While this may not be an accurate indication of the comic demographic, I can confirm that at least some young girls are reading new "Archie" comics, including "Betty and Veronica." I know many families and kids who go to summer camp, and girls around 9-15 are well known in camp as Digest readers. Whether they buy their own new comics or simply share them around I don't know. My guess is a mix of both.
Basically, when you're encouraged to use non-electronics [the camps I know of do not allow campers to use anything with Internet access while on the grounds], kids will pick up books again. For many of them, that includes comic books... and for many girls, that means Archies.

Quote from: irishmoxie on February 15, 2018, 04:23:35 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 14, 2018, 03:30:40 AM

Quote from: irishmoxie on February 13, 2018, 07:07:15 PM

Ok there may also be some grandmothers buying digests from Walmart and grocery stores who like the classic stories they read in the 60s/70s. .

Some, maybe. You're reading them (even if buying them digitally)... are you a grandmother? If that's really the main demographic, then why aren't the digests primarily filled with B&V stories from the 1960s and 1970s, for the gratification of grandmothers and ?

Instead, most of the reprinted stories are from the 1990s through 2010 or so. My guess would be that the girls who read those stories when they were new are now the young women and mothers purchasing the merchandise for themselves, or the digests for their daughters (and maybe some of those 40+ male parents too).

I'm more of an occasional digest reader these days though I have read a lot in the past. I think the only reason they use the 90s and 00s stories is because they're already digitized and easy to reprint. A lot of the older 60s-80s stories which the grandmothers really want aren't digitized and would have to be re-colored. A lot more work for ACP who would rather make a cheap easy profit. I think the grandmothers buy the digests hoping for 1-2 of those older stories.

I'll allow that the content may be influenced by the amount of digitizing work necessary -- yet at the same time, in order for the company to derive the maximum value out of its library of older content, it seems inevitable that all of that work MUST be slated for digital conversion at some time in the near future, if for no other reason than to provide the greatest potential to exploit ALL possible consumers in the demographic spectrum, regardless of the format in which those reprints will eventually appear. I think (and recent trade collections lead me to believe this is already happening) that those older stories will eventually appear in more expensive reprint formats, aimed at older readers with more disposable income.

I'd strongly suspect that the selection of content for the digests is specifically slanted towards younger readers, so as to not include so many older stories where various topical aspects of the story may alienate those younger readers or puzzle them by its unfamiliar references, fads or fashions. That's also why I think it's an ongoing concern to maintain a stream of newly-produced stories which will eventually feed into future digests, because even the currently-reprinted digest stories from recent decades continue to age, and will eventually be less palatable to younger readers.

There are a couple more observations I can make in support of my contention that the main audience of digest readers is composed of children. Now, the counter-argument here would be that at $7 a copy, kids aren't going to be wandering into stores by themselves with enough loose pocket money to purchase a Jumbo Comics digest for themselves -- adults remain the holders of the purse-strings, the enablers/approvers of their kids' reading of Archie digests, probably based on their own past experience having read them as kids. But I don't think those same parents are (for the most part) reading the digests themselves. For one thing, I notice in reading the new lead stories that they are written slightly differently, aimed slightly lower than was the case in reading the stories printed in new issues of the classic floppy comics prior to 2015 when they were discontinued in favor of the New Riverdale reboots. Second, for a while the larger digests issues were, for a couple of years there, including on a semi-regular basis the older 1950s stories (for the benefit of the grandmothers and other adult readers) labeled as "From the Vault" sections, in an obvious attempt to try to appeal to older readers, but for the last few years now those sections have disappeared -- which I can only interpret as because they didn't result in selling more copies of digests to adults, and the kids really didn't care that much for them. Thirdly, the policy of editorial tampering/alteration of the original stories when reprinted in the digests remains in effect, now as ever before. Adults can easily spot these obvious alterations, whether they're done for purposes of political correctness or for reasons of updating some archaic reference to technology, etc. and if those adults were the main readers of the digests, I don't think the editors would bother. It's just extra work for the production department, and the adult readers really don't like to see it. While I think most adults are generally in support of the idea of a racially diverse Riverdale, seeing token incidental characters randomly chosen to be re-colored in older stories as representing different races and ethnicity really isn't something most adult readers want to see, regardless of their own family genealogy. And adult readers don't need references to VCR tapes or other outdated technology clumsily re-lettered in dialogue balloons and captions, either. We accept it only with the understanding that it's being done for the younger readers, to make the stories seem a little more ethnically inclusive or less distracting by archaic topical references, for their benefit. -- but otherwise find the policy abhorrent to our sensibilities of wanting to read the stories just as they originally appeared in their first appearances in various comics. And they're still wasting valuable page space in all those digests printing those "puzzle pages" -- does ANY adult actually DO those puzzles? I have to assume they're still in there only because the kids seem to like them, and that means most of the reading audience.

