BETTY AND VERONICA HOLIDAY ANNUAL #248 - Mostly good stories, with the usual proportion of Xmas-themed stories to non-Xmas stories -- 4 or 5 stories in the front of the digest, and 2 or 3 more in the back. Pulled it out of the mailbox yesterday at noon time and immediately sat down and read the whole thing (with the exception of the 11 pages of Little B&V and Little Sabrina stories towards the end, yadda yadda yadda). Mostly good stories in here, but I'd already read most of the Xmas ones. They should really go back further in the vaults and pull out more of the oldies. Since they reprint so many of the Xmas stories every year, it seems like some of the ones from more recent decades are getting a little well-worn by now. That said, there are a fair number of stories in this issue written by Kathleen Webb, who IMO rarely turns out a boring story. There's one story written by Craig Boldman, that while it bears a B&V logo... let's just say I have my doubts about that -- B&V are in the first couple of pages, but then it turns out to be another one of those "Archie tries his hand at do-it-yourself plumbing" stories (nowhere as good as Boldman's later Jughead stories).

Quote from: steveinthecity on October 31, 2016, 04:52:53 PM
Myself, like many others I'm sure, enjoy reading the weird and/or nutty babbling on the labels of the various Dr. Bronner's soaps while relaxing in a hot bath.     My concern though comes from the "18-in-1" uses blurb on each bottle.  I only use the soap for five specific things as I recall, so evidently not getting the true value from each bottle.  Money down the drain so to speak.

I'm hoping there's a member here who fancies him or herself a "soap expert" and can enlighten me on all eighteen possible uses for this product.  Thank you in advance.

No real expertise required, Steve -- just about a minute to google it.

1. SHAVING
Dilute one part liquid castile soap to two parts of water and massage into skin as a shaving lubricant.

2. SHAMPOO
Wet hair thoroughly and massage a small amount of liquid castile soap into your hands until a lather forms. Wash hair and rinse well.

3. DENTAL CLEANING
Put a single drop on your toothbrush (almond, peppermint, and citrus are nice flavours to use) and brush and rinse as per usual. This is great for sensitive teeth and gums, and will also clean dentures effectively.

4. BODY WASH
Wet skin and massage a small amount onto a cloth, loofah or sponge then wash and exfoliate at the same time. You can also just apply directly to the skin – you only need a tiny amount!

5. HOT TOWEL MASSAGE
For facial packs, scalp and soothing body rub, add a dash of liquid castile soap on a bath towel in sink of hot water. Wring the towel out and place it over the face & scalp. Massage with your fingertips. Repeat on each area of the body until the arms, legs & entire body have been massaged (using light strokes towards the heart.) Rinse the towel in plain hot water and massage again. Breathe deeply! Choose whichever scent makes your heart sing.

6. BATHING
Add a squirt to a bath tub of water at the beginning for bubbles, or after the bath has been drawn for a relaxing soak without bubbles. Rose is a divine fragrance for this use.

7. DEODORANT
Add 1-2ml (0.05 fl oz) to a spray bottle of water (125ml/4.2 fl oz) along with a teaspoon of Himalayan crystal salt for best results. Rose, Citrus, Lavender or Tea Tree are effective – or just choose whichever scent appeals from the range of eight!

8. BREATH FRESHENER
One or two drops in a spray bottle containing 50-125ml (1.7-4.2 fl oz) of distilled water helps to keep the breath fresh and prevent unhealthy bacteria from thriving in the gums and between the teeth. Peppermint, tea-tree, eucalyptus or citrus are great choices.

9. MOUTH WASH
Add 1 drop to a shot glass of water, swish and rinse. Peppermint, tea-tree, eucalyptus or citrus are great choices.

10. BABY WASH
Add a drop or two to a wet washcloth, or a couple of drops to the bathwater. Baby Mild is ideal as it is completely natural and fragrance-free.

11. AFTER-SHAVE
One or two drops in a spray bottle containing 50-125ml (1.7-4.2 fl oz) of distilled water helps to invigorate the skin and prevent shaving rash. Peppermint, Eucalyptus, or Tea Tree work well, or Baby Mild for sensitive skins.

