Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 11, 2017, 11:18:57 PM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on February 24, 2017, 12:21:52 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on February 24, 2017, 11:41:54 AM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on February 24, 2017, 07:09:31 AM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on February 23, 2017, 01:33:11 PM
I read the reboot  Reggie and Me #2.
Why is the storyline so boring? It's sad 'cause he is my favorite character but so far this  reboot is not doing it for me.

I read Reggie and Me #3 yesterday. It's MUCH better than #2.

Thanks. I really hope so because those two issues so far haven't been interesting nor funny 

I thought the first 2 were OK, not bad, but this one was a huge improvement, IMO.

I just finished reading Reggie and Me #3. it was a tad better than the first 2 issues. I liked that we got to see a bit more of Moose and how there's more to him than meets the eye. But it is still not funny or entertaining. Like I said, I'm only reading them cause Reggie's my favorite, I would like to see more of his family life and the real reason why he acts the way he does. I want deeper insight of him.

Yeesh. I don't need any deep insight into either of them. Reggie and Moose are joke characters who just don't work when you try to expand them into more multi-dimensional realistic humans. I have even less empathy for this version of Reggie than I do for "comic foil" Reggie. The dog narrating everything and adding his own comments about how he sees things from his perspective has really gotten annoying at this point, and the character named "Moose" is some completely different character than the one I'm familiar with ("he's really just a sensitive artist"). Not funny, and boring.

Quote from: irishmoxie on March 12, 2017, 03:21:07 AM
Interesting. I asked Viz on Twitter whether it's better to buy print or digital if I want to support a series I like (and see more similar series published) and they said print is more profitable for them.

Japanese creators own the rights to their own work, so they share in any profits.

Viz might have been lying to you. If what they told you was generally true for publishers operating in both media, why would ANYONE publish a digital-exclusive comic? That makes no sense.

On the other hand, maybe they weren't lying and print publishing really IS more profitable for them. That's AN answer, and it may have been true, but maybe there's a difference in how the profit breaks down between creators and publishers in Japan, and it's a different deal whether it's selling print copies or digital copies. That would make sense in terms of the relative contributions made by the publisher depending on the actual media. In print publishing, the publisher shoulders the burden of risk because of the money they need to invest for printing and distribution, so it makes sense that they should also receive the greater percentage of profits than the creators -- while in digital publishing, the publishers risk next to nothing, so the creators should gain the lion's share of the profits generated.

Maybe the key piece of information they neglected to tell you is that digital publishing is more profitable for the CREATORS.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 11, 2017, 07:21:17 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 10, 2017, 12:42:18 AM
No, what ACP should have done, after cancelling one floppy title after another, is they should have started tranferring all that new content (20-25 pages worth) into all the digest titles. To encourage print digest sales, they shouldn't sell a digital version of the digests. They could make the new content from the digest issues available later (6 months to a year) as a digital single, for $2 -- but if you want those new stories earlier, you need to buy the print digest.

Meh, I'm not a fan of the "delay digital to get you to use the old format" tactic. Heck, I was pissed when The CW used to wait 8 days before putting a new episode online. Now, it's the more reasonable day after.

If floppies don't sell anywhere other than comic shops, ditch the physical format entirely and go digital-only. That way, customers can have a 20-page story (or a group of stories totaling 20 pages) for around $3.99 (heck, maybe less) and wouldn't have to pay shipping costs or deal with packaging. For anyone that really wants a physical copy, Archie Comics could set up a POD service.

Digital-exclusive comics are the biggest scam of all time. $4 for what? For a print comic, somehow a printer, a distributor, and a retailer and all the people that work for them all make a living off a slice of that price (in addition to the creators and the publisher, of course) -- and they all have operating expenses to justify the services they contribute. Paper and ink and printing presses and the industry to produce those things cost money. Moving physical objects around in the physical world means you have to pay a lot of people and the cost of fuel needed for transporting those objects. There's no way they're going to tell me that the cost of administering a website and server hosting costs add up to the same. It's a pure scam for the "publisher", who contributes ZERO to justify hoarding all that profit, unless it's underwriting part of the costs of print publishing.

