Quote from: Captain Jetpack on October 01, 2016, 12:09:11 PM

Quote from: irishmoxie on June 27, 2016, 08:47:26 PM
I wish Sabrina would get her own non-chilling comedic series again. I'm sure the sales of the upcoming Jughead will help decide that. Or it can be chilling but also comedic like Meg Cabot's Mediator series.

This.

I almost think I'd rather not know, because the mere thought of them screwing it up is chilling. Except for Dan Parent, they don't seem to be wringing any comedy out of their new titles. I know I'd be down with it if Dan wrote it, or maybe Darin Henry. Or maybe have Dave Lumsdon and Gisele Lagace do it... but what am I saying? That would be too straightforwardly sensible, so they'd never do something like that.

Not coincidentally, that seems to be right around the time they started converting some of their comics to digital, and it seems like they haven't bothered at any serious attempt to convert comics from the early 1990s and earlier. At any rate, the digests seem to concentrate the bulk of their reprinting to stories from the past couple of decades, more or less, apart from special collections like The Best of Archie Comics, Best of the Forties, Fifties, Sixties, etc.

I'd like to see Bryan Lee O'Malley draw something written by someone else. I don't care all that much for his writing, but I like his artwork. I also liked the artwork in SNOTGIRL (I've forgotten the artist's name at the moment), but again, cared even less for O'Malley's writing than I did on Scott Pilgrim (I liked the movie version better, story and dialogue-wise).

Quote from: steveinthecity on October 01, 2016, 03:55:51 AM
I wonder if the kid wearing the purple scarf on the cover of #3 is supposed to be Dilton?

Seems doubtful, given that the scene includes a number of random bystanders waiting to see Santa. The kid in question doesn't even look particularly like Dilton, apart from having the same style glasses frames (which applies to Eugene as well). In fact, I'm pretty sure that kid with the pink hat and sweater is supposed to be Asian-American. I would actually be surprised if Eugene made any appearances in stories in the regular Archie comic books not based on the animated series.

ARCHIE #12 - Just read the reprint in back, "MOOSE!". That's from 1990, written by Waid, which is what I suggested to Waid that they should reprint in the back of ARCHIE when I saw him at Boston Comic Con back in August -- so thanks for the quick response. Hopefully we'll get to see the rest of those half-dozen shorts he wrote back then.

JOSIE #1 - Ugh. Worse than I feared, a real snooze-fest. It's all talk, talk, talk, nothing much happens... it's boring. Halfway through the story I was already skimming the dialogue (which wasn't interesting or funny) to get to the end. Pepper is brought back, but this version of the character is pretty dull and uninteresting, lacking the witty and sarcastic observations of the classic Pepper. Melody just isn't the same Melody, either. I felt pretty neutral about the artwork, didn't love it or hate it. Last issue for me, at least until they get a new writer.

GARTH ENNIS' RED TEAM: DOUBLE TAP #3 (of 9)
RICK AND MORTY: LI'L POOPY SUPERSTAR #3 (of 5)
INVADER ZIM #13
BATMAN BEYOND REBIRTH #1
ACTION COMICS #964
WONDER WOMAN #7
DONALD DUCK #17
WALT DISNEY'S COMICS & STORIES #734
HELLBOY AND THE B.P.R.D. 1954: BLACK SUN #1 (of 2)
WEIRD DETECTIVE #4
TARZAN ON THE PLANET OF THE APES #1 (of 5)
LONE RANGER/GREEN HORNET #3 (of 5)
ASTRO CITY #39
APOLLO'S SONG by Osamu Tezuka VOL. 2 TP

Quote from: achernar on September 26, 2016, 05:31:14 PM
There seems to be four versions of these stories. It opens up with Archie saying that season is his favorite season and Jughead responds by saying "You say that in every season." The stories end with something that makes Archie regret about saying that it is his favorite season.

I think I saw one of those recently in a digest. I think it must have been the Fall one.

