40s - Black Hood, Shield, Hangman, Steel Sterling, Mr. Justice, Web, Fox, Comet, Black Jack
50s - Sam Hill, Ginger,  the new Wilbur, Cosmo the Merry Martian, the Fly, Lancelot Strong
60s - Sabrina, Josie & friends, Bingo Wilkin & friends, the Madhouse Glads, the Jaguar, the Shadow, the Mighty Crusaders

So, pretty much most of the main ones apart from Archie and the gang (except for a few long-running features like Super Duck, Katy Keene, and Suzie) -- and in most cases I would prefer to read any of these over Archie. They're all favorites. I'll admit a lot of this might have to do with the fact that stories of Archie and the gang are 'common as dirt' and thus easy to come by, where the others are (relatively speaking) scarce in terms of easy availability. They're like the desert that ACP only allows you to have after you've finished off your main course of Archie & the gang. Some are even harder to read than that, like the candy your parents only allowed you to have once in a great while.

BTW, strictly speaking, only the characters created from 1939-1945 are MLJ characters.

BLACK BLIZZARD by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (D&Q, 2010) - This 127-page graphic novel was originally published in Japan in 1956, and is a crime story about 2 fugitives chained together on the run after a landslide wrecks the train they're being transported on. While still primitive in style on a draftsmanship level, it's pretty advanced (for 1956) in terms of the maturity of the story and storytelling technique, with lots of varying angles and compositions of panels, clearly influenced by cinema. It's kind of funny that up until just a decade or two ago, Americans were debating what could be called the first true graphic novel, but the Japanese had been publishing long-form, original "story manga" (as it was called) as a matter of course since at least the late 1940s.

WONDER MOMO: BATTLE IDOL VOL 1 by Jim Zub, Omar Dogon, Eric Ko (Udon Studios/ShiftyLook, 2014) - Momoko is a 16-year old who dreams of being a pop idol, but instead she's gifted by an alien with power armor which turns her into a superhero to fight the invading Waru, and their various henchmen and game bosses. It's based on a 1987 video game by Namco (now owned by Bandai), and ShiftyLook was their website in collaboration with Udon Studios to create webcomic series to spark some new interest in old IP characters that they owned. Apparently in this case it worked, since the webcomic not only led to a print release, but also a new video game, anime (and soundtrack) based specifically on the webcomic version of the character. As with ACP's MEGA MAN comic, I knew nothing about that back history to the game before reading this -- I just liked the basic concept and the artwork here. They managed to work a decent storyline into this, but now the online ShiftyLook website has been discontinued, so it looks like I will never get to read the second half of the story (this book reprints #001-104, which represent the first 4 story arcs). The story eventually ran to #200, and had a definite conclusion, which could still be read online up until a couple of years ago. Rats.

GRIP: THE STRANGE WORLD OF MEN by Gilbert Hernandez (Dark Horse, hardcover) - By far the strangest thing by him I've ever read. Hallucinogenic, stream-of-consciousness, or just plain incoherent... your guess is as good as mine. It's hard to know exactly what to make of this one, but it's pretty out there. I've felt that before with a few of Gilberto's previous graphic novels, but never quite to this degree. I don't mind him invoking some SF or fantasy ideas, or even horror or crime fiction, so long as it's explained in a way that's convincing enough and makes some logical sense. Unfortunately, there's not much in the way of character relationships (his strong suit) to glue the rest of the pieces together.

I'm often surprised at creators who do little in the way of self-promotion, but at least Dan and Fernando have their own websites, where you can see what they've been up to, or contact them directly to ask for commissions, etc. (They also have Facebook and Twitter accounts.) But they're both busy with actual work, as well as convention appearances, so it's not as if they have a lot of free time to do a regular podcast themselves.

Have you ever tried to find a trace of internet presence for people like Jeff Shultz or Pat and Tim Kennedy? It's near-impossible.

