Quote from: irishmoxie on June 18, 2016, 06:27:05 PM
Yeah Gisele is obviously heavily inspired by Josie and the Pussycats. I wish she would do a more musical themed comic about a girl band. Do the Magic Chicks form a band?

^^^^^^^^^^  This is Zii's band from MA3.   ^^^^^^^^^

So far there have been no bands in Eerie Cuties or Magick Chicks.

Hmmmmmmmmm.....





I wish the innards were gonna look like THIS, though...



BUT if they're not going to let Gisele draw that actual comic book, then how about THIS one...?

SHADOW LADY VOL. 3: SUDDEN DEATH (Dark Horse, 2001) - Interesting superhero manga by Masakazu Katsura. I knew of his work from a couple of anime shows (also superheroes) I'd seen that he created, Tiger & Bunny (about superheroes competing in a reality TV series) and Zetman (which began as a manga, but hasn't gotten an official English language translation). The Japanese always seem to put an interesting spin on superheroes. I picked this up at my LCS out of curiosity (because I'd never read Masakazu's manga, only seen his anime). I enjoyed it, and will probably try to track down the first two volumes (this was the concluding arc of a longer series which ran 24 issues in the standard floppy comic format). Shadow Lady is a Japanese teenager who gets a gift of magical eye shadow from her grandmother, which when applied, turns her into Shadow Lady, whose job it is to retrieve a series of demon gemstones that are like eggs with hibernating demons inside waiting to be reborn. If they awaken they will cause the destruction of the world. She's assisted by a small magical creature from the demon world named De-Mo. The big problem is that these demon gems are all possessed by respectable members of society, and they are exerting a corrupting influence on them, causing them to commit acts of evil (but surreptitiously, so they maintain their respectable image). When Shadow Lady tries to steal the gems from them, she's considered a thief and is being hunted by a young police detective (who is also conflicted because he's starting to fall in love with her).

JUGHEAD (1987) #89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 160 - I'll be reviewing these in detail later in another thread.

TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE VOLUME TWO by Michael Kupperman - Very interesting collection of an alternative anthology series of absurdist/dadaesque stories.

Got a big order of Archie Comics back issues in the mail from MyComicShop.com:


B & V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #236
BETTY AND VERONICA DIGEST #187, 189, 207
JUGHEAD (1987) #89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 160 (all key Trula Twyst issues)
JUGHEAD & ARCHIE JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #5
JUGHEAD & FRIENDS DIGEST #31, 34
TALES FROM RIVERDALE DIGEST #4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39
VERONICA'S PASSPORT DIGEST #2


Total cost ( for 40 comics) was $129.30. Shipping was $4.95. They do an excellent job of packing these shipments with bags and boards and a printed label identifying each comic and the price (on the bag, of course), then they bundled those 40 comics into 3 larger bags. The box they shipped in had these neat foam corner inserts to protect the comics from bump and dings if the package was mishandled. Kudos to the guys at Lone Star for going the extra mile.


Already sat down and read the JUGHEAD issues featuring the first 5 appearances of Trula, plus a key story from #160 (Jughead kissed her twice!). I'll be reviewing those a little later when I get the time to sit down and write something substantial. All in all, I should have enough here to get me through a few weeks or a month. I'd like to be giving my money to ACP, but... hey, they refuse to do the logical, sensible thing and reprint stories like the original appearances of Trula Twyst (to give but one example) in a trade paperback. So the back issue dealers get my money instead. Smart thinkin', ACP! Just make sure you keep putting out 25 cover variants on every new comic you print, that'll make up for it. 

Quote from: SAGG on June 17, 2016, 07:25:53 PM

Quote from: invisifan on June 17, 2016, 02:16:33 PM

Quote from: SAGG on June 17, 2016, 12:57:44 PM

Quote from: BettyReggie on June 16, 2016, 06:55:27 PM
Harper Lodge turned him down for Reggie.