I can't wait for this. I miss Dan Parent. I'm not crazy about the artwork in Betty & Veronica Vixens. I thought it would be better.

Quote from: BettyReggie on February 16, 2018, 10:13:32 AM
I can't wait for this. I miss Dan Parent. I'm not crazy about the artwork in Betty & Veronica Vixens. I thought it would be better.

Yeah, I did too, based on the cover artwork by Eva Cabrera. Her cover art seems a lot better than her interior artwork -- or is it just me?

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 16, 2018, 11:07:37 AM

Quote from: BettyReggie on February 16, 2018, 10:13:32 AM
I can't wait for this. I miss Dan Parent. I'm not crazy about the artwork in Betty & Veronica Vixens. I thought it would be better.

Yeah, I did too, based on the cover artwork by Eva Cabrera. Her cover art seems a lot better than her interior artwork -- or is it just me?

Starting with issue #3, she seems to have switched from that weird...whatever it was from the first two issues to a more anime-inspired style. The girls' clothes and hairstyles are no longer retro either. I think it's an improvement.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on February 16, 2018, 02:24:16 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 16, 2018, 11:07:37 AM

Quote from: BettyReggie on February 16, 2018, 10:13:32 AM
I can't wait for this. I miss Dan Parent. I'm not crazy about the artwork in Betty & Veronica Vixens. I thought it would be better.

Yeah, I did too, based on the cover artwork by Eva Cabrera. Her cover art seems a lot better than her interior artwork -- or is it just me?

Starting with issue #3, she seems to have switched from that weird...whatever it was from the first two issues to a more anime-inspired style. The girls' clothes and hairstyles are no longer retro either. I think it's an improvement.

Given the way it's being written, I can't quite figure out how it can NOT be retro. It's sort of like some 1950s-style movie about "girls gone wild", but then they have computers, smartphones and social media. Women still have the same basic social status and are treated like they would have been in the 1950s (or maybe that's just how Jaime Rotante actually sees things). A pretty weird parallel universe that doesn't resemble our 21st century at all, except that they share some of the same technology.  I didn't actually notice any change in the art between #2 and #3, but I guess I'd have to pull them both out and compare them side-by-side.

Harvey and Ivy meet Betty and Veronica actually kept my attention more than the Vixens series but both are series I only read if I'm bored.

Quote from: irishmoxie on February 17, 2018, 01:31:48 AM
Harvey and Ivy meet Betty and Veronica actually kept my attention more than the Vixens series but both are series I only read if I'm bored.

