May seems to have a really good selection of comics.

Something I've been noticing over the past few years is that the Digest covers never really seem to have jokes anymore. Usually it's just images of the main cast looking extremely cartoony and Barbie-like, frolicking in the snow or the leaves or the water or the flowers. Everyone always has a massive, slightly unsettling smile on their face. The covers used to attract me because of the jokes, and the ones that do still have jokes are always my first pick over these extremely happy ones. Has anyone else noticed this?

Quote from: Shuester on March 05, 2017, 04:27:29 AM
May seems to have a really good selection of comics.

Something I've been noticing over the past few years is that the Digest covers never really seem to have jokes anymore. Usually it's just images of the main cast looking extremely cartoony and Barbie-like, frolicking in the snow or the leaves or the water or the flowers. Everyone always has a massive, slightly unsettling smile on their face. The covers used to attract me because of the jokes, and the ones that do still have jokes are always my first pick over these extremely happy ones. Has anyone else noticed this?

Somebody had mentioned the same thing about a year or so ago -- in actuality, I think the last word balloon gag cover was back in October 2016:



But you're right -- these used to represent the majority of covers, and now they're in the distinct minority. More often than not, when it's a gag it's simply a visual gag, with no verbal commentary by the characters.

I don't know if it's because Dan Parent (now that he's the sole cover artist left) just has a preference to just do iconic character images, but I suspect it's more likely an editorial directive so that ACP can build up a stockpile of infinitely REusable cover images.

I don't know what year this comes from, but Archie's Funhouse only got started a couple of years ago, so this is a pretty modern Digest cover. This is a pretty funny joke. It isn't a crazy original concept, and the art isn't anything that hasn't been seen before. But the joke is funny, the characters are recognizable, and the cover does a job of getting the vibe of the comics across. Compare that to three of the Digest covers from the upcoming May...
















They're basically all the same thing; only one has speech and I'm not even sure what the joke is. I know which comic I'd rather buy.

I wonder in the Archie 279 if that's Valerie?

Quote from: SAGG on March 05, 2017, 09:14:19 AM
I wonder in the Archie 279 if that's Valerie?

Yes. It's a Dan Parent cover. It was Dan's idea to play matchmaker for Archie & Valerie, and he wrote the original story where the two songwriters gazed deeply into each others' eyes and were bitten by the love bug.

Quote from: Shuester on March 05, 2017, 08:44:07 AM


I don't know what year this comes from, but Archie's Funhouse only got started a couple of years ago [...]  I know which comic I'd rather buy.

Archie's Funhouse #20 is from July 2016. Jughead & Archie #22 is from October 2016. Both covers were drawn by Fernando Ruiz some time ago. He turned in his final work for ACP over a year ago, so in all likelihood he'd gotten far ahead on covers for these two particular digest titles, and they had been drawn and sitting awaiting publication for some time. This is because as 2015 began, both of those particular titles were being published at the frequency of 10 times per year. Sometime around the Fall of 2015, both of them were reduced in frequency from the former 10 issues per year to only 6 issues per year, which accounts for Fernando's work still appearing on those digest covers long after he'd received his last paying work from ACP.

As I mentioned before, it seems very likely that the digest editor decided that it might be a good idea for covers to become less specific and more generic. If you look carefully at some of the collected 1000 Page and Giant Comics digests, you'll see that those are now mostly all Dan Parent covers as well, recycled from images used on previous covers. If it's a joke cover, it can't be used this way again, because readers will remember the joke and realize that they had seen the same cover before. Worse still, they might not buy it if it looks familiar, thinking that they already own or have read it because of that. They're just trying to save money, and are probably building up a big file of seasonal and themed images that can be recycled (once they have enough of them) over and over for years.

On the left, from November 2016. On the right, from February 2015. Recycled (or re-scooter'ed) after only 20 months.

I liked Little Archie and His Pals, so I will look for Little Josie.

I would say it was about the best Little Archie comic I ever read. It's more of a thing like where I'm just into all those Franco & Baltazar comics: Itty Bitty Hellboy, Tiny Titans, Super Powers, Super Pets, Aw Yeah!, Action Cat, whatever.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 10, 2017, 09:50:07 PM
I would say it was about the best Little Archie comic I ever read. It's more of a thing like where I'm just into all those Franco & Baltazar comics: Itty Bitty Hellboy, Tiny Titans, Super Powers, Super Pets, Aw Yeah!, Action Cat, whatever.

Better than Bolling's Little Archie? Those are considered to be classics...

Quote from: SAGG on April 11, 2017, 04:29:11 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 10, 2017, 09:50:07 PM
I would say it was about the best Little Archie comic I ever read. It's more of a thing like where I'm just into all those Franco & Baltazar comics: Itty Bitty Hellboy, Tiny Titans, Super Powers, Super Pets, Aw Yeah!, Action Cat, whatever.

Better than Bolling's Little Archie? Those are considered to be classics...

What can I say. LA just never really appealed to me. For whatever reason, I just like Franco & Baltazar. You know who they are, right SAGG? You must have seen or read their stuff, right? So to me, it's not Little Archie that has anything to do with me reading it, it's all Franco & Baltazar.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 11, 2017, 04:41:54 AM

Quote from: SAGG on April 11, 2017, 04:29:11 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 10, 2017, 09:50:07 PM
I would say it was about the best Little Archie comic I ever read. It's more of a thing like where I'm just into all those Franco & Baltazar comics: Itty Bitty Hellboy, Tiny Titans, Super Powers, Super Pets, Aw Yeah!, Action Cat, whatever.

Better than Bolling's Little Archie? Those are considered to be classics...

What can I say. LA just never really appealed to me. For whatever reason, I just like Franco & Baltazar. You know who they are, right SAGG? You must have seen or read their stuff, right? So to me, it's not Little Archie that has anything to do with me reading it, it's all Franco & Baltazar.

Oh, THOSE guys:
http://www.cbr.com/archie-comics-baltazar-franco-little-josie-and-the-pussycats/


Well, I've never really gotten into their stuff, but I'll take a gander... 

Quote from: SAGG on April 11, 2017, 09:08:24 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 11, 2017, 04:41:54 AM

Quote from: SAGG on April 11, 2017, 04:29:11 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 10, 2017, 09:50:07 PM
I would say it was about the best Little Archie comic I ever read. It's more of a thing like where I'm just into all those Franco & Baltazar comics: Itty Bitty Hellboy, Tiny Titans, Super Powers, Super Pets, Aw Yeah!, Action Cat, whatever.

Better than Bolling's Little Archie? Those are considered to be classics...

What can I say. LA just never really appealed to me. For whatever reason, I just like Franco & Baltazar. You know who they are, right SAGG? You must have seen or read their stuff, right? So to me, it's not Little Archie that has anything to do with me reading it, it's all Franco & Baltazar.

Oh, THOSE guys:
http://www.cbr.com/archie-comics-baltazar-franco-little-josie-and-the-pussycats/


Well, I've never really gotten into their stuff, but I'll take a gander... 

Hey, you gotta give those guys their due. They sort of built their own little micro-empire from scratch. It's literally "all them", None of those books is some previously-existing title (hey, come to think of it, Little Archie is the first one!)