THE COMPLETE ALICE IN WONDERLAND HC (Dynamite)
B & V FRIENDS JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #264
DICK TRACY: DEAD OR ALIVE #1 (of 4)
THE LONG CON #1
BLACK HAMMER: AGE OF DOOM #5
INFINITY 8 VOL 2 #3 (of 3)
CAPTAIN AMERICA ANNUAL 2018
UNCLE SCROOGE #444
STELLAR #4
HIT-GIRL #8
KICK-ASS #7
ICE CREAM MAN #7
HACK/SLASH RESURRECTION #11
BURNOUTS #1
BY NIGHT #4
RICK & MORTY PRESENT SLEEPY GARY #1
DEVILMAN GRIMOIRE VOL 04

Quote from: Captain Jetpack on September 18, 2018, 07:17:51 AM
North Pole Express, an Xmas film that came out at the same time as Incredibles 1 was CGI, & suffered from the Valley very, very badly.
Utterly killed the film, in reviews & at the box office.
Dreadful.

I think you mean Polar Express. I looked it up on YouTube. I have no problem with the way it looks. Guess I must be one of those people who has a natural immunity to the uncanny valley.

Quote from: Captain Jetpack on September 17, 2018, 07:23:39 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 11, 2018, 04:19:48 PM

Quote from: Captain Jetpack on September 10, 2018, 07:13:02 AM
Pre ordered Incredibles 2 DVD off Amazon.


Get it.


It's as good as the first film.

I was underwhelmed by the first Incredibles film. To this day, I'm sort of mystified over how successful and popular it turned out to be. The film ran counter to my expectations, which is why I felt disappointed when I saw it. Based on my earlier viewing of the character designs, I'd expected to be watching a comedic superhero cartoon, but when I saw it, I didn't feel like the movie was very funny at all. So why the "cartoony" character designs, I wondered? Of course the CGI animation was superb, but I'd already seen Toy Story, so I was past being bedazzled by that aspect -- I'd already come to expect that in a Pixar-animated film. It did make me think that a similar Mighty Mouse film would work.

The style was a choice made to counter the "uncanny valley" effect, that comes from over-realistic animation.

I've always wondered about that. I don't seem to experience that with characters who are modeled in CGI from the ground up. Why is it that the over-realistic style of CGI animation is used constantly in videogames, where it never seems to bother anyone? I'm thinking here of the "cut scenes" between levels in the game, that set up some sort of story or move it forward, before moving it into the next interactive stage. Why wouldn't that work for an entire superhero film? There have been a couple of movies like that filmed (Final Fantasy).

Although I will admit I did experience the "creep-out" factor recently when seeing the trailer for the live-action adaptation of Battle Angel Alita, based on a manga story, where the director made the questionable decision to apply post-production CGI effects in order to enlarge the main character's eyes, to better reflect how she looked as drawn in the original manga. I've seen something like that in a phone app, and it still creeps me out whenever that face-morphing stuff is applied to filmed images.

I guess when the characters are designed to look cartoony, I just naturally expect them to act cartoony. To be honest, I can't now recall a single thing about the plot of The Incredibles, apart from the fact that the movie was loosely homaging the Fantastic Four. I'm kind of surprised because Brad Bird's The Iron Giant impressed the hell out of me.

As an addendum, I'll mention that the most successful and long-running title that ACP published during this period -- although its first issue preceded ARCHIE #600 by six issues (Apr 2009) -- was SONIC UNIVERSE, running until #94 (Mar 2017). Considering how heavily-reprinted all of the Sonic comics from past years were during the 2009-2017 time frame, ACP's failure to retain the license to that character has to be considered one of the company's biggest mistakes. Compared to the total aggregate sales generated by Sonic, the total sales of all issues of AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE (plus TPB sales) were a drop in the bucket.

The next most successful title which began and ended during that time frame was MEGA MAN, at 55 issues.

The longest-running title published by ACP which began during that time that actually featured Archie and/or related characters was LIFE WITH ARCHIE magazine, at 37 issues. Only WORLD OF ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST ran longer, although not in terms of page count of new stories.

