Quote from: steveinthecity on November 19, 2016, 07:28:49 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on November 19, 2016, 12:13:52 PM

Quote from: steveinthecity on November 19, 2016, 04:42:57 AM
Adam Hughes art doesn't seem a big plus here btw.

I'm not sure in what sense you mean that, but after the long wait since the B&V reboot was first hyped, Hughes can't bedazzle the way he did years ago. It's still good art relative to the median of the industry in the broader sense, but it's not ranking high relative to Hughes' own oeuvre. The coloring here certainly doesn't help much.

What you stated was pretty much what I meant.  I don't collect posters, so as I offered in SAGG's now defunct thread of whether Art or Story is more important to a comic, I'm leaning towards story in this instance.  I like that Hughes makes Ethel somewhat homely and that Hot Dog smokes, but beyond that, the art does nothing  for me.  Not a plus by my measure. Being "median" doesn't resonate with me here.

I don't think it's median. I said it's good relative to the median for the industry. I think the artwork in ARCHIE is median or below median; none of the artists who've drawn that book have impressed me in the slightest. The artwork in B&V is above that, but it's not good art compared to Adam Hughes' other work. It's only "not good" relative to my high level of expectations for a B&V comic book drawn by Adam Hughes.

When you consider what he could be getting paid for his art by other publishers, he's got to be the biggest financial drain on ACP's resources of any of the artists working on the New Riverdale titles so far, who are all relative newcomers to the industry compared to Hughes, and IMO the costs to the company aren't worth the results. I think the relative sales on the B&V title bear that out as well.

Quote from: irishmoxie on November 19, 2016, 06:56:03 PM
Is #16 the last issue of the series?

No.

Quote from: steveinthecity on November 19, 2016, 04:42:57 AM
Adam Hughes art doesn't seem a big plus here btw.

I'm not sure in what sense you mean that, but after the long wait since the B&V reboot was first hyped, Hughes can't bedazzle the way he did years ago. It's still good art relative to the median of the industry in the broader sense, but it's not ranking high relative to Hughes' own oeuvre. The coloring here certainly doesn't help much.

Furthermore, the announcement of his being contracted by ACP led towards speculation that this might be a somewhat more controversial choice on ACP's part, and that it might in essence be a swinging of the pendulum back towards the sexier sort of Dan DeCarlo girl-humor art not seen in a couple of decades or more. Looked at from that perspective, Hughes' work on B&V has got to seem like a dud, like it's far too self-restrained (or editorially restrained). I don't think Hughes is really the sort of artist for the quieter, slowly-paced story, unless he can throw in some glamour shots every few pages.  It seems that ACP spent a lot of money for his name value, but isn't willing to risk potentially alienating some of its female readers by exploiting the 'good girl art' talents that Hughes is most renowned for. I mean... there's a small scene in #2 where Veronica stages a Bikini Car Wash, and you'd barely even know it's in there. If someone had just told you (assuming you're familiar with his prior work) that scene was in an Adam Hughes BETTY & VERONICA comic book, you'd imagine it would be a big deal... but nothing of the kind.

Lastly, there's the Achilles' heel of  the journeyman-writer/accomplished-artist... the tendency of the artist (as a primarily visual thinker) to focus so much on thinking about the visuals of WHAT he'd like to draw in the story (like, for instance... a big shaggy dog), that in effect the plot meanders around being led by the nose from one scene that he really wanted to draw to the next one.

And now that you mention it, when things get quiet enough around here that I'm forced to talk about the reboot hoping to stir up some interest,  but still get precious few takers, maybe this forum is stumbling towards the graveyard.

I can talk about Donald Trump or bath soap (the two threads recently attracting the most members) with the people at work... assuming that I wanted to (not much).

Just wanted to point out a few items of note from ACP's Feb/2017 solicits.


First we got the long-delayed (two years!) 7th issue of the Super Special magazine, now another issue solicited for a mere 3 months later?
Keep your fingers crossed that this is back again, hopefully on a quarterly schedule. That means YOU SHOULD BUY THIS.


Get out your crayons, colored pencils and markers!
ARCHIE'S COLORING BOOK #1 is here to relieve your stress.

Good thing too, because I'll probably be stressing out over whether or not it will get cancelled until I actually see it listed as shipping the next week...
128 pages of coloring fun for a mere (?) $9.99.
(Coloring books cost TEN BUCKS now?? I remember when they were like, 89¢ ... There's that stress creeping up the back of my neck again...)
The solicitation copy describes this as "each image has an intricate background pattern to add to your color experience". Hope it doesn't turn out looking like that awful DISNEY VILLAINS Coloring Book, which was so busy with clashing op-art background patterns that there were no open white areas to actually color in (seriously -- look at the awful reviews for it on Amazon). I suspect that they came up with this scheme to prevent people scanning any simple B&W-outline art and turning them into useful decorative artwork featuring their popular copyrighted character images. Uh-oh, there's that stress creeping up on me again...

