BEN 10: ALIEN FORCE Season 1 (13 episodes/25 min. each)

I think the thing that struck me most forcefully was that rant about hating Dan Parent's art, but as you said, opinions differ. Judging by how the company has spotlighted Dan's work (on covers and major important stories) in the last couple of decades even over the other artists you mention (only four? - or five, counting the Kennedys as two), you seem to be the odd man out on this opinion.

Personally, Dan Parent was my gateway drug to modern Archie Comics. Prior to that I read THE MARRIED LIFE, but since I began at the ending with "The Death of Archie", that door had actually closed before I opened it, so it had no further influence other than to lead me to check out the other major (then-)recent multipart story arcs, most of which happened to be (not coincidentally) by Dan Parent. Had I not enjoyed those DP stories so much I doubt I would have explored any further with Archie Comics, and would have limited my interest solely to the classic Silver/Bronze age Dan DeCarlo stories, and the ACP superhero stories (including Frank Doyle & Bob White's Silver Age Pureheart & friends), which is as much as interested me prior to reading TML. The science fiction/multiverse angle was the only thing that stimulated my interest in reading THE MARRIED LIFE, and when I first read it I still had no idea who Jellybean was, or that she'd been a character in Archie Comics for 20 years. In retrospect I think there are a lot of story problems with THE MARRIED LIFE as well.

That said, I'd agree that "Farewell Betty & Veronica" as a whole has some story problems. A lot of the ones in the first two (or three, I'm not sure) issues seem to have something to do with the story having been re-purposed for use as a floppy comic from its original magazine format version as a 48- or 50-page story intended for VERONICA & BETTY MAGAZINE #1, and I wonder if that isn't the reason that the first and second parts of the story appear to be in reverse order, where that might have worked and made some sense in a single magazine issue. But of course, I can't tell which of the pages was created years earlier before the magazine was cancelled, and which were created just prior to it appearing in floppy comic format. At any rate, it seems likely to me that parts of the original story were either reordered, expanded or edited from its original format. The story as originally written for V&B #1 would have been intended to run much longer, much like LIFE WITH ARCHIE, so trying to compact the whole arc and wrap up the story in a seven floppy comics (about 3 and a half magazine-size comics) was bound to cause some problems. The other thing that occurs to me knowing what it was before it became a multi-part storyline in the (formerly-)ongoing B&V floppy comic is that it was intended for much the same audience as LWA, and is a bit of an alternate tangent universe (since if the magazine had actually seen print, the ongoing floppy would not have maintained any continuity with it). Apart from that there are some odd character bits that stick out, like the stuff with Midge. The exaggerated emotional response of the entire school to B&V going away as exchange students seems unrealistic and overdramatic (like you point out, it's not as if they died in a plane crash), but Archie Comics have never been heavy on realism, so in this case it's as if the entire school is channeling what Archie is feeling, and the readers are obviously supposed to identify as well. It didn't bug me as much as it did you, but there are a lot of unrealistic things in Archie Comics that I just give a pass just because these are cartoon characters. I suppose I would have given it a C or C+, overall, but I can see where it's a lot harder to excuse any flaws when you hate the artwork to start with.

DEAD@17 (Vol. 1) TP - I've known about this for ages, but never really got around to it even though it was always on my 'have to check that out' list. Interestingly, this also started as a webcomic (same as with SCARLET TRACES, which I read earlier this week). It's got some interesting elements, and some that are more formula, but at least it's looking like this first volume sets up a little different mix to the formula elements. I like Josh Howard's art a lot (which to me seems similar to Michael Avon Oeming's). Either of those artists (or someone like Chynna Clugston) would have worked a lot better for an Archie reboot, assuming we have to have one, because they're still basically cartoon styles. It's kind of a 'girlfriends' story, as the title heroine, Nara Kilday (dead at 17, but resurrected as some type of pivotal player in a forthcoming epic battle between good and evil, whose exact role in coming events remains as yet unclear), and her BFF Hazy Foss are the two main characters.

It's made clear in the story that Nara now possesses great power and is functionally beyond death's grip, but knowledge about her purpose remains unknown to her, so in most respects she remains the same 17-year old high school student she was before she was killed. It seems like she's now part messiah and part Joan of Arc, but receives no answers to her questions from God. I thought it was interesting that Josh Howard addressed that aspect, since most horror stories about some ultimate evil apocalypse seem to avoid any mention of an opposing power. Ultimate evil in this instance is represented by a demonic creature named Bolabogg, whose chief lieutenant is Legion, another demon able to possess and control multiple bodies of the recently dead (but they don't behave like movie zombies). Fortunately Nara discovers that she has allies in a group called the Protectorate, and it is strongly implied that her birth parents were members of that group. A rogue faction of that covert group under the leadership of a Mr. Pitch tries to use the resurrected Nara's body as a vessel for Bolabogg to inhabit this world, but is foiled by Protectorate agents with help from Nara's friends and ultimately by Nara's own resistance to Bolabogg's domination of her will.

