Regarding those search-and-download projects I mentioned, most of those are conducted over at the Comic Book Plus and Internet Archives websites. A recent one (not yet completed) involved compiling a list of science fiction stories (all public domain now) written by Otto Binder (one of the main writers on Captain Marvel and Family in the 40s/50s, and DC's Superman Family in the 50s/60s) published in the pulp magazines between 1932 and 1953, finding the relevant issues and pages, and labeling and filing them all in folders. I've gotten most of the longer novels and stories, as well as series stories, now I just need to to download about 3 dozen shorts of novella length or shorter.

Another (more recent project) was making a list of comic books featuring World War II aviator heroes (or 'mystery men') and going through various public domain comics online, sorting those features out into folders for the different series (which involves going through each comic online, viewing the pages one at a time, and downloading and labeling each story page into a particular folder).

So the list of folders I compiled was:

AIR FIGHTERS (Hillman, 21 issues) *ends in 1945, continues post-War as AIRBOY
- Airboy
- Bald Eagle
- Black Angel
- Flying Dutchman
- Iron Ace
- Sky Wolf
- The Heap

BIG SHOT Comics (Columbia Publ.) - Featuring SKYMAN (50+ issues); also in SKYMAN #1-4

CAPTAIN BATTLE, Jr. (Gleason/Comic House, 2 issues) - both issues also include THE CLAW in his own feature

CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT (Fawcett Comics, 40-something issues published with WWII-themed stories) - only the CM WWII stories

CONTACT Comics (Holyoke Publ., 11 issues)
- Black Venus
- Golden Eagle
- Tommy Tomahawk

MILITARY Comics (Quality Comics, 43 issues) *ends in 1945, replaced post-War by BLACKHAWK
- Blackhawk
- The Blue Tracer
- Miss America
- X of the Underground
- Choo-Choo and Cherry (girl humor strip; nothing to do with WWII or aviators, I just liked it)
(there were plenty of other features in those issues I just skipped)

SPY SMASHER (Fawcett Comics, 12 issues + in 63 issues of WHIZ Comics)

Air Fighters is the most complex (because I am sorting out 6 different features into their own individual folders, in every single issue). On the other hand, it's only 21 issues, while Captain Midnight and Spy Smasher in WHIZ have the greatest number of pages and issues, respectively. Later on I may compress some of these .jpg collections down to .cbr format for reading using the Comic Book Reader app. The rule of thumb I'm using if the feature was one that continued after 1945 is, it has to be a flashback to the War story, or I'm not saving it. I've gotten all of CAPTAIN BATTLE JR., CONTACT, MILITARY, and Spy Smasher from WHIZ sorted and saved so far, but still have about 12 issues of AIR FIGHTERS, 12 issues of SPY SMASHER, 40-something issues of CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT (only saving the wartime stories at this point) plus all of BIG SHOT (which will be the easiest anthology title since there is only a single feature in each issue that I'll be saving) and SKYMAN to go. So I guess it's about 1/3rd complete so far.

Hey, I forgot BLACK HAMMER! That's a good one, at least the main series. I've enjoyed most of the miniseries as well, with only BLACK HAMMER '45 (#1-4) turning out to be dud because of poor artwork. And since the story wasn't really even written by Jeff Lemire this time, it was less-than-riveting. It might still have gotten a passing grade with decent artwork. I mean, Matt Kindt did a good job of laying out the pages and telling the story in visual terms, but he's no draftsman (or craftsman). He needed a REAL artist to work over his pencil roughs. Somebody good at anatomy, facial expressions, and backgrounds. It just looks ugly and unfinished, maybe like something a talented 8th-grader would do. Dark Horse really dropped the ball on that one. Oh well, here's hoping it was just a fluke and not a sign that BH is about to start circling the drain.

That is a LOT of manga. On average, how many volumes of a brand-new tankobon series do you give a trial before deciding (assuming no prior commitment to the particular mangaka or characters from previous familiarity) to continue or not? I've always tried to force myself to decide within one volume or two. I just can't keep it on the list if I'm not particularly enthused from the get-go.