Selling digital-only comics is literally like giving a publisher a license to print money. After the publisher pays the creators a per-page rate, its 100% profit for them from there on. All of those other people who normally get paid out of a slice of that $4 per copy? The publisher gets to keep their share for himself. UNlike the money a publisher had to invest to attempt to reap a profit on a finite number of print copies, that digital comic is infinite and everlasting - it just keeps making new copies of itself. And what has the publisher done to deserve all that? What did he invest or risk to justify reaping those profits? As far as I can see, his investment was minimized and his risk along with it, and all he did was take a lot of jobs away from other people. Why should he get to keep profiting eternally while the creators get nothing more?

The only way I'd consider buying a digital-only comic is if it's creator-owned/self-published, so the people who are doing the actual creative work are the only ones profiting from the fruits of their labor. Any monkey can set up a website to sell a digital comic, but not just any monkey can create a good comic book. How much profit do you think Dan Parent is seeing from the price of every digital copy of LIFE WITH KEVIN sold, as opposed to how much he's seeing from every digital copy of DIE KITTY DIE sold?

That's a rhetorical question, but I'll spell it out for you. Dan Parent created the characters for LIFE WITH KEVIN (except for Veronica) and entirely wrote and drew it himself, but he makes $ZERO profit off the price of every copy ACP sells of the digital-exclusive comic -- which is why I refuse to purchase it. Whatever money Dan made off the story and artwork, he made before the thing ever went on sale, so my money does nothing to contribute to Dan Parent. I have to assume that ACP recouped the cost they invested in paying Dan for that work, probably on the very first day that issue #1 went on sale, so none of my money is contributing to him earning a living. Paying for a digital-only comic where the creator gets nothing extra for selling more copies, but the so-called "publisher"s profits keep growing with every copy sold (and it never goes "out of print"), feels like being an enabler for a rapist. The cost of a page rate for 20+ pages of comic art & story is a drop in the bucket compared to the investment needed to print & distribute a floppy comic book -- and that's the only part where the publisher can be said to contribute anything -- the investment in the printing and distribution.

ACP has the means at its disposal to publish LIFE WITH KEVIN as a print comic and get it distributed, but they'd rather not (that would be risky because it might cut into their pure profit). Dan Parent and Fernando Ruiz don't have the means at their disposal to publish DIE KITTY DIE as a print comic and get it distributed. The only way they can do something like that is by running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the cost (something that is normally a publisher's contribution). Once they've managed to do that and pay themselves for writing and drawing the comic in the first place, they then have to work out a deal with someone like Chapterhouse Comics to publish a floppy comic for them -- that's the only thing justifying Chapterhouse making a profit off a comic book that was entirely created by Dan Parent and Fernando Ruiz.

I'd rather see ACP go belly-up than all digital-exclusive.

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 11, 2017, 08:55:41 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 11, 2017, 01:56:12 PM
PS -- I  just want to know why Betty gets criticized in the photo as having an inaccurate hairstyle, while Archie and Veronica, whose hairstyles are just as (if not more so) inaccurate, just get a free pass and no one's saying 'boo' about it.

??Veronica's hair is more accurate than Betty's 

Doesn't look anything like Veronica's hair in 1950s stories. Maybe like some later hairstyle of Veronica's.

Okay -- I just watched over a minute or so of that episode of Riverdale on YouTube. I guess I can say I enjoyed the first 30 seconds or so of that scene, before it went all David Lynch on me, so I don't feel compelled to watch any more of it.

I'm fine with watching Twin Peaks or The Walking Dead or something like that, and also enjoy traditional Archie Comics, because I can enjoy different things that are totally different. Just like I can enjoy candy, and something totally different like teriyaki. They aren't "2 great tastes that taste great together", though.

PS -- I  just want to know why Betty gets criticized in the photo as having an inaccurate hairstyle, while Archie and Veronica, whose hairstyles are just as (if not more so) inaccurate, just get a free pass and no one's saying 'boo' about it.

