Quote from: VintageJon on February 14, 2017, 12:26:24 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 14, 2017, 10:37:59 AM
In the 30 months or so since I became interested in Archie Comics, I don't think I've seen any digests in any grocery story I've been in. I've seen them at Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and just recently, Target, but those are the only places. No local drugstore franchises or convenience stories.

I saw them at Wegman's (western NY) when I crossed the border last week;  Up here in Canada Shopper's drug mart has them, as does a grocery store called Sobey's.   Sometimes 7-11 and Walmart always has them.  I think that there will always be a call for Archie comics as they are the only all ages, family friendly comic that people (parents) have come to trust.

Funny you should mention that... Archie's formerly unassailable reputation as a purveyor of all-ages titles (eh... "Million Moms" aside)...  I wonder how things like the Archie Horror titles (which may well fly under most parents radar as imperceptible, with little chance most parents whose children are consumers of ACP's all-ages titles will ever become aware of them), and RIVERDALE might affect those parents' perception of ACP as a publisher.

The TV series is much more likely to impact public perception of ACP's comics, since television reaches a much wider audience than the direct-market floppy comics do, and if there isn't an immediate connection in parents minds between the name Riverdale and the names Archie, Jughead, Betty & Veronica, then plastering ads for the show all over the covers (and interiors) of the digests will certainly rectify that lack of recognition. Furthermore, placing those ads in the digests seems to imply that the TV show would be appropriate viewing for the same audiences reading those digests, so I wonder what some parents of say, an 8-12 year-old reader might think about that after viewing the show.

In the 30 months or so since I became interested in Archie Comics, I don't think I've seen any digests in any grocery story I've been in. I've seen them at Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and just recently, Target, but those are the only places. No local drugstore franchises or convenience stories.

Also, you should read the ARCHIE AMERICANA Series, which collects stories by decade. Archie Comics published 2 books for each decade from the Forties through the Nineties in paperback, and IDW did hardcover reprints combining both books for each decade from the '40s through the '70s.

I like Banni and Violette too, but I doubt we'll ever see them again in a story. Or at least, used in any way that acknowledges that the whole "Farewell, B&V" arc actually happened. AFIC, it's a parallel earth in the Archie multiverse.

I question it when a story portrays Archie as NOT being stupid, idiotic, oblivious, and clueless. The minute he sounds like he's making some kind of sense, or makes an intelligent comment based on observation or awareness of some obvious fact, I wonder what's going on with the story. Like this recent 5-pager, "Dear FAKE Diary" where Archie makes up a fake diary, filled with the most ridiculous self-aggrandizing fantasy scenarios, and leaves it for Veronica to find (to see if he can trust her not to read it, but of course she does). It's clear from a comment he makes about having a hard time coming up with material to fill the fake diary that he's not intentionally filling the diary with notes that he's aware are obvious lies, but when Veronica reads what he wrote it's obvious to the readers of this story that everything Archie wrote presents himself in the most flattering light possible (which is to say, impossible... for the real Archie). Veronica reads it but doesn't get mad, doesn't react to anything he's written as being less than the unvarnished truth as Archie views it, and not only does she get no karmic backlash from her breach of Archie's trust, he doesn't get any karmic payback for having baited and deceived her, either.  The two walk off in each other's arms, both happy as clams. What the what? Yes, Jughead was the one who egged Archie on to plant the fake diary for Veronica to find, and he even though he technically won his bet with Archie that Veronica couldn't resist the temptation to read the fake diary, he appears as puzzled in the final panel at Veronica's reaction after doing so as I was. I'm not sure what the moral of the story was... that Archie's stupidity is so powerful that it temporarily affects the girls around him and makes them just as stupid, or simply that his stupidity is so powerful it has a Teflon coating that deflects any negative consequences to himself? Maybe that's a bad example, because it's not Archie that's not being stupid, it's Veronica being stupid (which she generally isn't, except when it comes to being oblivious to her own faults -- but she's usually not oblivious to Archie's faults). It does tend to make Archie seem smart somehow, though, that even though he filled his fake diary with obviously stupid stuff, he was able to fool Veronica. Or somehow he gets good karma for having faith in Veronica's good character, even though she failed the test... but then he really didn't have faith in her either, because he succumbed to Jughead's challenge and set out to trick her. By the way, it's not clear at the end of the story (because of V's uncharacteristic reaction) that Archie & Jughead are even aware that Jughead won the bet because Veronica failed to resist temptation - and is therefore a bad girlfriend. But Archie's still a bad boyfriend, because he tricked Veronica to test her, instead of just having faith in her and resisting Jughead's taunting.