Was that MARS CHRONICLE Vol. 6 the final tankobon of that cycle or is there more to it? I peeked at the end to get an idea whether it seemed "to be continued..." and it does seem to end on kind of a lull in activity... whether that's just a pause before a new phase or that's the end of the "flashback" series I couldn't determine (I still haven't finished reading LAST ORDER). Haven't seen a new solicit for BAAMC since, though. I think I do remember reading somewhere it said that Mars Chronicle is the finale (even if it is a prequel) of the entire Alita series as a whole.

So, you mentioned APOSIMZ and that's another one where I'd gotten the first volume; but with one series and another I always seem to be 6 or more tankoban behind (not for a single series) in reading the manga I buy. So when I do have time, I look over the pile of what's been sitting there for a while, but I don't necessarily read them in the order I got them; I read them according to what I'm most interested in reading at the moment. With one thing and another, I just never got around to reading APOSIMZ. I bought it based on having read the FCBD floppy comic, which interested me enough to gamble on a single volume, and it seems like the kind of thing that's up my alley -- science fiction, but it's not straight SF, as it seems like there's a fantasy element mixed into the plot as well. But until I get around to reading the first volume, I'm not going to buy the second one just on faith.

Other times my timing just stinks. I didn't get on board and read JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE from the start, and now there's already dozens of volumes out there, and it's beginning to look more and more daunting (and with the continuing success of it, no end in sight, either). I do tend to prefer series that look as though they might go on for a finite number of volumes, progress through an arc (or several), and finally conclude, although I guess if I was fortunate enough to discover it at the very start of the series and kept up, it's not too much of a concern, unless the quality begins to wane. I would like to find a well-stocked online source for out-of-print manga books, though. Amazon z-shops is spotty (or extremely pricey) on older stuff (15+ years or so), and it kills you in shipping buying one tankobon here, one there.

BTOOOM! was another series that looked really good when I finally got a look at it, but again... that was when it was already 18 or 20 volumes down the road, so now the prospect of going back and getting them all is a little off-putting, because where am I going to find the time (assuming I can even find them all) while keeping up on all my other manga series? Like I said, I've already fallen behind. It looks like Battle Angel Alita is by far the longest (in toto) manga series I've gotten -- but as I mentioned, I haven't finished it yet, either. If indeed Mars Chronicle is now ended, I should eventually catch up on it. That one was very atypical for me because I started reading the Kodansha hardcover collection of the original series, and then trying to find all the omnibus volumes of Last Order, while Kodansha began releasing Mars Chronicle at the same time. No way was I going to start reading either of the two sequel series before I finished reading the complete hardcover run of the original series. But now I'm just starting on GANTZ, too, and from what I've heard that's quite long as well -- don't know the exact number of original volumes (30+?), but since I missed it in its first run, I'll just continue getting the Omnibuses (Omnibi?) which I think reprint 3 (or is it 4) of the original tankobon each. Enjoying it so far, but need to catch up to the current omni before diving into Gantz G.

That's nothing compared to One Piece's 90 volumes, but I wonder just how long any creator can maintain the interest level on something that extensive. A popular series may go for years, but doesn't there have to be some drop-off point in readership? How many manga readers are just deciding to pick up volume 42 and start reading from there? I can't imagine just starting to read a manga in the middle of a long, long run. The nature of storytelling in American comics is just so different, with lots of jumping-on points (and jumping-off points as well), but manga by nature seem to be more steady and consistent.

I guess if I had more time I'd keep up with the manga & anime news sites and try to catch every potentially interesting series when it was brand-new, but you can't always get a decently-long-enough preview to make a confident decision. I do find information-gathering to be much more difficult with manga than with American comics. Diamond's solicitations aren't a great help in sorting through each publisher's product, because all you're getting is a cover image and a paragraph description. That's usually fine for a floppy comic, but seems to fall far short of giving you the gist of a manga series. Titles aren't much help either. What the heck is BTOOOM supposed to be telling me? Something exploding, huh? Oh, great. The "exploding stuff" genre is one of my favorites. Pardon my sarcasm, just trying to make a point here. It's even worse when you have to use Japanese translation software to try to figure out what the words of the title mean (and usually the English translation isn't telling you much either).

