Hmmm.... it appears I'll have to recheck all those release dates (all of which were taken from the Penguin Random House website, which distributes ACP trade collections to the booksellers' market).

I see already that (at least for comic shop customers) THE COMPLETE COSMO THE MERRY MARTIAN TP is due on June 13, rather than the date given on Penguin Random's website (I wouldn't think the difference in release dates would vary more than 2 or 3 days at most between comic shops and book retailers). Maybe that one title is a fluke, I don't know. When I get some time, I'll recheck the others against Diamond Comics' scheduled release dates.

SUPER-SONS/DYNOMUTT #1 (one-shot)
AQUAMAN/JABBERJAW #1 (one-shot)
FLASH/SPEED BUGGY #1 (one-shot)
BLACK LIGHTNING/HONG KONG PHOOEY #1 (one-shot)

Manga:
  Go Nagai's DEVILMAN: THE CLASSIC COLLECTION VOL 01 HC
  Shintaro Kago's SUPER-DIMENSIONAL LOVE GUN TP (short stories)
  Baron Yoshimoto's THE TROUBLEMAKERS TP (short stories)

EDITED 06-10-18 to update release dates. Bookstore market release dates in BLUE, comic shop release dates in RED.
Items with no dates in red have not been solicited (as of 06-10) by Diamond Comics for the comic shop marketplace.

Archie Comics Presents... series:
  THE COMPLETE COSMO THE MERRY MARTIAN TP | 224 Pages | 5-1/4 x 8 | $10.99 | Jul 03, 2018 | Jun 13, 2018
  ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH VOL. 1 TP | 224 Pages | 5-1/4 x 8 | $10.99 | Jul 10, 2018 | Jun 20, 2018
  BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR VOL. 1 TP | 224 Pages | 5-1/4 x 8 | $10.99 | Aug 21, 2018 | Aug 1, 2018
  LIFE WITH ARCHIE VOL. 1 TP | 224 Pages | 5-1/4 x 8 | $10.99 | Sep 18, 2018 | Aug 29, 2018
  ARCHIE AND ME VOL. 1 TP | 224 Pages | 5-1/4 x 8 | $10.99 | Nov 13, 2018
  EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE VOL. 1 TP | 224 Pages | 5-1/4 x 8 | $10.99 | Dec 11, 2018
  BETTY AND ME VOL. 1 TP | 224 Pages | 5-1/4 x 8 | $10.99 | Jan 22, 2019
  REGGIE AND ME VOL. 1 TP | 224 Pages | 5-1/4 x 8 | $10.99 | Feb 19, 2019

Archie's Big Book series:
  ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK VOL. 4: FAIRY TALES TP | 304 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10 | $19.99 | Aug 14, 2018 | Jul 25, 2018
  ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK VOL. 5: ACTION ADVENTURE TP | 304 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10 | $19.99 | Jan 08, 2019

Best of Archie Comics series:
  THE BEST OF ARCHIE AMERICANA VOL. 3: BRONZE AGE 1980s-1990s TP | 416 Pages | 5-1/4 x 7-1/2 | $9.99 | Sep 04, 2018 | Aug 15, 2018
  THE BEST OF ARCHIE COMICS DELUXE EDITION BOOK THREE HC | 416 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10-3/16 | Oct 23, 2018

Archie Giant Comics Digest series:
  ARCHIE GIANT COMICS BASH TP | 416 Pages | 4-7/8 x 6-9/16 | $9.99 | Nov 27, 2018  *(NOTE - Page count reduced by 64; cover price increased by $2)

Archie 1000 Page Comics Digest series:
  ARCHIE 1000 PAGE COMICS ROMP TP | 1000 Pages | 4-7/8 x 6-9/16 | $14.99 | Oct 09, 2018

ARCHIE'S HOLIDAY COLORING BOOK TP | 128 Pages | 7-1/4 x 10-7/8 | $9.99 | Nov 06, 2018

ARCHIE MODERN CLASSICS VOL. 1: BEST OF 2018 TP | 256 Pages | 5-1/4 x 7-1/2 | $9.99 | Feb 05, 2019
  (The description in the solicition for this one is vague. Could be reprints of the new lead stories from 2018 digests, or something else altogether.)

ARCHIE: A CELEBRATION OF AMERICA'S FAVORITE TEENAGERS TP edited by Craig Yoe | 220 Pages | 8-1/2 x 11 | $29.99 | Oct 09, 2018 | Jul 25, 2018 
   -- A softcover reprint (with new cover) of the sold-out hardcover edition from 2011.

