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Mar 10 2024 11:04pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Catnapped!" from Betty and Veronica: Friends Forever: Sleepover: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/03/10/comics-catnapped/

Mar 03 2024 2:17pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Winners and Losers" from Betty and Veronica #103: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/03/03/comics-winners-losers/

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Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Winners

Feb 25 2024 6:02pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Girl of His Dreams" from Betty and Veronica #101: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/02/25/comics-girl-of-his-dreams/

Feb 22 2024 5:46pm
Tuxedo Mark: Huh, and apparently World of Betty and Veronica Digest isn't canceled; it just went on a long hiatus: https://archiecomics.com/new-archie-comics-coming-in-may-2024/

Feb 22 2024 5:35pm
Tuxedo Mark: Archie Comics is starting to do $4.99 floppies: https://archiecomics.com/archie-horror-unleashes-apocalyptic-thrills-in-judgment-day/

Feb 17 2024 3:19pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "The Big Victory" from Betty and Veronica #99: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/02/17/comics-the-big-victory/

Feb 04 2024 4:25pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Makeover for a Moose" from Betty and Veronica Jumbo Comics Digest #321: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/02/04/comics-makeover-for-a-moose/

Jan 27 2024 5:44pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Love is a Football Field!" from Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #347: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/01/27/comics-love-is-a-football-field/

Jan 25 2024 4:30pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "One Shot Worth a Million" from World of Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #136: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/01/25/comics-one-shot-worth-a-million/

What comics have you been reading?

Started by irishmoxie, March 30, 2016, 10:49:35 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: SAGG on January 13, 2018, 11:28:56 AM
Archie Jumbo Double Digest 285 has an interesting story called "Snowbound". It's what I call an "Action Archie" story, you know, the adventure ones that have Goldberg illustrating where Archie is in danger, or fighting some really nasty bad guys who want to off him, those stories. Here, however, it's done by DeCarlo....

Well, it's an oddity, I'll grant you that much, but it seems like a waste of DeCarlo's real talent. "Snowbound" is another of those seemingly endless mild variations on the exact same plot which appeared far too frequently in stories from both ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH (with Chuck sometimes taking the role of the main, endangered, hero), and LIFE WITH ARCHIE. Because the plot always attempts to highlight the element of danger, the stories are totally humor-free. In fact, the plot at its most basic level is a variation of the old "Reggie attempts to trip up Archie using a variety of dirty tricks", but at least those stories are played to slapstick violence, so the essential humor element is maintained.

In the LWA version of the same plot, it usually involves a wider competition in which Archie is a main favored competitor, and introduces a new character (or two) -- unsavory, underhanded types who will stoop to any level to win by cheating, and usually endangering Archie's life in the bargain. The new character(s) are most often students at Central High, or some other rival high school to Riverdale (and will never be seen again after this story, either). Despite enduring multiple hazards along the way, we KNOW Archie's intrinsic goodness and fairplay are going to triumph over the dirty tricks and pitfalls laid by his nasty rival, and he'll expose the blackhearted cheater for his dishonest deeds. The stories are never really long enough for the plot to become TOO complicated either, so there's not even an element of "how will he do it?" for the reader to challenge the writer by guessing some mystery either. The main element that changes in these stories is the sport involved (skiing, hiking, running a marathon, mountain biking, etc.) and the nature of the obstacles to be overcome -- but it's the same plot every time. If you've read one, you've basically read them all.

Archie Comics Collector(Kalell)

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on January 10, 2018, 03:36:35 PM
I think I'm going to quit reading the Archie digests (not the B&V digests, just the Archie ones). There's this real feeling of blandness about them right now, like they're just in a holding pattern, waiting for their time to inevitably run out. That's probably true, to a lesser extent, of the B&V digests as well, but it's less apparent to me because those digest stories seem to have a greater aggregation of my favorite artists in each issue.

They seem to be done with any pretense of growth or evolution (while maintaining faithfulness to the core style), even in the new stories -- there's a real feeling of "just keep it average and homogenized, according to what sold in the past", so there's no real "trying" on the part of the digest editors -- they've basically given up, and aren't going to bother making ANY effort. There's a real contrast there to the period between the late '90s Archie Comics (both floppies and digests) up to 2015, when they were introducing new characters, trying new things, new kinds of stories (out of that came cousin Marcy, New Kids, Kevin Keller, Harper Lodge, and a lot of fun 'what if' variant stories, and even LIFE WITH ARCHIE). All that seems to be over now, and 'classic Archie style' just seems to be in a short period of maintenance until the final shutdown.