A selective chronology (firsts & lasts), which I'll present without further comment:

2009 Sep  BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR #90 (final issue)
2009 Sep  SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH #104 (final issue; Note: last 4 issues were a Young Salem miniseries)
2009 Oct  ARCHIE #600 (Archie Marries: #600-605)
2010 Sep  LIFE WITH ARCHIE #1 (The Married Life)
2010 Dec  WORLD OF ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #1
2011 Jan  B&V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #209 (1st issue)
2011 Feb  ARCHIE & FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #1
2011 Jul  MEGA MAN #1
2011 Jul  VERONICA #206 (final issue as VERONICA)
2011 Aug  KEVIN KELLER V.1 #1 [of 4] (miniseries = VERONICA #207-210)
2012 Jan  BETTY #195 (final issue)
2012 Feb  ARCHIE & FRIENDS #159 (final issue)
2012 Sep  JUGHEAD V.2 #214 (final issue)
2012 Oct  NEW CRUSADERS #1 [of 6]
2013 Dec  THE FOX V.1 #1 [of 5]
2014 Jan  ARCHIE & FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #33 (final issue)
2014 Mar  ARCHIE'S FUNHOUSE DOUBLE DIGEST #1 (replacing ARCHIE & FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST)
2014 Apr  JUGHEAD DOUBLE DIGEST #200 (final issue)
2014 Jun  JUGHEAD AND ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #1 (replacing JUGHEAD DOUBLE DIGEST)
2014 Sep  LIFE WITH ARCHIE #37 (final issue)
2014 Nov  KEVIN KELLER V.2 #15 (final issue)
2015 Jul   ARCHIE #666 (final issue)
2015 Oct  THE FOX V.2 #5 [of 5] (final issue)
2015 Dec  BETTY AND VERONICA V.2 #278 [=V.1 #625] (final issue)
2016 Jan  MEGA MAN #55 (final issue)
2016 Oct  ARCHIE MEETS RAMONES #1 (one-shot)
2017 Sep  YOUR PAL ARCHIE #1 [of 5]
2017 Oct  JUGHEAD AND ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #27 (final issue)
2017 Nov  ARCHIE'S FUNHOUSE DOUBLE DIGEST #28 (final issue)
2018 Feb  YOUR PAL ARCHIE #5 (final issue)

not listed:
  Trade paperback & hardcover collections
  Digital exclusives (DILTON #1-4, REGGIE & ME #1-4, JINX #1-4, LIFE WITH KEVIN #1-4)
  Archie Horror titles
  New Riverdale titles
  Dark Circle titles
  Sonic titles

edit: Added a couple more titles.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on September 13, 2018, 09:28:03 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 13, 2018, 04:55:43 AM

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on September 03, 2018, 09:19:13 AM

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (saw it through downloads, watching it on DVD now)

One of my all-time favorites, which I'm planning on watching again as soon as I can find the time. I was only a so-so fan of Mamoru Oshii's 1990s film version, but really loved Kenji Kamiyama's SAC television series. For some reason the 2nd season ("2nd Gig") is out-of-print on DVD, and really expensive if you can find the complete collection on DVD (plus you have to avoid the Anchor Bay release, which according to all reviews, looks terrible). Hoping somebody will rectify that situation soon. Not sure why, as the first season is easily get-able at a reasonable price.

Thanks for letting me know. I just finished season 1 of SAC yesterday. I was thinking of ordering 2nd Gig but not if they're that expensive. I guess I'll rewatch the live-action movie (saw it in theaters, haven't watched the Blu-ray yet) and order The Individual Eleven (the compilation movie of 2nd Gig), Solid State Society, the original film, and the sequel on Blu-ray (the Blu-ray of Innocence supposedly contains at least one of the two English dubs made with the SAC cast, probably the American dub).
Then, after that, I'll get the new OVAs or TV specials or whatever they are (I already have The New Movie, which takes place after all of those).

ARISE, which looks like a prequel to SAC but is actually more of a reboot. I want to watch ARISE, but I just hate the way that they're milking it to make the fans pay through the nose. Even though ARISE is only 10 episodes in it's entirety, there's no complete collection. You have to buy what they call "Borders". What is meant by that is that out of the 10 episodes, 2 half-hour episodes put together make up a complete story, which is called "Border 1", "Border 2", etc. for a total of 5 borders. You can buy a "box set" (114 minutes) of ARISE Borders 1 & 2 (or 3 & 4) for about $25 each.

Unfortunately, there's no complete set sold (even though there are only 10 episodes). So be prepared to buy them as "Borders".... Episodes 1 & 2 equals "Border 1", which is a complete story of two half-hour episodes. You can get a box set of either Borders 1 & 2, or Borders 3 & 4, but then you still need to buy Border 5 separately (which is more or less a prequel setting up "The New Movie"). So that's at least 4 individual items (or possibly 6) you have to purchase to get the entire series, and it's going to cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of $80.