ASTRO BOY - Reading the manga paperbacks, beginning with the earliest stories and following along in the chronological sequence of how the stories were originally published -- which is NOT the order in which they're printed in the 23-volume English language translation from Dark Horse Comics. So far I've read the stories originally published from 1951 through 1953 (out of the 5000+ pages that comprise the entire series). Which isn't much, really... maybe about 1 and a half books out of the 23 (but I cheated and read the 2 volumes of stories that were random 1-shot appearances in various publications, not considered part of the continuity, first).

Another thing that's slowing me down in reading the stories is that I'm pausing to watch those stories which were adapted into anime, just to see how they were adapted, what they changed or left out, etc. There were three different Astro Boy anime series, the first from 1963-1966 (only 104 of those 193 episodes were translated into English, and I don't have the Japanese DVD set), the second from 1980-1981 (51 episodes in English, missing one of the Japanese episodes), and a third series from 2003-2004 (another 52 episodes). As it turns out, the 1963 series adapted a lot of the original manga stories, but not all of those episodes made it into the English-dubbed series, and less than half the total episodes were adapted from the original manga. In the 1980 series, most of those episodes were adapted from the manga stories, and in the 2003 series, very few of the episodes were straight adaptations of the manga (they tended to mostly just mix bits and pieces of different manga stories into a new plot). But even so, a lot of the manga stories got adapted in one series or another, sometimes with the same story adapted as episodes of both the 1963 and 1980 anime. Naturally the anime series episodes' order doesn't follow the manga series order, so I'm skipping all over the place swapping out discs. It's interesting reading a manga story written and drawn in the 1950s, and then seeing how it was adapted into anime made 10, 30, or 50 years later though.

Quote from: Captain Jetpack on September 26, 2016, 07:40:31 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 25, 2016, 12:10:20 PM

Quote from: Captain Jetpack on September 25, 2016, 10:27:47 AM
In the 60s-70s, in Animation, Sabrina had a near-identical cousin, with b;lack hair.
Frantic, reckless personality, name escapes me.

Oh yeah. What a shameless ripoff of BEWITCHED that was. Maybe because Sabrina's appearance in ARCHIE'S MADHOUSE predated that show, ACP felt like it was fair game for them to copy Samantha's "identical-except-for-being-a-brunette" wildchild/partygirl cousin Serena (Serena/Sabrina... OW, that must have hurt).

I guess it's no big whoop, since by this time BEWITCHED was already copied once on that same gimmick, when I DREAM OF JEANNIE introduced Jeannie's evil twin (but brunette) sister, Jinni.

Ya wanna talk ripoff?
In Betty Cooper Betty Cooper, Betty acquired an Uncle who was a Vampire!
Shades of Dark Shadows!
Or...was he a Cousin...?

Ah yes, Betty's Uncle Drago... also known as Count Drago, who featured in one of the plotlines in the first 3 issues (BETTY AND ME #79 through #81) of the 8-part serial "Betty Cooper, Betty Cooper!" But to be honest, parody or satire is considered fair game (as opposed to plagiarism), and Frank Doyle's extended Betty story, which took its inspiration (and title) from the then-current TV show Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (itself a satire) was merely poking fun at the ridiculous melodramatics and unlikely plot twists of ALL television soap operas.

Quote from: Captain Jetpack on September 25, 2016, 10:27:47 AM
In the 60s-70s, in Animation, Sabrina had a near-identical cousin, with b;lack hair.
Frantic, reckless personality, name escapes me.

Oh yeah. What a shameless ripoff of BEWITCHED that was. Maybe because Sabrina's appearance in ARCHIE'S MADHOUSE predated that show, ACP felt like it was fair game for them to copy Samantha's "identical-except-for-being-a-brunette" wildchild/partygirl cousin Serena (Serena/Sabrina... OW, that must have hurt).

I guess it's no big whoop, since by this time BEWITCHED was already copied once on that same gimmick, when I DREAM OF JEANNIE introduced Jeannie's evil twin (but brunette) sister, Jinni.

