This could be a really cool crossover especially since Batman '66 is based on my favorite (and IMO) only Batman, Adam West. 


And also because DAN PARENT is doing the art! 


http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/archie-andrews-batman-66-comic-series

I'm a fan of the Batman '66 books, so I'm definitely getting this!

I told my boyfriend about this and he wants to buy it.


I'm so proud, this will be his first Archie comic 

Dan Parent told me about this a year and a half ago, but told me not to spread it around until it was announced, because... well, you know how these things go. There are all sorts of negotiations that need to be committed to and a contract signed. I think he made the mistake once of telling people about his sequel to ARCHIE MEETS KISS, and then for whatever reason, it didn't go ahead as planned.

After all this time passed and the BATMAN '66 comics had ended (prior crossover miniseries had been released by DC like clockwork, with a new one beginning a month or two after the previous one ended), it seemed like with BATMAN '66 MEETS THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (which was only a one-shot) last year, the whole wave of Batman '66 merchandise (which started in 2016 for the 50th anniversary of the show) had finally come to a close. There were a few other licensed toys and things after that, but I just figured those things take longer, production-wise, and were just dribbling out of the pipeline.

I wasn't sure it was actually going to happen, so I tried not to get my hopes up too much. Then there was the HARLEY & IVY MEET BETTY & VERONICA thing. Which, if it had been done by Dan Parent, would actually have been even better than ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66.

I just hope they keep finding new projects for Dan to do at ACP, because the last thing was the digital-exclusive LIFE WITH KEVIN, which took what seemed like forever to complete its four-issue run and be compiled into a trade collection. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but a year ago Dan Parent was writing and drawing all the 5-page lead stories in the digests (and doing the covers as well), and now he's only writing most of them, and drawing some of the B&V stories.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 21, 2018, 11:18:12 AM


I don't know if anyone else noticed, but a year ago Dan Parent was writing and drawing all the 5-page lead stories in the digests (and doing the covers as well), and now he's only writing most of them, and drawing some of the B&V stories.

I noticed but I figured that was because he was doing Your Pal Archie and now he's gonna do this crossover and the new Betty and Veronica miniseries, in addition to all his Die Kitty Die stuff.  I'm pretty sure Archie will keep Dan as busy as he wants, or at least as busy as they can.  He was the last "classic" artist for awhile until they started bringing some of those folks back and I'm sure it's because he's the favorite of Archie Comics. 


I think eventually they're gonna have to cancel the reboot flagship series since sales are dropping, and maybe there will be new "classic" style comics for Dan to draw then! 

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on March 21, 2018, 06:36:41 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 21, 2018, 11:18:12 AM


I don't know if anyone else noticed, but a year ago Dan Parent was writing and drawing all the 5-page lead stories in the digests (and doing the covers as well), and now he's only writing most of them, and drawing some of the B&V stories.

I noticed but I figured that was because he was doing Your Pal Archie and now he's gonna do this crossover and the new Betty and Veronica miniseries, in addition to all his Die Kitty Die stuff.  I'm pretty sure Archie will keep Dan as busy as he wants, or at least as busy as they can.  He was the last "classic" artist for awhile until they started bringing some of those folks back and I'm sure it's because he's the favorite of Archie Comics. 

I think eventually they're gonna have to cancel the reboot flagship series since sales are dropping, and maybe there will be new "classic" style comics for Dan to draw then!

In Dan Parent's interview in COMIC BOOK CREATOR #16, he mentions that he's always kept a low profile when dealing with Archie management and tried to just do the work as best he can, not taking any sides in the various management issues that had cropped up between the Goldwater and Silberkleit camps. On the other hand, Fernando Ruiz made his feelings plain to management about how he felt about their treatment of him when classic Archie work dried up. Taking into account that DIE KITTY DIE rather ruthlessly satirizes management people at a company not too dissimilar from ACP, I have to wonder if someone in ACP management may not have had a sense of humor about being parodied, because it does seem to indicate Dan & Fernando in alignment with regard to how they perceive things at ACP.