I've resisted it on the grounds that they're blatantly bilking the fans who "gotta have it", and am holding out a few years until it appears as one of those S.A.V.E. re-releases or something as a complete set.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on September 03, 2018, 09:19:13 AM

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (saw it through downloads, watching it on DVD now)

One of my all-time favorites, which I'm planning on watching again as soon as I can find the time. I was only a so-so fan of Mamoru Oshii's 1990s film version, but really loved Kenji Kamiyama's SAC television series. For some reason the 2nd season ("2nd Gig") is out-of-print on DVD, and really expensive if you can find the complete collection on DVD (plus you have to avoid the Anchor Bay release, which according to all reviews, looks terrible). Hoping somebody will rectify that situation soon. Not sure why, as the first season is easily get-able at a reasonable price.

BETTY AND VERONICA JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #266 - BOO!!!  Although otherwise another good issue, I have to blow a big raspberry at ACP for their editorial alteration of the reprint of the story "Art Gal Awry!" (original dialogue by Rod Ollerenshaw, art by Dan DeCarlo). It's only a 3-pager. Normally, the editorial alterations don't bug me that much, but in this case, the motive behind it was venal and self-serving for ACP. This is the story where Veronica drags Betty along to a fine arts gallery show, then rambles on about her knowledge of fine art. Betty has no appreciation of the world of fine art (which after all, amounts to some collective judgment by supposed experts). In the original story, this is all leading up to a punch line where one of Veronica's friends asks Betty who her favorite artist is. Her answer is "My favorite artist is Dan DeCarlo! After all, where would this story be without him?" Here, the dialogue has been altered to the friend asking Betty "Who are your favorite artistS?" and Betty's reply is "My favorite artists are the Archie Comics staff!" Shame on ACP for being so low and self-serving as to alter the original story. Yes, the point is not that there was any outstanding artist. According to ACP philosophy, the names and individual talents of the artists are unimportant -- the only thing important is that they were deemed worthy of employment by ACP. Apart from that, they are each and every one of them equally talented, with none standing out. The point here is that Dan DeCarlo and Thomas Pitilli are the same and equal, because Archie deemed both worthy of employment at one time. Pay no attention to those credits, because the important thing is that they all drew stories featuring characters that the company owns. That is LOW and rotten.

BETTY AND ME #101 (Apr-79)

ARCHIE'S PALS 'n' GALS #136 (Oct-79) - Although this is from the pre-credits era, all stories here appear to be by Bob Bolling (although writing credits are harder to guess). There's one story in here "Games People Play", which is labeled as a Big Moose story, but really seems to be as much about Midge. The unlikely premise here is that while at the beach, Midge is engaged in a game of chess with Archie, which frustrates Moose because he doesn't understand the game, and there's nobody he can punch out to satisfy his frustration. So here's Midge lying on a blanket wearing a black bikini playing chess at the beach (seems pretty unlikely). Now the most interesting thing is that in the next panel, Dilton says he'll play the winner of this game, so if Midge wins, she has another game coming up. Moose wanders off, forlornly. When he comes back, Midge is playing another game, this time a word game where the players all yell out letters (I wasn't familiar with the game, and they don't go into further detail, other than it's just another frustration for Moose). He's informed by Archie that they finished playing chess, and that "Midge is the champ". Now, Dilton doesn't appear in the next few panels here or have any comment on what Archie just said, but the implication here is that Midge beat Archie (not too difficult to believe), and then played Dilton and beat him at chess also. Of course this is the Bolling-Archiverse, where oddball things happen which never seem to happen in the 'regular' Archiverse, but the ramifications of the revelation of Midge Klump being smart enough to beat Dilton Doiley at chess are mind-boggling, and call into question what exactly is Midge's deal, and why does she date Moose? I guess maybe you could infer something like trying to concentrate on playing chess while staring at Midge sitting so close wearing that black bikini was beyond even Dilton's ability to stay focused, but it seems more reasonable to suppose that the likelier implication is Midge really does have an unexpectedly keen intelligence. Something to think about.

PEP #348 (Apr-79)

ARCHIE 1941 #1 (of 5) - I read it to satisfy my curiosity. Can't say it motivated me to read issue #2.

ROCKY & BULLWINKLE SHOW #3
MOON MAID #1 (Fear on Four Worlds, Part II)
ELVIRA: MISTRESS OF THE DARK #2
KAIJUMAX SEASON 4 #2 (of 6)
TITANS #25
HAWKMAN #4
PLASTIC MAN #4 (of 6)
WRONG EARTH #1
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 #1
manga:
  CUTIE HONEY CLASSIC COLLECTION HC
  DEMENTIA 21 GN
  PRISON SCHOOL GN VOL 1 & 2 (of 10)

Quote from: Captain Jetpack on September 10, 2018, 07:13:02 AM
Pre ordered Incredibles 2 DVD off Amazon.


