Quote from: BettyReggie on September 07, 2016, 08:42:42 AM
I just can't stand Dilton. He's just terrible. I hate science. And he is a nerd. How does he have friends?

Because not everyone hates science like you. Scientists have friends and families, just like everyone else. Unless they are those stereotypical "mad scientists" that you see in movies and comic books -- then they just have lackies, like Mad Doctor Doom and Chester. 

Dilton's a good guy. He helps everyone out, or at least tries to (sometimes his attempts to help people backfire, but at least his heart's in the right place). Unlike, say... Reggie, who can be a selfish, egotistical ratfink, but has his fans anyway just because he's good looking. So what if Dilton's a little different than the typical guys at Riverdale High. Should I hate Ethel because she's different and isn't as pretty as the other girls at RHS? She may not be one of my favorite characters, but I don't hate her. Should I hate people in wheelchairs because they're a little different than most people? That strikes me as an odd attitude to take.

How do you feel about Simon Silverstein (also known as "Prankenstein")? The reason I ask is that he's brainy, short, and not the hunky type (like Dilton), but at the same time he's got the same bad attitude as Reggie (thinks he's superior to others because he has a big ego, and is always pulling pranks on people). I guess that if he was tall and good looking, you'd probably like him despite his brains and ego. Dilton's smarter than almost anyone else at Riverdale High, but he doesn't lord it over anyone because of his superior intelligence, he just tries to be one of the gang and a regular guy (in his own way), and help out his friends in any way he can. So he's obsessed with science...  and Jughead's obsessed with food, Archie's obsessed with girls, and Reggie's obsessed with himself. What's the difference?

I don't even understand how someone can say "I hate science." Do you hate indoor plumbing and heating, medical health care, electric wheelchairs, television, computers, the internet, mobile phones, digital comic books? None of those things would even exist without science. We'd all be living in caves, hunting our own food or gathering nuts and berries if not for science. People with no mobility would be dead from starvation if they couldn't do those things by themselves.

Quote from: BettyReggie on September 07, 2016, 06:33:16 AM
I just read my digital copy of Jughead #9. It was ok, The science fair was crazy. Jughead made a human of himself with food- Burgers & Hot Dogs & Nanchos.  The part with Dilton was boring. I hate Dilton.  Any way the rest of story was better. Jughead actually had a crush on the lady outside handing out coupons for Burgers but he couldn't who she was because of custome. And what a shocker, it's Sabrina.
I think I like Chip Zdarsky's writing the book better.

Wow, you must really hate science. That really shouldn't matter though, as the story took place during an art competition. Surely you didn't think a mannequin made out of hamburgers qualifies under even the loosest definition of "science"?? Dilton was explaining how he used math and a computer to create art, but he's only in a few panels of the story, so what's the big deal. It's an art competition, so naturally there would be other students from Riverdale High competing. It's just a simple way of showing the contrast between Jughead's approach to creating art and Dilton's.

How could you be shocked that the Burger Lady turned out to be Sabrina? She's on the cover, which kind of gives away the ending of the story. I guess it would have made for a better story if they hadn't put her on the cover, since she's the only suspect for who's in the Burger Lady outfit.

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 05, 2016, 12:39:43 AM
Sticking more to the thread topic I read Our Love Story #32 from Marvel(1974), also B&V #149.  I'm tempted to start a "Bronze Age in review" thread as I read and re-read material from this era all the time, but not sure if many are interested in the older stuff.

I'd read it. Any noteworthy stories in Our Love Story #32?

BETTY BOOP'S BIG BREAK (1990)
KO-KO THE KLOWN AND HIS CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE (2000)
FLINTSTONES #3
RICK AND MORTY #17
RICK AND MORTY: L'IL POOPY SUPERSTAR #2 (of 5)
SQUADRON SUPREME #11
UNCANNY X-MEN #12
MOON KNIGHT #6
KILL OR BE KILLED #2
NOWHERE MEN #11
SKYBOURNE #1
HENCHGIRL #10
MICRONAUTS #5
STAR TREK #59 & 60
GUNS OF THE BLACK BAT #2 (of 3)
BETTY AND VERONICA: GIRLS RULE! TP
JUGHEAD #9
ARCHIE'S FUNHOUSE JUMBO COMICS #22

Quote from: Oldiesmann on August 24, 2016, 12:53:07 PM

Oh look, ARCHIE #14 is an unpublicized crossover story with Medusa of the Inhumans! 