SHADOW LADY: DANGEROUS LOVE (Vol. 1)
SHADOW LADY: THE AWAKENING (Vol. 2)
SHADOW LADY: SUDDEN DEATH (Vol. 3)
by Masakazu Katsura. Basically a magical girl series for boys, like Go Nagai's CUTIE HONEY, to which it bears some similarities. It sort of has that "making it up as I go along" quality, where the character and backstory hadn't been completely thought out to begin with, but developed as it went along. That probably has a lot to do with the nature of how stories are serialized in short installments published weekly or bi-weekly in manga anthologies in Japan, with the creators working under very tight deadlines. About halfway through the entire series, the tone shifts away from a playful adventure-themed romantic comedy to a more serious dramatic manga, and the pacing could have been a little better. The final half of the story seems a little compressed from what may have originally been intended as a longer run of chapters, and there are some inconsistencies in that latter half of the story. Some of those little inconsistencies might have been glossed over by the translators if they'd taken the time to edit a bit. For example, it's mentioned in a caption that Shadow Lady has six "expert transformation" forms, but only three of them are ever shown. Later on, Shadow Lady takes on the task of retrieving what is originally depicted as five Demon Stones, but later bits of dialogue seem to indicate six, or possibly even seven stones. However, ultimately she's only shown attempting to retrieve three of them, while the never-seen ones are simply referred to in a dialogue balloon as "the others were easy". That sort of left me wondering if there might have been a few missing chapters of the original story that Dark Horse and Studio Proteus failed to translate, perhaps in some attempt to fit the whole story into a certain number of pages for the American translation, or whether Masakazu Katsura had left them out of the original Japanese version. It was still a fun read, and I enjoyed Katsura's artwork.

I'm pretty excited about next Saturday's Riverdale Podcast with special guests Rik Offenberger and Paul Castiglia talking about their new book, THE MLJ COMPANION. Jonathan should have asked Fernando Ruiz on the show as well - I know he's a huge fan of the ACP superheroes. I hope it's an extra-long show!

Quote from: steveinthecity on August 03, 2016, 06:15:13 PM

Quote from: BettyReggie on August 03, 2016, 04:06:49 PM
It's funny that they never mentioning Mr. Weatherbee having a wife before. He has no children. Just a niece named Wendy & a twin brother named Tony who is Wendy's father. I wonder if we even see Wendy in Jughead title or even in Archie's title? When we ever see Ethel or Trula again?

Mr. Weatherbee has had a wife before on at least two occasions(as I recall)in classic Archie.  You'll have to give me time to dig those stories out.

I remember those old stories with Weatherbee's wife (but not the titles or where they appeared).

As for Ethel, and to some degree the Moose/Midge couple, I can see where those characters might need a complete overhaul for the 21st century.

JUGHEAD #8 - Mrs. Weatherbee is a pretty black woman who looks 10-15 years younger than her husband, and drives a sexy-looking sports car?
CAPTAIN KID #1 - Another Mark Waid idea, a middle-aged guy who turns into a super-powered kid hero (Billy Batson/Captain Marvel in reverse). Not as interesting as I thought it would be. Probably won't continue unless #2 is a lot better than the first.
SQUADRON SUPREME #10 - I just like the way James Robinson writes.
PUNISHER #4 - Much better than the last few Punisher series Marvel published. I love Steve Dillon's artwork, and Becky Cloonan writes a pretty gritty Punisher story.
MOON KNIGHT #5 - Somewhat confused now, by the ending of this story arc...
UNCANNY X-MEN #11 - I skipped a bunch of these because they were crossover stories, now I don't know if I'll be able to pick up the thread again. I'll give it another issue or two.
TWILIGHT ZONE: THE SHADOW #4 (OF 4) - Rod Serling knows what evil lurks in the heart of The Shadow. Excellent execution of an unusual concept.
LOBSTER JOHNSON: METAL MONSTERS OF MIDTOWN #3 (OF 3) - All of these are consistently top-notch.
GUNS OF THE BLACK BAT #1 (OF 3) - This teams the Black Bat up with four other public domain pulp heroes: The Moon Man, Airboy, The Skull Killer, and the Golden Amazon, against alien invaders collaborating with the Nazis.
TANK GIRL: 2 GIRLS 1 TANK #3 (OF 4)
JONESY #5 - May be starting to lose interest in this one.
KILL OR BE KILLED #1 - The start of another new Ed Brubaker/Sean Phillips series. I get all of these, and am never disappointed.
KNIGHTS OF THE ZODIAC (SAINT SEIYA) VOL. 8, 9 (2006) - Another superhero manga, with mythological/cosmic elements, from the mid-1980s.
GODZILLA: OBLIVION #1-5 - The worst Godzilla comic IDW has done so far. Boring story, with lackluster artwork. Nice covers, though.

Quote from: Moepyro on August 03, 2016, 06:38:16 AM
You think they'd wanna tie this in with the TV show coming out to garner more interest. Like... the actors as their characters in Archie style?

You just made me throw up a little. BLECCCHHH!!! 