And it's ironic that Jeff Shultz, Bill Galvan, Pat & Tim Kennedy, Bill Golliher, Angelo DeCesare, Alex Segura, Tom DeFalco, Rich Koslowski and Jim Amash can come back and do new work for ACP on classic Archie stories after a couple of years downtime, but Fernando Ruiz can't (and probably doesn't want to). With just the 5-page new lead stories in 5 digests (that's just 250 pages of new stories a year) those pages can probably be filled easily even without Dan Parent and Fernando Ruiz. Only the floppy comics readers care about the individual creators, and there are no ongoing classic Archie comics in the floppy comic format (until and unless BETTY AND VERONICA FRIENDS FOREVER is proven to be an actual ongoing title).

I'd be just as happy (more than ecstatic, really) if I could see new issues of DIE KITTY DIE even on a bimonthly basis, without having to mount a new Kickstarter campaign for each new miniseries. It matters less to me what characters Dan and Fernando are working on as long as they're producing a comic book in the teen humor genre. Same goes for Darin Henry & Jeff Shultz' SUPER 'SUCKERS. I love reading the big fat Binge Books but would be happier if it were a regular-sized comic coming out on a regular publishing schedule. Both of these titles are being published less for commercial reasons than as a sheer labor of love for the creators, although neither one could obviously continue if the creators weren't able to make some money off them.

I blame the comic shop market which insists on the floppy comic format, but that doesn't really like teen humor comics. That puts Archie Comic Publications in a difficult position when it comes to the floppy comic format, which is hard for the main audience (kids) of teen humor genre comics to find (and not perceived as a very good value at $4 for 20 pages of story, compared to the Jumbo Comics digests which have 175-180 pages of content for $7). They're used to purchasing Archie Comics in regular retail stores (supermarkets, Walmart, Barnes & Noble) -- not having to subscribe, mail-order, or make a special trip to a comic book store to get them.

The fact of the matter is that ACP is now publishing forty 192-page Jumbo Comics digests a year, and ten 128-page ARCHIE AND ME Comics Digests a year, burning through the reprint cycle at a prodigious rate -- much faster than it did a decade ago, when ACP was publishing four 98-page digests and four 188-page Double Digests (which were each, on average, published about 8 times a year). At that same time ACP was still publishing 6 or 8 Archie-related floppy titles generating 22-24 pages of new stories in every issue. You'll notice that the bulk of the stories reprinted now in the digests are from floppy comics that originally appeared in the mid-1990s through the mid-2010s, so you can easily say that older reprints begin to lose their relevance to a young audience as time passes. That stream of new stories feeding into the digests to keep the pipeline of more recent stories flowing has slowed to a mere trickle of its former self, as the classic Archie-related floppy comic titles began succumbing to cancellation, one by one, in the 2010s. Which begs the question, where will the future classic Archie reprints be coming from, given the fact that they're already being reprinted with greater frequency than ever before? Not from the floppy comic titles, it seems, as those can't seem to manage to sustain themselves in comic book shops where the main consumer base is indifferent to teen humor comics, and not from those special crossover projects like Archie Meets Kiss, Archie Meets Glee, Archie vs. Predator, Archie/Sharknado, Archie Meets Ramones, and Archie Meets Batman '66, either. Personally, I'd be happy to pay a buck or two more for the cover price of a Jumbo Comics digest if it contained 20 pages of new stories. Or maybe ACP could come up with some new hybrid format with less pages, but a larger page size on slightly better paper -- say the same size as the old Archie & Friends All-Stars trade collections, with 20 pages of new stories, 100 pages of reprints, and 12-18 pages of advertising/editorial content. Those would still fit in supermarket racks, as they're about the same size as The Old Farmer's Almanac and other similar-sized publications.

Here's the story on ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66 from Diamond Comics' PREVIEWSWORLD site:

Batman and Robin Swing Into Riverdale!