Yeah, and poor, poor Archie still has a gazillion girls who are either after him, or that he's after. The one story I liked where Archie actually and REALLY was shot down was the one recent story where two New Kid (I don't recall who they were, please help me) girls conspired to get just about every girl in Riverdale to really give Archie H-E- double hockey sticks when he asked them out for dates to finish out his "list" because he ignored Betty being available for a date near the end of summer. Turns out that after he seemingly was beaten down, Betty wanted to go out with some other guy, and was dating other guys as well to finish out HER list! All of that was for nothing! No one really learned anything, much less Archie! Betty was no better! Why in the WORLD do any of The Triangle want to have boy/girlfriends if they want to Play the Field, too?

Archie #658 "Dating Drama" — Chloe Mancuso & Bobbi (both on the student paper w/Betty) were the ringleaders

That's it. Thanks.

That's what I love about Dan Parent Archie stories. He loves to take him down a peg, and make him the butt of the joke. In this case puncturing Archie's rep as a player.

The difference between Archie and Betty here is that Archie is really acting like an a-hole. He's got the rest of the summer to make a "quota" for dating, trying to top himself by dating as many girls as he can. He puts Betty on the shelf as usual. She's the always-reliable backup, and he figures she'll be at his beck and call when summer ends and they get back to school. The joke's on him, as Betty figures she's not going to wait on him to ask her out, but date some different guys before going back to school. It's not like she's trying to set some kind of record for the most dates. That's just total jerk behavior on Archie's part, and Betty's friends call him on it.

THE BIRTH OF KITARO by Shigeru Mizuki, a just released collection of manga stories from the late 1960s, and an earlier-released (2013), larger collection (300-ish pages) of the same, simply entitled KITARO. Both of these were published by Drawn & Quarterly.

Kitaro is a little yokai boy, the last member of the Ghost Tribe, who helps humans (and other yokai) with their problems. You could call him a "yokai buster". He has a number of strange abilities due to his yokai heritage, and seems to discover new ones in every story. He has a long prehensile tongue like a gecko, his hair can stretch out and grab things, and is strong like metal wire. He can also fire the hairs out of his head like porcupine quills, or blend into his background surroundings like a chameleon. He has special yokai glasses that allow him to see things that humans and other yokai can't. He wears wooden sandals that have special properties like allowing him to walk on rainbows. In one story his hand is cut off, but continues to move around on its own until it finally returns to his body.

As for what exactly a yokai is, that's a little hard to explain. Yokai can be monsters, demons, goblins, spirit creatures, minor deities, ghosts, or cryptids. They encompass all sorts of folkloric beings and paranormal creatures. Some are humanoid, some combine features of various animals, and some are in-between. Others have no real form at all -- they can be like balls of gas or light. They could be Japanese, or from another country, or even from outer space. They could be daikaiju (giant monsters) or mythical creatures that inhabit lakes and rivers, live underground, or in the sky. Some were once human, and some are born as yokai; some might have a mixed heritage, being half-human and half-yokai. Traditional western monsters like Dracula and Frankenstein's monster are considered yokai too. About all you can really say that they have in common is that they are strange, intelligent beings that inhabit our world (which is to say, the modern world). There are bad yokai and good yokai, and some who are just mischievous.

Kitaro was born of a dead mother, in a graveyard. He's a little boy with a bulbous head and one huge eye. His other eye socket is empty, and that's where his father lives. His father was a yokai too, but as he lay dying of a long illness, slowly decomposing, he learned of his son's birth and was so motivated to protect and look after the boy that he willed his remaining spirit into his eyeball, which oozed out of its socket and fell on the floor, where it regrew a tiny body from the optic nerve so that he could move about. Now he's just an eyeball with an itty-bitty body and he rides around in Kitaro's empty eye socket.

These are whimsical stories about monsters and paranormal creatures and a little monster boy who helps people who are being troubled by them. Not a genre of manga that I was familiar with before reading this, but they're quite fun.