:'(

Sorry to hear your going to quit buying some of the Digests. I received super stellar deals on Digest subscriptions in the past so I pay about 1.50 per Digest. That's at least a 75% markdown on the current cover price.  I can't find any other deal with color comics for that price point.

DeCarlo Rules

#1352
Quote from: Archie Comics Collector(Kalell) on January 15, 2018, 11:50:12 AM
Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on January 10, 2018, 03:36:35 PM
I think I'm going to quit reading the Archie digests (not the B&V digests, just the Archie ones). There's this real feeling of blandness about them right now, like they're just in a holding pattern, waiting for their time to inevitably run out. That's probably true, to a lesser extent, of the B&V digests as well, but it's less apparent to me because those digest stories seem to have a greater aggregation of my favorite artists in each issue.

They seem to be done with any pretense of growth or evolution (while maintaining faithfulness to the core style), even in the new stories -- there's a real feeling of "just keep it average and homogenized, according to what sold in the past", so there's no real "trying" on the part of the digest editors -- they've basically given up, and aren't going to bother making ANY effort. There's a real contrast there to the period between the late '90s Archie Comics (both floppies and digests) up to 2015, when they were introducing new characters, trying new things, new kinds of stories (out of that came cousin Marcy, New Kids, Kevin Keller, Harper Lodge, and a lot of fun 'what if' variant stories, and even LIFE WITH ARCHIE). All that seems to be over now, and 'classic Archie style' just seems to be in a short period of maintenance until the final shutdown.

:'(

Sorry to hear your going to quit buying some of the Digests. I received super stellar deals on Digest subscriptions in the past so I pay about 1.50 per Digest. That's at least a 75% markdown on the current cover price.  I can't find any other deal with color comics for that price point.

It took me quite a while to get a handle on the history of the digests (your online article helped a lot). But you really need to spend a lot of time analyzing exactly how they evolved over the last decade or so, which means looking at the subtle changes in content over time.

IMO the high point in digest history begins somewhere around 2008. You can tell by looking at the covers. Most of the digest titles received a makeover with new logos at that time. This was a short time (about a year or so) after the "New Look" stories were first introduced. They also started putting the little logos in the corners highlighting a new semi-regular reprint series being featured in all the titles. I've noticed this is the era where the covers become less oriented around the generic gag, and more story-based... and this was because for the next 3 or 4 years, all the digest titles began featuring more pages of new stories than ever before, somewhere between 10 to 20 pages of new stories (but usually more like 12-15) in every title. The variety of the reprints seemed to increase at the same time (as indicated by those little corner logos I mentioned).

I'm not entirely sure, but I think this coincides with a time where Nelson Ribeiro was the editor of the digests, and he seemed to take a real interest in trying to improve them. He had been around as an editor for awhile, at least since the time when they cancelled both Laugh Comics Digest and Jughead With Archie Comics Digest, and replaced those two titles with Tales From Riverdale Digest and Jughead and Friends Comics Digest. The new titles were both great improvements IMO, and always carried new stories in every issue. Alas, they only lasted 38 issues. I'm still missing 8 or 9 issues from both runs.

During that period I mentioned between 2008 and 2012 (which seemed to kick off around the same time that those special "Past Meets Present" stories appeared in Archie, Betty and Veronica, Jughead, and Archie's Pals 'n' Gals Double Digest) there were a lot of changes, but a lot of the new digests that appeared were good ones -- the early World of Archie Double Digest, Archie and Friends Double Digest, Jughead Double Digest (from around #144-200), and B & V Friends Double Digest replacing the old 96-page Betty and Veronica Digest with issue #209. Then for some reason they just dropped the idea of promoting an ongoing reprint feature in those digests with the little corner logos, and sometime towards the end of 2012 or 2013, the new stories stopped altogether. I don't know why. Then they started up again midway through 2014, and stayed regular, in all the titles, but rarely if ever going even one page over the 5-page rule. For a while there seemed to still be a fairly decent variety to the reprint mix (and World of Archie is the best barometer for the overall diversity of content across the digest line), but now things have just gotten too bland and middle-of-the-road, too plain vanilla.

On studying what went on (since I didn't start buying the digests myself until 2014), and comparing them to the contents of the most current issues of Archie, World of Archie, and Archie and Me Comics Digest, I simply concluded that I'm better off spending my money on trying to collect those back issues I missed from the 2008-2013 period, and a few other older digest runs (like Tales From Riverdale and Jughead and Friends).