There does seem to be a much more finite number of manga series I can follow while they're still ongoing, so I can't keep adding new ones willy-nilly even if they seem trial-worthy; I'd have to drop other things to make room for time to read them all. I've never found that to be much of a serious issue with American comics though. Maybe because a single floppy comic is usually so short, it seems easy to make snap decisions about what new to buy or what to drop, from month to month. With most manga, I only have sort of a vague idea of how often the new volumes are even being released.

Quote from: rusty on April 28, 2019, 11:50:21 PMI've been reading the Treasure Chest series that ran from 1946-1972 in 27 volumes.  It was available at Catholic schools and features a lot of historical and religious content, but also has two adventure serials in each issue that aren't bad.  I just finished vol.16 and plan to finish the rest over the next couple of weeks.

Wow, little did I realize that nearly all the 1946-1963 issues of Treasure Chest are available for browsing and downloading here:
https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=407

That's something like 350-ish issues of TC. Discovering things like this is why I get backlogged on so much reading of the print books I've purchased. I've already got several different search-and-download projects in various stages of completion, so here's another to add to the list.

Part Two: the manga list

DARK HORSE:
  Gantz Omnibus
  Gantz G
  Mob Psycho 100

DC COMICS:
  Batman & The Justice League (manga)

DRAWN & QUARTERLY:
  Kitaro
  -- anything else by Shigeru Mizuki

KODANSHA:
  Battle Angel Alita

LAST GASP:
  Barefoot Gen

SEVEN SEAS:
  Captain Harlock: Dimensional Voyage
  Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary
  Please Tell Me, Galko-Chan!
  Plus-Sized Elf
  Precarious Woman Executive: Miss Black General
  Saint Seiya: Santia Sho
  Wonderland
  World's End Harem
  -- anything by Go Nagai
  -- anything by Reiji Matsumoto

UDON STUDIOS:
  Infini-T Force
  Megaman: Mastermix
  Menage A 3
  Street Fighter

VIZ MEDIA:
  Black Torch
  My Hero Academia: Vigilantes -  I read one volume of the main MHA series that this spins off of, but didn't like it as much as the spinoff.
  One-Punch Man
  Platinum End
  20th Century Boys (Perfect Edition)
  Urusei Yatsura (omnibus)
  -- anything by Junji Ito

YEN PRESS:
  Prison School (omnibus)

I haven't posted anything regarding what I'm reading in a while, because it seems like there's always a list of things every week which I still haven't gotten around to reading, and any time I spend posting/reviewing is time I'm not spending catching up. So I'll just do a list of things I've been getting and trying to keep up with. I tend not to get so far behind on the floppy comics, but collected editions (like manga paperbacks, or original graphic novels) do sometimes have a tendency to sit awhile before I can get to them.

Stuff I've been getting or reading on a regular basis:

ARCHIE COMICS:
  Archie (ongoing), since #699 - I just borrow this comic and will probably stop reading it after the "Archie & Sabrina" 5-part story arc. Interest is kind of marginal, and I don't care much for the art, it's just bland.
  Sabrina the Teenage Witch (5 issue miniseries) - I just borrow this comic, and am only reading it because it's available to me. Meh. I won't be buying the trade.
  Jughead's Time Police (5 issues miniseries) - Pretty good first issue. I'm going to try to review this one, as well as ARCHIE #705, in a little bit.
  Archie The Married Life: 10 Years Later - I will definitely be getting this miniseries as well as the TP collection. Anything by Dan Parent is automatically on the list.
  Betty and Veronica (one-shots) - These are reprints of (very) recent new 5-pagers from the digests.
  Archie & Friends (one-shots) - These are reprints of (very) recent new 5-pagers from the digests.
  Betty & Veronica Jumbo Comics Digest - I've gotten every issue since 2014; no plans to quit.
  B & V Friends Jumbo Comics Digest - I've gotten every issue since 2014; no plans to quit.
  Archie Modern Classics TPs - Presumably, this will continue on an annual basis, compiling all the new 5-page digest stories from the previous year.
  Archie's Big Book TPs - I've gotten them all (so far...)
  Archie Comics Presents... TPs - I got all the Vol. 1 collections, but will be skipping some of the Vol.2's of the weaker series like ARCHIE & ME, ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH, and (maybe) EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE... looking forward to the KATY KEENE collection, and more B&V SPECTACULAR.
  ... and that's about it for Archie Comics.