See now, here's both a good example (because it's an awesome Dan Parent iconic cover design, and B&V both look totes adorable here  ), and a bad example of what I mean. If they printed that same cover on a page in the coloring book in black & white, what looked neato-keeno when Dan Parent did it on a computer poses a perplexing problem to someone staring at it with a crayon, marker or colored pencil in hand, looking at the patterns on the girls' dresses and thinking "WTF am I supposed to do with this?", so it's not lowering your stress levels the way just gazing at the cover as Dan created it on the computer would.



And finally, then there's THIS...!

I WANT to believe, because I WANT to buy this SOoo BADDDD!
But after the quick cancellation of the recently-solicited REGGIE'S 80 PAGE GIANT COMIC #1, I just don't believe ACP's solicitations are for actual, real products anymore. At least when it comes to anything Classic Archie, beyond the usual periodical digest issues and the 1000 PAGE Comics and GIANT Comics collections.

ARCHIE'S STORY & GAME DIGEST #16
JUGHEAD DOUBLE DIGEST #16
LAUGH COMICS DIGEST #16

After I found those first two digests at my LCS, I noticed that they were both #16, and pulled the third one out of my collection (one of the oldest digests I own, and I don't really collect LAUGH digest, it's the only one I have). That made me wonder how many other #16 issues of digests I own so I checked and here are the ones I found:

ARCHIE & FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #16
ARCHIE'S FUNHOUSE DOUBLE DIGEST #16
JUGHEAD & ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #16
JUGHEAD & FRIENDS DIGEST #16
TALES FROM RIVERDALE DIGEST #16

That is the longest list of digest titles that I own the same issue number of, and it will probably be a long time until I own more digest titles of a different issue number.

BETTY BOOP (Dynamite Entertainment) #1-2 (of 4)
I really like this interpretation of Betty Boop, given that it's a bit modified from the classic Fleicher Brothers Studios cartoons of the 1930s.
By that I mean it's somewhat of a fusion of different elements from both the early pre-Hays Code era Betty, and the later (drastically toned-down) Betty cartoons, as well as being mildly modified for the sensibilities of modern audiences. In the early talkies, Betty was a real hot tomato, wearing short skirts, and showing a bit of décolletage and a leg garter. That was considered racy stuff in the early 1930s, as well as some sexual innuendo implied by things like Betty singing "Don't take my boop-oop-a-doop away". Then came the Hays Code. Will Hays was the president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), and the Code was instituted in 1930, although not seriously enforced for a few years. The Hays Code was a form of censorship enforced on the motion picture industry that was similar to the later Comics Code Authority for the comic book industry, and an early precursor to the later MPAA ratings system for movies. By 1934, it had caught up with the Fleischers' cartoons, and Betty was forced to clean up her act. Prim collars and dresses below the kneeline became the order of the day, and lacking the sex appeal of the earlier Betty, the cartoons started to focus less on Betty herself and more on whimsical side characters like Betty's cute little pup Pudgy, and her relative Grampy, the wacky old inventor. The earlier co-stars like KoKo the Klown and Bimbo had been phased out even before the Hays Code took effect, first KoKo and then later Bimbo. Koko had been the very first Fleischer Brothers cartoon star in the silent era of the 1920s, replaced by Bimbo (before coming out of retirement later), and in fact, when Betty first appeared in one of Bimbo's cartoons, she was also a dog with long ears (after a few more cartoons she was redesigned to be more human, with big hoop earrings replacing the long ears).

Dynamite's version, written by Roger Langridge and drawn by Gisele Lagace, is a slightly modified (in line with Gisele's usual style) interpretation of the earlier cartoon version of Betty, and KoKo and Bimbo are regular characters in the stories, too, but Grampy (from the later cartoons) has also been added. Langridge has given Betty a regular job as a waitress at the Oop-A-Doop Club, a jazz joint where she works while living at Grampy's house and awaiting her big break in showbiz. She's occasionally called on to sing at the club, or she takes a side job at the carnival. Langridge throws in some original songs with an early-30s jazz flavor, since jazz tunes were always part of the original cartoons. Another important part of those early cartoons that Langridge retained was the New York, urban vibe, and the surreal quality of the animators, who filled the cartoons with fluidly morphing objects and characters, ghosts and spooky things. Since nearly all the original Betty cartoons were in black-and-white, the comic book version has a toned-down color pallet using lots of gray tones, and limited use of the standard four-color comic book coloring. I think the amalagamation (neither quite B&W nor color) works pretty well here. Gisele is stretching her artistic skills by adapting to a character style that's not her own, but she manages a nice fusion here, where her own distinctive style still comes through, yet is not working against the classic character designs. It's primarily notable in that Betty's body has slightly more realistic proportions than in the original cartoons, but the overall effect looks nice and is still recognizably Betty Boop. Langridge has also given the stories a slightly linking continuity from issue to issue, so that while each issue can be enjoyed on its own, there are reoccuring characters who crop up in issue #2 who were originally seen in issue #1. Bimbo of course is still smitten by Betty, as he was in the original cartoons, All in all the story retains the feeling of a classic comic strip, as in Langridge's earlier POPEYE series written for IDW. Highly recommended.