Bolabogg appeared as a character in Howard's THE LOST BOOKS OF EVE, which I also read earlier this week. There he is identified as the most favored of the 12 sons of Lilith (Adam's first wife). God also makes an on-screen appearance in that story as a character. Since that story does not appear to have continued beyond the first volume, hopefully DEAD@17 incorporates more elements of that story in later volumes and will explain a little about what happened after that story left off, with Adam kidnapped by Lilith and Eve left in the clutches of Bolabogg. Genre-wise, Afterlife With Archie would be the most direct comparison, but you could say it also has some elements of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (but Howard's story appeared much earlier - this version of the TP is from 2008). For what that's worth, I think I like this story better, enough to read the rest of the series. At least it seems to have a few more interesting angles than the usual zombie apocalypse/satanic cult story.

Quote from: irishmoxie on January 29, 2017, 08:59:43 PM
Betty Boop 2-4. For some reason I wasn't that into the first issue. Maybe it was just my mood when I read it. But I spead through these last 3 this weekend. The art for some reason reminds me of Kennel Block Blues. I loved the humor and old fashioned vocab. Anyone have any recs with similar type of humor? How do these compare to the old Betty Boop comics?

Never heard of Kennel Block Blues.

?? 'recs' ??

I don't know how you're posting here, but your posts are difficult to decipher, with all sorts of formatting gobbledegook being inserted somehow.

How the reporters get paid depends, I guess, on whether they are 'work-for-hire' employees, freelancers, or whether they are being paid piece-rate, by the story. They may or may not be entitled to any additional payment if the story they reported gets printed more than once in two different versions of the paper, but I suspect not. I'm sure union agreements govern all those aspects of the business. In either case, it wouldn't seem to make all that much difference, since any actual work they did would involve them being paid for it (salaried, hourly, or per-story), and again, I'm sure union agreements outline these things.

It's interesting that we can agree so closely on something like "Target: Jughead" yet be poles apart in most other respects.

Quote from: terrence12 on January 29, 2017, 02:20:42 AM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on January 28, 2017, 09:04:34 PMI think a sitcom based on the source materials is not gonna happen. At least not while those people are in charge of ACP.

Well i think it will happen if i were in charge of the production and if it does ,I hope it will be nice.

I hope you raise a ton of money and buy the company from Goldwater & Silberkleit. Then you can run the company any way you like. If wishes were horses, as the saying goes, beggars could ride.

Quote from: irishmoxie on January 28, 2017, 10:18:50 PM
Jughead - trying to read all the Craig Boldman stories I can find starting with issue #109 which is the earliest issue available digitally.

If ACP were anything like a normal comic book publisher, they would offer all the Boldman/Lindsey Jughead stories in a series of TP collections (or digital collections). Same goes for comics like Cheryl Blossom, Josie, and Sabrina, because they're harder to find as back issues. But ACP never does anything normal or logical like that. The basic thinking of ACP's reprint collections editor seems to be that no adult reader could possibly be interested in purchasing anything like that (never mind that a lot of kids would like it too). Yet when they do things like THE BEST OF ARCHIE COMICS, it turns into one of their best-selling TPs ever, prompting a whole series of further volumes. That's obviously because it's a little closer to what adults who have the money to spend on these collections want. Despite this, they've steadfastly avoided doing anything resembling complete chronological collections of stories by a particular writer/artist, or by character or by title. The only thing they've done that fits that description is THE MARRIED LIFE series of TPs. Oh, and that was also one of their best sellers. Can't find any clues there, though.

Quote from: ASS-P on January 28, 2017, 10:26:13 PM
....DeCarlo , I  meant trying  to get two days of work out of the reporters , especially !!!
  I believe I am considerably older than you , my parents were both in the newspaper business , I like to thinnk , nyway , that I know a bit about the newspaper biz from myy outsider,s perspective...I did not meann what I guess you thhiink I meant by what I wrote !

Then I REALLY don't understand what you mean. There are seven days in a week. There is news on every one of those days, and a newspaper is printed every single day of the week to report that news, so that means seven days of reporting. That doesn't mean all reporters have to work seven days, because newspapers employ several reporters, and they all get paid for whatever days they're working on a story (or by the story, I'm not sure... it's quite possible that some of them are freelancers as opposed to hourly or salaried employees). It's also possible that there may be some news stories in the Sunday paper which are the same stories printed in an earlier daily edition (that would depend on timeliness and whether it was considered a story of ongoing interest) -- and some of those may not be word-for-word reprints, but rewritten by people who do just that but do not actually do any reporting, they simply use the same facts that the original reporter collected.