Quote from: irishmoxie on August 29, 2016, 05:03:27 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 28, 2016, 11:47:43 PM
Sunday: Listened to the rest of the Riverdale Podcast, watched 4 more episodes of JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE, read some manga.

Worth watching? I was put off by Veronica's southern accent in the other cartoons.

If you want the shortest answer, in a word: "No". If you're satisfied with a simple yes or no answer, then you probably need to read no further.

The more detailed explanation of why it's not worth watching might require a little more justification by way of "Why?" or "Compared to what?", but since you've provided me with an excuse, I'll take this opportunity to expound. I delayed replying to this for a while, because I needed to think about it, and I also wanted to re-watch some episodes from the original JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS and compare them to see whether I was judging J&TPC IN OUTER SPACE overly harshly, even by 1972 standards of animation. Yesterday I watched 6 of the original 16 JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS episodes for comparison purposes, and they still hold up well by 1970 animation standards (in fact, I still consider the original JOSIE series superior to HB's 1969 SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU!, the show that it's often compared to as a weak imitation of). I would go further to state that in my estimation, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS is the best of all the various television series to have been adapted from any Archie Comics properties -- this despite the undeniable fact that it bears little resemblance to, and is inferior to, the 40 or so issues of the Josie comic book that preceded it and served as its nominal inspiration.

To digress:
In case you're wondering, of the various Filmation animated efforts, I consider SABRINA AND THE GROOVIE GOOLIES to be the best, for reasons that have a lot to do with the Groovie Goolies, who never appeared in an Archie Comic. Of the shows strictly based on Archie and the gang (apart from any consideration of the music of The Archies, which I love), I'd consider ARCHIE'S T.V. FUNNIES to be the best, again for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the Archie characters, and everything to do with the animated newspaper comic strip characters. The problem with most of the Filmation Archie cartoons isn't bad animation, but the scripts and characterization (and to a lesser extent the voice actors, inferior to those used by HB), most of which are devoid of the exact elements that I enjoy most from the ACP comic books, so unless they add something to counterbalance that -- the music of The Archies, showing animated cartoons based on famous syndicated newspaper comics, or The Groovie Goolies -- I find little left to maintain my interest. An exception to the voice cast was Jane Webb, who did multiple voices for Filmation. I loved her voice characterization for Sabrina, but found it sadly lacking for both Betty and Veronica. Jane Webb provided nearly all of the female voices for the Filmation cartoons at the time these cartoons were made. As a side note, the southern accent given to Veronica was a carryover from her vocal characterization on the old time radio series.

Now back to JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE:
Compared to today's standards of quality for judging animated fare made for children's television, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE is just a bad cartoon, plain and simple. Some people might jump to the conclusion that it's a bad cartoon simply because the premise of launching a teenage pop group into outer space is ridiculously stupid, but that really has nothing to do with it at all. Cartoons of this era were often sold to the networks based not on making any pilot film for the series, but by a simple presentation in which the title alone and simple concept premise was sold on the basis of showing a few character model sheets, background paintings, etc. This is really no different than how low-budget independent films of the 1950s-1960s were sold to distributors -- all that was needed was to dream up a catchy title/intriguing premise, and then make a mock-up of the movie poster, in order to gain the financial backing necessary from the distributor. American-International Films successfully used that formula to generate hundreds of films to fill drive-in theaters and attract teenage audiences. So simply giving the title to a talented artist and letting the artist's imagination take flight with the concept might result in something cool-looking like this:



