Quote from: achernar on August 27, 2016, 08:11:45 AM
Does anyone know he artist for this? I love this style and humor of this artist, he usually makes embarrassing and ridiculous situations especially to Archie and Veronica.

Dick Malmgren

Is this the Jeannie one:
http://www.comics.org/issue/221883/#1545728

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 25, 2016, 12:10:43 AM

Quote from: irishmoxie on August 24, 2016, 10:00:45 PM
Archie #11 - The art was particularly bad. Maybe because 3 different people worked on it? Breakdowns, Finishes, and Special Thanks to Veronica Fish. Comparing this to Fiona Staples is astounding. Interesting how they tried to make it look like old Archie with the half page stories. But the comedy wasn't there. Battle of the Bands was nowhere near Jem and the Holograms levels.

I was going to read the reprint in the back but I forgot to. Hopefully I didn't miss anything good, but I usually enjoy reading Waid's little text essays.

The reprint was a Harry Lucey The Archies story from the late 60's which I know I've read before.

Archie #11 - The art was particularly bad. Maybe because 3 different people worked on it? Breakdowns, Finishes, and Special Thanks to Veronica Fish. Comparing this to Fiona Staples is astounding. Interesting how they tried to make it look like old Archie with the half page stories. But the comedy wasn't there. Battle of the Bands was nowhere near Jem and the Holograms levels.

I feel like there's another real story where Veronica is changing in a cabana and the cabana falls down and she's topless.

Quote from: BettyReggie on August 21, 2016, 08:09:10 PM
I finished reading
Archie Giant Comics Collection
Friends With Boys
The Nameless City

How did you like Nameless City?

Wandering Island - after DeCarlo Rules' recommendation. It was really good. Kinda in the same family as castaway stories. Unfortunately there's only one volume, it ends on a cliffhanger, and it looks like it's been 5-6 years so I don't think the mangaka is writing another one. I wonder if I would like Spirit of Wonder as it's out of print now and retailing for $60+. Worth it??


Also I got my DKD Kickstarter package today with the rewards. It went to my old address by mistake. They also sent some extras which was cool. Next time they do a Kickstarter though I'd like the option of paying more for shipping as MediaMail isn't kind to books especially dust jackets. 

Quote from: CAPalace on August 17, 2016, 03:07:01 PM
I'm tempted, but I haven't heard great things about subscribing with them. (Even when I was a kid subscribed to the Betty and Veronica digests, I remember them not showing up and my dad having to call lol.)

Anyone totally disagree with that? Because, like I said, I'm pretty tempted if there's still under 100 people subscribing.

The 100 is to just get people to buy subscriptions before they "run out." I'm pretty sure they'll extend the special pricing to more than 100 people.


When people were reporting they were getting their subscriptions up to a week early I was tempted to subscribe again. But it is so variable even within a title. i.e. the Jughead digest doesn't always come early and sometimes it's even late!


The whole point of a subscription is to make things easier and cheaper for the consumer. The digests are supposed to come automatically in the mail on time so you don't have to worry about going out to buy them from a store or even online. I much prefer reading them digitally now on the day they're released. The price of wasting my time having to call or email them to get my copy isn't worth the money I'd be saving through a subscription. I still buy some things physically but usually just variant covers or things that aren't available digitally.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 16, 2016, 07:26:39 PM

Quote from: irishmoxie on August 16, 2016, 06:46:34 PM
I haven't gotten the rewards package yet just the DKD hardback. I ordered a second copy (outside of the Kickstarter) and haven't gotten that either yet. I'll keep waiting.

I might still be waiting on mine, if I hadn't contacted Dan and made arrangements to pick it up in person at Boston Comic Con. Funny thing, I bumped into a guy I know at Dan's table (whom I had no idea had pledged the DKD Kickstarter) on Friday and he mentioned he hadn't got his rewards package yet. On Sunday, I was at Dan's table again, and the same guy came back and told Dan that his DKD rewards package had arrived at his house on Friday while he was at the con. I think the original plan was to have all these packages out much earlier, but the printer took longer on the hardcovers than they expected, and now both of them are knee-deep in convention season. To be honest, I haven't even had time to go back to check the list of the rewards I was supposed to get, so if there's anything missing (were there pins or buttons?) from mine besides Fernando's sketchbook then I'm not even aware of it. Besides the hardcover book and some original artwork, I got a DKD lanyard, 2 stickers, 12 trading cards, and Dan's sketchbook (and the Love-O-Rama 2000 TPB was an add-on).