AC COMICS:
  FemForce

ACTION LAB ENTERTAINMENT:
  Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir TPs

ALBATROSS FUNNYBOOKS:
  The Goon

ANTARCTIC PRESS:
  Exciting Comics
  Heroes At Large (miniseries)

AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY PRODUCTIONS:
  Carson of Venus
  The Land That Time Forgot
  Pellucidar
  The Moon Maid
  Zorro

BOOM STUDIOS:
  King Kong miniseries
  Planet of the Apes miniseries (usually)
  Robocop miniseries (usually)

CHAPTERHOUSE COMICS:
  Die Kitty Die (all minis & one-shots)

DARK HORSE:
  Hellboy & the B.P.R.D. - I get this series in trade collections
  Lobster Johnson - I get the single floppy issues and the trade collections.
  (Dark Horse manga will be listed in a separate post later)

DC COMICS:
Current series I'm getting:
  Scooby-Doo Team-Up - My favorite DC title! This one I actually buy the singles AND the TPs.
  Looney Tunes - Not nearly as good as SDTU, but I like it enough to keep buying the floppies.

These titles I just borrow the floppies to read, and only get the trade collections later if I decide I really liked it:
  Green Lantern (2018) - since issue #1 - It's not bad. I wouldn't say it's one of Grant Morrison's better works, but holding my interest enough so far. Haven't decided whether or not I'll get the trade collections later yet.
  Shazam - I thought I'd give it a fair chance (since I'm a big fan of the original Marvel Family), but I think I may quit reading it soon. It's really not clicking for me.
  Doomsday Clock (12 issues) - I'd rather not comment until I see how it all winds up in issue #12.
  Freedom Fighters (12 issues) - It's okay... I don't think I'd still read it if I weren't just borrowing it, though.
  Female Furies (6 issues) - This one I like, and may even get the trade collection later.
  Wonder Twins (6 issues) - This one I like, and may even get the trade collection later.
  Dial H for HERO (6 issues) - This one I like, and may even get the trade collection later.
... and that's it for DC, currently. I do get various reprint collections of classic DC stories.

DISNEY COMICS:
  The Carl Barks Library HCs (Fantagraphics)
  The Don Rosa Library HCs (Fantagraphics)
  Disney Masters HCs (Fantagraphics)
  Disney Classic Stories (Dark Horse) - TP originals, adapted like Classics Illustrated, but using the Disney characters.
  Silly Symphonies HCs (Library of American Comics/IDW) - Not sure if this series is completed or not.
  Walt Disney's Treasury of Classic Tales HCs (Library of American Comics/IDW)
  Uncle Scrooge (IDW) - trade paperback
  Mickey Mouse (IDW) - trade paperback
  Donald Duck (IDW) - trade paperback
  Mickey & Donald (IDW) - trade paperback

Other classic newspaper comic strip collections:
  Flash Gordon HCs (Titan Books) - I think these are pretty much ended, as there hasn't been a new one in a while.
  Mandrake the Magician HCs (Titan Books) - I think these are pretty much ended, as there hasn't been a new one in a while.
  The Phantom Dailies HCs (Hermes Press)
  The Phantom Sundays HCs (Hermes Press)
  Li'l Abner HCs (Library of American Comics/IDW)
  Dick Tracy HCs - I only got the 5 volumes covering 1964-1970, which were the ones I mainly wanted for the "Moon Era" Tracy. It's just too long a series.
  Superman Dailies HCs (Library of American Comics/IDW)
  Superman Sundays HCs (Library of American Comics/IDW)

DYNAMITE COMICS:
  Various things, but I'm going to be picky, depending on who's writing/drawing it.
  Barbarella
  Vampirella
  Elvira
  Sheena
  Dejah Thoris
  John Carter Warlord of Mars
  Mars Attacks
  Project Superpowers - Hated the last one, to be honest.
  The Shadow
  Doc Savage
  The Avenger
  The Spider
  Green Hornet - I think I skipped the last one of these.
  Lone Ranger

IDW:
  Dick Tracy - Got the first (Allred/Tomaso) miniseries, skipped the second (Michael Oeming).
  Star Trek: Year Five - A new classic Trek series. Haven't made up my mind about how I feel about it yet.
  Star Trek: The Next Generation - I usually trade-wait on this one.
  Planet of the Apes - I've gotten a few things by IDW, so I wonder if the license jumped from Boom to IDW. Seems like it.