Quote from: BettyReggie on June 17, 2016, 06:47:06 AM
[media]752[/media]
I asked Fernando if he do this picture of Betty on a B & V #1 Cover but make it more modern by hair pink streaks in her hair. I hope that can be done.

Sure, why not? Pink watercolor marker pens exist. That's one of my all-time favorite covers by Fernando. I don't know where he came up with that silly idea, but it just tickles me for some reason. She looks like a dandelion!

Quote from: SAGG on June 15, 2016, 03:34:01 PM

Quote from: Jabroniville on June 15, 2016, 05:38:57 AM

Quote from: Fernando Ruiz on June 10, 2016, 10:27:12 PM

Quote from: irishmoxie on June 10, 2016, 09:46:08 PM

Also Fernando said something about how he had ghost written (used another name?) some stories for ACP after this one so we may see those eventually.

I ghost-wrote those scripts for another Archie comics writer-artist. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out who that is! I think they might be close to coming out very soon.


Archie Comics, of course, now hates me because unlike Dan DeCarlo and Stan Goldberg, after they drove me out, I didn't conveniently drop dead. In a very petty move, they said I could no longer ghost-write for them anymore.


They have a horrible, horrible reputation for their treatment of their talent. Trust me. Every bit of it is deserved.

Wow, that sucks. I figured Mark Waid was right when he said that Archie mistreated everybody (his specific complaint was that they paid people very little while sucking up all of the profits of the company for themselves)... but he neglected to mention that they're STILL doing it.


We still totally need Archie Comics: The Untold Story- a huge collection of the history of the company, written by a third party and taking viewpoints from EVERYBODY. Alas, so many of the old names are deceased at this point. But it'd still be more accurate than that one from a couple years ago, where the company's co-founder was apparently a giant ladies' man who ALWAYS had two girls fighting over him, just so that he could lay a claim over Bob Montana's .

I can see an Archie Comics lawsuit if someone ever did attempt to write this. They're VERY protective of their reputation...

Jabroniville is referencing a fairly recent (2013) warts-and-all (totally unauthorized) company history, MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY by Sean Howe. An excellent book, by the way, that gives us more of an unvarnished picture of events in that company's history. While there are laws written to prevent slander and libel, there are none preventing people from telling the truth. If the Disney/Marvel legal department couldn't stop Sean Howe from writing a book, what do you think ACP's chances would be?

Pretty much a tie between Teddy Tambourine and Samson Smythe. 

JUGHEAD #7 - Well, it's an improvement, anyway. Derek Charm's artwork makes reboot Jughead and Archie a lot easier to look at. The humor here is coming through slightly better now, but is still far too subdued for my liking, and the overall problem of decompressed storytelling continues to apply here -- far too little is happening in any given issue. I can only hope incoming writer Ryan North will pick up the pace when he takes over.


ASTONISHING ANT-MAN #9 - A decently written and drawn, solid superhero comic. One could wish that the protagonist wasn't so relentlessly portrayed as a loser (although he does manage to defeat the villains in each story arc), and for this particular title, I sometimes think it could do with a little LESS humor. Still a decent read every month.


INVINCIBLE #129 - I've been reading this since the "Reboot" arc (which wasn't really a reboot), and have managed (despite my handicap of not being well-versed in the complex backstory of INVINCIBLE) to follow along so far with few problems, but this issue baffled me as to what exactly was going on. There are a few scene changes in the latter half of the story, with no hints as to whether we're viewing events from the past, future, or perhaps even some alternate timeline. If things aren't made clear by the next issue, I'll probably wind up dropping this from my reading list, as I honestly couldn't make heads or tails of it. Not even a guess as to what might be going on here, really.