Also, the original commission I got (and am now using as my avatar) from Dan isn't the original drawing that he first handed to me. I had requested Betty as Superteen, and Dan somehow had drawn an original of Betty as SuperGIRL... as he was about to hand it to me, he was saying "... and I've got your drawing of Betty as Supergirl right here (looking in portfolio) ..." and I said "You mean Betty as SuperTEEN..." and there was some momentary embarrassment as he realized he'd made a mistake. He showed it to me, but then put it aside and said "It's no problem, I can do it for you and have it later today".  Then we started chatting for a while, and at some point, I decided I'd like a 2-figure drawing of both Betty as Superteen and Veronica as Powerteen (because they'd never actually been in a story together), so I agreed to pay him extra for another figure. Then I wanted him to base the pose on a particular image (that I hadn't thought to bring with me beforehand) so I told him that when I went home that night I'd find the image I was thinking of, and email it to him. Oddly enough, I couldn't find that exact image that I had in mind, and wound up changing my mind, so I had him base the pose on the "Wonder Twin powers, ACTIVATE!" image (which basically got repeated in every Super Friends cartoon they were in). Dan does a lot of superhero commissions, or Archie/superhero mash-up commissions, which you'll see when you check out his sketchbook (and he'll obviously have no problem selling that drawing of Betty as Supergirl).

Hey, this is my 1000^th post (since the meltdown and reboot) -- which would have made it my 5000^th post if the meltdown had never happened.

What's in those sketchbooks? DKD art? Now I'm curious.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 16, 2016, 04:24:50 PM

Quote from: irishmoxie on August 16, 2016, 02:58:42 PM
I was supposed to get this from Kickstarter but Dan never sent it.

If you email him, I'm sure he'll send it, assuming you already got the rest of your Kickstarter reward package. Dan and Fernando are still in the process of mailing all these out to the pledges, one at a time, and they split up the mailing labels between them, but not necessarily by what supporter was getting original art by which creator, so there's a little confusion between the two of them. One of the things missing from my package was Fernando's sketchbook, which Dan tells me is still at the printers, so packages that got mailed out already will be missing those. This is their first Kickstarter, so maybe they're not as well-organized as some others who've done it before, and there were a lot of bonuses and add-ons to the packages, so there's a list of different stuff that has to go in depending on your pledge level. If you didn't get your rewards package yet, be patient, either Dan or Fernando could have your mailing label.

Then too, these guys are both still doing the convention circuit at the same time. Dan was at SDCC last month, then in Boston last weekend (Aug. 12-14), and will be at TerrifiCon in Connecticut next weekend (Aug. 19-21), then he's off to Hyderabad, India for a big con (Sept. 24-25), and then New York Comic Con (Oct. 8-9), plus who knows all what else -- while continuing to turn in 5 page stories and covers for the digests.

The best thing to do is contact them through the Kickstarter page and let them know, if you got the rewards package already and it was missing that TPB.

I haven't gotten the rewards package yet just the DKD hardback. I ordered a second copy (outside of the Kickstarter) and haven't gotten that either yet. I'll keep waiting.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 16, 2016, 12:08:21 AM
Yesterday I read LOVE-O-RAMA 2000, which is a B&W, 96-page TPB collection of Dan Parent-written stories (except for 2 of them, I think) sub-titled "Romance Stories That Will Touch You In A Special Place!". Most of the stories are drawn by Dan as well, but except for a couple, you probably wouldn't recognize them as his art, because it's not really done in "the Archie style". Three-quarters of those are inked by Kim De Mulder, and I'm not sure exactly how much of the difference in Dan P's usual style is due to his original pencils for the stories, and how much is due to Kim De Mulder's inking. These stories had previously appeared in some obscure comics: Secret Fantasies #1 (1998) and #2 (1999), and Dumbass Express #1 (and only). I guess you could probably say most of these stories were R-rated (definitely not for kids), and for the most part, I found them pretty funny, and found them to reflect Dan's peculiar sense of humor (which I love), just a little more unrestrained and uncensored. Maybe "adult situations" is the best label here, because there's no actual "graphic depictions" or any "adult language" or anything like that, but remember that's just using ACP standards as a yardstick.