I see nothing the least bit unusual about this. Maybe it might appear that way to people with a mindset that tells them that a "normal" employee works only 5 days a week, Monday through Friday, and then goes home to relax over the weekend. That obviously doesn't apply to the newspaper business, because the news never stops. It's round-the-clock, 24/7, just like the police, fire department, 24-hour security, and many other businesses and public services. All I know is that there are seven days in a week and seven newspapers (at least seven - some cities have both a morning and evening edition Monday through Friday), so where does "two days for one" come from? There isn't a single hour of the day on any day of the week that someone connected to the newspaper business isn't working. And they have labor unions (like The Newspaper Guild) to protect their rights as employees, too. Don't be too sure that you're considerably older than me.

But I WANT it to be cancelled. I mean, it doesn't do anything to hurt me personally, because I can just not watch it. The reason I'd like to see it cancelled is that I'd like to see what ACP would do without an artificial crutch to prop them up. Could they succeed as a comics publisher by ONLY publishing comics? That's what I'd like to know. My suspicion is that no, they can't. Not without a complete shakeup in their current publishing philosophy, and a 180 degree change in direction.

Quote from: terrence12 on January 28, 2017, 12:08:55 PM
Guys, I understand you're angry and not happy about the Riverdale series which  is unfaithful to the source materials roots that is comedy including myself and that it began with low ratings but you have to take your time because sooner or later the ratings on the Riverdale series will begin to rise up because of the early positive reception from critics and probably viewers ,its ratings will rise in about few weeks and if it does maybe it will be renewed for few seasons or not , I means it's just a slow start with  less ratings ,most shows started out this way. What could possibly go wrong?

People could stop watching once the novelty wears off? Something more interesting on another channel?

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on January 28, 2017, 11:17:24 AM
And Nancy Silberkleit  is still around??

QuoteFrom what little else I know of Silberkleit, it seems that apart from any personal acrimony between Goldwater and herself, she was dedicated to mantaining ACP as a publisher of kid-friendly comics.

If true then how I wish she was still in charge :/

She's still around (i.e. she's not dead or anything), but she no longer has anything to do with the running of ACP. Seems that Goldwater won that power struggle pretty decisively. I'm not privy to any details, by why would she want to hang around running a company where all the male employees hated her? Possibly that was not one-sided, either. Again, I don't pretend to know. If you google it, there were some pretty outrageous accusations being tossed at her. But the impression I get is that Goldwater and Pellerito teamed up to make it known that she wasn't wanted there. Whether or not it was true that she really was the pyscho nutcase she was made out to look like, I guess if the editorial staff was convinced it was true, she no longer had a workable situation. The only other things I know about her is that she was involved with some charitable organizations for kids and promoting literacy, and that that "Book Fairs" idea where Archie Comics would send a school a bunch of comics to sell on spec (no strings attached) that they used to advertise in all the comics was her inspiration.

I was curious myself so I googled her name to see what recent activities linked to comics she might be up to. As it turned out, the most recent story I could find was dated November 29, 2016 (only 2 months ago), and that story claims that Silberkeit still officially holds the title of co-CEO of ACP, so it would seem that the resolution of the sexual harrassment charge brouhaha was that Nancy agreed to walk away from ACP's day-to-day affairs and accept the role of a silent partner.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/11/29/archie-co-ceo-nancy-silberkleit-trademarks-comics-extravaganza/

Reading the above story, it's kind of hard to square this with the monster she was being accused of being.

That was a hilarious rant!    THANK YOU!

The essential grain of truth to take away here is that Jon Goldwater really doesn't understand the comics or legacy of his father's company, and has mismanaged the company into the ground with poor decisions, chasing every chance for a little 'shockworthy' publicity. He's hitched the fate of the company to a media adaption that he's dependent on as a crutch to insure the company's future, instead of concentrating on just publishing good comics. Yet at the beginning, he seemed open to positive change and encouraged greater freedom and creativity among the existing staff of classic ACP writers and artists, according to Fernando Ruiz, who was responsible in a way for Jon Goldwater taking over the company (I'm fuzzy on the exact details of that, so I'll try not to misquote Ruiz here).