12. HAND SOAP
Dilute anywhere from 1 part castile soap to 4 parts water through to 1:1. You can also use the full strength soap with a foaming dispenser. Any scent is ideal for this application.

13. FOOT SOAK
Add a tablespoon (15ml/0.5 fl oz) to a foot bath and relax! Peppermint is a great choice for hard or cracked heels, or use Tea Tree if fungal infections are a concern.

14. LAUNDRY WASH
For the laundry, use 1/4 cup (62.5ml) for top-loading machines (1/8 cup for front loaders – 31.3ml); adjust as needed depending on hardness of water. Adding a dash of baking soda may also help. Great for nappy washing, as it is all natural and won't contribute to nappy-rash. Also delicate enough to use for hand wash items, such as silks and wool. Any scent works well, or unscented if you prefer.

15. PET WASH
Wet the coat of your pet thoroughly first then apply the liquid castile soap by massaging a small amount in your hands first until a lather is formed, then washing the hair/fur and rinsing clean afterwards. Can also be added to the wash water for ease of use (one squirt is plenty). Choose a stronger scent to help deter fleas and ticks, or Baby Mild if your pet has very sensitive skin.

16. FRUIT & VEGETABLE RINSE
Fill the sink with water and add a squirt of liquid castile soap to remove most chemical residues from fruit and vegetables. Baby Mild (unscented) is the best choice.

17. PEST SPRAY
Use 1-2 tablespoons/about 23ml per litre (0.7 fl oz per quart) of water in a spray bottle for garden pests (4-6 tablespoons per gallon). Citrus, Lavender, or Baby Mild work well.

18. HOUSEHOLD CLEANER
Dilute from one part soap into 40 parts water for light cleaning, to 1:1 or full strength for heavy-duty grease-dissolving jobs. Lavender, Citrus, Peppermint, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree work well – although Almond, Rose and Baby Mild are also great choices if you prefer those scents in your house (almond is a favourite around here – it smells just like marzipan!).

Quote from: Deb on October 30, 2016, 07:31:35 PM
Two of the stories that were dropped, the Archie's Weird Mysteries story and Ego-ology were drawn by Fernando Ruiz, and the new Sabrina story had an intro by Jonathan Gray, two people who are not working with Archie Comics anymore.  Coincidence or intentional?  I could be reading too much into it.  The Jinx pages are a curious deletion, as is the Animated Sabrina material, seeing as The New Archies material stayed in.  The New Riverdale material makes sense to be included, if mostly from a salesmanship standpoint.

No doubt the decision was made to keep the same page count (416), but they absolutely HAD to get "the latest and greatest" ARCHIE #1 (plus additional excerpts) in there from a marketing standpoint. There's no way that enough time has passed to warrant any value judgment relative to "the best" for the 2015 and newer material. So they just looked at what they could eliminate to make room. First thing that had to go was the cover galleries for the early 1990s and The Archie Wedding. Then stuff that once seemed relevant, but is now no more than a curious footnote in ACP history -- Animated Sabrina and Archie's Weird Mysteries, and JINX. The Reggie story "Egology" really deserved to be in there, but they needed to make space for advertising New Riverdale comic books that are, they carefully remind us, ON SALE NOW! Why they left in the New Archies story is a mystery, but probably has more to do with filling a certain number of pages from each decade. Since they couldn't reduce the number of 1980s and 1990s pages too much to add additional pages to the "2010 and Beyond" section, most of the replacements had to come from the 2000s material.

Also, consider the fact that if this book were being published in 2007, some portion of the New Look Archie story "Bad Boy Trouble" would absolutely have been included as representative of "the latest and greatest", and it would have been unthinkable to have left out some excerpt from the longer "Archie Marries..." storyline. The manga version of Sabrina would probably have rated some excerpt as well, but it's now all but forgotten. Now "New Look Archie" barely rates a passing reference in recounting the highlights of ACP's history, and even the highly-celebrated (at the time, because it generated so much publicity for ACP) "Archie Marries" has been reduced to a small text commentary and a single cover image representation. How much LESS relevant from a 2016 perspective does that make things like Sabrina Animated, Manga Sabrina, Archie's Weird Mysteries, and the Jinx reboot seem? The Katy Keene reboot (from the early 2000s) didn't even rate an excerpt in the 2011 TP edition of TBOAC. I've no doubt that the passage of 10 or 15 years will put New Riverdale comics in similar company with those things.

