Has anyone else read Volume 7 of the fanzine 'Lurid Little Nightmare Makers'? I've only just come across it on Ebay, but it was published in December 2016 by Boardman books. It celebrates Archie at 75 and (amongst other, non-Archie things) includes:

• an article on Archie's creation by Shaun Clancy
• an interview with Dan Parent and a portfolio of his work
• 81 Archie covers over the years
• an article about whether Archie and Veronica had sex in the 1980s
• a portfolio of Archie artwork as collected by Clancy

The article about Archie's creation is likely to be contentious, but Clancy lays out all the evidence he could find and it's well worth a read

I did a search for this to see what turned up. Lurid Little Nightmares has a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/llnmfanzine/.

The book itself is a 206-page, 8.5"x11" trade paperback. It can be ordered here: http://www.leylander.org/boardman/#!/Lurid-Little-Nightmare-Makers-Volume-Seven/p/76110440/category=14445202. It's a little pricey at $28, but if you're only interested in the contents of the articles, you can get a black & white edition of the book for $14 (regular edition is full-color). I'm thinking about it. There are a couple of neat old 1950s Dan DeCarlo reprints in here, "Wendy the WAF" from G.I. JOE #8, and "Ship Ahoy!" from THE BRAIN #1. I'll have to double-check to see whether those were the same ones reprinted in Fantagraphics' THE ART OF DAN DECARLO.

Here is the contents page, followed by the editor's Introduction page:

thanks for bringing this to my attention, y'all!  I'm getting this!

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 31, 2017, 07:12:44 AM
I did a search for this to see what turned up. Lurid Little Nightmares has a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/llnmfanzine/.

The book itself is a 206-page, 8.5"x11" trade paperback. It can be ordered here: http://www.leylander.org/boardman/#!/Lurid-Little-Nightmare-Makers-Volume-Seven/p/76110440/category=14445202. It's a little pricey at $28, but if you're only interested in the contents of the articles, you can get a black & white edition of the book for $14 (regular edition is full-color). I'm thinking about it. There are a couple of neat old 1950s Dan DeCarlo reprints in here, "Wendy the WAF" from G.I. JOE #8, and "Ship Ahoy!" from THE BRAIN #1. I'll have to double-check to see whether those were the same ones reprinted in Fantagraphics' THE ART OF DAN DECARLO.

Here is the contents page, followed by the editor's Introduction page:

If you decide to get it DCR, you can buy it on Ebay from the same guy, but it's 4 dollars cheaper because it's $24 + $4 shipping.  On the website you shared, it's $28 + 3.95 shipping.  Both say brand new so I assume you're getting the exact same thing. 


Here's the Ebay link:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lurid-Little-Nightmare-Makers-7-December-2016-Archie-at-75-Ogden-Whitney-/302424605121?epid=2135879873&hash=item4669e941c1:g:JBEAAOSwjDZYfDNY

Quote from: Purgatori on August 31, 2017, 06:43:16 AM
The article about Archie's creation is likely to be contentious, but Clancy lays out all the evidence he could find and it's well worth a read

And if he concluded that anyone but Bob Montana was responsible for the actual work of creation, I'll be shocked. Although I'll be the first to admit that Harry Shorten had more than a little to do with it, as well, in the early days. But it took years for Montana to really distill "the essence of Archie", and that didn't happen until 1946, when he got sole creative control of the newspaper strip. Goldwater's contribution was in giving the marching orders to create a comic feature along the lines of Andy Hardy and/or Henry Aldrich, and in committing to publishing the thing -- but that's hardly my definition of "creating". He outlined the hazy parameters, inasmuch as it was copying a popular archetype in other media, but it doesn't take much creativity to do that.

And you know... if you took "Andy Aldrich" and mixed up the letters a little, and squinted a bit... it's not too far off from "Archie Andrews".

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 31, 2017, 05:10:06 PM

And if he concluded that anyone but Bob Montana was responsible for the actual work of creation, I'll be shocked.

From the article, "Bob Montana plotted the first story with help from Harry Shorten, who had a Dell editor gone freelance, Vic Bloom, write the dialog. Vic Bloom named the Jughead character and also the area Riverdale. The 'Wally Williams' strip [created by Bloom for Popular Comics #48] had another character called 'Jughead' Lewis and the name of the city was Rivertown".

Quote from: Purgatori on September 01, 2017, 11:03:56 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 31, 2017, 05:10:06 PM

And if he concluded that anyone but Bob Montana was responsible for the actual work of creation, I'll be shocked.

From the article, "Bob Montana plotted the first story with help from Harry Shorten, who had a Dell editor gone freelance, Vic Bloom, write the dialog. Vic Bloom named the Jughead character and also the area Riverdale. The 'Wally Williams' strip [created by Bloom for Popular Comics #48] had another character called 'Jughead' Lewis and the name of the city was Rivertown".

It's pretty remarkable though, how little that initial story resembles what became known to the world as "Archie". You've got Archie, and Betty, but considerably younger than what became their standard versions, and Jughead... well, the less said about the prototype Jughead the better. Apart from the hat, it's hard to see much of a resemblance to the character we know as Jughead today. And Veronica, which seems like a key component in the whole formula, was nowhere... a mere afterthought. As I say... the essence was distilled over time, but it all congealed in Montana's newspaper strip.

I just got this in the mail.  I'm at work so I don't have time to read it yet but on first glance it looks really cool!

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 07, 2017, 01:02:23 PM
I just got this in the mail.  I'm at work so I don't have time to read it yet but on first glance it looks really cool!

Dare we hope for a complete review (of the Archie-related contents) in the near future?? 

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 07, 2017, 11:49:14 PM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 07, 2017, 01:02:23 PM
I just got this in the mail.  I'm at work so I don't have time to read it yet but on first glance it looks really cool!

Dare we hope for a complete review (of the Archie-related contents) in the near future?? 

I'm not really the reviewing type DCR, but YOU are.  I'm more of a consumer than a collector of comics.  How about this?  When I'm done (it will probably take me a few weeks as I'm reading about 30 things at once, LOL), I'll let you know, then you PM me your address and I'll send it to you and if you want to, you can review it for us to read.   If you don't want to, you still get to read the book.  You can't lose (and if you review it for the forum, we all win). 

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 08, 2017, 06:11:44 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 07, 2017, 11:49:14 PM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 07, 2017, 01:02:23 PM
I just got this in the mail.  I'm at work so I don't have time to read it yet but on first glance it looks really cool!

Dare we hope for a complete review (of the Archie-related contents) in the near future?? 

I'm not really the reviewing type DCR, but YOU are.  I'm more of a consumer than a collector of comics.  How about this?  When I'm done (it will probably take me a few weeks as I'm reading about 30 things at once, LOL), I'll let you know, then you PM me your address and I'll send it to you and if you want to, you can review it for us to read.   If you don't want to, you still get to read the book.  You can't lose (and if you review it for the forum, we all win).

It's a deal!!