Batman and Robin are swinging their way to Riverdale and things are going to get really wild, really fast! Archie Comics and DC Entertainment are proud to present the crossover adventure 50 years in the making: ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN 66! The groovy six-issue mini-series from writers Jeff Parker and Michael Moreci, penciler Dan Parent, inker J. Bone, colorist Kelly Fitzpatrick, and letterer Jack Morelli will see Gotham's caped crusaders (as seen in the classic 1960s TV series) on a mission to Riverdale that upends the lives of Archie and the gang in a madcap adventure for the ages.

"Following the success of a monster hit like HARLEY & IVY MEET BETTY & VERONICA is tough, but not impossible, and we're going to prove that with ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66, which meshes two of the most iconic characters in the world," said Archie Comics CEO/Publisher Jon Goldwater. "Like Batman, Archie is one of the most famous, global characters in comics, and we'll see the best of both heroes in the pages of this mini-series, including tons of cameos and plenty of action."

"We considered many different combinations for this next pairing between DC Universe and Archie characters, and Batman '66 and Archie Andrews really stood out as the perfect choice," said Hank Kanalz, DC SVP of Editorial Strategy and Administration. "What DC and Archie started with HARLEY & IVY MEET BETTY & VERONICA last year continues with this off-the-wall pairing of Archie and The Caped Crusader; we believe fans of the classic TV shows and their modern interpretations will be excited about this new series."

"Look, we all want to know what Jughead and The Joker make of each other and we want to see the romance dynamics of Riverdale High thrown completely out of gear by bringing in Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon," said co-writer Jeff Parker. "It's very cool to work with a heavy hitting team of top talent. Michael and I synched up immediately with plotting, and Dan and J. Bone are the exact right cartoonists to make a mash-up like this really work."

"It's rare that you get a call to work with character/property that you love, but to do TWO at the same time? That's more than I can ask for," added co-writer Michael Moreci. "And to work with such an amazing team -- this is one of those rare dream projects, and I can't wait to bring all this love to the series."

For artist Dan Parent, this team-up is a childhood dream come true as well. "I've been lucky enough to have a career drawing characters I love from my childhood. But the first show I ever got excited about (and my mom can verify this) was the original Batman series!" "So, the chance to combine these two big influences in my life into one project is a total thrill. And to work on it with Jeff and Michael, as well as my friend and colleague J. Bone, makes it even that much sweeter!"

The action and intrigue of ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66 begins when a team of Gotham's most notorious villains decide they need a new base of operations, one with a resident millionaire and fewer superheroes to stop them. Their plan doesn't go unnoticed for long, and soon enough, Riverdale High has a couple new transfer students: Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon!

ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66 #1 goes on sale July 18, 2018 with a main cover by Mike Allred and variant covers by Derek Charm, Francesco Francavilla, Sandy Jarrell (with Kelly Fitzpatrick colors), Dan Parent (with J. Bone inks, Tito Pena colors), and Ty Templeton.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 22, 2018, 02:25:37 AM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on March 21, 2018, 06:36:41 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 21, 2018, 11:18:12 AM


I don't know if anyone else noticed, but a year ago Dan Parent was writing and drawing all the 5-page lead stories in the digests (and doing the covers as well), and now he's only writing most of them, and drawing some of the B&V stories.

I noticed but I figured that was because he was doing Your Pal Archie and now he's gonna do this crossover and the new Betty and Veronica miniseries, in addition to all his Die Kitty Die stuff.  I'm pretty sure Archie will keep Dan as busy as he wants, or at least as busy as they can.  He was the last "classic" artist for awhile until they started bringing some of those folks back and I'm sure it's because he's the favorite of Archie Comics. 

I think eventually they're gonna have to cancel the reboot flagship series since sales are dropping, and maybe there will be new "classic" style comics for Dan to draw then!