Hmm... it worked exactly the opposite for me, and by the time I had gotten to the end of H&I/B&V #1, I had completely lost interest in the idea of reading #2. Maybe that's because I DO like Harley & Ivy, and it seems like they just tossed the idea out there and handed it off to whoever was free to write and draw it, like it wasn't worth bothering to get a 'name' writer and artist. I think if that if someone like Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner had been given the assignment it could have been great, or if they'd given that series to Adam Hughes to draw and gotten a script with a sense of humor it could have worked, too. They didn't even need to involve creators who'd have put a big dent in the budget -- Chip Zdarksy (or Dan Slott) and Audrey Mok (or Guillem March) probably would have done a good job of it without breaking their bankbook. Even better if they'd gone with the animated Bruce Timm versions of Harley and Ivy and gotten someone like Ty Templeton and Rick Burchett to do it. Talk about wasted potential! It just feels like they figured they could paste the logos for H&I and B&V on the cover and sell it just on the basis of the names alone and having a few variant cover versions, and like the actual writing and artwork was more or less an afterthought. Normally I like Paul Dini as a writer, but the whole plot idea was just plain dumb.

Then, just to rub a little more salt in the wound, they had to give you just a glimpse of what the whole thing could have looked like had they chosen to travel down "the road not taken".... 



I'm still waffling on VIXENS and probably won't settle on an opinion until it's over.

Quote from: gillibean on February 18, 2018, 08:13:15 PM

Quote from: irishmoxie on February 13, 2018, 07:07:15 PM
I'm not sure who is buying that Betty and Veronica merch. It's way too expensive for the average digest reader. I suspect it's young women (20s) who are also fans of Riverdale and have deep pockets/Daddy's money and like to dress up as pin ups on a daily basis.

I'm a junior in high school, I get the digests every month, I usually cannot stand Riverdale, and do in fact have a job. If you are referring to the Betty and Veronica fashion line, I have bought from them before, and I do agree that some of it is expensive. I received a jacket as a Christmas present, but the other times I have paid for it MYSELF. I don't think I dress up as a "pin up" on a daily basis, but do agree that some of the clothes are a little much. I don't think I'm apart of the main crowd who buys these clothes, and when you go to their tagged section on instagram you can see that you're pretty much right on the money with your guess.


I just wanted to point out that I am different than the usual customers 

You're still in high school so I wouldn't expect that's the sort of customers they're aiming for. It's really for the fashionistas, otherwise they'd be selling that stuff at the Gap or Hot Topic or something. You've got to expect that, if they're marketing it through a fashion designer like Rachel Antonoff, so compare it to the consumer demographics for similar designers. It's not for your average people because we have all kinds of department and clothing stores for them.

You usually can't stand Riverdale the comic book, or just the show in general?

Quote from: gillibean on February 19, 2018, 02:13:18 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 19, 2018, 01:07:32 AM
You're still in high school so I wouldn't expect that's the sort of customers they're aiming for. It's really for the fashionistas, otherwise they'd be selling that stuff at the Gap or Hot Topic or something. You've got to expect that, if they're marketing it through a fashion designer like Rachel Antonoff, so compare it to the consumer demographics for similar designers. It's not for your average people because we have all kinds of department and clothing stores for them.

You usually can't stand Riverdale the comic book, or just the show in general?

Yeah, didn't think I was the target audience.


I meant the show, I'll pretty much read anything Archie comics publishes. The comics aren't amazing, but i'll take it any day over the show.


I can appreciate certain aspects of Riverdale (the show) but overall its really bad.

It's interesting to hear you say that, because my assumption was that you really are in that show's target demographic. That could be a misperception on my part, and maybe the show really is skewed to an older audience in their 20s and 30s. Not that I didn't think the show was hoping to appeal to the 20s and 30s-somethings out there, but I certainly guessed that they hoped to appeal to a lot of teenagers as well. It's not the type of show that interests me, so I haven't watched it myself -- and I can certainly see where there'd be a lot of people out there who'd fall into the "just no interest" group, but the people that have been at least interested enough to give it a trial run generally seem to like it, and yours is the first opinion I've seen along the lines of "tried it, didn't care for it". I sort of appreciate your even-handedness in saying that you can appreciate "certain aspects", which tends to make me think your opinion isn't something reactionary, but a little more considered, which tends to lend it more weight to my mind.

I don't really care for it. The covers are better the art inside.I may give to the thrift store.