IMAGE:
  Criminal (and anything else by Ed Brubaker)
  Exorsisters
  Outer Darkness
  -- plus various (but not all) miniseries by Mark Millar

MARVEL COMICS:
These I just borrow to read, and may get in trade later if I really liked them:
  The Unstoppable Wasp
  Invaders
  Spider-Man: Life Story (6 issue miniseries)
... and that's it for current Marvel Comics. I do buy TP or HC collections of classic Marvel reprints, though.

MAGAZINES:
  TWOMORROWS:
    Alter Ego
    Back Issue
    Comic Book Creator
    The Jack Kirby Collector
    RetroFan
    & various trade paperback books & hardcovers that TM puts out

  Famous Monsters of Filmland (only some issues, depending on content)
  Monster Bash
  Scary Monsters / Monster Memories Yearbook
  FilmFax
  THE CREEPS Magazine - Pretty much the same as the old Warren CREEPY or EERIE (which is to say, good).
  CARtoons Magazine - Automotive humor in comics form.


That's it for now, I'll cover the manga (the longest part of the list) later.

Here's yet another comic character named Archie... this one even pre-dating Archie Andrews' first appearance in PEP. Meet Archie Atkins, Desert Scout (Royal Australian Tank Corps). He first appeared in Quality Comics Group's MILITARY COMICS #1 (Aug. 1941). To be sure, this Archie was quickly forgotten and dropped from the line-up of features, as he was vastly overshadowed by the star of the comic, Blackhawk, and his paramilitary freelance air squadron, the Blackhawks (no more confusing than Archie Andrews and The Archies, I guess). This particular splash page was from issue #3, in case you're wondering.

Archie is (or was, at one time) not an uncommon name in England. England had its own long-running (1957-1983) Archie comic character in the form of ROBOT ARCHIE.



Additional background info and examples of the Robot Archie comic feature can be found here:
http://the-night-cruiser.blogspot.com/2017/04/comic-digital-archive-robot-archie.html

Quote from: rusty on April 28, 2019, 11:50:21 PMI've been reading the Treasure Chest series that ran from 1946-1972 in 27 volumes.  It was available at Catholic schools and features a lot of historical and religious content, but also has two adventure serials in each issue that aren't bad.  I just finished vol.16 and plan to finish the rest over the next couple of weeks.

I vaguely remember reading those growing up. Was there some sort of science fiction comic strip that ran in it fo a while? Or maybe I'm confabulating... recently I've been reading (online) old back issues of Boys' Life magazine. Well, not really reading it, per se... more like scouring through the run of issues from 1952 to the late 1990s. It had a comic strip (sometimes a single page, sometimes only half a page) called "Space Conquerors!" by Al Stenzl (actually ghosted for the most part by diverse hands) that ran in most issues between October 1952 and September 1972. I was able to save all of those pages and then read all 20 years worth of the strip. It was followed up on different occasions between the late 1970s and mid-1990s by some much shorter science fiction adaptations of stories by Robert Heinlein (Between Planets), James Blish (The Star Dwellers), John Christopher (the Tripods trilogy), and Janet & Isaac Asimov (Norby the Mixed-Up Robot). I seem to vaguely recall some adaptation (possibly of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds) from Treasure Chest... this would have been somewhere in the mid-to-late 1960s issues.

What's next, Jughead the Hunger & Vampironica vs. Predator vs. Red Sonja & Vampirella vs. Harley & Ivy?

