ARCHIE JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #276 - Reviewed it on my review thread.

SCARLET TRACES, Vol. 1 TP - The first 60 pages is a straightforward adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, and the next 60 pages picks up a decade later after the failed Martian invasion, showing that the British Empire rebuilt its infrastructure with knowledge gleaned from reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology. The advanced tech results in widespread automated factories putting a huge percentage of the population out of work, and there is a mystery with girls disappearing to be solved, which leads to the discovery of a secret conspiracy within the upper echelons of the government. The first volume ends as a British invasion fleet launches into space to conquer Mars itself. Very interesting, and I hope for further volumes to continue this fascinating story.

ARCHIE'S FUNHOUSE COMICS ANNUAL #24 - Most of the stories in here seem to feature Reggie, Dilton, or Moose in major roles (the new story by Dan Parent revolves around Reggie's attempt to avoid doing volunteer work to raise money for the school). The real jaw-dropper was seeing a Little Chuck story, though. There's a Craig Boldman/Rex Lindsey story in here titled "That Tears It" that was part of an ongoing series of stories by Boldman, in which the story involves a word which Jughead repeats several times, in an attempt to expand his vocabulary. He attempts to explain the concept of this week's word (in this particular instance it's more of an expression - "on a tear") to Moose, who figures heavily in this particular episode, and in so doing, outlines the basic concept of this ongoing series of stories for the reader. Because the major plot of this episode has Jughead explaining things to Moose, it's a bit of an anomaly in the series. Normally the vocabulary word or expression is mentioned a few times (and defined), but other that that the plot of the story doesn't revolve around the word chosen, and the inclusion of the word is more of a side bit to the main plot of the story. More typically, when Jughead uses the word it's a lot less intrusive in the story -- perhaps only a panel where Archie repeats the word quizzically, after which Jughead will say something like "It's my word of the week. I'm trying to expand my vocabulary" and then define the meaning of the word. It might seem like this would be a little forced in the story, but Boldman always chooses a new word which is somehow apropos (and funny at the moment when Jughead picks to interject it) to whatever the situation going on in the story is. (Hey, "apropos" might even have been one of the words!) The idea of Jughead just tossing an uncommon word into his conversation totally worked for me in these stories, because it fit in the context of a whole host of new eccentricities that Boldman was constantly having Jughead come up with. A collection of these Jughead stories (for a while, one of these shorts appeared in almost every issue of Jughead for a couple of years or so) called something like "Jughead's Vocabulary" or "Words to the Wise" wouldn't make a bad trade paperback or digital exclusive.

Quote from: Captain Jetpack on January 27, 2017, 07:44:32 AM
Any word on the Sabrina 80 Page Giant?

It does usually take more than a week or so after the solicitation first appears for any product to be cancelled, so I guess you'll have to be patient for a couple of months.

Thanks for the info, irishmoxie. Good to know. I guess that just turned REGGIE'S 80 PAGE GIANT #1 into an instant Digital Exclusive. (Is it available elsewhere, apart from Archie Digital?) I have to admit I don't have time to check all the digital releases, and usually just assume that print comics that are cancelled aren't being released in some other format. Please continue to chime in from time to time with this kind of exception. My impression is that this is the sort of thing that doesn't happen too often, but feel free to correct me if that isn't the case.

Quote from: terrence12 on January 27, 2017, 08:26:59 AM
What about sonic?

Indeed. What about Sonic?

I'll just be honest and admit to having absolutely zero interest in those titles, or the Dark Circle line (except for reprints of older material), either. If anyone wants to track the cancellations on those comics, they're certainly welcome to post them in this thread, but I'm not going to do it myself. The only thing I'll be personally tracking myself are the cancellations of Archie and Archie-related (Josie, Sabrina, etc.) titles - floppy comic books, magazine format, trade paperback and hardcover collections (if they start cancelling digest titles, you'll know The End is mere months away).

I also probably need to explain that if you pre-ordered titles that wind up being cancelled, your order will not be filled much later if and when the title is re-solicited (unless you have some sort of standing subscription or pullbox order, with ACP or with your LCS).

What CANCELLED means:  Diamond Comics has a standard policy that if a title is not delivered to its retailers within 90 days of the originally-solicited shipping date that the publisher promised, they automatically cancel all retailers' outstanding orders for that title. It can also mean that the publisher informed Diamond that the title would not be available by the solicited shipping date promised, and then Diamond cancelled all of its outstanding retailer orders. Either way the title would have to be re-solicited by ACP, and new orders for that title placed by Diamond's retailer accounts. In the case of the above-mentioned cancelled titles, 90 days have not yet passed from the target shipping date, so those cancellations were obviously made by ACP itself (probably due to low pre-orders on the titles mentioned).