Get it.


It's as good as the first film.

I was underwhelmed by the first Incredibles film. To this day, I'm sort of mystified over how successful and popular it turned out to be. The film ran counter to my expectations, which is why I felt disappointed when I saw it. Based on my earlier viewing of the character designs, I'd expected to be watching a comedic superhero cartoon, but when I saw it, I didn't feel like the movie was very funny at all. So why the "cartoony" character designs, I wondered? Of course the CGI animation was superb, but I'd already seen Toy Story, so I was past being bedazzled by that aspect -- I'd already come to expect that in a Pixar-animated film. It did make me think that a similar Mighty Mouse film would work.

manga:
UROTSUKIDOJI: LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND TP VOL 1 (of 4)
BATMAN: THE JIRO KUWATA BATMANGA VOL 1-3 (of 3) DC 2014
SPIDER-MAN J VOL 1: JAPANESE KNIGHT (2008 digest/tankobon) by Akira Yamanaka
SPIDER-MAN J VOL 2: JAPANESE DAZE (2009 digest/tankobon) by Akira Yamanaka

Quote from: Terry1 on September 08, 2018, 05:32:41 PM
The failure to note the creators, or create an index, or even tell you which specific issues specific stories appeared in, is quite a failing.  But I guess they fixed that in the softcover versions.

Here you go, if you want to print them out.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 07, 2018, 09:20:38 AM
I'm waiting for the graphic novel of "Vampironica" but I'm glad to see you like the art. I thought Afterlife With Archie was an absolute masterpiece and I say this as someone who is not a horror fan at all. Issue 10 about the origin of Josie and the Pussycats is one of my favorite issues of any comic EVER.


The fact that Archie Comics dropped the ball on Afterlife and CHAOS when they were their best selling titles is ridiculous. I can't imagine any other comic company being so horribly managed.  I admit I know next to nothing about other comic companies, but to not milk your best properties is just mind boggling.

Well, what can they do? Those titles aren't going to sell worth a hill of beans if all of a sudden someone else takes over Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's storylines and starts taking them in their own direction. Unfortunately or not, their sales are pretty much dependent on the fact that he's been the writer. Those are HIS stories, not someone else's.

And where are RAS's talents arguably being put to use that's of the most value to ACP?  Um, RIVERDALE, you think maybe?

That said, it's apparent that Greg Smallwood (who both draws and co-writes VAMPIRONICA) is putting a great deal of care into the title from both ends of the process. He's researched his subject matter, and lets us know it with those short "Riverdale Gazette" text pieces, which show he's not just knocking these issues out, like "What's to know about vampires? Anyone can write a vampire story" --- which may be true enough, but not everyone can write a GOOD one. Another thing I like here is his making some unusual choices, like when push comes to shove, who stands up to become the first of Riverdale's "fearless vampire hunters"? The easy choice would have been Betty Cooper, or (boring old) Archie Andrews... yawn. Nope, the one who "hero's up" first is Dilton Doiley! Good show, Mr. Smallwood! That said, this title seems to come out once every three months (still a lot better than AwA or ChAoS), so you may be waiting a while still until they get 4 or 5 issues out that it takes to make up a TPB.

MARVEL MANGAVERSE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION TP by Ben Dunn, Udon, C.B. Cebulski & Tommy Ohtsuka & various
MARVEL NEW MANGAVERSE: THE RINGS OF FATE (2006 digest/tankobon) by C.B. Cebulski & Tommy Ohtsuka

ASTRA: LOST IN SPACE VOL 04 tankobon - This is an amazing series. I originally picked it up knowing next to nothing about it, just taking a chance. It's been great so far, a nice balance of drama/sci-fi with more personality interaction and humor. At first it seems to set up huge mysteries based on seemingly improbable coincidences, but in this volume most of the mysteries are explained and all the pieces fall together in a neat way that I didn't exactly predict, and the answers are shocking, but just when you (and the protagonists) are getting used to this major revelation, a new HUGE plot twist is added as a cliffhanger ending to this volume (although in fairness, it's something that had some foreshadowing in previous volumes). It's a neat surprise to see how imaginative this series turned out to be.