You could make the argument that the 'cultural insensitivity' of the older stories, in particular, has a lot to do with what makes them funny, especially in light of how society has changed since those stories were written. Then again, they were funny when they originally appeared, in the context of those times. A lot of humor is derived from the reflection of how teenagers actually think and behave, and a lot of teenagers ARE culturally insensitive, because they're immature. An observant adult writer like Frank Doyle can find the germ of a funny story by tuning into how teenagers react to various situations, and of course the characters themselves have predefined traits that predict that behavior as well.

Quote from: Upsiditus on February 12, 2017, 08:39:46 PM
In the story Archie and Reggie are bashing Jughead for not liking girls.  Archie says at one point "I think any guy that doesn't like gals should run, not walk to a psychologist."  In another panel Archie says "If our ancestors were like you they would never have married our ancestorettes! Nobody would ever have been born!  Reggie later says "Can y'imagine that guy!?! Trying to wipe out the whole human race!"  It is quite shocking to hear Archie rip apart his best friend like that.

Is it really so surprising that Archie is going to agree with Reggie as opposed to Jughead on the subject of girls? Trying to look at the logic of what Archie and Reggie are saying here from a different perspective, the same applies to why the U.G.A.J. (United Girls Against Jughead) exists. These girls are banded together to fight against the ideology of "Jugheadism" -- they're afraid that tolerating the mere existence of an individual like Jughead might lead to a threat to their accepted social dating way of life. It's a ridiculous extrapolation, of course, but it's simply a fact that the world is predominantly composed of heterosexuals, and accommodations aren't always going to be made (especially when it comes to the subculture of the teenage social world) for the minority of homosexuals and asexuals. To the degree that there was any awareness of these things decades ago, it wasn't considered a socially acceptable topic for discussion, especially for inclusion in an all-ages comic book.

The other thing to keep in mind here is that not only are they immature teenagers, but neither Reggie nor Archie are role models to be held up as worthy of emulation. They are both flawed individuals, which is where the humor of the stories primarily derives from. You could arguably say that the story holds Archie and Reggie up to ridicule as incredibly over-reactive, and the same thing applies to the female members of the U.G.A.J.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on February 12, 2017, 11:53:35 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 12, 2017, 11:47:09 AM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on February 12, 2017, 11:23:58 AM
Not saying they're killing it now but compared to then, they're doing great.

Is that why they keep cancelling all the products they solicit? The rate of cancelled solicitations is ghastly. About the only thing that they seem to be doing great on is recycling. Reprinting the same material over and over again in multiple formats. If all you're doing is saying "Oh look, they used to have only classic Archie and classic B&V floppy comics back in 2015, and now they have New Archie, New Jughead, New B&V, and New Josie. So they must be doing awesome now, right?" Well, maybe if you don't count the number of issues they actually come out with over the course of a year (I guess this would be a good time not to mention the Archie Horror titles). But of course you're only comparing to 2015, not slightly earlier when they still had Life With Archie, Kevin Keller, Archie & Friends, or going back a couple more years, classic Betty, Veronica, Jughead and Sabrina. Digest sales have slipped in the last few years too, and that's ACP's real bread-and-butter money. And we're still waiting for that third issue of Adam Hughes' B&V, which launched with great hoopla last summer. Yeah, doing just great.

All good points.  I didn't join the forum to slam Archie Comics.  Besides you're doing a great job of it already!  LOL

Well, that is definitely the illusion that they are attempting to create for the company's image. "The NEW Archie Comics is on the move! There's no stopping us now!" Meanwhile, behind the scenes, they are definitely having problem delivering on their promises and getting new product into print. And there is the stink of desperation in the air, as if they're hanging on by their fingernails, pushing RIVERDALE as the salvation of the company. But if ACP are really The Comeback Kids they're trying to hype themselves as being, then shouldn't more and more new products be arriving in the marketplace every few months, as success builds on success? In reality, I think the sales of New Riverdale comics are not building as they'd hoped (after optimistically hoping that they'd create some synergy by adding more new titles) -- not even holding steady at a modest level, but eroding with every passing issue. They're far from being out of the danger zone of becoming extinct. REGGIE & ME was originally envisioned as a new ongoing series, then almost immediately cut back to a 5-issue miniseries. I wouldn't be surprised to find that both JUGHEAD and JOSIE will not be around by next year. The fact that the last couple of months' solicitations contained a lot of one-shots indicates to me they are already fishing for a replacement for one or both of those titles.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on February 12, 2017, 11:23:58 AM
Not saying they're killing it now but compared to then, they're doing great.