Unfortunately, the actual JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE cartoon is nowhere near as interesting as Holly G's cover for Archie & Friends #60. Compared to the original Hanna-Barbera JOSIE cartoon produced for the 1970-1971 television season, IN OUTER SPACE is inferior in almost every way. The animation is worse, the scripts are far worse, even the voiceover acting is worse (the same voice actors were used as in the original JOSIE, but there wasn't a lot they could do to improve the terrible scripts, and it doesn't even sound like they were making much of an effort). Virtually everything here is worse: Alexander is even more cowardly, Alexandra is even ruder, more obnoxious, and permanently PMS'ed, Josie and (especially) Sebastian have less to do in every story, than they did in the original series. The songs are much worse, practically perfunctory, and it's obviously not the same group from the original show. An excuse needs to be made in every episode to stop the action for the girls to perform a musical number to distract the villains or otherwise disrupt the machinations of the plot, then the action cuts to the scene of the Pussycats playing (in re-used footage from the original series, and inexplicably now dressed in their original Pussycat outfits). In one cartoon, the plot called for them to be bowled over along with their instruments, and in the next scene they're shown lying on the floor along with their instruments in disarray, now dressed again in their space outfits! We're never even given an initial episode explaining how they get lost in outer space, except for the opening credits, where for some inexplicable reason, the Pussycats, Alex, Alexandra, and Alan are all having a photo-shoot atop a rocket gantry in front of an open space capsule, when Alexandra tries to crowd in front and hog the spotlight, causing them all to fall backwards into the capsule, where Alexandra's arm activates the lever controlling the launch sequence, the capsule door automatically shuts, and the rocket takes off -- that's it. Unlike the original JOSIE, this spinoff series didn't even bother with simple title cards for each episode's title (even though those cost nothing to animate). The scripts are repetitive and tired. Each episode involves some new planet where some new menace lures or captures their spaceship, and plans on using it to (usually) invade the Earth (or less often, the universe, or neighboring planets). The fact that Josie and the gang have no idea how to get back to Earth never seems to deter these alien despots, even if the context of the episode makes it clear that this is the first time for contact between earth-people and this particular alien race. Most of these tin-pan tyrants seem like (despite some nice character and vehicle design work from Alex Toth) they are the kind of low-level nuisances that Space Ghost or the Herculoids couldn't be bothered with, or would have defeated in a few minutes.

To understand how a Hanna-Barbera animated series could have gotten so bad in the short amount of time from the 1970 to 1972 TV seasons, it's helpful to look at this list of HB productions:

HANNA-BARBERA CARTOONS:

1969-1970 season
THE PERILS OF PENELOPE PITSTOP
DASTARDLY AND MUTTLEY IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES
CATTANOOGA CATS
SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU!

1970-1971 season
THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS
JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS
WHERE'S HUDDLES?

1971-1972 season
THE PEBBLES AND BAMM-BAMM SHOW
HELP! IT'S THE HAIR BEAR BUNCH!
THE FUNKY PHANTOM

1972-1973 season
THE AMAZING CHAN AND THE CHAN CLAN
WAIT TILL YOUR FATHER GETS HOME
THE FLINTSTONE COMEDY HOUR
THE ROMAN HOLIDAYS
SEALAB 2020
THE NEW SCOOBY-DOO MOVIES
JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE

The Flintstone Comedy Hour and The New Scooby-Doo Movies were both hour-long series, so in 1972 HB was producing 4 and 1/2 hours of animation for television (even if half of the Flintstone Comedy Hour was re-runs of Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm episodes from the season before, with only 4 new ones produced for the 1972 season). In the previous two TV seasons HB had only produced an hour and a half of shows, so they really must have been struggling to keep up with their production schedule. In addition to the sheer number of hours, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home was the first animated series (syndicated) made specifically for an adult audience (NBC aired it in a 10:30pm time slot), and you can imagine that as such, more time, effort and money went into producing each of those episodes, both from a writing and an animation standpoint, and using the best of HB's available staff.

It's obvious that not too much imagination or effort went into the production of JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE, which is a shame. Despite the silliness of the premise, something interesting could have been done with the idea with more time and a better budget, and a studio staff not stretched to its absolute limits. If there's any bright spot at all in this cartoon, it's Alex Toth's character and vehicle designs, and Melody's cute new alien pet Bleep (voiced by Frank Welker). Unfortunately, Bleep takes over most of the plot functions of Sebastian from the original show, so Sebastian's part is reduced accordingly, and in most episodes he has little to do.

There's a pretty funny Betty & Veronica story (Doyle/DeCarlo, 6 pages, has to be early '60s) in WORLD OF ARCHIE ANNUAL #62 called "Change For The Better". The story starts with Veronica trying to cajole Betty to take Archie off her hands (apparently they had a pre-arranged date already) so that she can sneak off and date some "Major" that she met from Milltown Military Academy, but Betty refuses to be a party to Veronica's scheme by keeping Archie occupied on a date under these circumstances. "I'd date Archie, but NOT to help you practice deceit!", she declares. Then Veronica departs to "start the Lodge machinery in motion".

There's a really eyebrow-raising panel at the bottom of page 2 where Veronica inveigles Daddykins to do her bidding. He's sitting up straight on the couch, while she's sinuously curled up like a cat alongside him, toying with his hair. "Daddykins, would you do me an itsy bitsy favor?" she coos, with musical notes. His eyes are bugged out and he's got this ear-to-ear grin of idiocy on his face, with little fizzing dots circling his head like Alka-Seltzer dissolving -- and the word D-UH! is hanging in the air near his head. You really have to see it to appreciate it, but the overall effect here implies something outside of a normal father-daughter relationship. I'm really surprised this panel wasn't somehow altered for this reprint. "What do YOU think?" he replies.

