing, that makes each copy more profitable for ACP than a comparably-priced TP that sold about the same. The next best-selling ACP trade was JOSIE Vol. 2 at 578 copies (ranked No. 165 out of 509). An additional 253 copies of ARCHIE Vol. 1 TP (ranking No. 397 of 509) were ordered by retailers that month, which is something to factor into consideration of the continued publication of the ARCHIE floppy comic, as there would be a likely trickle-down readership for succeeding volumes.

At a guesstimate, considering both print and digital formats, I'd say that means the audience for the new ARCHIE has been something shy of 20,000 readers in total, with only about 8,000 being the hardcore "brand loyal" followers (who are going to follow whatever core Archie title ACP puts out) that have purchased and read every single issue in some form, and the remainder having sampled a portion of the run beyond #1 (heavily weighted towards those early Fiona Staples issues) at some point in whatever format. That's eliminating whatever duplicate copies of the print issues may have been sold to single collectors who own more than one copy, either for speculation purposes, or for variant cover artwork.

*MIGHTY CRUSADERS stands as a particularly egregious example of the inverse relationship that exists between floppy comic books that I like and floppy comic books that sell in today's comic shop market, so if I happen to mention in a post that I really liked a comic book, you should probably take that with a heavy sense of "DANGER!! DANGER, Will Robinson!!".

[All sales figures sourced from comichron.com]

I can't wait for next Artist to take over the Archie comic. I'm not crazy about her style. Does any one like it?

Quote from: BettyReggie on February 22, 2018, 05:28:36 AM
I can't wait for next Artist to take over the Archie comic. I'm not crazy about her style. Does any one like it?

I like it pretty well.  I liked Audrey Mok on Josie and the Pussycats and I like her on Archie.  Of course I'd rather have Dan Parent or Jeff Shultz or Bill Galvan, but their art wouldn't go with the current stories. 


I was actually happiest with Veronica Fish out of all the reboot Archie artists. 

Have they already announced that Audrey Mok is only continuing up to a certain issue, or is BettyReggie just speculating about a "next artist"?

I think I would have liked VIXENS more if Audrey Mok had gotten that assignment.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 22, 2018, 12:27:26 AM
Even if the new ARCHIE title's run were to match Sabrina the Manga's previous record of 43 issues, I suspect we'd never see an issue #44. What would seem more likely is that the following issue would be numbered #700 (adding the previous 666 issues of the original ARCHIE's run to the new numbering), so that they could ballyhoo that, and benefit from a temporary sales bump (because that's just the way floppy comics marketing tends to work). And indeed, that's exactly what happened when the final issue of BETTY AND VERONICA was published.

Hey, my math cells must have been pretty bad when I wrote that, and nobody called me on it. So I'm calling myself on it. #700 would actually be new ARCHIE #34, not 44. So check back here in another three months and let the ballyhoo begin!

And why IS it, exactly, that nearly EVERY floppy comic ACP publishes (and DC's, too) gets at LEAST one variant cover (unless, y'know, they decide it's a new #1 issue of a major ACP character that needs... oh, at least 25 variants)?  Seriously though. Take a look at those solicitations. All the floppy format comics have 2 variants (in addition to the regular cover "A") except RIVERDALE (which only has one variant). ONLY B&V FRIENDS FOREVER #1 has... ZERO variant covers.

... But a new BETTY AND VERONICA comic by Dan Parent?? It don't need no stinking variants!!  Either that's a HUGE vote of overconfidence, OR... they just consider it flushable.

AND now REGGIE can honestly boast that he got more variant covers on his first issue than Betty and Veronica did on their #1 issue.
WHERE'S THE G-D RESPECT,  that's what I wanna know.

And in a related observation.... It's dead, Jim. Why waste money on new cover art?

It is one of favorites though. I love Staples.

Recycling Cliff Chiang (Not bad. It looks like Chiang is taking his cue from Jaime Hernandez in a 1980s issue of LOVE & ROCKETS.) --

I love that cover too.

It's a cool image, but Veronica's tattoo seems like it's stretching things quite a bit for her character... I can't imagine her actually having something like that.