This is the first episode where I thought he was being more critical of the new ARCHIE, apart from a few minor things in earlier reviews.

@Jon - re: Super Duck. Since he started out as a super-funny animal character (like Mighty Mouse, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, and a handful of others), it seems weird to say "I hate it when they change him into a superhero". After he'd first been changed (after the initial half-dozen stories) into more of a Donald Duck clone (complete with temper, but short of a couple of nephews) the only time that happened again was in that single issue of LAUGH (2nd series, #24, Oct. 1990) where it was actually the SON of the original Super Duck. Anyway, I like those earliest stories where he was a super-funny animal character (you can find his first appearance in JOLLY JINGLES at the Digital Comic Museum). They're less slavishly imitative of Mighty Mouse than the later version Super Duck was of Carl Barks' version (specifically) of Donald Duck, even down to the drawing style (as I think you guys mentioned with the incidental characters). It's probably not a good idea to put yourself into competition with Carl Barks, because you'll lose.

Oh look, here's a WWII cover where he (like any good patriotic superhero) fought Hitler and Hirohito:

... and hey, look! He really IS cock-eyed on that cover. I thought that was just an expression.

Son of Super Duck:

There's Salem (back when he was still an actual cat, as opposed to a warlock who'd been changed into a cat) wearing some kind of wooly(?) jetpack, and... RoboDuck! ("Your move, creep!")

Here's an odd reference... a ZIPPY (formerly known as "The Pinhead") comic strip by alternative cartoonist Bill Griffith:

Yeah, if only it were that easy, Bill. If only. And... what, Super Duck ISN'T a fantasy??

On a closing note, it took a while, but Disney finally got their revenge:

This version of the Donald Duck character was originated by Disney Comics licensees in Europe, and I think it's the same one that later went under the name Duck Avenger. By then Disney's classic characters had had a bunch of superhero identities:



But this guy beat them to it! STUUUUUUUPOR DUCK!!

Sunday: Listened to the rest of the Riverdale Podcast, watched 4 more episodes of JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE, read some manga.

Quote from: Archiecomicxfan215 on August 28, 2016, 12:36:06 PM
Sometimes I use my iPad but since I misplaced my charger I cannot for a while.

That doesn't sound good. What do you do when the battery totally dies if you have no charger? Is that just the end of it?

I use my desktop computer at work and my laptop at home.

Listened to about half of the new Riverdale Podcast early this morning, then I watched the first four episodes of JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE.

Just wondering. Is that a hereditary title? Or did you actually have to conquer and usurp the throne of the prior king? 

Quote from: achernar on August 27, 2016, 09:08:05 AM
I've stopped buying archie comics since 2011 and when i scanned through ebay last night, it was the first time i saw one of these. How many of these were published?

These have been published since 2013, approximately every 4 months. There have been 13 so far, with another one slated for early October 2016.

Quote from: achernar on August 27, 2016, 09:08:05 AM
What stories are inside?

You ARE kidding... Right?? 

Here's the short version of that answer: EXACTLY THE SAME STORIES THAT APPEARED IN THE REGULAR DIGESTS ISSUED A MONTH OR TWO PRIOR TO THE PUBLICATION OF WHATEVER 1000-PAGE DIGEST YOU HAPPEN TO BE LOOKING AT -- MINUS THE NON-ARCHIE STORIES (Josie, Sabrina, Li'l Jinx, etc.)

People who get all the regular digest titles as they come out don't need these, as they've just read those stories a month or two ago. On the other hand, someone who hadn't read any Archie digests since before 2013 would find that buying all 13 of the 1000-Page digests released so far would be very close to never having stopped reading the digests since 2013. You would just need to get all of the ARCHIE GIANT COMICS digests (480 pages, with 7 of those released so far, another due in Nov. 2016) as well, and you'd be 95% there. Collectively, these contain most of the stories printed in all the regular digest titles from around March 2013 to just recently -- almost 18,000 pages. So... no, I'm not going to list the stories.