It should be in the Previews catalog for next month, which should be up online next week.

Wonder what they're asking for that? Hope it has a lot of Dan Parent cover designs in there. And they should do a Betty & Veronica one, too.

REVOLUTION: G.I. JOE #1 (one-shot)
MICRONAUTS #7
GODZILLA: RAGE AGAINST TIME #4 (of 5)
STAR TREK: WAYPOINT #2 (of 6)
BLACK HAMMER #5
EVIL DEAD 2: REVENGE OF KRAMPUS #1 (one-shot)
SKYBOURNE #2 (of 5)
THE MUMMY: PALIMSEST #1

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on November 16, 2016, 11:38:37 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on November 14, 2016, 11:54:05 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on November 11, 2016, 01:01:20 PM
I think it's his real hair? I remember watching an interview not so long ago (probably last year) where he actually moved his hair to the other side so that we could see it is real, but anyway  ...

It's a bad comb-over? Well then I guess he should GET a toupe. A good one. He can afford it. Either that or hair transplants. Suck up his pride and do it for America. But you see what the problem is when you're that rich -- everyone around you is too afraid to tell you how ridiculous you really look.

Everyone is afraid to tell him? His hair is all everyone talks about. He most definitely knows what people think of it. He just doesn't care.

Not an auspicious quality in a president-elect, knowing what the people think and not caring...

ASTRO BOY - Stories from 1960.
BETTY #19 - All stories written by Mike Pellowski. Unremarkable.
SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN: FALL OF MAN #4 (of 5)
SQUADRON SUPREME #13
THANOS #1
PATSY WALKER AKA HELLCAT #12
CAVE CARSON HAS A CYBERNETIC EYE #2
WALT DISNEY'S COMICS & STORIES #735
UNCLE SCROOGE #20
KILL OR BE KILLED #4
MOONSHINE #2
ONE PUNCH MAN VOL. 9 TP
BETTY BOOP #2 (of 4) - Review of #1 & 2 to follow at some point.
LONE RANGER / GREEN HORNET #5 (of 5)

The single thing of greatest concern to me in the picture above would be the leg going over Reggie's arm. Well, I think it's supposed to be a leg. Hard to tell, since it's missing a foot... so it might well be an arm, for all I know. At first glance, you'd presume this to be Jughead's leg, except when you look at it closely, there's absolutely no way that that limb can be connected to Jughead's hip. Then it passes behind Reggie's leg, and you should be able to see a foot (or a hand) connected to it, underneath Reggie's leg, but there's nothing there.

Quote from: BettyReggie on November 15, 2016, 03:19:01 PM
Each Kevin #1 was different stories, one was about meeting Kevin & the other was Kevin & the gang at a parade. Jughead & Kevin stuffed their faces with pies & threw up. And we met Wendy & William in that issue Kevin's childhood friends.

Since you seem determined to dodge the question, just forget it then.

Quote from: BettyReggie on November 15, 2016, 02:23:58 PM
I don't time the comics but I only see how many I read in a hour. I time my digests.

That's not what I'm asking though. I mean when you list Everthing's Kevin #1 and Kevin Keller #1, those are the same comic book issue with two different covers. So did you read the same interior story twice?

Quote from: BettyReggie on November 15, 2016, 07:29:32 AM
Everything's Kevin Keller #1
Kevin Keller #1
Kevin Keller #2
Kevin Keller #2-The Prom Special

Not trying to be too nit-picky here, and if you want to list whatever cover variants you happen to own, that's fine. I'm not sure what that has to do with reading the comics, though. Did you really read Kevin Keller #1 with the "Everything's Kevin" variant cover for 12 minutes, and then pick up Kevin Keller #1 with the regular cover, and read that one for 12 minutes also? (Same applies to KK#2 and the two covers.) Maybe that's not what you meant, but that's what it sounds like when you list them that way. So essentially you'd be reading the same story for 12 minutes twice in a row, unless maybe you just looked at the cover for 12 minutes (doesn't seem likely that that's what you meant).

I mean, I noticed earlier that you'd list whatever variant covers you happened to own, and say you read this one or that one, but I just thought "Well, I guess she just likes reading the same story over multiple times, even if she already read that issue with a different cover a few days or a couple of weeks ago." But now when I just see you listing cover variants of the same issue at the same time, I'm not sure if that's what you're really doing or what.

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on November 11, 2016, 01:01:20 PM
I think it's his real hair? I remember watching an interview not so long ago (probably last year) where he actually moved his hair to the other side so that we could see it is real, but anyway  ...

It's a bad comb-over? Well then I guess he should GET a toupe. A good one. He can afford it. Either that or hair transplants. Suck up his pride and do it for America. But you see what the problem is when you're that rich -- everyone around you is too afraid to tell you how ridiculous you really look.