Right there, she has the personality to be the problem parent if Mark Waid wants Reggie to have one.

I'm with Jughead.








This is from a pretty good Veronica vs. Jughead story (well in a way) at this link: http://slaymonstrobot.blogspot.com/2015/11/manic-monday-bonus-jugheads-secret.html

From the Abusing Archie tumblr!

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 16, 2016, 05:41:08 PM

Quote from: daren on May 16, 2016, 03:46:12 AM
Next one:

It's been interesting to me noting some things about the daily newspaper strips in reading them. For instance, in panel two here we have Mr. Weatherbee's secretary, who appears in a LOT of the strips, but (at least up to 1963 where I've read) is NEVER addressed by name. But she is in every respect, by the way she's drawn, the woman who'll we'll later come to know as Miss (or Ms.) Phlips. Svenson appears in a lot of the daily strips, Weatherbee in almost a quarter of them. Miss Beazly appears almost as often as Weatherbee and Miss Grundy. There's even a reoccurring character named "Old Man Beazly" who I've seen in a half-dozen strips or so, but never together with Miss Beazly. No connection beyond the obvious same last name is ever mentioned.


There are other Bob Montana creations in the strips that I've never seen in the comic books, like Hooky Hogan, the school's habitual truant, who always acts in the strips like an incarcerated felon, scheming ways to "bust out of the joint". Another that just starts appearing in multiple strips in 1963 is Hunk, who is a bit like an even dumber Moose Mason. (In the strip where he first appears, Coach Kleats sends him to work out with weights and a medicine ball in the gym, hoping he'll lose some weight so he can be on the basketball team. After a while, Kleats checks on Hunk to see how he's doing, and asks him to now try putting the ball in the basket to see how he's shaping up. Hunk tries to shove the medicine ball through the basketball hoop.)

I really want to read all those strips again, I've only seen some of them. I saw Hooky Hogan in one comic book from about 1950.

Quote from: SAGG on May 16, 2016, 10:36:46 PM
Twelve Cent Archie indicated that Montana had created his own separate universe from the comic books. He was even nominated for a Reuben Award, but didn't win...

Looking at some of the people who have won the award, he should have got it. 

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 16, 2016, 05:01:30 PM

Quote from: daren on May 16, 2016, 04:04:12 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 16, 2016, 04:13:01 AM

Quote from: daren on May 16, 2016, 03:38:25 AM
Not so much the novelty wearing off (though, it helped) as the series not living up to the promise of the first couple of issues. It seemed like big things would happen with the Lodge corporation moving in and Archie and his friends trying to get jobs working for them, I thought they would all become more and more involved with that. There should be some exciting development like that to carry the action through and the main five need something that brings them together, they're more interesting as a unit. Instead the stories are just rambling on from one character to another and I find myself not caring about anyone very much...and some of the characterization from the classic stories doesn't work. It's okay for classic Archie to be accident prone without showing that he's, you know, on meds or getting some other professional help, because it's not done realistically. This comic IS realistic and he and his parents just come across as so irresponsible for not reining him in. 

Call it what you will. Some of the initial bloom is off the rose as people seem to be beginning to take a closer critical evaluation of the reboot and various details about how the individual aspects of art and story (especially) relate to the whole. Your criticisms being different than mine (or others') notwithstanding. I think there was just a groundswell of initial enthusiasm that carried a lot of readers along that blinded them to some details about exactly how things were working (or not, as may be the case) with the reboot. The "decompressed storytelling" certainly delayed that assessment on a lot of readers' parts.

Good observations.

I'm still hoping a little that Mark Waid can salvage, but I doubt it. There was an article says he doesn't have an overall plan for this series, it shows.


Other characterizations that don't work: spoiled screaming Veronica who was sometimes awesome in the classic stories that way but comes across like she is almost mentally disabled here without explaining it, she's had her moments now and then but thats probably as much me wanting to like her as her being likable. Obnoxious social climbing Mr. Mantle is a terrible idea, if they wanted to make one of the Mantles a bad parent or jerk why not Mrs. Mantle? We know less about her and for ONCE they could have one of the mothers be less nice than the fathers. Mr. Lodge isn't half as complex as he was in the classic stories. Of course Waid could be lulling us into taking their villainy for granted planning to spring surprise character revelations for them later but let's face it, this series probably isn't going to last long enough for that, their creepness is so entrenched now.