Quote from: steveinthecity on August 02, 2016, 11:04:15 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 02, 2016, 08:51:00 PMIt did make me wonder what an Archie reboot done by Chynna Clugston might have been like. They should have asked her, or maybe someone like Bryan Lee O'Malley (SCOTT PILGRIM) or even Scott McCloud (ZOT!, UNDERSTANDING COMICS).

Sounds cool. I'll add Blue Monday to my pickup list this month.  A Scott McCloud Archie is intriguing.  I enjoyed Zot! and Eclipse in general. (DNAgents and I think Crossfire were favorites.)  Also, whatever happened to Cat Y.? Did she just retire from comics after the company shut down?  I first remember her as a prolific LOC contributor.

I should perhaps make clear that the Image trade paperback is reprinting (for the first time in color) the first Blue Monday three-issue miniseries originally published by Oni Press in 2000 (and a half-dozen shorter stories that preceded it). Image plans to release the second volume trade collection in October, followed by a third in January, and a fourth in April. They then plan to serialize a previously-unfinished miniseries (the first issue of which was published by Oni Press in 2008) and complete it, followed by a hardback omnibus, "Germfree Adolescents" collecting the Blue Monday series in its entirety. They also plan to reissue Clugston's SCOOTER GIRL six-issue miniseries as a color trade collection in December.

From 1993-2007, Cat Yronwode worked in the production department for the small publisher Claypool Comics, best known for publishing a long-running series (166 issues) based on ELVIRA, MISTRESS OF THE DARK. She currently operates an online business called The Lucky Mojo Curio Shop devoted to occult and new age topics, and continues to write books on those subjects.

BLUE MONDAY VOL. 1: THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT TP (Image, 2016) by Chynna Clugston Flores
- This was a pretty cool comic that I'd never read before, and it had a 'teen humor comic' vibe to it, but done in a modern style (even though the story is taking place in the early 1990s). There was even a reference on the last page (and in the introduction as well) to Archie Comics, although the style of art (somewhat manga-influenced) and writing here isn't particularly reminiscent of Archie Comics. It was funny and felt fresh and 'indie', though. It did make me wonder what an Archie reboot done by Chynna Clugston might have been like. They should have asked her, or maybe someone like Bryan Lee O'Malley (SCOTT PILGRIM) or even Scott McCloud (ZOT!, UNDERSTANDING COMICS).

Quote from: Csnapp2019 on July 31, 2016, 10:26:59 PM
HELP! I have trying to rember this for years! Does anyone know the name of the Archie comic where their is an angry old man who gets shot outside his mansion before he dies he vows to return in 100 years. He returns and then starts haunting Archie and his friends Sabrina is also in the comic and I think it is a 4 part series

Sounds a little bit like "House of Riverdale" (a.k.a. Archie's Haunted House in trade paperback), but that was only a 3-parter. I didn't remember Sabrina being in it, but according to GCDb, I guess she was. I'll have to re-read that sometime.

Quote from: irishmoxie on July 31, 2016, 08:43:22 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 27, 2016, 01:35:30 AM
MICKEY MOUSE SHORTS: SEASON ONE #1 (of 4)

How are these different than the regular Mickey comic? Shorter stories?

No, it's a four-issue miniseries, each issue featuring several stories adapted from the new Mickey Mouse animated shorts being produced by Disney since 2013, which you can watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC6qIbU1olyXQe1WOKt8UJ4hErx3D7qt8
Season One (19 episodes, of approx. 03:45) of these cartoons was also released on DVD in 2104. They're really good cartoons.

I'm not clear on how you podcast on a forum like SimpleMachine. Maybe it supports that somehow, but I have no idea how it works. Maybe just do a clip or something to show how that works, because my imagination fails me as to what it's going to look like or where on the forum you'd navigate to to get to it.

I read a bunch of the Hernandez brothers' comics I found in the bargain boxes at my LCS. Great stuff, and I didn't realize they did so many different titles in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

• YEAH! #2, 4
• MAGGIE AND HOPEY COLOR FUN SPECIAL #1
• MEASLES #1, 2, 3
• LUBA'S COMICS AND STORIES #2, 3, 4, 5

I still have a bunch more Hernandez comics that I didn't get to today, but hopefully tomorrow or Monday. In the meantime I'm going to read a little bit more of this book I picked up last Wednesday, THE OSAMU TEZUKA STORY - A LIFE IN MANGA AND ANIME by Toshio Ban. This is by far the longest graphic novel I've ever seen in one complete book, and it's a biographic novel in manga format. 865 whopping pages from beginning to end, without so much as a chapter break anywhere in it. The book is a softcover, but it's literally as thick as a brick. I've only read about 50 pages so far, but it's really interesting.