It finally occurred to me that cancellations of previously-solicited titles are such an ongoing problem with ACP, that there really ought to be a permanent thread to alert people to these cancellations when they happen. I hasten to remind people that that doesn't preclude the title and issue # in question being re-solicited at some later date, and finally coming out at some time in the future. However, it's also a good thing to keep in mind that non-ongoing titles like TP collections, magazine format, new #1 issues, and one-shots are especially at risk of that cancellation being of a much more permanent nature, and the title in question never seeing print at all.

At this point there are a few recent cancellations that I already mentioned elsewhere, so I'm not going to repeat those now, but going forward I will try to put all such notices in a single place, here on this thread, so that if people are wondering about any particular title, they can find this thread and check all the previous posts.

The newest cancellations I've just discovered:

ARCHIE COMIC SUPER SPECIAL #8
JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS 80 PAGE GIANT COMIC #1

Can't say either of these is a major shock (although both are a major disappointment to me, personally), as the SUPER SPECIALS have been suffering from these cancellations with the last 2 previous issues (and I'm actually surprised last year's Christmas issue, #7, got published at all). The JOSIE 80 PAGE GIANT follows suit with the previously-solicited, and then cancelled REGGIE'S 80 PAGE GIANT #1.

The other thing to mention here is that there are several stories where Archie and his friends are definitely referred to as upperclassmen (which would include both Juniors and Seniors). There are innumerable stories with Reggie "giving the business" (as Eddie Haskell used to say on Leave It To Beaver) to some frosh, which he could hardly expect to get away with as a Sophomore. Yet there are also stories where some particular incidental character is referred to as being a Senior, which would never be mentioned if Archie and the gang were themselves Seniors. Taken altogether with other things we know like them all having driver's licenses (apart from maybe Jughead - although I think I may have even seen a story or two with him driving), and never thinking about college or post-graduation plans (which they would literally be forced to as Seniors) leads to the only reasonable conclusion... they are Juniors, which neatly accounts for all of these things.

Quote from: ASS-P on January 26, 2017, 08:45:40 AM
...This last nite , I watched , on TCM: (I paid the most attention to #2 - For #1 , which I saw many years ago when it was current when my fathher took me , I was rather distracted by this very device I,m using now . I did pay a fair amount of attention for #3  , too.)
  (1) Sam Peckinpah,s THE GETAWAY .
  (2) A very popular sentimental 1940s World War II picture  MRS. MINIVER .
  (3) A US World War II propaganda/rallying people short documentary , THE NEGRO SOLDIER .
  (Note: That was its title . : Negro : was the correct/polite phrase for persons of Sub-Saharan African descent about 55-70 years back . : Correct : usages , even in vernacular , change .)

And before that it was "colored", and that was considered a polite word by both races. It's also why the NAACP stood for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Isn't that what I said? How does (apart from the comic section and other supplements) the regular Saturday edition of the paper compare to the "Early Saturday" edition? Is it basically the same news?

What I'm getting at here is that it sounds like if you had the regular Saturday paper + the regular Sunday paper, you could throw out Sunday's news and just keep the comics and supplements, and add them to Saturday's paper, and what you'd have is essentially the "Early Saturday" edition you're describing. That being the case, "Early Saturday" seems like a hybrid product put together from pieces that are going to exist anyway, so I don't see where (apart from delivering it) it involves much of anything in the way of extra work for the newspaper people.

And the thought just occurred to me, that there are some people who really don't care about Sunday's NEWS, and they'd only be buying for the comic section, Parade magazine section, advertising flyers, etc. So if they can get all that even sooner, together with Saturday's paper, so much the better for them. It might be that the Sunday news is just too much for some people to read in a day, so it's a waste to them.

Laura Petrie was one of my first crushes. I still love that show.

Quote from: irishmoxie on January 26, 2017, 03:19:34 PM
Wow how much do you spend on comics every week? Any standout funny comics here?

If I told you you wouldn't believe me. Or think I was crazy. I admit it -- I'm an addict. But I guess I could be addicted to worse things.

BLUE MONDAY was the absolute standout as far as comedy goes. I take it you've already read that, though. If not you should do so immediately. Heck, it couldn't hurt to get the new collected editions even if you've already read the black and white singles, since the trades are in color.

I'm thinking of reading these again after the whole series is out. I want to make an MP3 soundtrack for it, after I go through and make a list of all the songs.

Quote from: irishmoxie on January 26, 2017, 03:18:20 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on January 26, 2017, 02:36:24 PM
ARCHIE JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #276 - Haven't finished reading this yet, but I flipped through it and read a few stories, including of course, the new lead story by Dan Parent.

Some of the highlights in this issue include: "The Elevenaire" by Craig Boldman and Stan Goldberg; a section with 2 stories of Archie's SuperTeens: "Mad Doctor Doom's Dupe!" (I wonder if that wasn't the first teenage Archie story to use Mad Doc D, who usually appeared only in Little Archie stories prior to this?) and "Evilheart's Revenge!" - both stories spotlighting Reggie as Evilheart, and both by Frank Doyle and Bob White; and a couple of selections from LIFE WITH ARCHIE issues, "That Far Out Feeling" (in which Archie encounters teen alien invader Supro) and "The Perilous Past!" (a 24th Century interplanetary escapade with the crew of Starship Rivda), again both written by Doyle with art by Stan Goldberg.