BLACK WIDOW #4 - I have to admit I'm not enjoying this book anywhere near as much as I'd hoped I would. Part of that is that the tone of the story, while fine for a comic per se, runs counter to my expectations for this character, and my expectations from the Waid/Samnee team based on their prior work on DAREDEVIL. It's reminiscent of nothing so much as the tone and tropes of Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting's VELVET, but otherwise suffers by the comparison to that excellent series. Again, as with the rebooted ARCHIE, Waid's writing here is in the decompressed storytelling mode, with not much happening in any given issue. I'll give it a couple more issues before giving up on it, but I'm afraid I'll be dropping this if it doesn't get better fairly soon.


SQUADRON SUPREME #8 - I've very little in the way of attachment to most of the main protagonists of this series (save for Hyperion and Thundra), but James Robinson's writing and the involvement of incidental characters like Black Bolt and Toro Raymond are holding my interest, and Robinson seems to be slowly adding some dimension to the other main characters who were previously cyphers to me. Going to stick with this one for a while yet.

WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #732 - The conclusion of the long running series of stories focused around "The Search For the Zodiac Stones" (this is Part 12 of 12) that involved Scrooge McDuck, Donald and his nephews, plus Mickey Mouse and Goofy. Individual stories in this series were complete adventures in themselves, but this 31-page concluding chapter wraps up the overarching subplot as the component 12 zodiac stones are assembled; it's the longest story ever featuring all of Disney Comics' most popular stars. Also included is a 6-page backup story starring the less-frequently seen Ludwig von Drake (and a personal fave).


HENCHGIRL #8 - This is such a "fringe" title that I'm a little surprised (given my heavy reading list) that I'm still reading it after 8 issues, but at the same time, I realised that with every issue, I was a little more charmed by and drawn into the world of Kristen Gudsnuk's Crepe City, and its oddball heroes and villains. In this issue, Fred Stumbley (AKA Mannikin) continues to heal from having his brittle body shattered and then glued back together. He meets Lovely Celestial Angel Amelia, who's just moved to Crepe City (and just been robbed of all her belongings). Having nowhere to go, she decides to become Fred's crime-fighting partner, which leads to Mary Posa making her the object of her vengeance (due to still being turned evil, which is worrysome as there doesn't seem to be any possible way to rectify her condition). Poor Mary. Poor Fred! Actually, Amelia seems nice for a magical girl crime-fighter, so maybe something will develop between Fred and her (I can't believe I'm shipping them already). I know, I know... I'm supposed to be rooting for Mary. And now I'm thinking I REALLY should be following the webcomic at www.henchgirlcomic.com. That goes on my to-do list. So far the story is up to 233 pages.


SWAMP THING #6 (of 6) - Not much to say about this one. As ST comics go, this story wasn't one of the more interesting ones, although it had a lot of guest stars, particularly in this final issue.


ASTRO CITY #36 - 2nd part of a 2-parter. Again, not one of the more notable stories in this series.


TITANS REBIRTH #1 - Not crazy about the artwork (though I've seen much worse as well, particularly from DC), but they really are "trying to get the band back together". The original 5 kid sidekicks of the Silver Age JLA (Robin/Dick Grayson, Wonder Girl/Donna Troy, Aqualad/Garth, Speedy/Roy Harper, and Kid Flash/Wally West) are reunited after discovering that their minds have been tampered with to erase memories of their past association together (and some characters like Wally West had been erased from the current reality altogether). What can I say, there was probably nowhere further DOWN that DC Comics could go, so I guess they're at least going through the motions of pretending to listen to what their former fans have been complaining about. This is merely what I'd consider an "okay" DC comic book, but even at that it's a big improvement over the last 5 years of their superhero comics. They happen to also be some of my personal favorite DC characters, which really doesn't hurt either.