Quote from: Archiecomicxfan215 on October 30, 2016, 05:27:47 PM
I like body wash, especially the kind from Bath and Body Works.. so many










However they call it shower gel but same thing

Wow, it's almost like lip gloss now, so many "fun" fragrances. Do they have Cotton Candy, Peppermint Stick, or Bubblegum?

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on October 30, 2016, 07:06:26 PM
Body wash is okay, but I don't like to use them because I always finish them really fast. I guess I don't know how to use the right amount   So I prefer a good old bar soap. It lasts me longer.

You don't think that's anything but by design, do you? With liquid soap, everybody always winds up using more than they actually need to do the job. Liquid soap has been a boon to the soap industry that way, considering that the product is mostly composed of water by weight and volume.

BUT -- it's easier to use (thus easier to use more OF), and most people prefer convenience and ease-of-use over economy.

Additional comments, Re:THE BEST OF ARCHIE COMICS DELUXE EDITION:
I should probably have mentioned that in comparing the reproduction quality to the earlier TP edition, it's like day and night, and that alone (apart from the larger page size) may be enough justification for the $10 difference in cover price. Part of that improvement is the better paper quality and the better color, and part of it is definitely due to them having cleaned up the quality of the scans that they're working from, so that the new book is more on a par with the hardcovers put out by IDW and Dark Horse.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the cover price, $19.99, is extremely cheap compared to most hardcover books of comparable page count and paper quality. I can only assume the price was kept low as an inducement to purchase the same collection of stories again, but really, if this were a completely original collection of stories never assembled before, a cover price of from $29.99 to $59.99 would likely be the going rate from other publishers, and considered well worth it by the main market of consumers for this type of hardcover comics collections, as long as the content justifies the price tag. What do I mean by that? The rarity of the stories, the creators involved, and other attractions including the overall design of the book, and the opportunity to get complete runs of stories featuring the same character(s) all in one place. That said, these days "The Best of..." collections are becoming rarer, because what the typical consumer really wants in this type of higher-end book is "The Complete...", not a random collection of stories that someone else decided were the best.

What's really odd to me is that this hardcover represents the kind of backwards-thinking of ACP. With other comics publishers, the more expensive hardcover edition usually comes first (to capture the audience of "I don't care that much about the cover price, got to have it NOW" consumers), followed after a reasonable selling window (so as not to compete with themselves) of six months to a couple of years, by the cheaper trade paperback, which usually gets a higher print run due to the lower cover price, and sells in greater numbers -- the intention being to do only ONE printing of the hardcover, and have that sell out by the time the trade paperback comes out. Also worth noting is that in most cases (except where the hardcover is marketed as a Limited Edition, containing bonus material), the later trade paperback is absolutely identical to the hardcover in every way, except for the cover (not only the paper size, but the paper quality, too).

Hopefully this version of TBOAC sells well enough for ACP that it will warrant them beginning to offer hardcover collections NOT available previously in any form, and that when and if they do begin to produce new HC collections, it will be in the Archival format -- i.e., sequential or chronological collections of a single feature or comic book title (for example, JOSIE ARCHIVES Volume 1 HC, containing their first few appearances in PEP and issues #1-10 of the JOSIE comic book). Then too, many of the "Archival"-type hardcover collections are aimed ONLY at the market of hardcover collectors/consumers, and NEVER get a trade paperback edition. Those tend to have the highest cover prices to begin with, because some of the cost of producing the book can be shared when a hardcover edition is designed and planned from the beginning to have a later softcover edition, lowering the cover cost of the initial hardcover somewhat. Since ACP is new to producing hardcovers, any new collections they would produce would probably have to be priced on the higher side to insure that the book generates a profit (and a later trade paperback would be dependent on initial sales of the hardcover), but I suppose it would depend on how much actual work needs to go into it, or if they have the existing material (scans, color separations, etc) on hand already and don't need to incur any additional expenses for those things.