In Dan Parent's interview in COMIC BOOK CREATOR #16, he mentions that he's always kept a low profile when dealing with Archie management and tried to just do the work as best he can, not taking any sides in the various management issues that had cropped up between the Goldwater and Silberkleit camps. On the other hand, Fernando Ruiz made his feelings plain to management about how he felt about their treatment of him when classic Archie work dried up. Taking into account that DIE KITTY DIE rather ruthlessly satirizes management people at a company not too dissimilar from ACP, I have to wonder if someone in ACP management may not have had a sense of humor about being parodied, because it does seem to indicate Dan & Fernando in alignment with regard to how they perceive things at ACP.

And it's ironic that Jeff Shultz, Bill Galvan, Pat & Tim Kennedy, Bill Golliher, Angelo DeCesare, Alex Segura, Tom DeFalco, Rich Koslowski and Jim Amash can come back and do new work for ACP on classic Archie stories after a couple of years downtime, but Fernando Ruiz can't (and probably doesn't want to). With just the 5-page new lead stories in 5 digests (that's just 250 pages of new stories a year) those pages can probably be filled easily even without Dan Parent and Fernando Ruiz. Only the floppy comics readers care about the individual creators, and there are no ongoing classic Archie comics in the floppy comic format (until and unless BETTY AND VERONICA FRIENDS FOREVER is proven to be an actual ongoing title).

I'd be just as happy (more than ecstatic, really) if I could see new issues of DIE KITTY DIE even on a bimonthly basis, without having to mount a new Kickstarter campaign for each new miniseries. It matters less to me what characters Dan and Fernando are working on as long as they're producing a comic book in the teen humor genre. Same goes for Darin Henry & Jeff Shultz' SUPER 'SUCKERS. I love reading the big fat Binge Books but would be happier if it were a regular-sized comic coming out on a regular publishing schedule. Both of these titles are being published less for commercial reasons than as a sheer labor of love for the creators, although neither one could obviously continue if the creators weren't able to make some money off them.

I blame the comic shop market which insists on the floppy comic format, but that doesn't really like teen humor comics. That puts Archie Comic Publications in a difficult position when it comes to the floppy comic format, which is hard for the main audience (kids) of teen humor genre comics to find (and not perceived as a very good value at $4 for 20 pages of story, compared to the Jumbo Comics digests which have 175-180 pages of content for $7). They're used to purchasing Archie Comics in regular retail stores (supermarkets, Walmart, Barnes & Noble) -- not having to subscribe, mail-order, or make a special trip to a comic book store to get them.

The fact of the matter is that ACP is now publishing forty 192-page Jumbo Comics digests a year, and ten 128-page ARCHIE AND ME Comics Digests a year, burning through the reprint cycle at a prodigious rate -- much faster than it did a decade ago, when ACP was publishing four 98-page digests and four 188-page Double Digests (which were each, on average, published about 8 times a year). At that same time ACP was still publishing 6 or 8 Archie-related floppy titles generating 22-24 pages of new stories in every issue. You'll notice that the bulk of the stories reprinted now in the digests are from floppy comics that originally appeared in the mid-1990s through the mid-2010s, so you can easily say that older reprints begin to lose their relevance to a young audience as time passes. That stream of new stories feeding into the digests to keep the pipeline of more recent stories flowing has slowed to a mere trickle of its former self, as the classic Archie-related floppy comic titles began succumbing to cancellation, one by one, in the 2010s. Which begs the question, where will the future classic Archie reprints be coming from, given the fact that they're already being reprinted with greater frequency than ever before? Not from the floppy comic titles, it seems, as those can't seem to manage to sustain themselves in comic book shops where the main consumer base is indifferent to teen humor comics, and not from those special crossover projects like Archie Meets Kiss, Archie Meets Glee, Archie vs. Predator, Archie/Sharknado, Archie Meets Ramones, and Archie Meets Batman '66, either. Personally, I'd be happy to pay a buck or two more for the cover price of a Jumbo Comics digest if it contained 20 pages of new stories. Or maybe ACP could come up with some new hybrid format with less pages, but a larger page size on slightly better paper -- say the same size as the old Archie & Friends All-Stars trade collections, with 20 pages of new stories, 100 pages of reprints, and 12-18 pages of advertising/editorial content. Those would still fit in supermarket racks, as they're about the same size as The Old Farmer's Almanac and other similar-sized publications.