BettyReggie

#1353
I read
Die Kitty Die #4
The Beauty #7 & #12 & #13 & #14 & #15

BettyReggie

#1354
I just got The Life With Kevin Book. I skimmed through it. I can't wait to read it.

DeCarlo Rules

01-11 to 11-16-18:
The Little Book of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
The Little Book of BATMAN
The Little Book of SUPERMAN
The Little Book of WONDER WOMAN
MANGA CLASSIC READERS: MOBY DICK TP
MANGA CLASSIC READERS: WAR OF THE WORLDS TP
H.P. LOVECRAFT'S THE HOUND and Other Stories
(adapted by Gou Tanabe)
JIMMY'S BASTARDS #6
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM UP (with the Legion of Super-Heroes) #33
FUTURE QUEST PRESENTS: BIRDMAN #6
BATMAN/TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II #3
(of 6)
BUGS BUNNY (1990) #2 - Strangely enough, of the 3 stories in this issue, NONE of them was a Bugs Bunny story!
WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT: THE CORPSE MAKERS #5 (of 5)
SHEENA #5
KILL OR BE KILLED #15
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NICK WILSON #1
ICE CREAM MAN #1
FIGHTING AMERICAN #4
KONG ON PLANET OF APES #3
(of 6)
ASSASSINISTAS #2 (of ?)
NEMO HC (adapted by Bruno)
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA HC (adapted by Gary Gianni)

SAGG

#1356
Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on January 16, 2018, 06:40:12 PM
01-11 to 11-16-18:
The Little Book of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
The Little Book of BATMAN
The Little Book of SUPERMAN
The Little Book of WONDER WOMAN
MANGA CLASSIC READERS: MOBY DICK TP
MANGA CLASSIC READERS: WAR OF THE WORLDS TP
H.P. LOVECRAFT'S THE HOUND and Other Stories
(adapted by Gou Tanabe)
JIMMY'S BASTARDS #6
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM UP (with the Legion of Super-Heroes) #33
FUTURE QUEST PRESENTS: BIRDMAN #6
BATMAN/TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II #3
(of 6)
BUGS BUNNY (1990) #2 - Strangely enough, of the 3 stories in this issue, NONE of them was a Bugs Bunny story!
WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT: THE CORPSE MAKERS #5 (of 5)
SHEENA #5
KILL OR BE KILLED #15
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NICK WILSON #1
ICE CREAM MAN #1
FIGHTING AMERICAN #4
KONG ON PLANET OF APES #3
(of 6)
ASSASSINISTAS #2 (of ?)
NEMO HC (adapted by Bruno)
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA HC (adapted by Gary Gianni)
What in the world is a "Little "Book"?   ???  And what did you think about the Birdman book, DR? I  liked the part about Avenger being able to understand Birdman....

DeCarlo Rules

#1357
Quote from: SAGG on January 17, 2018, 05:31:43 AM
Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on January 16, 2018, 06:40:12 PM
01-11 to 11-16-18:
The Little Book of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
The Little Book of BATMAN
The Little Book of SUPERMAN
The Little Book of WONDER WOMAN
MANGA CLASSIC READERS: MOBY DICK TP
MANGA CLASSIC READERS: WAR OF THE WORLDS TP
H.P. LOVECRAFT'S THE HOUND and Other Stories
(adapted by Gou Tanabe)
JIMMY'S BASTARDS #6
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM UP (with the Legion of Super-Heroes) #33
FUTURE QUEST PRESENTS: BIRDMAN #6
BATMAN/TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II #3
(of 6)
BUGS BUNNY (1990) #2 - Strangely enough, of the 3 stories in this issue, NONE of them was a Bugs Bunny story!
WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT: THE CORPSE MAKERS #5 (of 5)
SHEENA #5
KILL OR BE KILLED #15
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NICK WILSON #1
ICE CREAM MAN #1
FIGHTING AMERICAN #4
KONG ON PLANET OF APES #3
(of 6)
ASSASSINISTAS #2 (of ?)
NEMO HC (adapted by Bruno)
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA HC (adapted by Gary Gianni)
What in the world is a "Little "Book"?   ???  And what did you think about the Birdman book, DR? I  liked the part about Avenger being able to understand Birdman....

The Little Books are small (Flexicover, 4.7 x 6.5 in., 192 pages) books by Taschen, a German publisher specializing in highly graphic books about art, photography, and popular culture. The Little Books are like character histories told through graphic images and captions. They actually derive their content from larger, more expensive hardcover histories of comics written by Paul Levitz (DC) and Roy Thomas (Marvel). There were images in some of these books that even I hadn't seen before. I've provided links to the Taschen site for each of the comic-related Little Books so you can get an idea. Considering that the cover price of a floppy comic is $4, these Little Books are an absolute steal at $10 SRP.