The story that interested me the most personally was one called "My Love Is Alien", which was about 2 female friends, a plain but brainy & nerdy sci-fi fangirl and her pretty but shallow roommate who has absolutely no interest in SF, but who had promised her friend she'd go the the science fiction con with her. So the nerdy girl shames her friend into going anyway, after she tried to wheedle her way out of her promise. Marina reluctantly gives in and goes to the SF convention, where she all of a sudden gets interested, when she meets a hunky-looking guy wearing what she thinks is an alien costume at the con. So she finds every excuse to give in to him and spend time with him (and of course, she doesn't realize that he's an actual alien). As I'm reading the first few pages of the story, I'm looking at the girls and what they are saying to each others, and I'm thinking "Wait a minute... Isn't this really just a Veronica story guest-starring her sci-fi loving cousin, Marcy McDermott?", because in this story Marina is pretty but kind of a snob. However, in trying to place the story among the chronology of Veronica stories, this story would seem to precede cousin Marcy's first appearance in the early 2000s (which - I think - was in VERONICA #137, May 2003). As far as the personality and behavior of the girls at the beginning of the story, they interact almost just like Marcy and Veronica, even though the story later goes off in a different direction with Marina (the pretty one) having a one-night stand with this alien guy she's smitten with, and then having his baby while he disappears (it turns out later that he was drafted to fight in some kind of space war). I should mention that as far as how they're drawn in the story, the characters don't actually resemble Marcy and Veronica, it's just that one is a nerdy girl into sci-fi and the other is pretty, but totally disinterested in that kind of stuff, and is snobbish and puts it down. Still, there's this germ of an idea there in this independently-produced work of Dan's, that it seems like he later reworked into his stories in VERONICA, which I found interesting. In this story however, instead of mentioning "Space Trek" or some kind of obvious euphemism, the actual names of science fiction TV shows and movies are used (and the context in which they are referenced helps to make the story funny).

Despite the adult situations, there's still a distinct Archie-like feel to most of these stories, just the fact that they're short, sitcom stories with romantic elements, and Dan Parent's signature sense of humor (which in these stories, he's allowed to get pretty wacky with). There are lots of stories with takeoffs on things like the Patrick Swayze movie Ghost, daytime talk shows like The Jerry Springer Show, the self-explanatory "Vampire Girls Need Love Too", "Drastic Plastic" about plastic surgery, and other weirdness, including one set in the 1970s that crams every TV show and pop culture reference from that time into a short farce. The nature of Dan's humor spares no one's sensibilities in the arena of political correctness, so if you're easily offended by a gay superhero like "Interior Decorator Man", this probably isn't for you. The back page has an utterly hilarious text piece called "A Little About Dan Parent" that totally cracked me up.

BETTY AND VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #246 came in the mail yesterday, and I'm about halfway through reading that. Spent most of the day catching up on sleep I missed over the weekend while I was either at the Boston Comic Con or working.

I was supposed to get this from Kickstarter but Dan never sent it.

Haven't updated this in awhile. I've been unbelievably busy with work.


Flintstones #1 and 2 - Different take than I was expecting and not as comical as previous Flintstones reiterations. Lots of connections drawn between this ancient society's race relations and commercialism and modern society. I'm intrigued. I'll keep reading.


Mae #1-3 - Split between 2 parallel worlds. A bit like Narnia in a way.


Shrek #1-2 - These are ok. Writing could be better.


Black Hammer #1 - I wanted it to be my replacement to tide me over between issues of Harrow County and it just wasn't. A weird mix of farm stories and superheroes.


The Hunt #1 - Also really weird.


Lumberjanes #28 - I think they're trying to stretch this series out way too much and not much happens in each issue or even arc. But I'm excited about the upcoming movie.


Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy #1 - Big disappointment. Hopefully subsequent issues improve.


Powerpuff Girls #1 - Cute.


Socute the Corgi #1-2 - I'm a sucker for animal stories.


Space Battle Lunchtime up to #4 - Started out great. My interest is kinda waning. I think this would be better as a cartoon.


Action Lab Dog of Wonder #3 - Not as great as the previous 2 issues.


Ghoul Scouts #1 and #2 - It has all the elements I would like (kid friendly scary stories) but the series just isn't hooking me.


Girl Over Paris #1


Goldie Vance #4


Jonesy #5 - Agree with DeCarlo Rules on this one. This issue isn't as great as previous.


Harrow County up to #15 - Still a great series. It's going in a whole new direction now with new characters and I'm excited to see where it goes.


Jem up to issue #17 - Jen Bartel's interiors weren't as great as I was hoping. Excited for the spinoff series The Misfits. Excited to see Shouri getting more work as she's my favorite colorist and a pretty good artist too. Hopefully she can do the interiors as well.


Jughead up to issue #8 - Look forward to this series every month now. Can't wait for the Sabrina issues.


Lady Killer Vol 2 #1 - Art is still top notch. So far pretty much the same as the previous series.


Paper Girls up to #8 - Still loving.


Ultracat #2


Betty and Veronica #1 - I think Adam Hughes was trying really hard to go in a direction no one was expecting. I'm trying to read and think of this series from an outsider perspective of someone who is not familiar with the franchise. I think they would be very confused as to why the dog was narrating.


Snotgirl #1 - Love the art, the girliness of the story. The end is a cliffhanger.


Really missing great series like Black Magic and Mystery Girl and even Wayward. Comics seem to be a bit dry lately as far as great storytelling goes.

Quote from: Archiecomicxfan215 on August 04, 2016, 09:56:22 PM
Going from NY to Ohio tomorrow. Long drive

What's in Ohio? That's where I grew up.

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?

Maybe if it was a soft fleece blanket.