The upshot of Ronnie's manipulation is that she's next seen presenting Jughead with two tickets to tonight's sold-out fight at the auditorium. She obviously expects Juggie to take Archie with him, but he tells her he's asking Reggie to go with him. "Shucks! I couldn't ask ARCH! He's got a date with YOU! Wouldn't THAT be a dirty trick, after you've been so GOOD to me?" Stalking off dejectedly after her plan for Jughead fails, Veronica bumps into Betty again. Suddenly another inspiration strikes her -- "Say, maybe that's the ANSWER! I'll put on a BIG ACT for him! I'll make him think I'm not worth going out with! I'll be MEAN, CRUEL, and SELFISH! VICIOUS, COLD and CYNICAL! Do you think it will work?" Betty spreads her palms, looking uncertain. "I don't know!" says Betty, "But first tell me ... What kind of BIG ACT are you going to put on for him?"  

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 04, 2016, 02:18:18 AM
I don't recall the specifics of the story any longer and I haven't run across it in a few years, but the gist is Betty got let down by Archie while attending a dance and in the final panel Jughead says to Betty "If there should ever come a time I'd willingly kiss a girl it'd be you" (or close to that).  It makes my heart go pitter-pat just recalling it.

I'm not sure if I'm remembering the same story or just another one where he said something similar. The situation was that Jughead was comforting Betty in one of the many cases of her being on the receiving end of Archie's typical emotional neglect, and he reveals how much he appreciates her in a rare candid moment for him. Anyway, the context of whatever the exact words were amounted to Jughead telling Betty that if he were ever going to give up avoiding girls, she'd be the one he'd do it for. Which, by Jughead standards, is like writing her a romantic love sonnet. I could swear I've seen a basically similar scenario in two or three different stories, along with a number of lesser passing admissions along the lines of "You know, Betty, for a girl, you're okay."

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 04, 2016, 02:05:37 AM
The Big Jim, Big Jack, Big Josh, etc. also seem pretty cool.  It's Kirby art in those 70's comic ads, is it not? 

I've seen those comic book ads. It is Kirby. Not sure if the King did any actual packaging art for Mattel. I'm blanking on Big Josh and Big Jack, but wasn't there a Bulletman doll? Not the Fawcett/DC character, some Mattel original superhero, like the Captain Laser figure that was a late add-on to the Major Matt Mason toy line of the 1960s -- my dream comic franchise, along with the identically-scaled Ideal's Zeroids and Colorforms' Outer Space Men, but it'll never happen. There were abortive attempts at all of those, that managed to squeak out a single comic or two.

Anyway, back to Kirby. I'm not sure how he got set up on a number of these deals, but I know that he got some decent bucks for the re-designs of the second wave of Kenner's Super Powers figures. That's why the action figures weren't based on Kirby's original Fourth World character designs from 1970 -- it was a way to get Kirby money (that he wouldn't have gotten since he had no rights to the DC characters he'd created). The Mattel stuff obviously came earlier. I think Paul Levitz and Jenette Kahn worked some deal out with Kenner to help him out, and that's when DC wanted him to do the wrap up to the New Gods saga that eventually became the graphic novel The Hunger Dogs. I also remember seeing in the 70s these small carded games (like those slide puzzles and similar low-priced items) that had beautiful package graphics that were pure Kirby, and they were all classic hero characters like Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, etc. Not sure if those were Mattel too, or some other toy company.

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 04, 2016, 02:05:37 AMI even like those C.W. McCall themed figures now that I think about it.   

C.W. McCall sounds like it should be some kind of toy figure trying to tap into the brief C.B. radio fad of the 1970s (there was even an Archie story about that). Can't say that I'm familiar, though.