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 11, 2017, 11:30:54 AM
Trust me, those are ponytails, may not be high up but it is a ponytail nonetheless (there are many ponytail variations). And those are bangs. So yes, Betty has always been about bangs and ponytails! (And those panels btw, are from the early to mid 1950s)

Rather than quibble with you about the finer technical distinctions of word definitions (since whether someone recognizes in a hairstyle a resemblance to a pony's tail is completely subjective), I urge you to examine all the covers of Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica at comics.org.

When you originally asked about Betty's hair in the photo, the sense of your question I'm getting is (paraphrasing here) "Why doesn't Betty in the photo look more recognizably like the iconic image of Betty from the 1950s?" And I submit to you that the iconic, recognizable Betty that we know today begins with the Silver Age Betty, on those Harry Lucey covers where he redesigned her hairstyle, beginning with issue #29 in 1957 -- that's where we really begin to see the image of Betty that is recognizable to most Archie readers today emerge. That Betty really doesn't look like the Betty from the 28 issues published beforehand, the earlier image being nearly identical to what we would today recognize as "1940s Betty" or "Golden Age Betty". Silver Age Betty didn't really evolve from Golden Age Betty so much as she was redesigned by Harry Lucey (in a more or less complete break from Bob Montana's Betty design, which was looking pretty dated by 1957) to appear more contemporary for the late 1950s, and the modern Betty did evolve (by way of Dan DeCarlo) from that 1957 version redesigned by Lucey. It's fair to say that that is the image of "1950s Betty" in most people's minds, thanks to the fact that the later 1950s stories were reprinted over the years much more frequently than the pre-1957 Betty stories. That's the only real point I'm trying to make here.

On a side note, there's an entire chapter in Bart Beatty's book Twelve Cent Archie, where he argues that the character of Betty as she is known today is pretty much inseparable from that Harry Lucey redesigned hairstyle.

Argument B : If I accept your definition of the 1950-1956 Betty as having a ponytail, then how do you know the Betty in the photo doesn't have one? You can't see the back of her head! I CAN however, see in the photo that the hair on the right side of her head is swept straight back, and that seems to me to strongly suggest that it's being held that way by some sort of tie, ribbon or scrunchie in back of her head that we can't see... so maybe she does have (by your definition) a ponytail!

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 10, 2017, 11:43:27 PM

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 10, 2017, 03:29:23 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 09, 2017, 08:43:07 PM
Betty's hair is all wrong. Where are the bangs? The ponytail?

I don't think Betty had bangs or a ponytail in the 1950s, which is what this is supposed to look like (that or 1940s).

Seriously, I could go on and on.....

Betty's hair has nearly always been tied in back with a black ribbon, going back the the 1940s. As to whether you can actually describe this as a ponytail, I have my doubts. Since Betty's hair as viewed from the front spreads out to the left and right of both sides of her neck, I'd say no... that is not a ponytail, not as I understand it. Women's hair can be tied or ribboned in many ways, but "ponytail" seems far more specific than that basic requirement.

Visually, the pre-1957 stories present a more-or-less consistent Betty hairstyle that is distinct from the Harry Lucey hairstyle which appears more-or-less consistently from 1957 onwards, which is the one that I identify as Betty's first ponytail. Of course there are many modifications to her hairstyle from the 1960s onwards, but we needn't be concerned with those here. The real point is that there is a demarcation between her pre-1957 hairstyle and how it appeared thereafter. In pre-1957 stories Betty's hair appears perm'ed, but from 1957 the ponytail appears to be brushed out straight below where it's tied off, and it's tied off at the top of the back of her head, as opposed to the earlier look, which was tied off at the base of the skull. At any rate, having wavy or curly fuller hair in the pre-1957 stories makes Betty's hair (regardless of whether it's tied off with a ribbon) NOT look like the tail of a horse or pony, where the later style clearly DOES look like a pony's tail.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word ponytail as meaning: "a hairstyle in which the hair is pulled together and banded usually at the back of the head so as to resemble a pony's tail" -- therefore, I'm going to say if the hairstyle in question doesn't resemble a pony's tail, then it isn't. Sorry, but the pre-1957 version of Betty's hairstyle just doesn't resemble a pony's tail.