The idea of filling in some background detail on the parents is a good one in general, as that's an area where the classic stories are famously vague (and changeable to suit whatever circumstances a specific story required). What, exactly, IS it that Fred Andrews, Hal Cooper, and Forsythe Jones (a.k.a. Jonesy) do for a living, anyway? I mean, of ALL the parents in the classic stories, only ONE has a very specific occupation/career -- Ricky Mantle, newspaper publisher.  It's a detail of those other characters that hardly ever comes into play except in the vaguest sort of way. Fred Andrews... doesn't he work in an office or something? Well, it's not too specific, but I guess it eliminates a lot of career possibilities. But what does he DO in that office every day, and what sort of business does he work for? It's never really gone into beyond some stories where something non-specific like "Andrews, where are those reports?! I need them TODAY!!" comes up in the plot. Mr. Lodge is "a businessman" and a millionaire, but what is the nature of his business, and how did he make his fortune? The latter is never really answered in classic stories, and the former is changeable to suit whatever type of business is relevant to the plot of a specific story. In effect, Lodge owns any and every type of business enterprise imaginable, without limits, and businesses that he is involved in unsuspected to the general reader of Archie Comics can show up at any time that it makes an interesting story connection. Since we don't know what type of business office Fred Andrews works in, or what he really does there, why NOT say that the office he works for is one of Mr. Lodge's companies? It's an interesting wrinkle.

Well Mr. Mantle and Coach Clayton, maybe you just meant the main five though. Yeah in the reboot why not have Mr. Andrews work for Mr. Lodge, although like invisifan said it wouldnt fit classic Archie.

Quote
One thing that bugs me a little is that whenever there's some new take on ARCHIE, Mr. Lodge gets a crap deal as some kind of sinister manipulative power-monger, or at the very least, his motives and character are suspect and questionable. It's happened to one degree or another in To Riverdale and Back Again, The Married Life, and now the reboot. That's the complete reverse of classic Archie, in which Hiram Lodge is almost uniformly shown to be the type of millionaire business magnate who is smart but fair, honest and of unimpeachable character. He's a good father, gives back to the community, helps out the younger generation (even if he sometimes takes a dim view of some of them as individuals). Often the classic stories show some situation in which the kids point out some way his business is negatively impacting the community, and he always takes corrective action to resolve the problem once he's made aware of it, because he cares. He's not one of those cold unfeeling types who feels himself above everyone, despite the obvious gap in wealth. He's never shown as motivated by pure greed or underhanded in his dealings with anyone.

There's also Afterlife, and the new tv show where he'll be in prison. He was the villain in the new look book "My Father's Betrayal" too. I think he has more flaws than you said but yeah, he's much more good than bad, a long way from how all those recent titles and live action tv shows make him. 

Quote
Most of the few stories that show Mr. Mantle seem to portray him as a journalist of integrity, as well as good character. It's a bit facile to turn him into a sly schemer in order to try to draw some parallels with his son's many character faults.

Yeah it's not believable. If they wanted to give him hidden faults under his usual self that would work but turning him into a loud caricature doesn't make sense.

They end up with a really good solution.

Well the Archie stories are in cartoon-world mode whenever any main character tries to kill someone so I can see why they let it pass even if it's not by the rules, they meant those more for horror and superhero comics. Boomerangs are pretty deadly, guess that was the last of Archie! 

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 16, 2016, 04:13:01 AM

Quote from: daren on May 16, 2016, 03:38:25 AM
Not so much the novelty wearing off (though, it helped) as the series not living up to the promise of the first couple of issues. It seemed like big things would happen with the Lodge corporation moving in and Archie and his friends trying to get jobs working for them, I thought they would all become more and more involved with that. There should be some exciting development like that to carry the action through and the main five need something that brings them together, they're more interesting as a unit. Instead the stories are just rambling on from one character to another and I find myself not caring about anyone very much...and some of the characterization from the classic stories doesn't work. It's okay for classic Archie to be accident prone without showing that he's, you know, on meds or getting some other professional help, because it's not done realistically. This comic IS realistic and he and his parents just come across as so irresponsible for not reining him in. 

Call it what you will. Some of the initial bloom is off the rose as people seem to be beginning to take a closer critical evaluation of the reboot and various details about how the individual aspects of art and story (especially) relate to the whole. Your criticisms being different than mine (or others') notwithstanding. I think there was just a groundswell of initial enthusiasm that carried a lot of readers along that blinded them to some details about exactly how things were working (or not, as may be the case) with the reboot. The "decompressed storytelling" certainly delayed that assessment on a lot of readers' parts.

Good observations.

I'm still hoping a little that Mark Waid can salvage, but I doubt it. There was an article says he doesn't have an overall plan for this series, it shows.


Other characterizations that don't work: spoiled screaming Veronica who was sometimes awesome in the classic stories that way but comes across like she is almost mentally disabled here without explaining it, she's had her moments now and then but thats probably as much me wanting to like her as her being likable. Obnoxious social climbing Mr. Mantle is a terrible idea, if they wanted to make one of the Mantles a bad parent or jerk why not Mrs. Mantle? We know less about her and for ONCE they could have one of the mothers be less nice than the fathers. Mr. Lodge isn't half as complex as he was in the classic stories. Of course Waid could be lulling us into taking their villainy for granted planning to spring surprise character revelations for them later but let's face it, this series probably isn't going to last long enough for that, their creepness is so entrenched now.

