Very few posts, compared to the older version of this Board.
Is the new software off-putting, discouraging posts somehow?

I don't think so. I think it's due to a few things. When the old forum was wiped out, ten years' worth of real-time Archie fandom history was wiped out, so that discouraged a lot of people. Combine that with the fact that everyone had to sign up for a new account, and a lot of people simply chose not to.

Then there's Riverdale and ChAoS (and soon Katy Keene), which is responsible for the biggest output of new content; they have their own Reddits.

That leaves us to discuss:

*older stories
*older shows and movies
*the storyline in the current Archie title
*the various miniseries that come and go
*the new classic-style stories in the digests

If anyone's up for starting topics on these things, I'll gladly join in.

Hmm. The snowball effect also works in reverse, I think.

More new topics posted encourage more new replies, while conversely, fewer replies discourage the posting of more new topics.

Then there's Archie Comics Publications itself, which has fractured the definition of what Archie IS into a multiplicity of interpretive versions, mainly just miniseries.

Lots of people have also moved on to other types of social media like Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Social media probably plays a large part of it - there are Archie Comics groups on Facebook (I'm in at least two of them though I don't post much in either), subreddits, etc.

On top of that, Archie isn't putting out as much content as they were 10 years ago - the only new stories we get are either specials/mini-series, stuff related to the TV series or one or two new stories in a Digest. This compares to a dozen or more new stories each month back before they stopped publishing the "floppies" (full-size comics like Archie, Jughead, etc.)

Quote from: Oldiesmann on November 04, 2019, 01:31:50 AMSocial media probably plays a large part of it - there are Archie Comics groups on Facebook (I'm in at least two of them though I don't post much in either), subreddits, etc.

On top of that, Archie isn't putting out as much content as they were 10 years ago - the only new stories we get are either specials/mini-series, stuff related to the TV series or one or two new stories in a Digest. This compares to a dozen or more new stories each month back before they stopped publishing the "floppies" (full-size comics like Archie, Jughead, etc.)

True dat (I'm showing my non-existant '90s street cred). Stuff like the Riverdale reddit is where most of the discussion of Archie's most popular property is taking place. That should, theoretically, leave us no worse off than before, but, as you said, Archie doesn't put out at much as it used to (or perhaps it does, with all of the various miniseries, although I doubt it, and anyway it's more fragmented, what with all of the alternate universes, rather than a "cohesive whole" (which I'm not sure it ever was)). So, I guess my basic point is, without as much new "canon" (classic Archie) material coming out, discussion is naturally gonna slow down.

There's more discussion about the lack of discussion than there is about Archie comics.

I was thinking about this some more, and I guess I concluded that it's hard for ACP to build up any kind of momentum in reader interest. They've got only ONE real ongoing title (Archie), and everything else is miniseries that come and go, with no continuity between almost any of them. Starting with the rebooted Archie in 2015, it seemed like they hoped to add a new title (Jughead, Josie, Reggie) every 6 months or so and build the line of ongoing titles back up to a stable 4 to 6 titles. But it didn't happen because those titles just weren't embraced by enough readers, and Archie remained the only title that could sustain enough sales to continue.

Of course the reprint digests are ongoing too, but as far as any new material it's only 5 pages per issue, which will then get reprinted in a one-shot (although I guess you could look at the one-shots B&V Friends Forever and Archie & Friends as 'ongoing' titles), and eventually down the road as a trade paperback. So then after the digests/one-shot floppies there's the occasional miniseries (Your Pal Archie, Archie Meets Batman '66, Archie the Married Life 10th Anniversary) or one-shot (Archie Meets the B-52s). So I guess that averages out to about 1 or 2 issues of Classic Archie per month (including all the 5-pagers in the digests. The rest is all reprints (digests and TPs). Still, it's a far cry from the decades prior to 2014 when there were ongoing titles for Archie, Archie & Friends, Jughead, B&V, Betty, Veronica (replaced towards the end by Kevin Keller) and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Titles coming and going all the time means that there's no real brand loyalty in the sense of... every individual reader is picking and choosing ("I like this one; I don't like that one.") among the few titles being offered in any given month. Even when you find a miniseries you like you know it will be gone in 6 months or less, probably never to be followed up again (or at least not for a good long time, like with Cosmo). That works out okay for larger comic book companies that publish lots of different titles every month and split their output between ongoing series and miniseries, but ACP just publishes too few new titles each month, which makes it hard to generate reader excitement.

I mean, Batman or Spider-Man are still WAY more popular and recognizable than Archie, but just try to imagine if DC or Marvel ONLY published one ongoing series, either Batman or The Amazing Spider-Man, and then a paltry few other different Batman or Spider-Man variant or spinoff character miniseries each month, all done in a variety of different styles with absolutely NO continuity between any of them.

It doesn't help that issues that do come out are often delayed. The next issue of Archie, which is set to conclude the Archie and Sabrina storyline, was originally supposed to come out next week but has already been delayed an additional two weeks, leaving almost two months between issues.

For myself, as an old school Archie fan and a 64 year-old man, I have zero interest in anything the company is putting out right now nor in Riverdale or any Sabrina TV series.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on November 18, 2019, 10:22:12 AMIt doesn't help that issues that do come out are often delayed. The next issue of Archie, which is set to conclude the Archie and Sabrina storyline, was originally supposed to come out next week but has already been delayed an additional two weeks, leaving almost two months between issues.

Archie #709 has now been moved up a week to December 4. Still pretty erratic scheduling, though.

So what new content is currently being printed? I consider the Digests to be new, since they include at least one new story per issue.

And what's ACP's longterm plan here? Riverdale and the other TV shows have been quite successful- has none of it translated back into comic book sales?