In the panels you've shown above, I will admit that the one story where Betty's wearing the red polka-dot dress do appear to show Betty's hairstyle as closer to the ponytail style it eventually became -- but at best, it's a fluke, because it really fits more closely with the predominant depiction of Betty's hair pre-1957 than it does with Harry Lucey's later 1957 hairstyle, which is quite distinct. On covers, there's a sharp dividing line between Betty's hair as seen on the covers of issues #1-28, and how it appears on the covers of issues #29-50 (which was probably the last issue to be released in 1959).

It's a distinct change, not some gradual evolution, and issue #29 (dated as March 1957, but probably released in January) clearly marks the first appearance of the hairstyle which came to be Betty's new signature iconic look. That's the question we're really trying to answer here, isn't it?  In the parlance of comic book fandom, a 1940s comic book character who experiences a pinpoint-able redesign at some point in the 1950s can be said to have reached a turning point. Issues #1-28 of Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica (and all of their prior appearances from 1941 up until AGB&V#1) can be said to represent "Golden Age Betty and Veronica", while issues #29-50 (and beyond into the 1960s) can be said to represent "Silver Age Betty and Veronica". Now, why is that important? The Silver Age is the age of the Baby Boomers. The baby boom started in 1945 when American servicemen returned from WWII, bought houses, got married, studied under the G.I. Bill, and began raising families. One such individual who fit that description exactly was Dan DeCarlo, who after working for Atlas/Marvel in his early postwar career, finally began to give more time to Archie Comic Publications as a freelance employee in the late 50s when work from Atlas virtually dried up for him, and he'd go on to be the man who would define B&V for the Silver Age more than anyone (except possibly Frank Doyle). Then again, those babies born after all the servicemen came home from the war were turning 10 by the mid-1950s -- a good age for reading comic books. The comic book industry as a whole was in a revolutionary period, due to the institution of the Comics Code Authority in 1955. In the rest of the comics industry, the early-to-mid 1950s saw the demise of many formerly major publishers, with the last of them, Quality Comics, finally tossing in the towel at the end of 1956. So 1957 isn't a bad point to pick to start calling Archie comic books "Silver Age Archie". Archie Comic Publications didn't change much at first with the institution of the CCA. They only began to change in response to the readers born in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and 1957 was when those changes in the comics ACP published first began to become apparent. After's Atlas's drastic collapse in 1958, Dan DeCarlo came aboard at ACP full-time, and they began changing even more.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 10, 2017, 05:04:41 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 10, 2017, 04:24:51 PM
And it's consistent thereafter.

Not really. She seemed to switch between that and pigtails around the late 1990s / early 2000s (and maybe earlier; not sure) and also sometimes just plain wore her hair down (albeit rarely).

I meant for the 1950s, which seemed to be the point about which people were confused here. So in answer to the question "True or False: Betty had a ponytail in the 1950s"?, the correct answer is both True (she had a ponytail from 1957-1959), and False (she did not have a ponytail from 1950-1956).

I don't know when the scenes in the photos are imagined to be taking place, but I can assure you it's not the 1940s. The answer to whether the photos are accurate to the fashion of pre-1957 or 1957-onwards would be dependent on a single key visual clue in the photos -- Jughead's sneakers, which are Converse All-Stars. If he's wearing low-cut Oxford style Converse All-Stars, that would place the photos as from 1957 or later, because 1957 was the first year in which Converse manufactured the low-cut version of those sneakers. Prior to that all Converse All-Stars were hi-tops. I honestly can't tell from the photos, as it seems like Jughead's pants are obscuring a view of where the shoes are cut at the ankle.