ACTION COMICS #957 + SUPERMAN (2016) #1 - The first of these comics featuring the "rebirth"ed Superman wasn't actually too bad (credit goes to old-school DC Superman writer Dan Jurgens), and has the pre-New 52 DC Universe Superman replacing the recently-deceased New 52 Superman. Trouble rears its head immediately in the form of Justice Leaguer Lex Luthor (still the New 52 incarnation of said character), who wants the job for himself. The new SUPERMAN #1 issue (by writer Peter Tomasi) gets a thumbs-down just as easily for a boring story (same Superman as Action Comics, though) that doesn't really have much interesting going on. Less than half (honestly maybe closer to 25-35%) of the DC Rebirth first issues represent any sort of improvement over the previous months, but mild though that improvement may be, it's exceeded my expectations in that regard, so I'll see what develops in a few of these books in the coming months. AQUAMAN REBIRTH, FLASH REBIRTH and DETECTIVE COMICS REBIRTH were reasonably not-too-horrible as well. None of this stuff is going to make my top 20 list, but "nowhere to go but up" seems to apply here.

PATSY WALKER AKA HELLCAT #7 - OMFG it's Kate Leth again! After that last issue, I wasn't sure... Not a bad issue, and it finally wraps up Patsy's problems with Hedy Wolfe.


WACKY RACELAND #1 - Too bad. It's a big bore. Takes itself way too seriously. There was some real potential here, as I could see where they were using the MAD MAX franchise (with a big dollop of Roger Corman's DEATH RACE 2000) as a lens through which to re-interpret the Hanna-Barbera WACKY RACES cartoon. I still think the concept has legs, and they're complete idiots if they don't turn this into a videogame. What's missing here is that the series has no self-awareness of its own absurdity. This would have been better handled as a full-bore 2000AD (the zarjaz Mega-Comic from the UK) tongue-in-cheek sardonic humor style post-Apocalyptic comic. They should have hired someone like Pat Mills (or Alan Grant) to write it, and someone like Mike McMahon, Cam Kennedy, Carlos Ezquerra, or Kevin O'Neill (all Judge Dredd/2000AD alumni) to draw it. Or maybe someone like Jamie Hewlett (TANK GIRL). That could have really worked, and been a kick-ass comic.

Quote from: BettyReggie on June 14, 2016, 05:24:30 PM
I just hope Melody isn't such a dumbbell in the reboot. It's cute but she's too simple. How can she mange playing drums?

There's more to Melody than meets the eye. She's not as one-dimensional as she seems. For one thing, she's got a memory bank full of familiar quotations and aphorisms that she cut-and-pastes into entirely new expressions that sometimes have multiple levels of meaning, and other times are simply absurd (credit goes to Frank Doyle for actually devising these).

Regardless of the fact that she's not just parroting back expressions that she's heard, somehow she's creatively reorganizing those "words of wisdom" in a way that somehow seems to fit the situation, which is often absurd to begin with. It does imply that somehow she's been exposed to a lot of quotations or bits of common wisdom which she's somehow absorbed, though.

As far as her drumming goes, in keeping a beat the rhythm and timing involved is a lot more instinctual than rational. "Book-smart" doesn't help you there. You need to feel the beat and know where it goes, and be able to keep the timing without thinking about it consciously. The rest is physio-spacial orientation as far as where the different drums are located in relation to the position of your arms.

Quote from: daren on June 14, 2016, 03:09:54 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 12, 2016, 01:16:37 AM
I suspect they are just keeping Dan Parent employed for as long as it takes to use up the inventory of already-purchased scripts.

In that case he might be there till the end, the George Gladir inventory scripts alone must be a foot high

I'm curious how you can know this, Daren.     George Gladir died over 3 years ago. Do you have some way of estimating how many pages of unpublished scripts ACP has in its inventory, and if so, then how? It seems counterintuitive to me that the company could have been running on an extremely tight budget for a number of years now, and yet maintained the practice of continuing to purchase scripts well in advance of its schedule for actually publishing them. Based on that reasoning, I would think the number of remaining scripts (assuming they quit purchasing new ones some months in advance of ceasing to commission new work from artists like Lindsey, Shultz, Galvan, the Kennedys, and finally Fernando Ruiz) would be limited enough that they might be used up by the end of this year.