Quote from: gillibean on February 19, 2018, 09:47:44 PMI can feel that it was not made for an Archie comics fan. I'm not saying it has to be perfect for the fans, but I wish it could be like marvel, where ANYONE can enjoy the movies/shows they put out.

You might think so, about the Marvel movies and TV shows. But I've read thousands of Marvel comics, and for me, in general, most of those movies and shows just hold "no interest".  I've liked certain aspects of some. Overall the X-Men movies seem the best, along with Deadpool. I have to assume it's because I've never followed the X-Men comic book franchise with as much passion as I have for some of the others, like Captain America or the Avengers (but then by the time they got around to making those movies, I didn't care much for the current comic books either). When they throw the X-Men into a movie and make changes, I can see what they changed, but it's not that big of a deal to me, because it's been a long while since I felt a lot of reverence for the X-Men comic books. I tend to like the oddball choices for movie adaptations, like Kick-Ass (which I actually thought was better than the comic book it was based on). But there's usually a general rule in effect there that dictates an inverse relationship between how much I like the character or series as a comic book, and how much I like it as a movie or TV show. Having figured that out, I now can just watch the preview trailer for a comic book movie, and usually tell immediately whether it looks interesting or not (mostly not).

It seems to me that if you REALLY really like a specific comic book series or characters, it makes you pretty fussy about certain details, very specific things that you enjoy from the comic book version. When you don't see those things included in the movie or show based on comics, or they are distorted or twisted in the process of transferring them to another media, then instead of getting some kind of hoped-for satisfaction along the lines of "it's like the comic book come to life", you get exactly the opposite, a huge letdown -- just a big list of disappointments of all the ways in which the movie or show didn't get it right. I used to wonder why, as comic books gained more credibility and respect from the mainstream, that the movies and TV shows adapted from them didn't become more "faithful to the source material" -- but in actual fact, it seems like the adaptations have gone in the opposite direction. So while the average person watching can just go along with whatever they throw on the screen without any problems, the less-than one-percenters who are hardcore fans of the comic book version of the characters might feel otherwise, because they've already spent far too much time thinking about those characters, and while watching the movie or television version, they tend to sit there and analyze every detail, comparing it with the comic book version, and find that the movie or show is missing or changed important elements that are essential to them. That goes for the various modern DC movies and TV shows as well. Strangely enough, in the 90s, the animated DC shows like Batman, Superman, and Justice League were often better than the comic books they were publishing (their main universe, not the comics adapted from the animation).

Where RIVERDALE differs from the various Marvel and DC film and television adaptations, I think, is that its main selling point of interest is not as an adaptation of the classic Archie characters (or even the New Riverdale ARCHIE) -- it's the radical re-interpretation of the classic Archie characters that is its cachet. The awareness of that among the viewers, that this will not be a straight adaptation, but a Twilight Zone-ish parallel universe remix of the characters, is what draws its audience and holds it. That was also the case for AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, which is a better analog (minus the horror elements) for the television series than regular Archie comics. Not surprisingly, since Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was the mastermind behind both of them. Clearly this won't be a faithful adaptation, but how exactly will they re-interpret those characters? That's the main drawing point to pique the curiosity of viewers, it seems to me.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 20, 2018, 03:47:26 AM

Quote from: gillibean on February 19, 2018, 09:47:44 PMI can feel that it was not made for an Archie comics fan. I'm not saying it has to be perfect for the fans, but I wish it could be like marvel, where ANYONE can enjoy the movies/shows they put out.