I should mention that this isn't the first issue of a TwoMorrows fan magazine to focus on the MLJ/Mighty Comics/Red Circle heroes.

Previous cover-featured issues in which the focus was on those characters appeared in:

ALTER EGO #82:

A free 25-page digital preview of that issue is located here:
http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_55&products_id=738

ALTER EGO #96:

A free 25-page digital preview of that issue is located here:
http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_55&products_id=878

... and of course, the major trade paperback retrospective, THE MLJ COMPANION:

A free 25-page digital preview of that issue is located here:
http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_71&products_id=1251


The most recent publication from TwoMorrows to feature an article on an ACP character was BACK ISSUE #91 (Sept. 2016), the "All Jerks Issue!"...


... which contained a 5-page article by Steven Thompson, "Archie's Antagonist, Reggie Mantle":


The traditional Archie humor characters (and artists) aren't featured in articles very often, which makes the above article somewhat of a rarity for the TwoMorrows group of fan magazines. That's why I was delighted to see COMIC BOOK CREATOR, which focuses its articles and interviews pretty much exclusively on artists and writers, rather than characters, having a major long career-spanning retrospective interview with Dan Parent. In past fanzines, I can recall a few articles and/or interviews with Dan DeCarlo, but this is the first spotlighting an ACP artist from the modern era (1987- ). He's long overdue for the recognition.

1st cover appearance of Betty's ponytail - B&V 29 (March 1957)

And it's consistent thereafter.

Quote from: VintageJon on March 10, 2017, 02:12:41 PM
I am a little confused by something.... Are there no more new comics being created with the traditional Archie art and characters?   I have read through the posts and this is the impression I'm under.  If that is the case, when was the last traditional, new story printed?

There are still new 5 page stories in every new digest issue, all of them written and drawn by Dan Parent (along with the covers). Since there are 4 new digest issues that come out every month, that means 48 new 5-page stories per year (unless they decide to cut back), or 240 pages of new Archie/Betty/Veronica/Jughead stories per year. They are always the first story in every digest issue.

There are no remaining standard format comic book stories in the traditional Archie style. The last new one was released last Fall -- the ARCHIE MEETS RAMONES one-shot comic book drawn by Gisele Lagace. Prior to that, the last issue of a regular-format ACP ongoing comic series in the traditional Archie style was BETTY AND VERONICA #278 (released on October 21st, 2015). The covers of that issue (and there are 6 different variant covers) say that it's issue #625 (that was arrived at by adding the cumulative numbering of ARCHIE'S GIRLS BETTY AND VERONICA, which ran 347 issues from 1950-1987, to the second series which began with a new #1 in June 1987). Prior to that, ARCHIE had ended its long run which began in 1943 with the July 2015 issue, #666 (which also had 6 different covers).

This is WAY advance notice, since this publication isn't due to come out until sometime this summer, but I'm just incredibly stoked that some comic fan publication is finally giving some recognition to Archie Comics. Here's a preview of the cover:



And the solicitation copy for this issue:

QuoteSummer 2017 - 84 FULL-COLOR pages

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #16 visits Riverdale High, U.S.A., to celebrate America's Typical Teenager Archie and his pals 'n gals—as well as the mighty MLJ heroes of yesteryear and those of today's "Dark Circle"—with a look at the 75-year-old comics line's wildest characters and titles. Plus we conduct career-spanning conversations with two of the imprint's hottest creators: Brooklyn's own DEAN HASPIEL (the Emmy-winning alternative-slash-mainstream artist who collaborated with HARVEY PEKAR) and DAN PARENT (GLADD award-winning cartoonist and creator of the Archie universe's ground-breaking gay character, Kevin Keller), who both jam on our great exclusive cover depicting a face-off between humor and heroes. Rounding out the ish are our usual features to fascinate and enlighten, including the hilarious Fred Hembeck. Edited by Jon B. Cooke.

Dean Haspiel previously collaborated with Mark Waid on THE FOX miniseries for Red Circle, the only title to carry over into a second miniseries for Dark Circle.