Oops

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 15, 2016, 06:22:01 PM

Quote from: irishmoxie on May 15, 2016, 02:54:41 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 15, 2016, 01:28:01 AM

Quote from: daren on May 14, 2016, 10:03:10 PM
This last issue was awesome (again!)


Jeff Shultz's parody of the Archie main five in their famous pose:

Which is what parallel counterpart of which?  I didn't see that at all.  I guess Stewart's a little bit of an Archie/Jughead mashup and Kelly's sort of a Melody/? mashup, but I didn't see any attempt to satirize the Archie main cast there in any way.

It's the pose of 2 people fighting over one person. Like Betty and Veronica fighting over Archie.

It's hard for me to recognize. It looks like four people fighting over two people (Kelly and Jess). Or maybe it's Stewart, Vera and Kelly versus Adam and Trevor, fighting over Jess. At any rate, it's a group fight with so many people involved. Maybe Sitcomics just invented the "Love Hexagon"?

Maybe! The picture is based on a famous image used on stuff like comic covers, it's almost like a logo.







Sorry it's so blurry, like I said it's like a logo so it's small.

There's a moment with Betty and Reggie in the Tania del Rio/Kennedys story "Unlucky Lake Date" only a little less than a page but it's cute. It was in one of the 2015 digests and it's in the Archie Best of 2015 collection of new digest stories.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 15, 2016, 07:24:51 AM

Quote from: Original Sin on May 15, 2016, 06:56:02 AM
Daren is referring to Coach Clayton, who seems to care more about the trophy than his son's safety.

Well, obviously he's a school coach so he's got to be concerned about doing his job, and the school ski team. But in the context of the story, I don't think enough time had passed that they were really wondering whether Chuck had gotten hurt or was hopelessly lost somewhere. He was just late for where he was supposed to be, so they started to become concerned and went looking for him. At the time they're first starting to look, time is running out for getting him where he's supposed to be, but obviously if they'd spent more time searching for him and not finding him, they'd have started to become more concerned about him and less about the school winning some ski trophy. It's just that you don't get any sense of context from looking at the cover all by itself. I'd have to find the story again to check, but it's kind of thing that would have been noticeable in the story itself, I think.

Actually it's a little known fact that upon hearing that comment Chuck became so embittered against his father that he renounced sports altogether to become a henpecked cartoonist.


Next one:

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 15, 2016, 01:23:39 AM

Quote from: daren on May 14, 2016, 08:57:46 PM
I hadn't read the last couple of issues of the Archie reboot but I did today and sorry but I have gone in one year from loving this reboot to almost total apathy. Part of that is resentment over classic Archie being ditched but most of it is just the aimlessness of the "plot" which doesn't work in the realistic style they're using. I mean where is this going? I'll probably wait to get the tpb, if they put out another volume, instead of buying any more individual issues, that way if it gets even more boring I can at least give it away to someone.

Novelty beginning to wear off already. Jonathan's hesitancy about Archie #8 on the Riverdale Podcast seemed a little telling to me, knowing what an enthusiastic booster of just about everything Archie he is. On the usual scale of things for him, "slight reservations" on his part almost seem ominous.

Not so much the novelty wearing off (though, it helped) as the series not living up to the promise of the first couple of issues. It seemed like big things would happen with the Lodge corporation moving in and Archie and his friends trying to get jobs working for them, I thought they would all become more and more involved with that. There should be some exciting development like that to carry the action through and the main five need something that brings them together, they're more interesting as a unit. Instead the stories are just rambling on from one character to another and I find myself not caring about anyone very much...and some of the characterization from the classic stories doesn't work. It's okay for classic Archie to be accident prone without showing that he's, you know, on meds or getting some other professional help, because it's not done realistically. This comic IS realistic and he and his parents just come across as so irresponsible for not reining him in. 

Quote
The Archie reboot reminds me of all of the various times DC Comics has tried to revamp the Captain Marvel (SHAZAM!) family and Plastic Man. They still have the same names, costumes, and superpowers but in trying to contemporize them they're missing the intangible qualities that made those things popular in their prime.

Yes probably.

Quote from: BettyReggie on May 15, 2016, 05:57:50 AM
They still have to cast Mr. Lodge & Mr. Weatherbee & Jughead's parents & Ethel. I wonder if there be Harper?

There might be since they want diversity and they're using other Dan Parent characters like the Kellers and Ginger.

Quote from: kassandralove on May 16, 2016, 02:35:31 AM
I was watching fast times last night and came to the realization that phoebe cates could of made a great Veronica



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Yeah if this was an '80s movie I cant think of anyone better.

As long as it can come out on time that sounds good.