So they've covered crossovers with Dark Horse, DC, and Dynamite... what about IDW?
ARCHIE ON THE PLANET OF THE APES ?
ARCHIE MEETS DICK TRACY ?
ARCHIE / TRANSFORMERS ?
ARCHIE / STAR TREK ?
BETTY & VERONICA MEET JEM & THE HOLOGRAMS ?

Or what the heck, an Archie crossover with SONIC or TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES... just to be super-ironic.

Are Trula Twyst (and boy am I surprised to see HER on a new cover) and Toni Topaz THAT GOOD at volleyball that they can challenge the 4-girl team of Betty, Veronica, Nancy, and Midge?    Although on further reflection, Veronica's just standing there (a little too close if she's not actually in the game), and Betty's not even paying attention, just talking to Archie. So maybe it's just Nancy and Midge versus Trula and Toni, after all.

Below par compared to what? I admit they're not much when compared to some of the longer stories from the 1995-2015 era of classic Archie. As the number of classic Archie titles dwindled due to cancellation, the overall quality of the stories in the remaining floppy titles (basically just ARCHIE and BETTY & VERONICA, for the last 7 years or so of that period) got very good. They were trying new things, and upping their game. On the other hand, there were tons of mediocre shorts (the standard 5-6 pagers) published during that period, and in the couple of decades preceding that as well. It's easy to forget the bad ones... they're forgettable by definition. I can't forget about those, because they continue to show up as digest reprints, even though they've reprinted the better ones more often (but they can only reprint the same good stories so many times). And I hate to speak ill of the dead, since he gave ACP so much great work in his many years with the company, but Stan Goldberg's work (and there was a LOT of it) started deteriorating badly after the turn of the century, becoming rushed and sloppy-looking -- it made me sad to see it looking so tedious and dull, robbed of its former liveliness and vitality.

As for covers of the digests, the only time they were more interesting (at least in the post-Dan DeCarlo era) was during a brief period when they were spotlighting new lead stories in the digests, and the covers actually reflected a new story in that issue. No Dan Parent covers on any digest this month, even though he's got interior artwork in both B&V digests. He must be too busy working on that new "Archie Marries" sequel. The Golliher and Galvan covers are merely average, but Jeff Shultz' two covers are as good as anything he's ever done. I've already weighed in with my thoughts on the Kennedy brothers' work on another thread recently, so I'll let it go. A mixed bag as far as digestcovers go, but when was it ever otherwise? I'm going to guess that the going rate for cover art on the digests just doesn't compare with the rate that can be gotten for a floppy comic cover, and that's why we're seeing far fewer Dan Parent covers on the digests in the last year or so. It's even possible that ACP cut the rate they were formerly paying for cover art on the digests, due to slipping sales, but that's purely speculation.

Classic Archie is on the wane, and will never make any sort of serious comeback. Not for the floppy comic marketplace, for which the kid audience makes up a fractional percentage, and the nostalgia audience another small fraction. It will continue to dwindle into a niche-market nostalgia product, similar to the Disney reprints (still popular enough in Europe, but not here) and EC reprints. The regular digests will be gone (except maybe for 1 or 2) probably within 5 years, 10 at most, anyway -- taking the last of the new classic Archie shorts with them. The Giant and 1000 Page format may go on a little longer, if it's feasible for them to skip the earlier publication of reprints in the Jumbo digests and just print them in the larger compilations. Digital could continue on for quite some time, without the limitations of break-even economics which print comics are bound to, and distribution is no longer a factor.

Kids today don't seem to want the cartoony stuff, unless a love for this stuff is actively inculcated in them from their parents being fans of the old stuff, so that leaves a consumer base of graying nostalgists.

Archie vs. Predator II? Ugh. The only thing worthwhile about the first one was Fernando's art, so this is kind of like a backhanded slap to him from ACP. Alex DeCampi's story for the first one was absolutely the worst thing that ACP had ever published up to that point, so it looks like they'll be hitting a new low again.

Quote from: Good Ole Samm on April 18, 2019, 08:34:20 PMYeah, Bolling was very good at writing, "Little Archie on Mars" being my favorite of his scripts. I totally agree with you that Archie should compile those Jughead stories into a TPB- I've got "Folly" and "Hercules" in a digest, but that'd be really cool.