Here are all the titles with the release dates:

2013-05-22   1000 PAGE COMICS DIGEST
2013-09-25   1000 PAGE COMICS EXTRAVAGANZA
2013-11-13   1000 PAGE COMICS JAMBOREE
2014-02-12   1000 PAGE COMICS-PALOOZA
2014-05-14   1000 PAGE COMICS BONANZA
2014-07-30   1000 PAGE COMICS EXPLOSION
2014-10-29   1000 PAGE COMICS CELEBRATION
2015-01-07   1000 PAGE MEGA COMICS DIGEST
2015-05-06   1000 PAGE COMICS BLOWOUT!
2015-08-12   1000 PAGE COMICS JAM
2015-11-11   1000 PAGE COMICS GALA
2016-02-03   1000 PAGE COMICS SHINDIG
2016-04-27   1000 PAGE COMICS 75TH ANNIVERSARY BASH!
2016-10-05   1000 PAGE COMICS SPREE!

2014-09-10   GIANT COMICS DIGEST
2014-11-26   GIANT COMICS FESTIVAL
2015-03-11   GIANT COMICS PARTY
2015-06-10   GIANT COMICS COLLECTION
2015-09-09   GIANT COMICS SPOTLIGHT
2015-12-23   GIANT COMICS JACKPOT
2016-05-25   GIANT COMICS BLAST
2016-11-09   GIANT COMICS 75TH ANNIVERSARY BOOK!

Quote from: achernar on August 27, 2016, 07:14:19 AM
Anyone remember these 2 page gags drawn by Al Hartley?

Like K is for Kleats, W is for Weatherbee, V is for Veronica?

I think there were even earlier alphabet 2-page stories drawn by Harry Lucey, too.

Quote from: The Downloader on August 27, 2016, 03:01:11 AM
plz tell me your going to be making long topics talking about digests again

As time permits. I have been considering starting a dedicated thread for my comics reviews, or possibly more than one (one for Archie Comics and "Archie-related titles", and one for other publishers' comics and manga).

Digest reviews, because of the number of stories, are particularly time consuming, but the ones I tend to want to comment on most often are Betty and Veronica and B&V Friends. I blame my lack of much to say about the others largely on that same diminishing diversity I referred to earlier. Hopefully the quality of stories of the new 75th Anniversary digest series will inspire me with a lot to say.

Interesting. I wasn't aware that Esmeralda appeared in the classic Sabrina stories. I thought she was a 1990s invention. I note that in this story, her appearance differs from those later stories, and she specifically isn't referred to as Sabrina's cousin -- in this story, she's apparently a stranger's child foisted upon Sabrina to babysit. I've never seen an Aunt Sarah in another story either (of course here, she's Esmeralda's Aunt Sarah, not Sabrina's Aunt Sarah).

Quote from: Ottawagrant on August 26, 2016, 07:17:40 PM
Some of them have classics from the 50's such as Super Duck, Wilbur, Suzie, etc.

But mostly NOT. It hasn't escaped my notice that the content of the digests is no longer as varied as it once was. The "From the Vault" section seems to have disappeared from Annual and Jumbo digests entirely. There are very few non-Archie sections that still appear with any regularity (Little Archie, Sabrina, Josie, Cheryl Blossom, Li'l Jinx, and Archie 1). It has been a year or so since I've seen any of the ones you've mentioned, or Ginger, Archie's Madhouse, Madhouse Glads, That Wilkin Boy, Katy Keene, Pat the Brat, etc.

To further clarify, the new Archie's 75th Anniversary Jumbo Comics Digest is supposed to be monthly for exactly one year (12 issues). Of the regular digests, Archie, World of Archie, and Betty and Veronica are issued 10 times per year. B&V Friends, Jughead and Archie, and Archie's Funhouse are either 5 or 6 times a year (I've been tracking the release dates only since the beginning of the year, but I've yet to determine which is the correct frequency). Less than a year ago, Archie's Funhouse and Jughead and Archie were also still at the 10 times per year frequency, so it remains to be seen how many issues total of these titles are released by year's end.