VALIANT HIGH TP - I'm not a fan of Valiant Comics. Never really cared for that universe of characters. I followed the first version of the company, back in the 1990s, when they licensed the old Gold Key Comics characters Solar, Magnus, and Turok... but only for the first couple of years, until they fired Jim Shooter, who had been responsible for starting the whole thing (and writing the key titles SOLAR and MAGNUS) in the first place. After that (with the exception of Tim Truman's later work on the TUROK Dinosaur Hunter title) I pretty much lost all interest in Valiant. The first incarnation of the company folded up sometime in the late 1990s. When Valiant resurrected itself in the 2000s, it was run by completely different people, and they didn't license the old GK characters any more. I'd never been interested much in the newer characters created in the 1990s, which are all the IPs that the new version of the company retained. I'm vaguely familar with the ones who headlined their own titles back in the 1990s, but that's all. It's hard to tell whether "Valiant High" is just them having some fun with the characters, or if this is really supposed to be in-continuity as far as their mainline universe is concerned. It didn't matter to me, as the main characters in this four-issue miniseries were all ones I wasn't familiar with anyway. But it works, largely on the charm (you should excuse the pun) of Derek Charm's artwork, which is the thing that attracted me to read this in the first place. I kind of liked it, but am a little disappointed that that's all there is to is, just the four issues. Hopefully if it sold well enough it could become an ongoing title, or at least a once-every-so-often series of miniseries. It was fun, and not afraid to be humorous.

VAMPIRONICA #3 - Greg Smallwood's artwork on this title is pretty amazing. I'm not sure what medium he's using, but all the lines look really textured, like some kind of charcoal pencil shading, or maybe a grease pencil -- or maybe it's even a Photoshop effect created after scanning in the original raw pencils. I'd be curious to know how he does it. Anyway, it's a unique effect I can't really recall ever seeing in another comic artist's work. The story is pretty decent, too... I'm kind of mind-boggled by this short text piece in the "Riverdale Gazette" in this issue that gives a very concise (2/3rds of a page) textual summary of the of the very real historical personage Prince Vlad Tepes III, a.k.a. "Vlad the Impaler", otherwise known as Dracula (and it explains where that name came from). He may not have been an actual vampire in real life, but he was just as scary, if not more so, for all of that. Definitely the best of Archie's Horror titles so far.

PROJECT SUPERPOWERS #2
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP #5 (of 5)
ASGARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #1
SILVER SURFER ANNUAL #1

GIANT ROBOT WARRIOR MAINTENANCE CREW TP - Collecting a short (3-issue) miniseries from 2014 about the trials and tribulations of maintaining the operating capabilities of a giant robot mecha. Funny.

NEW LIEUTENANTS OF METAL #3 (of 4)
UNNATURAL #3 (of 12)
BY NIGHT #2 & 3
UNITED STATES VS MURDER INC #1 (of 6)

MANGAMAN OGN TP (2011 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Barry Lyga & Colleen Doran - An interesting concept, where a manga character is sucked through a dimensional portal to become a character in a western-style comic book, and dealing with all the cultural differences between Japanese and western-style comics, to comedic effect. Colleen Doran has always been a talented artist, and it's too bad you don't see her drawing more mainstream projects for the bigger publishers.

UNCLE SCROOGE #443
CYBORG 009 HC OGN [Archaia, 2013] by F.J. DeSanto & Marcus To
ULTRA KAIJU HUMANIZATION PROJECT VOL 01 tankobon
SAINT SEIYA: SAINTIA SHO VOL 03 tankobon
CAPTAIN HARLOCK Space Pirate: DIMENSIONAL VOYAGE VOL 05 tankobon
GANTZ OMNIBUS TP VOL 01 (= Vols. 1-3 tankobon)
HILLBILLY: RED EYED WITCHERY FROM BEYOND #1 (of 4)
HACK/SLASH RESURRECTION #8 & 1O
RICK & MORTY #41
RICK & MORTY VS DUNGEONS & DRAGONS #1 (of 4)
X-MEN: GRAND DESIGN: SECOND GENESIS #2 (of 2)
JUDGE DREDD: UNDER SIEGE #4 (of 4)

Anime. Nothing but anime. I've been watching:
THE BIG O (Seasons 1 & 2; 26 episode TV series)
GIANT ROBO: The Animation (8-episode OAV)
BABEL II: Perfect Collection (4-episode OAV)
BABEL II: BEYOND INFINITY (13-episode TV series)
TIGER & BUNNY The Movie: THE BEGINNING
TIGER & BUNNY The Movie: THE RISING
CYBORG 009: The Cyborg Soldier (first 8 episodes from 2001-02 TV series)
009 RE:CYBORG (anime movie)
CYBORG 009: CALL OF JUSTICE (found it on YouTube, but NetFlix has it officially)
009-01 (13-episode TV series)
GAIKING: The Movie Collection (3 films edited together from 15 TV episodes)
DANGUARD ACE: The Movie Collection (3 films edited together from 15 TV episodes)