I should probably mention (to save you having to discover this yourself) that "body wash" and "shampoo" are pretty much the same thing. And in a pinch, you can use either one ("foamy from the get-go") if you run out of shaving cream. 

Quote from: SAGG on October 29, 2016, 05:28:40 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 29, 2016, 11:16:52 AM

Quote from: SAGG on October 29, 2016, 09:19:47 AM
Body wash is so much better than soap in the shower!  Where has it been all of my life?! It's so liquidy and foamy from the get go! Can't go back to the soap bar anymore, no sir!! 

Body wash IS soap. Soap that hasn't been dehydrated and pressed into little compact bricks. So, for that matter, is dishwashing liquid. Okay, so maybe you just shove the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, and never really think about it, but you must have washed your hands in a public restroom before, so you know they make liquid soap, right? And yet you never noticed it was "liquidy and foamy from the get go"??

Just put a whole bar of soap into a into a large coffee mug and fill the mug halfway with boiling water, and wait a little while. You'll have "body wash" in no time. It's not rocket science, Sagg.

Yeah, and that's what you do with those little slivers of bar soap that are too small to be useful as is. Just save up a bunch of them and liquify them by soaking them in a little water.

Of course body wash is soap, DR, but I'm attempting to be facetiously funny because I'm in a goofy mood at the moment--and body wash is cool.  Besides, haven't you heard of this thing called humor? No offense, really, but sometimes to me you come off as being a tad too serious. Reminds me of Heath Ledger's Joker character: "Why are you so serious?"    Chill.

No need to convince me of the advantages of liquid soap. Maybe it's because I haven't used the hard bar soap in... I don't know, 20 years? (Who knows, it's not like something I'd keep track of.) It's not like it's something even remotely new - it pre-dates the internet. Pretty hard to wrap my mind around the idea that this is some kind of new discovery or novelty for someone, like someone announcing that they've just discovered the existence of disposable lighters and can now stop using matches. I'm not trying to rain on your parade, but it just comes off as sounding weird, man.

To me it's... just soap, a slightly more convenient variety than the other kind. Frankly, it amazes me more that there's still any market for the hard bar soap, or that anyone would see it as having any advantage over the liquid kind, although I guess you could say it doesn't need any sort of container or dispenser, so maybe more convenient for travel, and you don't need to worry about the container leaking.

Good point about Heath Ledger's Joker, though -- that was the most humorless version of that character yet.

POPEYE CLASSICS VOL. 7 & 8 by Bud Sagendorf (Those two volumes of the hardcover collect issues 30-39 of the comic book. I stopped buying the floppies because I prefer reading a bunch of them together anyway, and I like the larger size of the hardcover. A fast and fun read every time.)

Quote from: SAGG on October 29, 2016, 09:19:47 AM
Body wash is so much better than soap in the shower!  Where has it been all of my life?! It's so liquidy and foamy from the get go! Can't go back to the soap bar anymore, no sir!! 

Body wash IS soap. Soap that hasn't been dehydrated and pressed into little compact bricks. So, for that matter, is dishwashing liquid. Okay, so maybe you just shove the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, and never really think about it, but you must have washed your hands in a public restroom before, so you know they make liquid soap, right? And yet you never noticed it was "liquidy and foamy from the get go"??

Just put a whole bar of soap into a into a large coffee mug and fill the mug halfway with boiling water, and wait a little while. You'll have "body wash" in no time. It's not rocket science, Sagg.

Yeah, and that's what you do with those little slivers of bar soap that are too small to be useful as is. Just save up a bunch of them and liquify them by soaking them in a little water.