I'm not sure of the exact math used to determine how many issues of a particular title are Annuals or Jumbo Comics editions in any given year either, other than to state that "Annuals" for each title occur several times in any year, sometimes with a seasonal theme like Winter Annual, Spring Annual, Summer Annual, Fall Annual, Easter Annual, Back To School Annual, Halloween Annual, Christmas Annual  -- and sometimes just plain "Annual". Obviously no one title will have ALL of those themed/seasonal Annuals, even of those titles published 10 times per year. The only thing I can say for certain is that the frequency with which Annual and Jumbo Comics editions of the digests have been appearing has been increasing over the last 2 years, to the point where the number of Annual and Jumbo Comics digest issues (which follow the same numbering as the Double Digest issues of any given title) over the course of a year is nearly equal to the number of Double Digest issues, which would indicate a consumer preference for a larger digest with more pages.

Double Digests are 160 pages, with a cover price of $4.99; Annual digests are 192 pages with a cover price of $5.99; and Jumbo Comics digests are 256 pages with a cover price of $6.99 (all prices in US dollars). The Archie 75th Anniversary Jumbo Comics Digest would be the anomaly here, with 224 pages for the same $6.99 cover price as the other Jumbo Comics editions -- one would hope that the content (quality of stories chosen) here would be more than enough to make up for the loss of 32 pages. Either that, or it represents an experiment to see if the market will bear the reduction of page count at that price point, with the aim that if accepted by consumers, the other Jumbo Comics digests would follow suit with a reduction to the same page count. The other consideration to bear in mind is that the experiment here is aiming to discover whether ACP can successfully target a market demographic of older, more discriminating readers to whom the quality, age and rarity of the stories chosen far outweighs any considerations of quantity, and in so doing, redress the balance of that diminishing lack of variety in digest content that I mentioned earlier.

The most amazing thing about those DVD collections, to my way of thinking, is that they exist at all. The cartoons, as they were originally aired, were re-purposed several times. It's not like you can just hop in your time machine, and go back to get a copy of the shows the way they originally aired, because the individual segments were being remixed on a season-to-season basis, even before they went to syndication. I've heard similar complaints about Hanna-Barbera's DVD releases. Perfect releases will never exist, because everything has to be reconstructed from individual parts that were cut up long ago.

DISNEY MAGIC KINGDOM COMICS #2 (of 2) - There's a great long story in here where Mickey accidentally winds up in Disneyland, in an exact replica of his hometown, Mouseton. Mind you, this story was written and drawn for Disneyland's 30th Anniversary (1986) -- which was eight years before the actual Mickey's ToonTown attraction opened in Disneyland, so this story kind of predicted the future.

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VAMPIRES OF LONDON HC - This is Dark Horse's English translation of a graphic novel originally published (in two parts) in France. It's a pretty good story, and Holmes seemed true to character. I don't know if I liked it as much as Dynamite's various Sherlock Holmes miniseries, but I'd say it was an enjoyable read.

WALLY WOOD'S JUNGLE ADVENTURES WITH JIM KING AND ANIMAN HC - First, Vanguard put out hardcover collections of Wood's early (non-E.C.) science fiction comics, then his horror and crime comics. Now we have a collection of stories with a jungle theme. The book leads off with the best material, Animan from Wood's own prozine, Witzend #1 and 2, followed by five stories he did for Charlton Comics' Jungle Jim comic book (here changed to "Jim King") -- both of these hailing from the 1960s. That's the first 52 pages. The rest of the book is filled out with very early Wood comics circa 1950-51, most of it nearly unrecognizable compared to his polished work of just three or four years later. Still worth it.

CLOCKWORK APPLE by Osamu Tezuka TP - Very much like a collection of Twilight Zone stories, ranging from science fiction, and some horror and fantasy overtones, to more realist scenarios. This publication was funded through Kickstarter. I like these type of stories, and the endings here weren't too predictable, which always helps. All of the stories were originally created between 1968 and 1973. I plan to read Tezuka's 1953 shonen manga adaptation of Dostoyevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT next.

Oh, and one more thing. In the late 70s, there tended to be a trend of the networks to move some shows that weren't popular enough to continue (even in reruns) on the Saturday morning schedule to Sunday morning reruns, and I think at one point when Archie was running out of steam the reruns got moved to the Sunday morning schedule. After the last gasps for Archie cartoons on Saturday mornings, The New Archie and Sabrina Hour and Sabrina Super Witch, that was the end -- except for syndication to UHF stations and local programming schedules.

Lumpy Rutherford playing the part of Archie truly boggles the mind.