Is that why they keep cancelling all the products they solicit? The rate of cancelled solicitations is ghastly. About the only thing that they seem to be doing great on is recycling. Reprinting the same material over and over again in multiple formats. If all you're doing is saying "Oh look, they used to have only classic Archie and classic B&V floppy comics back in 2015, and now they have New Archie, New Jughead, New B&V, and New Josie. So they must be doing awesome now, right?" Well, maybe if you don't count the number of issues they actually come out with over the course of a year (I guess this would be a good time not to mention the Archie Horror titles). But of course you're only comparing to 2015, not slightly earlier when they still had Life With Archie, Kevin Keller, Archie & Friends, or going back a couple more years, classic Betty, Veronica, Jughead and Sabrina. Digest sales have slipped in the last few years too, and that's ACP's real bread-and-butter money. And we're still waiting for that third issue of Adam Hughes' B&V, which launched with great hoopla last summer. Yeah, doing just great.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on February 12, 2017, 09:25:26 AM
I think Archie will be here as long as they want to.  Maybe it won't be the Archie the old school fans prefer, but Archie Comics will most likely exist for the foreseeable future.

So, following that logic, if they are publishing fewer new comics and selling less copies of them than they were say, 10 or 20 years ago, it's because they "want" to? As in, the people who buy (or probably more to the point, don't buy) Archie Comics have no bearing on whether or not Archie Comics is going to be around for the next 10 or 20 years? 75 years may be a great run in the comics biz, but nothing is forever. Dinosaurs and the Roman Empire both had a great run too, but they're no longer around. Neither is vaudeville, pulp fiction magazines, or Big Little Books. Yeah, they were all great in their time, but that time passed.

Quote from: irishmoxie on February 12, 2017, 01:42:50 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on February 11, 2017, 04:11:55 PM

Quote from: irishmoxie on January 20, 2017, 06:58:57 PM

Quote from: BettyReggie on January 20, 2017, 11:17:02 AM

I bought these
[media]2464[/media][media]2465[/media][media]2466[/media][media]2467[/media]

You're reading Jem again? What made you change your mind?

I was thinking about buying those Gisele covers, until I noticed that the Gisele cover variants for issues #20-24 are all "Retailer Incentive" covers (so good luck finding a copy for cover price). Too rich for my blood.

The thing that kills me is that IDW is not even letting Gisele have her artwork featured on the main cover for those last three issues where she did the interior art. So I said the heck with it, and will wait for the TP collecting those last three issues she drew.

There were also these RI cover variants for JEM #20 & 21 by Gisele.

Jen Bartel's artwork is really good though. She drew a few issues too (not as good as her covers). Retailer incentive variants are usually around $4 at TFAW but you have to play shipping making them come out to around $8.

I'll wait and see. I suspect the variant covers Gisele drew for JEM will all show up in the trade collection in a Cover Gallery (they may even use one of them as the actual TP cover). It's only going to be a thin trade collecting the last three issues (although the final issue is giant-sized, so I guess that amounts to almost 4 regular issues, which is usually about the minimum for a TP collection).

I like Jen Bartel's covers, too. Also Ross Campbell's cover for #1A (they really should have kept him as an interior artist) and Amy Mebberson's covers for #2B, 2C, 2D, & 2E, Tania Del Rio's cover for #10 (Archie month variant) and Shouri's cover for #10 SUB. Victoria Robado's covers aren't bad either. Not crazy about most of the rest of them, but actually, now that I think of it, there should be enough room in that last TP for cover gallery of ALL of the previous covers and variants.

I always wondered where Dumas came up with the title character's name, Edmond Dantes. Primarily because it's a tale of revenge, and of course Dante Alighieri was forced to navigate the circles of the Inferno to escape, while "Edmond" is a near-anagram for "demon".