These are all great observations, DCR.  I'm not sure what Archie can do. I don't think there's much of a future in floppy comics anyway, for any publisher. That's why you're seeing all these special editions and crossovers and reboots.  Most comics readers I know just wait for the graphic novels if they buy physical product at all.  Obviously, there are exceptions and I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see Archie Comics publishing digests for that much longer anyway.  They just sit on the shelves in all the stores that sell them in my area.  The hardcore people subscribe since it's so much cheaper and I don't know how many they sell at retail, but it's not happening in my area. 


Having said all that, I'm letting most of my digest subscriptions expire.  I just can't find time to read them.  I'll probably keep B&V and World of Archie for as long as they're published.  I still subscribe to Archie, Jughead The Hunger, and Riverdale (although as I've said, I wish they'd get Pitilli off that book because I actually think it's the best floppy they're publishing right now otherwise). 


IF they were to make some of the improvements/alterations to the digest format that you suggest, I'd happily jump back on.   

Sandy Jarrell's variant cover for ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66 #1 --

Francesco Francavilla's "AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66" #1 variant cover --

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 23, 2018, 06:26:52 AM
Francesco Francavilla's "AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66" #1 variant cover --

That's really great! They should use him on an ongoing comic.  Oh, wait.....

Look at how scared Archie looks on that Francavilla cover variant. Now, I'm a huge fan of Francavilla's work in general (although to honest, AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE is probably one of my least favorites of all the things he's worked on; I much prefer Francavilla's creator-owned series, BLACK BEETLE), but I'm thinking about skipping that cover variant because it's just not suited to this particular comic book, tone-wise.

Sandy Jarrell's variant is my absolute favorite here, and he(or she)'s an artist whose prior work I'm entirely unfamiliar with. The biggest point to make about that art is that it's the best-designed of all the covers, and perfectly captures a vibe of fun and grooviness that's totally in sync with those late-1960s issues of LIFE WITH ARCHIE where The Archies made their first appearances. I'm kind of embarassed to say it, but s/he's outdone some of my favorite artists on that one cover, including Dan Parent, Mike Allred, Francesco Francavilla and Ty Templeton. Their covers are fine, but none of them are illustrations which I'd place near the top of each of their personal lists of most outstanding covers.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 23, 2018, 10:59:59 AM
Look at how scared Archie looks on that Francavilla cover variant. Now, I'm a huge fan of Francavilla's work in general (although to honest, AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE is probably one of my least favorites of all the things he's worked on; I much prefer Francavilla's creator-owned series, BLACK BEETLE), but I'm thinking about skipping that cover variant because it's just not suited to this particular comic book, tone-wise.

Sandy Jarrell's variant is my absolute favorite here, and he(or she)'s an artist whose prior work I'm entirely unfamiliar with. The biggest point to make about that art is that it's the best-designed of all the covers, and perfectly captures a vibe of fun and grooviness that's totally in sync with those late-1960s issues of LIFE WITH ARCHIE where The Archies made their first appearances. I'm kind of embarassed to say it, but s/he's outdone some of my favorite artists on that one cover, including Dan Parent, Mike Allred, Francesco Francavilla and Ty Templeton. Their covers are fine, but none of them are illustrations which I'd place near the top of each of their personal lists of most outstanding covers.

Sandy is a he and I totally agree.  That cover has been my desktop background from the moment it showed up online!

I'm going skip this one.

...This is not a very optimistic board lately,  is it ?
  BTW,  speaking of internal conflict at ACP...what became of that sexual harassment/musconduct suit that one faction at Archie brought up +hat was written up in HARPER'S magazine in their front of the book section what is,  UFO,  maybe a couple of years ago by now?
  Also,  is the newspaper strip still running,? Even as reprint? I asked a ways ago about recent-putting up the link but it seems that no one ever did .