BLACK JACK VOL. 1 by Osamu Tezuka
THE BEST OF ARCHIE COMICS: DELUXE EDITION HC
MONKEY KING VOL. 1: BIRTH OF THE STONE MONKEY by Wei Dong Chen & Chao Peng

THE BEST OF ARCHIE COMICS

VS.
                      2011 TP Edition                                              2016 HC Edition

Comparison:
Physical dimensions/page size:
2011 TP - 5 ^1/4" (w) X 7 ^1/2" (h)
2016 HC - 6 ^1/2" (w) X 10 ^1/8" (h) [cover dimensions slightly larger]

Paper grade:
2011 TP - standard newsprint, off-white
2016 HC - bright white, semi-gloss

Page count:
2011 TP - 416 pages
2016 HC - 416 pages

Content differences:
General - Cover and text pages (introductions and commentary) have been completely redesigned for the HC edition, using a different font, and with the editorial replacement of all references to "70 years" with "75 years". Otherwise identical except for specific content differences noted below.

Pages 302-308:
2011 TP - Intro page ("Cover Gallery 1990-1992") and 6 pages of badly reproduced (low resolution) cover images from ARCHIE'S EXPLORERS OF THE UNKNOWN! #1, JUGHEAD'S TIME POLICE #1, JUGHEAD'S DINER #1, RIVERDALE HIGH #5, FACULTY FUNNIES #4, VERONICA ("in Greece") #10.

2016 HC - Intro page and 6-page story "Archie the Genius!" from ARCHIE 3000 #6, 1990, by Hal Smith (script), Rex Lindsey (pencils), Jon D'Agostino (inks). Not included in the 2011 TP edition.

Pages 344-370 ("The 2000s"):
2011 TP - Intro commentary page (1) for the stories "I Squid You Not" (SABRINA THE ANIMATED SERIES #8, 2000, 6 pages), title page (1) containing the logos and character designs from SABRINA THE ANIMATED SERIES and ARCHIE'S WEIRD MYSTERIES, and "Fall For It Classic" (ARCHIE'S WEIRD MYSTERIES #19, 2001, 6 pages). Not included in the 2016 HC edition.

2016 HC - Page 344 skips directly to the next section (pages 358-370 in the TP, the Intro commentary page for the story "Clock Crock" and "The Archie Wedding" cover gallery). In the HC, the cover gallery is reduced to the single cover for the TP collection THE ARCHIE WEDDING: ARCHIE IN "WILL YOU MARRY ME?".

Pages 372-398 ("2010 and Beyond"):
2011 TP - 2 page Intro section, 1 page Intro commentary to "Lodge A Complaint" (LIFE WITH ARCHIE MAGAZINE #1, 2010, 24 pages).

2016 HC - Same Intro sections and story as above, included in the HC on pages 352-378.

Pages 399-416 ("2010 and Beyond"):
2011 TP - 1 page Intro commentary and the stories "Egology" (TALES FROM RIVERDALE DIGEST #37, 2010, 5 pages), "Snug As A Jug In A Rug" (JUGHEAD #206, 2011, 7 pages), and 1 page Intro commentary and the three 1-page JINX stories "Chat Fight", "Frenemy of the State", and "The Dating Game" (LIFE WITH ARCHIE MAGAZINE #6, 2011). Not included in the 2016 HC edition.

Pages 379-416 ("2010 and Beyond"):
2016 HC - 1 page Intro commentary, cover reprint of ARCHIE (2015) #1, complete reprint of the story from ARCHIE #1 (22 pages), followed by a reprint of the cover and a 5-page excerpt from JUGHEAD (2015) #1; 1 page Intro commentary followed by a reprint of the cover and a 5-page excerpt from BETTY AND VERONICA (2016) #1, plus a reprint of the cover of JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS #1. Not included in the 2011 TP edition.

Comments: Well, I don't miss the 12 pages left out of the HC of SABRINA THE ANIMATED SERIES and ARCHIE'S WEIRD MYSTERIES (at best, an excerpt from a longer story). I'd rather have the 6-page story from ARCHIE 3000! I do miss the inclusion of the very cool Reggie story "Egology", Jughead in "Snug As A Jug In A Rug", and even the three 1-page Jinx shorts, and resent the inclusion of 38 pages of advertising for their currently-published floppy comics. And I KNOW they are advertising because each reprint ends with the words "ON SALE NOW!". So, a more accurate title would have been THE BEST OF ARCHIE COMICS: DELUXE EDITION HARDCOVER - Now With LESS Content, and MORE "What Else Can We Sell You Today??"