Quote from: irishmoxie on January 20, 2017, 06:58:57 PM

Quote from: BettyReggie on January 20, 2017, 11:17:02 AM

I bought these
[media]2464[/media][media]2465[/media][media]2466[/media][media]2467[/media]

You're reading Jem again? What made you change your mind?

I was thinking about buying those Gisele covers, until I noticed that the Gisele cover variants for issues #20-24 are all "Retailer Incentive" covers (so good luck finding a copy for cover price). Too rich for my blood.

The thing that kills me is that IDW is not even letting Gisele have her artwork featured on the main cover for those last three issues where she did the interior art. So I said the heck with it, and will wait for the TP collecting those last three issues she drew.

There were also these RI cover variants for JEM #20 & 21 by Gisele.

The complete set of all of Holly G's SCHOOL BITES comics (print versions), plus some extras like her Witches 'n' Whatnot Mini-Artbook, Cuties & Cupcakes Pin-Up Book, and School Bites ID cards, direct from Holly via the Broadsword Comics website.

What I found really interesting was a 1-page prologue/"origin" of School Bites (not the characters, but the origin of the series itself) which did not appear on the School Bites webcomic site. Interesting because the genesis of the School Bites comic is a direct result of the reason Holly G quit working for ACP.

Surprisingly to me because I thought I'd been tracking the solicits of TPs pretty obsessively up to this point, I discovered a couple of solicited/then cancelled products the existence (or 'proposed' existence?) of which I was completely unaware --

LITTLE ARCHIE & THE POWER PETS TP ? - A 2-part story from the final issues of Archie & Friends by Fernando Ruiz

LAUGH WITH ARCHIE MMPB ? - (Mass Market PaperBack) This would be the standard-size paperback book you'd find for most novels and story collections. What were the intended contents, I wonder? Possibly stories from issues of LAUGH, or maybe just another type of "Joke Book" with short gags?

Then there are the reasons given for cancellation by the publisher. "Will Resolicit" is no guarantee that that will be true, as I see several listings with that given as the reason for cancellation, that never actually were resolicted -- SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH COMP TP 1962-1971; ARCHIE FUN N GAMES ACTIVITY BOOK VOL 02; NEW CRUSADERS DARK TOMORROW #1, 2, & 3.

Nor does "Cancelled by publisher" guarantee that it will never be resolicited either, as I see several with that given as the reason for cancellation that were later resolicited.

And the special "Better Late Than Never Award" goes to... BEST OF ARCHIE COMICS DLX HC, first solicited in the JULY 2011 PREVIEWS catalog, which finally arrived as a real book... over five years later. It would have been a better book if it has been published as originally solicited, though -- 'cause, you know, none of that New Riverdale ("NOT the Best of Archie") crap taking up space in the back of the book. And not only did it take FIVE years, but let's remember that we're talking about essentially a hardcover reprint of a trade paperback that already existed. REALLY?

Oh, and I guess I forgot to mention this, but the PREVIEWS catalog date/issue # given in the list above is the one that was concurrent at the time the cancellation was reported, not the one in which the product was actually solicited. Maybe I thought that was obvious from the fact that I had cancellations listed under the February 2017 catalog, which actually just came out weeks ago. If you want to know what catalog the product was actually solicited in, just look at the order code #s -- the first three letters are the month, followed by 2 digits indicating the year (the rest of the numbers just follow in sequence according to the order in which the products were listed in any month's catalog), so there can be products solicited from several different months' catalogs among the listed cancellations associated with the current catalog's cancellation reports. Hope that makes sense.

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on February 10, 2017, 09:02:12 PM
"A wake up call for who?" Oy, Seriously?Like I said, people are blind. They just don't want to see.
And when should the police take action then? They need to wait until someone dies? How many need to die before they intervene 1, 2, 10??

I don't know why the police didn't take action. I mentioned a few guesses, but that's all they were. I wasn't there, and have no insider knowledge of police procedure. You tell me why, or why you think they didn't.

You seem to be hinting at some obvious solution, but you don't really say what it is. Maybe some mistakes were made, and I'm sure the police have already done a post-situational analysis. No amount of "should haves" at this point changes anything that happened.

I get that you're angry and that you blame "the liberals" for... well, whatever.  Maybe you're just venting, I don't know, but I don't see where anger really leads to any real solutions to problems. Isn't that exactly what got the demonstrators into trouble? Just a bunch of anger with no constructive solutions.