Since it's my contention that Jon Goldwater doesn't know "good comics" from a hole in the wall, I submit that much of what Archie is publishing these days can be laid at the feet of ACP President Mike Pellerito, later with the complicity of CCO Aguirre-Sacasa. Pellerito is adamantly determined to re-position the company to wage a doomed head-to-head battle in the direct market against industry giants like Marvel, DC, Image, IDW and Dark Horse, with the New Riverdale reboot, Archie Horror, and Dark Circle lines (and it's not coincidental that Pellerito & Aguirre-Sacasa seek a significant overlap with the same audience demographic they had hoped to capture with Riverdale), instead of counterprogramming to the fare the Big 5 comics publishers offer, in line with ACP's legacy and creative strengths as an all-ages publisher of humor titles. But since it's all been sanctioned by Goldwater from the get-go, ultimately he's to blame.

As a side note, it occurs to me that it is entirely possible that the stories about Nancy Silberkleit are a conflation of misrepresentatons taken out of context, and calculated by Goldwater to win the male editorial staff over to his cause in a power struggle between Goldwater and Silberkleit for control of the company. At least it seems like one possible scenario worthy of considering. From what little else I know of Silberkleit, it seems that apart from any personal acrimony between Goldwater and herself, she was dedicated to maintaining ACP as a publisher of kid-friendly comics.

I think you missed one key bit of information regarding how Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa first came to the attention of Archie Comics Publications, and Jonathan Goldwater:

QuoteOn April 4, 2003, Dad's Garage Theatre Company in Atlanta was scheduled to debut Aguirre-Sacasa's new play, Archie's Weird Fantasy, which depicted Riverdale's most famous resident coming out of the closet and moving to New York. The day before the play was scheduled to open, Archie Comics issued a cease and desist order, threatening litigation if the play proceeded as written. Dad's Garage artistic director Sean Daniels said, "The play was to depict Archie and his pals from Riverdale growing up, coming out and facing censorship. Archie Comics thought if Archie was portrayed as being gay, that would dilute and tarnish his image." It opened a few days later as "Weird Comic Book Fantasy" with the character names changed.

[From Aguirre-Sacasa's Wikipedia entry]

Quote from: ASS-P on January 28, 2017, 12:22:26 AM
...That,s a thougght .
  Quite a few paper in cCaliseem to be doing this Early Sunday thiing .
  IIt wa the reporters , I think , especially I  was thinking about postulating the owners trying to get two days,  work for the price of one .

Two days work for the price of one? Wouldn't there be a Saturday paper regardless of whether or not it included the comics section and supplemental flyers? The local papers in my area all have a Saturday edition, and always have. It's no different than the daily edition (or more accurately rather, the "daily edition" includes Monday through Saturday's newspaper). I haven't checked lately to see whether or not they include the supplements from Sunday's paper. Were you under the impression that somehow news doesn't happen on Saturday, so everyone on the newspaper gets a day off?

As far as I can tell, this has pretty much always been the case in the newspaper business. I collect those hardcover collections of newspaper strip comics. Some of them have separate volumes for the weekly and Sunday continuities, and some reprint both the daily and Sunday strips in the same volume (depending on whether the strip ran different story than the daily strips on Sundays). In every case, the strips are reprinted with uniformity -- two facing pages reprint the dailies, with three tiers of strips on each of the facing pages (six dailies altogether). Then if the strip continuity continues into Sunday, that would be reprinted on the following page, followed by another two pages of dailies. All of the popular newspaper strips are syndicated, as opposed to originating locally, so that proves that the vast majority of daily papers in the nation have a Saturday edition. If it weren't so, then it would hardly be practical for the syndicates to pay a writer and artist to create a new strip for Saturday, if there weren't enough newspapers that actually carried the strip. Also, it would present a problem to readers of continuity strips that missed Saturday's strip, because they might miss something important that happens in the story. They could conceivably recap whatever happened in Saturday's strip within the longer Sunday strip, but only for those continuity strips where the daily and Sunday storylines were part of the same continuity -- and as I mentioned, some strips had different storylines running in the daily strip, and the Sunday strip. I can see where there might be a few podunk communities where nothing much newsworthy happens on Saturday, and/or there just isn't enough circulation for Saturday's edition of the paper to justify the effort involved in putting it out, but like I said, if that were predominantly true, then the syndicates wouldn't bother having comic artists create a new strip for Saturday's paper.

Quote from: ASS-P on January 27, 2017, 11:26:52 PM
...In the example I,m giving  , there is no other version avallable of the SSatuurday paper but the : Early Sunday : version .
  I,ll say more later but I.m rushed for postinng time now .

Another thing to factor into this is that the paper may be committed to providing the advertisers for its Sunday supplemental flyers with a certain guaranteed level of circulation, and if the Sunday paper's circulation isn't large enough by itself to reach that number of readers, the inclusion of the ad flyers with the Early Saturday edition covers any disparity so that the combined circulation of both the Early Saturday and regular weekly Sunday papers reaches the target number of readers which the paper has guaranteed to its advertisers.