Quote from: irishmoxie on October 27, 2016, 12:50:33 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 27, 2016, 12:54:08 AM
EVIL DEAD 2: DARK ONES RISING #2 (of 3)
RED TEAM: DOUBLE TAP #4 (of 9)
SILVER SURFER #7
SIXPACK & DOGWELDER: HARD-TRAVELIN HEROZ #3 (of 6)
JUGHEAD #10
KISS #1
SAVAGE DRAGON #217
BATMAN BEYOND #1
TITANS #4
DETECTIVE COMICS #943
WONDER WOMAN #9
SPIDER-MAN / DEADPOOL #10
ACTION MAN: REVOLUTION #1
DOCTOR STRANGE: MYSTIC APPRENTICE #1
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP #19
FUTURE QUEST #6
WONDER WOMAN 75th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL #1
TARZAN ON THE PLANET OF THE APES #2 (of 5)
KONG OF SKULL ISLAND #4 (of 6)
ROCHELLE #3 (of 3)
DISNEY GIANT HALLOWEEN HEX #1
LOVE & ROCKETS (VOL 4) #1

What did you think of Jughead, Kiss, and Halloween Hex.

JUGHEAD #10 was good, the best so far of all the New Riverdale comics, IMO. I was pleased to see that my theory about what exactly was going on in Jughead's mind in the previous issue when he made the date was spelled out in so many words when Jughead admitted that on some level, he just wanted to hang out with a talking hamburger. On the other hand, I was wrong about him trying to back out of the date, but maybe he'd have been better off if he had -- since his obvious lack of enthusiasm resulted in a pissed-off Sabrina (which I also predicted). One frustrating bit occurred in the scene where Jughead was about to explain something to Sabrina, but she cut him off -- I wonder, just exactly, what he was going to say to her? One small niggling thing annoyed me, and that's how Sabrina showed up dressed for her date. Surely she's more fashionable than that? She's wearing a dress that looks like something a woman a couple of decades (or more) older would wear. Wouldn't she want to look her best to make a good impression on Jughead? Okay, not that it's going to matter to Jughead, but she couldn't know that beforehand. I was pleased by Derek Charm's interpretation of Salem, it's a different look, but I like it.

KISS #1 is a miss. I only got it because of the variant cover by Fernando, and I was curious, having enjoyed ARCHIE MEETS KISS by Dan Parent (otherwise, I've never been a huge Kiss fan). It was pretty ho-hum compared to that, and Kiss only appears on the last page or two.

DISNEY GIANT HALLOWEEN HEX #1 was an extra-length special starring Scrooge McDuck's perennial nemesis, Magica De Spell. Magica, in case you're not familiar, is a sorceress who constantly plots to steal "Old Number One", the very first dime that Scrooge ever made, and Scrooge obsessively fears that if he ever lost possession of it, all his worldly fortune would soon follow. Because Scrooge is the world's richest duck, and he's touched the dime so many times, it has a special quality whereby Magica hopes to acquire it, melt it down in the fires of Mt. Vesuvius, and turn it into a mystic amulet to give her a Midas touch, thereby making her the world's most wealthy duck. Here she's the main character (and we get to meet her kooky family for the first time), and Scrooge is barely in the story at all, except for a few pages at the end. Big thumbs up on this one.

Quote from: steveinthecity on October 26, 2016, 09:56:32 PM

Quote from: SAGG on October 26, 2016, 06:38:25 PM

Future Quest #6 came out today, and look who did one of the covers! Dan Parent!:


http://www.archiefans.com/index.php?media/item/parentfuturequest.1435/


Pretty cool, I thought. It's really interesting when I see a current (or unfortunately former) Archie artist doing something else outside of Archie itself....

Good for Dan.  I'm in the same camp that I like seeing the traditional style Archie artists drawing different sorts of characters.  I still like the Stan Goldberg variant of FF #1 from several years ago.

Actually, Dan did the variant covers for all of the new Hanna-Barbera DC titles this month, in addition to FUTURE QUEST #6 -- FLINTSTONES #4, SCOOBY APOCALYPSE #6, and WACKY RACELAND #5. The regular SCOOBY-DOO and SCOOBY-DOO TEAM UP titles aren't considered part of that group, and have no variant covers offered.