In addition to having the print version of the magazine distributed through Diamond Comics, TwoMorrows will offer the digital version for sale on its website here:
http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_132&products_id=1272
If you order the print version of the magazine direct from TwoMorrows, you can also get the digital version as a free bonus.

Quote from: kassandralove on March 09, 2017, 04:20:05 PM
I don't really have anything
I had a Barbie Betty but it's totally hideous

It doesn't sound like you have the actual Mattel Barbie version of Betty. Earlier versions of B&V dolls were made by companies like Marx Toys and Playing Mantis that look pretty bottom-of-the-barrel embarassing, but (from the photos I have seen, I don't actually own them) the versions Mattel made in 2004 actually look quite good:



Actually, I'd been thinking about these Mattel Barbie dolls because the last BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST (#251) had two separate (but parallel) 12-page stories by Dan Parent - Betty in "What A Doll!", and Veronica in "Doll Yourself Up!", that had each of them entering a contest to design a new Barbie doll -- and I thought immediately... well, that's weird. Normally when they reference something from pop culture in an Archie story, they don't use the actual name, but a sound-alike so the reader gets the general idea of what or who is being referred to, and ACP avoids stepping on anyone's toes legally or infringing on any copyrights. But these two stories had them both designing actual Barbie dolls, and they're both entered in this contest so that they're competing to win it. The twist ending is that Betty designs a Barbie doll based on her BFF Veronica, and Veronica designs a Barbie doll based on her BFF Betty, and they both send their designs into the contest, while keeping them secret from each other. Both girls' designs get chosen by the Barbie people to be turned into actual Barbie dolls. At this point it became obvious that the two stories were tie-ins to the actual merchandising of B&V as Mattel dolls. I wonder if each of the individual stories was included as a pack-in custom comic with the dolls, or whether they just each appeared in separate issues of the BETTY and the VERONICA comics in the same month or something.

Anyway, after googling the photos of the dolls to show you here, I found them being sold very reasonably on Amazon for $25 each (with free shipping!), so it sounded like too good a deal to pass up, and I ordered them.

There's a video review of the Mattel B&V dolls on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ocLTtIVkI

And here's a couple of quick silent YouTube videos that give you a better close-up view of each individual doll:
Betty : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km2oMqfU_N0
Veronica : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h1gOD0O3v8

***************************************************************************************************
EDIT:  I pulled out the digest again because I wanted to re-read the stories. What Dan did with the two stories is kind of interesting, and I didn't really totally notice it the first time I'd read them. In the Betty story, the first 7 pages are told from Betty's POV, as she learns of the contest, gets excited about it, and begins designing her Barbie doll. Likewise, the first 7 pages of the Veronica story tell a different story, entirely from Veronica's perspective. Then on page 8, they've both finished their designs, and Veronica shows up at the door of Betty's house after having submitted her Barbie design to the contest (Betty having already done likewise). In the Betty story, she finished her design earlier, and rushed over to Veronica's house to see how Ronnie was coming along with hers. Veronica still hadn't finished her doll design yet, and didn't want Betty to see it, so she told her she was too busy and rushed Betty out of the house, so Betty got mad. Now when Ronnie shows up at the Coopers', Betty's still kind of miffed at her for having been given the bum's rush, but Ronnie then reveals why she didn't want Betty to see her design -- she decided, after having a lot of her professional personal designers submit their ideas, that none of them were right, and she was inspired by Betty to design her own Barbie doll based on her. Then Betty reveals that she had done the exact same thing, basing her design for a Barbie doll on Veronica. From the 3rd panel on page 8 of both stories, the scenes and dialogue of both girls in each of the corresponding panels on the rest of the pages of the both stories is exactly the same -- but Dan didn't just merge the stories, and print the same ending for both from pages 9-12. Instead he re-drew every panel from a different angle or different distance for each of the two stories, even though what's happening and the dialogue is exactly the same for both stories. That's actually kind of neat!

I might have considered watching RIVERDALE if it had looked like that.