You might think so, about the Marvel movies and TV shows. But I've read thousands of Marvel comics, and for me, in general, most of those movies and shows just hold "no interest".  I've liked certain aspects of some. Overall the X-Men movies seem the best, along with Deadpool. I have to assume it's because I've never followed the X-Men comic book franchise with as much passion as I have for some of the others, like Captain America or the Avengers (but then by the time they got around to making those movies, I didn't care much for the current comic books either). When they throw the X-Men into a movie and make changes, I can see what they changed, but it's not that big of a deal to me, because it's been a long while since I felt a lot of reverence for the X-Men comic books. I tend to like the oddball choices for movie adaptations, like Kick-Ass (which I actually thought was better than the comic book it was based on). But there's usually a general rule in effect there that dictates an inverse relationship between how much I like the character or series as a comic book, and how much I like it as a movie or TV show. Having figured that out, I now can just watch the preview trailer for a comic book movie, and usually tell immediately whether it looks interesting or not (mostly not).

It seems to me that if you REALLY really like a specific comic book series or characters, it makes you pretty fussy about certain details, very specific things that you enjoy from the comic book version. When you don't see those things included in the movie or show based on comics, or they are distorted or twisted in the process of transferring them to another media, then instead of getting some kind of hoped-for satisfaction along the lines of "it's like the comic book come to life", you get exactly the opposite, a huge letdown -- just a big list of disappointments of all the ways in which the movie or show didn't get it right. I used to wonder why, as comic books gained more credibility and respect from the mainstream, that the movies and TV shows adapted from them didn't become more "faithful to the source material" -- but in actual fact, it seems like the adaptations have gone in the opposite direction. So while the average person watching can just go along with whatever they throw on the screen without any problems, the less-than one-percenters who are hardcore fans of the comic book version of the characters might feel otherwise, because they've already spent far too much time thinking about those characters, and while watching the movie or television version, they tend to sit there and analyze every detail, comparing it with the comic book version, and find that the movie or show is missing or changed important elements that are essential to them. That goes for the various modern DC movies and TV shows as well. Strangely enough, in the 90s, the animated DC shows like Batman, Superman, and Justice League were often better than the comic books they were publishing (their main universe, not the comics adapted from the animation).

Where RIVERDALE differs from the various Marvel and DC film and television adaptations, I think, is that its main selling point of interest is not as an adaptation of the classic Archie characters (or even the New Riverdale ARCHIE) -- it's the radical re-interpretation of the classic Archie characters that is its cachet. The awareness of that among the viewers, that this will not be a straight adaptation, but a Twilight Zone-ish parallel universe remix of the characters, is what draws its audience and holds it. That was also the case for AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, which is a better analog (minus the horror elements) for the television series than regular Archie comics. Not surprisingly, since Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was the mastermind behind both of them. Clearly this won't be a faithful adaptation, but how exactly will they re-interpret those characters? That's the main drawing point to pique the curiosity of viewers, it seems to me.

I think you'd like Black Panther, DR. It's VERY good. I saw it Monday....

Quote from: gillibean on February 19, 2018, 09:47:44 PM
Sometimes its really funny how they try to force the most random things from the comics into the script. For example "Jingle Jangle" (The song by the Archies) is now the term for a pixie-stick type drug. Pretty hilarious how they forced that one in.

I don't watch every week and I tend to marathon the episodes. My favorite part of the show probably is the Easter Eggs and there's plenty of them. They usually elicit a chuckle from me.

Quote from: irishmoxie on February 20, 2018, 11:07:26 AM

Quote from: gillibean on February 19, 2018, 09:47:44 PM
Sometimes its really funny how they try to force the most random things from the comics into the script. For example "Jingle Jangle" (The song by the Archies) is now the term for a pixie-stick type drug. Pretty hilarious how they forced that one in.

I don't watch every week and I tend to marathon the episodes. My favorite part of the show probably is the Easter Eggs and there's plenty of them. They usually elicit a chuckle from me.

That's pretty much what I'm talking about. The novelty factor is in looking for the characters and other bits referencing the comics, and seeing when they'll appear and how they'll be remixed and reinterpreted into the Riverdale storyline. That would be the hook for some viewers, at least the ones that have more than the most basic knowledge about the comics -- and even for the rest, the vast majority whose knowledge of Archie is very basic, it's in how they change up the standard tropes of Archie, B&V, Jughead, and Reggie.