He also recently did RI (retailer incentive) variant covers for Boom Studios' GOLDIE VANCE and MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS: PINK.

Fernando Ruiz did some variant covers for Dynamite Entertainment's first issue of KISS, and possibly some others.

Both Dan and Fernando did variant covers for their own DIE KITTY DIE #1 from Chapterhouse Comics, as well as variants for Chapterhouse's other ongoing titles this month.

The above-mentioned are all very recent. Last year Dan and Fernando did a bunch of alternate covers for IDW for their "Archie month" variant theme.

At ACP, Dan P. did a variant cover for Gisele Lagace's ARCHIE MEETS RAMONES #1, and Gisele did a variant for the New Riverdale JOSIE #1.

DIARY OF A GIRL NEXT DOOR: BETTY by Tania del Rio - Not exactly a comic, more of an illustrated novel. It takes place in Betty's freshman year at Riverdale, but not the same "Freshman Year" as Batton Lash's multipart story (the basic idea may possibly have been inspired by Lash's story, because that story became a best-seller for ACP when it was collected as a TPB). For example, in this particular alternate reality of the Archie multiverse, Kevin Keller, Ginger Lopez, and Kumi Tamura are all students at RHS during freshman year, instead of transferring to RHS later. I guess I judge this less harshly in light of the New Riverdale comics than I did before, but I still wish they'd have let Bill Galvan draw the illustrations in his regular Archie style. The illustrations here are more like 'stick-figure' cartoon versions of the regular Archie cartoon style, as if to imply that Betty herself is drawing these pictures into her diary -- but really it's trying to rip off the popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series of books' style of illustration. It doesn't really come off as believable though, because even in 'stick-figure' style these cartoons are too professional-looking to be the work of a 14-year old, so they should have just let Galvan draw the pictures in the regular style he uses for Archie Comics and called them 'photos' that Betty pasted into her diary or something. They probably didn't even need to explain them with any excuse. Too bad they didn't try something like this 20 years earlier, and get Kathleen Webb to write it (and set it during Junior year, like the regular Betty stories) -- it would have been a lot better. As it is, Tania del Rio does an okay job with the concept, but the character just seems less like the 16-year-old Betty than I would have liked, even if she is supposed to be two years younger.

It's a little odd that Veronica isn't in Betty's diary much, given that they're supposed to be best friends, even as freshmen. Oh, she's in it, all right, but mostly comes off pretty badly here, spending most of her time hanging out with a new clique of popular girls that Betty has dubbed "the Glossies", rather than hanging out with Betty -- her few interactions here with Betty invariably cast her in a negative light.

ACP obviously had high hopes for this novel as some kind of breakout hit, and tried to promote it heavily in advertising in the comics, and by serializing six complete chapters in the back pages of B&V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #238 through 244 (skipping issue #241, which was the Christmas issue) -- that's more than half of the book. The people at ACP must have considered this novel to be SO important as a potential new inroad to the lucrative tween-age book market, that they spent quite a bit of time tinkering with the all-important cover design, before finally settling on the actual cover (seen above). Here are some of their preliminary cover designs (personally, I prefer the classic Betty logo, and Bill Galvan's Betty illustration, used on that last cover on the right, to the cover they finally went with - she looks cuter):
   


Also interesting is the image of this first page of the book that I found online, indicating that the 'stick-figure' style of illustration was not set in stone from the start of the project. It's a real shame they didn't just decide to go this way, and let Galvan illustrate the diary in his normal Archie Comics style:



They even had solicited a companion Diary, to give Veronica's side of the story (see proposed cover below), which might have been interesting if it had covered some of the same events in which Betty wrote about Veronica in her own diary -- but it was not to be. Sales were obviously poor (I picked up the Betty DIARY at a con this past summer for $5, discounted from its $14 cover price), and the proposed DIARY OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRINCESS: VERONICA (which Tania del Rio probably completed, and thus theoretically exists somewhere at ACP), was never published.