Until about the late 1980s, when they stopped doing new Little Archie stories, and Bolling became one of the main writers on Betty & Me, Bolling's stories seemed to exist in some weird alternate Archie-verse. On Betty & Me, he began integrating his LA characters like Chic and Polly Cooper (and Betty's cat, Caramel) into the Betty stories. A Bolling story always tended to have a fantasy, supernatural, mystery or adventure element (like his series, "Betty Cooper, Super Sleuther" in Betty). Towards the tail end of Sabrina's original run, he took over and briefly turned it into more of an adventure-oriented title. He also really liked to do 'outdoorsman' stories (Mr. Weatherbee was obviously a favorite of his) about camping and fishing ("The Plight of the Perilous Pike"), and he loved drawing maps and always had his own unusual names for local landmarks in Riverdale (Like "Bongo Bay", and I believe it was Bolling who introduced "Pickens Park"). It's hard to mistake a Bolling-written story even in the absence of credits. In hindsight, it seems odd to me that Bolling wrote only a bare handful of stories (all of them relatively short) for Life With Archie, which was the relatively permanent home of adventure-type stories at ACP. If I had to guess, Frank Doyle must really have enjoyed the change-of-pace those type of stories offered him, and wasn't willing to give up that assignment, even though Bolling would have been perfect for the job.

Quote from: Good Ole Samm on April 18, 2019, 08:34:20 PMNever really bothered to check out the pre-code Harvey's for the most part, maybe someday. Could be something I'd quite like, although I'll always have the soft spot for the ghosts, witches and devils the publisher eventually became famous for. I get that you're not crazy about the Sacks, I guess for some the drawing style might need some getting used to.

Harvey's biggest characters, prior to the horror-comics boom, were The Black Cat (in Speed Comics and especially in her own mag, as drawn by Lee Elias), and The Green Hornet. The two big Harvey anthology titles were Speed (which also starred Shock Gibson and Captain Freedom), and Champ Comics (featuring Duke O'Dowd, the Human Meteor). Simon & Kirby seemed to be peripherally involved with Harvey off-and-on, at times editing and/or providing covers, and late in the Golden Age, after leaving DC, they tried to launch some new characters like Stuntman, Boy Explorers, and Captain 3-D, that never really took off. Other than that, Harvey tended to lean heavily on reprinting popular newspaper strips like Joe Palooka, Dick Tracy and The Phantom.

Quote from: Good Ole Samm on April 18, 2019, 08:34:20 PMI also really like the Mickeys, too. A pity I don't have enough of Floyd Gottfredson, the guy was talented. He was what Barks was to the Disney ducks.

Fortunately, Fantagraphics has reprinted all of the early Mickey Mouse newspaper strip adventure continuities from the '30s and '40s in a series of hardcovers. Cheaper and easy to find are the old Gladstone Comics from the late 1980s, many of which reprinted Gottfredson Mickey strips.

Quote from: Good Ole Samm on April 15, 2019, 09:55:58 AMI can help you with this one since I have this one in my collection: it's simply called "Boots" (creative today, aren't we?), and it was originally published in JUGHEAD #115, Dec. 1964, indeed drawn by the great Samm Schwartz. GCD and digest printings of the story credit Jim Ruth for the story, but I think the great Frank Doyle actually wrote it, although it's possible Schwartz took Ruth's script and revised it a bit as he was prone to doing.

Wow, impressive. Every once in a while I come across a credit (almost always a writer) for someone who I'm totally unfamiliar with. In this case, a good example, Jim Ruth. Don't know a thing about him, and have only rarely seen his credit on a story. There have been maybe half-a-dozen or so names I've seen in credits that I'm entirely drawing a blank on, which indicates to me that their tenure with ACP must have been relatively brief. It isn't just the older stories, either... occasionally one pops up from the eighties or nineties stories. Actually, I'd probably be more likely to know who it was if it was an older story, at least if the writer had worked for other companies. And now that I think about it, I guess it's because ACP tended to employ writers (and sometimes artists) who didn't work for any of the larger comic publishers.