The Little Book of AVENGERS https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48614/facts.the_little_book_of_avengers.htm
The Little Book of CAPTAIN AMERICA https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48617/facts.the_little_book_of_captain_america.htm
The Little Book of FANTASTIC FOUR https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48616/facts.the_little_book_of_fantastic_four.htm
The Little Book of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48615/facts.the_little_book_of_spider_man.htm
The Little Book of BATMAN https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48602/facts.the_little_book_of_batman_tm.htm
The Little Book of SUPERMAN  https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48601/facts.the_little_book_of_superman_tm.htm
The Little Book of WONDER WOMAN https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48603/facts.the_little_book_of_wonder_woman_tm.htm



The FUTURE QUEST Birdman was good. I pretty much buy whatever comics Steve Rude draws anyway. He's a genius.

I'm not so much looking forward to the upcoming Mightor issue(s)... that character was a little too rebooted. Taking him out of his prehistoric world (and changing the simple costume) is a bad idea. At least Space Ghost hinted that the Galaxy Trio is still alive out there somewhere, and that he's going to find them (the previous Galaxy Trio stories were flashbacks).

BettyReggie

#1358
I read each of books for 12 minutes
Deadly Class - Book # 1 - Noise Noise Noise
Life With Kevin
Reggie & Me - Volume #1
The Archies & Other Stories
Archie's FunHouse - Back To School Annual # 27

BettyReggie

#1359
I read
Invincible #136 & #137 & #138 & #139 & #140 & #141 & # 142 & #143

irishmoxie

Re-reading Super 'Suckers, Die Kitty Die, and Life with Kevin. Remember when comics were funny?

PTF

Catching up on Sitcomics. They have the first issue of each of their titles for free download (well Z-people later today)

https://sitcomics.net/

DeCarlo Rules

WEEK OF 01-24-18 (so far):
BLACK MAGICK #10
X-MEN BLUE #20

BETTY AND VERONICA: VIXENS #3
- There are a few things that bug me about this book, starting with the fact that overall it seems like it's set in the fifties or early sixties, yet they have smartphones and computers. I'm liking it a little better as of this issue, but only in anticipating that there's an actual story here which has an ending.

ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK VOL 02: FANTASY TP - All but about 18 pages here are reprinted from ACP comics published in the last decade. I mention that not as a detraction, but as a matter of interest in pointing out how the past decade (particular the half-decade between 2010-2014) was one of the most interesting and creative in the entire 75-year history of the characters. Nearly ALL the stories here are reprinted from issues of ARCHIE between #418 and #464, a span of about 46 months. And they're all pretty good stories. The weakest stories here are those 18 pages I mentioned earlier, which reprint "The Mighty Archie Art Players" shorts from issues of LAUGH (2nd series) from the late 1980. Those stories could (and should) have been left out, as there were several other good issue-length stories from the last decade that they could have squeezed in instead.

B & V FRIENDS JUMBO COMICS #248 - They seem to have swapped the lead stories (as solicited) between this issue and BETTY & VERONICA JUMBO COMICS #249 (which I assume will have the Marcy story which was solicited as appearing in this issue, since this issue has the Harper story promised for that issue).

JUGHEAD: THE HUNGER #1 & 2 - So, everyone seems to think Jughead's a werewolf (including Jughead)... but I saw no proof of it in these two issues. So... probably not. Bingo Wilkin is a werewolf, though, and unless I misread things, Reggie is too. I'm not too enthused, but I might check out one or two more issues.

SCOOBY-DOO TEAM UP (with Birds of Prey) #34
LOONEY TUNES #241
SHERLOCK FRANKENSTEIN & THE LEGION OF EVIL #4 (of 4)
EMPOWERED & SISTAH SPOOKY'S HIGH SCHOOL HELL #2 (of 6)
MEGA MAN: MASTERMIX #1
(of ?) - 80 pages of Megaman manga in color for $8. This is old material previously appearing in a UDON translation in the standard b&w paperback format. It looks good in the larger size with color. Makes me want to re-read the Archie Action Megaman run, at least to compare, because it really is the same story.

BettyReggie

#1363
I'll read in a while. I got these 2 comics at the Thift Store - Betty & Veronica #227 & Veronica #227 & Veronica #176 which I just read.
I also read
Jughead #16
Archie #26- SANDY Harrell
Jem & The Holograms #24- Rian Gonzalez


BettyReggie


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