Point taken about the new Kevin series, but then it's only a miniseries, likely to be concluded by the end of 2016, perhaps before any inventory of paid-for scripts runs out.

Quote from: daren on June 14, 2016, 02:56:34 AM
"Trying" probably isn't the right word, they must know by this point it isn't going to work.

Why waste the 3 or 4 pages on advertising New Riverdale titles, then? They could be advertising something else (maybe even a paid advertisment, although I'm sure there's a shortage of takers for those), or even just give us a 1-page gag strip or puzzle/activity page.

Quote from: irishmoxie on June 13, 2016, 11:42:32 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 13, 2016, 07:52:25 PM

Quote from: nuageo on June 13, 2016, 06:14:00 PM
Josie and the Pussycats #1 by Gisele Lagace

They just sold a copy!

You're buying an actual variant cover? :shock:

It will be the first rebooted Archie Comic that I'll actually purchase, although I've borrowed and read the first 2 issues of the new Archie and every issue of the new Jughead. I'll get the new Josie #1 from my LCS at my standard discount.

It's not that I have anything against variant covers in principle, but the more of them they produce for any given comic, the more I tend to resist them, as I consider it the sort of obsequious misuse of the variant covers gimmick that isn't good for the comics industry, because it tends to deemphasize the importance of READING the interior story in favor of turning a comic into a "collectible", a mere tchotchke - something to have only for the sake of owning it.

Whether of not I'll be purchasing issue #2 of the new Josie remains to be seen, although - again - I'll probably borrow and read at least a couple more of the subsequent issues, unless #1 turns out to be completely horrid. At least that way, if I'm critical of the ACP rebooted titles, I'm not speaking from ignorance as someone who hasn't even tried reading them. Can't be any fairer than that.

Quote from: ASS-P on June 13, 2016, 06:55:04 PM
...Business/structure/planning-wise , I mean .
  But now , is Archie-the-company apparently planning to move away from new stories from the digests ENTIRELY , and bet the farm ~ I suppose ~ 100% on the new approach , and I guess hope that the " RIVERDALE " TV series will be the cavalry ? (I tend maybe doubt that modern-day TV shows help the sales of the base comic all that much , it isn't the 60s or even the 80s anymore .)

That's exactly the way it appears to ME, at least. There was the recent news that ACP has acquired an influx of cash via a financing partner, immediately followed by the announcement of a rebooted JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS title (although that would obviously have had to be in the works for months before the financing deal went through).

Quote from: ASS-P on June 13, 2016, 06:55:04 PMSo Dan Parent ~ going through already-bought scripts ~ and semi-retired Bob Bolling are ALL the creators working on digest material now ?

Just got the new BETTY AND VERONICA SUMMER ANNUAL DIGEST #244 in the mail today, and it's got a new (and great) 5-page story drawn AND written by Dan P., so apparently it's not ALL inventory stories. I expect he'll continue to write the stories in B&V Digest for as long as they continue publishing new ones. How long that situation will hold is anyone's guess. I suppose I should stress that I have no real inside information on this, so my prior comments regarding the possible end of new stories in the near future are just speculation on my part.


Regardless of what that ArchieComics.com article on Bolling claims, I still haven't seen any of Bolling's new stories in any recent digests (past 6 months or so), so I'm dubious about the veracity of that claim. Unless there are new Little Archie stories (someone else will have to field this one) in some of the digests (which I skip entirely as a matter of course) ... but I think not, since I'm fairly certain they'd make a point of playing that fact up in solicitation copy.


I still abide by my theory that they're in the process of trying to wean classic Archie fans off new stories in digests and onto the rebooted series. Advertising has been running about 3 or 4 full-page "New Riverdale" ads per digest issue in the past 6 months or so.