Quote from: irishmoxie on September 25, 2016, 09:57:30 AM
I think Betty is supposed to be a zombie and Cheryl a schoolgirl.

"Zombie" crossed my mind with Betty, but if that's what it's supposed to be it's a pretty odd zombie look. Since when do zombies have stitched-up scars on their faces and legs? Who stitches up a zombie? Other zombies? Certainly not a human... they're too busy running away. None of the other usual signifyers there like pale, blanched skin or dark circles under her eyes, blank, dead-eyed expression, etc. To be honest, if I had to come up with some phrase to describe Betty's look in this story, it would be more like "Frankenstein's teenage hillbilly daughter". I'm just going to give her a pass and say she was so busy helping everyone out by doing them all different favors that week that she didn't have the time to put any real effort into it, and just tossed together some random "halloween look" with whatever was on hand an hour or two before the party.

Okay, so Cheryl's a schoolgirl. What I mean is... she really, actually IS a schoolgirl, so other than just changing up her usual fashion and hairstyles, it hardly qualifies as a real costume. I mean, that's what made me wonder if it was really Cheryl or just some new redhead chickie that Reggie brought to the party, who just happens to dress that way anyway. Reggie's got his arm around her shoulder in one panel in a way I've never seen Reggie & Cheryl cozy up to each other before.* -- Or maybe the colorists at Digikore just chose red for her hair color, arbitrarily.

*[Except for that one story where Cheryl and Reggie pretended to date each other as part of a scam to separate Archie from Veronica, and have them each for themselves, respectively.]

Quote from: SAGG on September 25, 2016, 01:34:58 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 25, 2016, 12:22:09 AM
From the new lead story in the latest ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST (#272), entitled "Giving Up the Ghost", Veronica's great uncle Jacob Lodge is mentioned, and a wing of the Lodge mansion had been closed off because Jacob is said to have been the victim of a grisly murder that was never solved. In the story, Veronica has re-opened the disused wing of the mansion to host a Halloween haunted house for underprivileged kids, and a party for her friends.

Yeah that was a pretty good story, I thought. Are the Kennedy brothers still doing new stories in the digests, or is it just Parent now (or anybody else)?

I always enjoy the visual bits of business that the Kennedy brothers stick in their stories, especially ones like this where it's some excuse to get a big cast of regulars together.  You can always count on scenes where there's a whole pack of characters all running away (sort of a visual homage to both the Scooby-Doo and Josie cartoon chase scenes), and panels where characters go tumbling through space in slapstick physical action. They usually stick some small visual gags into the backgrounds too, even though it has nothing to do with the plot or the script.

Like in this story, Reggie is wearing a Zorro costume (specifically colored by Digikore to obscure any too-similar appearance, by using orange, red, and navy blue), Archie is costumed as Pureheart the Powerful, Veronica as Cleopatra, Dilton dressed as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Kevin in an Air Force officer,'s uniform,  Moose as a caveman, Midge as a cute pixie or fairy wearing a little pink dress, with pointy ears and insect wings, Jughead as some kind of Renaissance-era portly fellow (in various hues of green) -- perhaps Henry VIII, or was it Henry VI? In the opening splash panel, Ms. Grundy shows up in a witch's costume, and except for her white hair, she looks almost exactly like the classic version of Sabrina's Aunt Hilda! They always did have similar facial features, so that made me chuckle. All of the ACP artists seem to enjoy drawing Chunk (one of the New Kids), as he frequently shows up in crowd scenes in the background, and he's in half-a-dozen panels in this story, but doesn't seem to be wearing any sort of costume. I couldn't figure out what Betty and Cheryl (at least, I think it was supposed to be Cheryl, as she was the only one there with cherry-red hair) were supposed to be costumed as.

I think these are all inventory stories that are being used up.