The new lead story is "Dear FAKE Diary", featuring Archie, Veronica, and Jughead. Dan's art is always a pleasure to look at, but the ending of this story left me puzzled and a little disappointed. The plot concerns Jughead putting Archie up to making up a fake diary as a test for Veronica - which he leaves lying around, and of course (I don't think this should be a spoiler for anyone - otherwise there wouldn't be any story here) she does read. I won't say any more for fear of giving it ALL away, but the ending sort of flabbergasted me, so I guess I have to explain why. At the end I sat thinking about it for a minute or two, and it seemed to force me to come to one of the following multiple-choice conclusions:

A)  Veronica is pretty stupid.

B)  Archie is pretty smart.

C)  Both A and B are true.

Since ANY of those conclusions seems to fly in the face of everything I've learned about these characters, I just didn't know what to make of the story's ending. Even more mystifying to me was that, in thinking a bit more about it, I know DAN PARENT can't believe any of those things. So I really, REALLY don't know how to explain this story. 

I think they've used the fake diary story before. I think Betty wrote a fake diary about her life to fool Veronica.

SEVERAL times, in fact. But this isn't a B&V story, so the BFF/frenemies dichotomy which makes that such a good plot for them doesn't apply here. Unlike Archie or Jughead, there's never a doubt here in the reader's mind as to a question of whether she will or she won't*, so that's not even what the story turns out to be about (although that's what Jughead thinks it's about, and I guess it's fair to assume he's convinced Archie as well). The big deal with the story is exactly what she reads in the fake diary, and how she reacts to what she reads. I guess it's fair to say that that's also the case for those B&V stories, but the difference is this: We KNOW Betty is smart, of that there can be no doubt. Smart enough to fool Veronica, even though she's not dumb, but because Betty knows her so well.

*[After all, we HAVE read those B&V stories, haven't we?]

As sophomores they're not old enough to get a driver's license. Or they might be, sometime before the school year ends, but not right from the beginning in September. Except maybe for Big Moose, who might be older than the others, for obvious reasons.

I mention the driving as something specifically established in the stories as a point of fact.

ARCHIE JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #276 - Haven't finished reading this yet, but I flipped through it and read a few stories, including of course, the new lead story by Dan Parent.

Some of the highlights in this issue include: "The Elevenaire" by Craig Boldman and Stan Goldberg; a section with 2 stories of Archie's SuperTeens: "Mad Doctor Doom's Dupe!" (I wonder if that wasn't the first teenage Archie story to use Mad Doc D, who usually appeared only in Little Archie stories prior to this?) and "Evilheart's Revenge!" - both stories spotlighting Reggie as Evilheart, and both by Frank Doyle and Bob White; and a couple of selections from LIFE WITH ARCHIE issues, "That Far Out Feeling" (in which Archie encounters teen alien invader Supro) and "The Perilous Past!" (a 24th Century interplanetary escapade with the crew of Starship Rivda), again both written by Doyle with art by Stan Goldberg.

The new lead story is "Dear FAKE Diary", featuring Archie, Veronica, and Jughead. Dan's art is always a pleasure to look at, but the ending of this story left me puzzled and a little disappointed. The plot concerns Jughead putting Archie up to making up a fake diary as a test for Veronica - which he leaves lying around, and of course (I don't think this should be a spoiler for anyone - otherwise there wouldn't be any story here) she does read. I won't say any more for fear of giving it ALL away, but the ending sort of flabbergasted me, so I guess I have to explain why. At the end I sat thinking about it for a minute or two, and it seemed to force me to come to one of the following multiple-choice conclusions:

A)  Veronica is pretty stupid.

B)  Archie is pretty smart.

C)  Both A and B are true.

Since ANY of those conclusions seems to fly in the face of everything I've learned about these characters, I just didn't know what to make of the story's ending. Even more mystifying to me was that, in thinking a bit more about it, I know DAN PARENT can't believe any of those things. So I really, REALLY don't know how to explain this story. 

Seems doubtful they could be sophomores, or younger than 16. Archie, Reggie, Veronica and Betty all have some kind of driver's license -- possibly a provisional/restricted license, but not a learner's permit, which would require they be accompanied by an adult with a valid license while they're behind the wheel. Most states won't issue even a restricted license until age 16, and NO state will issue a full license at less than 16. And a restricted license would usually require them not to be on the road past a certain time (could be anywhere from 9 pm to midnight, depending on the state), and/or require them not to carry any more than one or two passengers.

Nope. Juniors in high school is really the only thing that works without significant complications of some sort. They have mobility and greater freedom than they did just a year or so earlier, but they don't have to worry about college or career plans for next fall.