There's a good one in WORLD OF ARCHIE ANNUAL #62 - a story called "Secret Date" where Archie sees someone at Pop's sitting in a booth holding up a magazine, H.O. Quarterly, and he can't believe there's someone else into scale model railroading like he is. As he approaches to make conversation, who should be behind that magazine when it's lowered but Ethel Muggs. Archie is surprised, but they start talking about model railroading, and Ethel mentions she's going to the big Train Expo in in Midvale tomorrow. Before he realizes it, Archie's invited himself along with her.  On his way to meet Ethel the next day, he thinks "Well, this is a little weird, me going somewhere with Ethel! Well, it's not like it's a date or anything, we're just going as friends!" Then he's surprised when he rings her doorbell and Ethel answers the door, dressed to the nines, new hairstyle, makeup... the whole kaboodle. Not only does he wind up having a great time with Ethel at the Train Expo, but afterwards they spend the entire evening together, dining at a Mexican restaurant, going to a comedy club and then hitting the dance floor later on. Archie can't help but compare Ethel to Betty & Veronica, and finds his time spent with Ethel to be a lot more relaxing and fun by comparison. At the end of the story, he kisses her goodnight, but then invites her to go to a classic car show the next week. The story is credited as having been written by John Wilcox, a writer with whom I'm completely unfamiliar - this is the first story I can remember seeing credited to him.

Quote from: irishmoxie on September 03, 2016, 09:19:25 PM
As long as the new/inventoried stories don't feature dated pop cultural references we'll be good. Or maybe it would be more fun if they did??

That was one of the things I was focusing on in this story. There's an incidental character in it, Denny, who's a new freshman student and Dilton's helping him set up a blog page. Of course, at the speed things are moving, blogging isn't what they used to be, even just a few years ago.  Nothing mentioned in the story analogous to Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, or anything like that.

Today the mailman brought both ARCHIE BACK TO SCHOOL ANNUAL #271 (a month late, after sending an email to orderhelp@archiecomics.com earlier this week), and WORLD OF ARCHIE ANNUAL #62 (which might be a few days early, or a few days late, I'll have to check). So I'll be reading those within the next 24 hours.

So here's an interesting example of an inventoried story. WORLD OF ARCHIE ANNUAL #62 (which just came in the mail today) has a lead story written by Alex Simmons and drawn by Rex Lindsey titled "Happiness Is A Wagging Tale". Now, I'm not going to try to figure out when the last time I read a new story drawn by Rex Lindsey was, but let's just say... "it's been a while".

The interesting bit here is that this is one of those stories that contains a rarely-seen editorial footnote, referencing Vegas's appearance and adoption by Archie as a pet (*See ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #244). #244?? Archie Double Digest is up to issue #271 now! ADD #244 came out in November of 2013. It hardly seems like they'd footnote a story from that long ago, so a reasonable guess-timate would be to assume this story was written and drawn sometime within a year of that (more likely, mere months from issue #244). This story would appear to have been sitting on the shelf for two years, give or take a couple of months.

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 03, 2016, 12:07:13 PM
Just wondering when someone might bring Action Jackson into comic book reality, or even Best Of The West.  Jay, Jamie, Janice, or Josie West might appeal to a younger market demo(horsies!)  Those Viking and Knight characters were pretty awesome as well, but I forget their names.  They would have kicked GI Joe butt going one on one, but the Joe's had better accessories plus the kung-fu grip thing going for them.  I still think Johnny West should get a comic.

You would appear to have a penchant for those briefly-marketed toy lines owned by now long-defunct manufacturers. Marx Toys and Mego Corp. have been out of business for many decades now. Too bad you didn't ask about Stretch Armstrong... I happen to know that one is now owned by Hasbro. No idea who (if anyone) now owns on the ones you mentioned. The only really viable nostalgia toy properties would probably be long-running franchises that had prior equally long-running comic book incarnations.

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 03, 2016, 02:18:49 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 31, 2016, 09:19:27 AM
ROM #1 & 2

Is this a reboot I wasn't paying attention to?  The original series was pretty cool. Bedrock City Comics from Houston actually ran a ROM only booth at the STL convention a few years ago as a gimmick of sorts, and managed to cover costs of the booth.  There are some underground ROM fans out there evidently.  I was a little late to the party, but it would be nice to see all those early issues repackaged for sale.

Yes. IDW has been expanding the number of their properties licensed from Hasbro (and other toy companies), first with MICRONAUTS, then ACTION MAN (which was the British version of the original G.I. Joe), now with ROM. This is all leading into a big crossover event series called REVOLUTION, which will feature all of the aforementioned properties plus the long-running G.I. JOE and TRANSFORMERS titles, and spinning off yet another new/old one, M.A.S.K.

This latest crossover would appear to be building on the success of a prior IDW crossover, TRANSFORMERS VS. G.I. JOE, which recently completed its 13-issue run. I hadn't been following either Transformers or G.I. Joe, but I bought that one simply because the art was drawn by Tom Scioli (co-creator, along with Joe Casey, of Image's GØDLAND series, which I loved) in his usual pseudo-Kirbyesque style.