Quote from: SAGG on September 24, 2016, 04:56:20 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 24, 2016, 12:54:00 AM

Quote from: Ottawagrant on September 23, 2016, 06:45:53 PM
Thanks for letting me know that. I didn't have the other books you mentioned, but glad I didn't pay a lot for it. I remember a short time ago they took some of the 400 page books & reprinted them in the 1000 page books. I usually buy the 1000 pagers, but had seen the 400's in the store. All the same stories, page for page. The plates for the comics didn't have time to cool. Now THAT is recycling! You are right, they need to dig a little deeper in the last 75 years for some different stories. I'd LOVE to see them reprint that classic story where it turns out to be Betty as a mysterious kissing bandit, who is kissing everyone. Boys & girls. Now THAT is a page turner. They could reprint any of those stories from the late 50's to late 60's for me any day.

Let the buyer beware. ACP will print the same stories over and over again, once in the regular digests, once in the 1000-Page Comics or Giant Comics digests, and now going in the reverse direction, from the 400+ page "Best of Archie Comics" and "Archie's Favorite Comics" trade paperbacks, back to the standard digest format. There seems to be an implicit assumption that there's no overlap in consumers between the different formats, and/or that readers are too young (or too stupid) to notice or care. It's pure laziness and greed on the part of the publisher, in trying to milk every single ounce of work that comes out of the editorial and production department multiple times.

In fact, because of this latest 75th Anniversary Celebration digest scam, I am just about ready to let all my digest subscriptions run out. I will probably just continue to get the Betty and Veronica, B&V Friends, and Jughead and Archie digests by ordering them through my local comic store, and simply browsing individual issues of the remaining titles at Barnes and Noble or Walmart to see if there's anything worthwhile in them to make them worth buying.

Out of curiosity DR (not that I'm disagreeing with you, which I'm not), what do you think ACP should release? Perhaps long-lost stories they haven't printed in years? Surely it seems ACP can do these? What, there are over, say 20,000 stories?

Archie (and IDW) have released some good collections in the past, where it's obvious some thought and effort went into the selection of stories. I'm speaking of things like the Best of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s TPB collections, the Best of Archie Comics TPBs, and IDW's artist-focused Best Of collections. Even though it's obvious that the process of assembling those involved more time and thought going into them than the typical Archie digests, it feels like they've barely scratched the surface of classic Archie material that needs to be brought back. There must still be hundreds of forgotten gems still in the archives at ACP. The other thing would be theme collections, similar to a lot of the digital exclusive releases, like the "Archie 75 Series" of digital one-shots. They should be doing these as TPB collections, along with other character-centric collections. Yet even so, when there's a thematic collection of stories released, it never really seems like they spent enough time searching through the archives for the absolute best stories and greatest variety of highlights. Many of them seem like only vague attempts at justifying a theme or title concept. The collections editor just doesn't have the knowledge and love of ACP's rich history to assemble these collections in such a way that it shows, or is just making a lazy half-hearted attempt.

With the regular digests it's more difficult, since the main audience is young, and wouldn't be as likely to respond to the older stories, particularly if they can't understand the context of the culture of the times those stories were created, or various topical references or outdated technology or fads. They really need to hire or consult some ACP experts, because they could be doing a much better job of it. They also need to have some system that tracks which stories they HAVE reprinted, and STOP reprinting them over and over again. There's probably no need for any story to be reprinted again more than every 5 years, and with all the stories they have in their vaults, they really should be shooting for reprinting a story no more often than every 10 years. There's just an overall sameness and lack of variety to the digests. We used to get more old characters to spice up the variety of stories, like That Wilkin Boy, Suzie, Wilbur, Ginger, Cosmo, Madhouse, Super Duck, etc. in the digests of a couple of years ago, and now you hardly see those things at all any more. I miss the "From the Vault" sections, and in general just having the little discrete sections with its own cover page (which sort of made it like a comic book-within-a-comic book, if you know what I mean), and those sections need to be longer, more like between 15 and 20 pages instead of just 11 or 12. Or maybe they could have one longer section (15-20 pages, with its own cover page) and one shorter one (10-12 pages, with no cover page) in each digest, just to break up the sameness. There seems to be very little to differentiate the ARCHIE, ARCHIE'S FUNHOUSE, and WORLD OF ARCHIE digests, even to a certain extent JUGHEAD AND ARCHIE, which seems to be downplaying Jughead stories in favor of more Archie stories in the last year or so. Each digest should feel like it has its own distinct flavor that makes it different from the others.

From the new lead story in the latest ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST (#272), entitled "Giving Up the Ghost", Veronica's great uncle Jacob Lodge is mentioned, and a wing of the Lodge mansion had been closed off because Jacob is said to have been the victim of a grisly murder that was never solved. In the story, Veronica has re-opened the disused wing of the mansion to host a Halloween haunted house for underprivileged kids, and a party for her friends.

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 24, 2016, 04:03:39 AM
I can think of at least two appearances of Grandma Cooper.  In one I read not long ago Grandma Cooper lives in Riverdale and Archie and Jug tag along with Betty as she is delivering a basket of food to her grandmother.  For whatever reason Grandma Cooper leaves the house and Jughead steals the food basket.  I'll have to take a look for where that story appeared.

Wasn't there a story where Betty's grandmother has a farm, and the gang goes there to visit? (But of course, she has more than one, so that doesn't conflict with your Grandma Cooper.) Or was that Jughead's Granny? Or maybe that was something from the Filmation cartoon Archie, it's just a vague recollection.

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 24, 2016, 01:36:16 AM
One thing that will eventually go by the wayside is Archie or Betty fixing their own car.  Maybe Archie will hang on to that 80's Ford for a few more decades, but newer cars don't really lend themselves to a regular gearhead getting under the hood with a rag and some wrenches to do a tune up or troubleshoot a problem.  The toolbox of yesterday is becoming obsolete as cars become more sophisticated.

Depends on how serious of a motorhead you are. It's not so much that the toolbox is obsolete. Wrenches and screwdrivers haven't changed much, although now most are available as power tools. It's just that you require a whole new toolbox full of electronic diagnostic tools to get the job done. Cars are more difficult to repair at home for several reasons, but it still can be done. One is the electronic sensor chips that indicate faults, that you need a special gadget to read the error message and reset. Another is that since cars started being designed on computers, every available square inch under the hood is crammed together with very little space left to get your hands or tools in there, necessitating a complex series of removing components to get at other components. So you do need a wider range of tools, more knowledge, and the time and patience to disassemble and reassemble things in a complicated step-by-step process. Understandably, most teenagers couldn't be bothered to learn or take the time, unless they're pretty serious about their cars.

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 24, 2016, 01:36:16 AMAnother "won't" I've thought about is the lack of cartoon violence shown or implied since maybe the 90's(?).  On a whole, are our societies that much more peaceful now than in the 50's and 60's when our cartoon characters were beating on each other, being filled with buckshot, having rocks or anvils landing on their heads, fired from cannons, falling off cliffs, or the neighborhood dog biting off a chunk of their posterior?

I don't think our society is any more peaceful than it was back in the 50's and 60s, nationally or globally. If anything, it's less peaceful. But our entertainment, or should I say specifically, children's entertainment, certainly is -- and that gives a very skewed impression of the real world, although there are very real special focus groups lobbying for changes in societal standards of behavior, especially with regards to children, for example in the last couple of decades an increasing movement to increase awareness of and no tolerance for bullying. That alone won't make it go away entirely, though. It's the kind of thing that varies from one culture to the next. England and Japan have very different culturally-based "standards and practices" for entertainment, again with a major emphasis on children's entertainment. Overall though, parental pressure groups have definitely delivered a metaphorical whack with a giant cartoon mallet to fantasy-based violence (especially as portrayed in a humorous context) in children's entertainment.