THE ARCHIES VOL 1 TP | 144 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10-3/16 | $17.99 | Jun 19, 2018 | Available now (comic shops)

BETTY & VERONICA: VIXENS VOL. 1 TP | 136 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10-3/16 | $14.99 | Jul 24, 2018 | Jul 04, 2018

JUGHEAD THE HUNGER VOL. 1 TP | 144 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10-3/16 | $17.99 | Aug 07, 2018 | Jun 18, 2018

THE FOX VOL. 2: FOX HUNT TP | 136 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10-3/16 | $14.99 | Sep 11, 2018 | Aug 22, 2018

COSMO VOL. 1: SPACE ACES TP | 128 Pages | 6 x 9 | $12.99 | Oct 16, 2018  (Collects Cosmo #1-5 by Ian Flynn & Tracy Yardley)

ARCHIE VOL. 6 TP | 144 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10-3/16 | $17.99 | Oct 30, 2018

THE ARCHIES VOL 2 TP | 104 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10-3/16 | $17.99 | Nov 20, 2018

BETTY & VERONICA: VIXENS VOL. 2 TP | 136 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10-3/16 | $14.99 | Dec 04, 2018

CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA VOL. 2 TP | 176 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10-3/16 | $19.99 | Dec 18, 2018

THE MIGHTY CRUSADERS VOL. 1 TP | 120 Pages | 6-5/8 x 10-3/16 | $12.99 | Jan 15, 2019  (Collects Mighty Crusaders 2017 #1-4 & Superteens vs. Crusaders #1-2)

Normally I'm predisposed to like comics which offer a hindsight view of 1940s comics characters, but in this case I think I'll pass.

Web bots bumping old threads from 2016.

Quote from: archiecomicscollector on June 02, 2018, 03:54:00 PM
Speaking of crossovers....I'd love to see CW's Supernatural crossover with Archie's Weird Mysteries, similar to their Scoobynatural episode earlier this year. I loved watching Archie's Weird Mysteries in the early 2000s.

I still say they need to do a crossover with the actual Scooby-Doo. I don't know if it would be a callback to Archie's Weird Mysteries (which did its own Scooby parody in one issue) because that was 18 years ago, and the TV series wasn't big enough to be that well-remembered by the wider public (as opposed to dyed-in-the-wool Archie fans), but that would be one of the most natural team-ups of all time.

The evolution of Scooby-Doo (the original Hanna-Barbera series) owes a lot to the success of Filmation's The Archie Show, with the basic H-B concept being that of a band (like the Archies) that would solve mysteries (like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew), and the addition of a dog to the cast was almost an accidental afterthought. Except that Mystery Incorporated wound up not being a band after all, just background music during the chase scenes. Then when H-B finally wound up licensing the rights to actual Archie Comics characters, they decided to turn Josie and her friends (or at least Melody) into a mystery-solving band -- but the people at H-B apparently didn't like Pepper and Albert, so they replaced them with Valerie and Alan M. (note the suspicious similarity between Alan and Scooby's Fred Jones). I think the thought behind featuring Hot Dog and Scooby in those shows at that time (1968-69) was that animation studios still weren't confident in relying on animated humans for comedy in a show, and with cartoon pets, they felt more comfortable and could skew them more towards the more traditional anthropomorphic animal antics -- thus, Scooby could talk and we could hear what Hot Dog was thinking, like any traditional cartoon animal character.

ARCHIE 3000! #2 (Jul 1989)
JUGHEAD #4 (Feb 1988)
JUGHEAD'S DINER (1990) #5, 7
DILTON'S STRANGE SCIENCE (1989-90) #2, #4
VERONICA (1989) #2, 3, 4, 5
ARCHIE'S T.V. LAUGH-OUT #77 (Jul 1980)
LAUGH (Vol. 2, 1988-90) #3, 6, 12, 16, 19 - You know, I never really cared for the first volume of LAUGH. While you can undoubtedly find some issues in the run that contain some notable stories, there was never anything that stood out as a regular feature to distinguish that title -- just a mostly-bland hodge-podge of run-of-the-mill stories featuring Archie and the gang. Same goes for PEP, except for issues from a few years in the 1960s, where you could find some Josie, The Fly, Fly-Girl, or Jaguar stories. On the other hand, I always loved ARCHIE'S T.V. LAUGH-OUT (and pick them up whenever I can find them) because it consistently featured both Sabrina and Josie stories. It finally dawned on me after reading enough issues that the second volume of LAUGH was really more of a continuation of T.V. LAUGH-OUT (even though that title had ended its run an entire year earlier, and Volume 1 of LAUGH had then picked up a few Sabrina stories in some issues during the interim) than it was of the first volume of LAUGH, because LAUGH Vol. 2 consistently featured both Sabrina and Josie stories, just as T.V. LAUGH-OUT had. The T.V. LAUGH-OUT title had launched in 1969 when The Archies, Sabrina, and Josie were all starring in animated series on television, but the name of the comic, having been originally inspired as a take-off on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, must have seemed really dated by 1986 when it was cancelled.  The other consistent feature in every issue of LAUGH Volume 2 (never an ongoing feature in any other title) is "The Mighty Archie Art Players". This feature had appeared sporadically in a few random issues of other titles (the earliest I could find is in REGGIE AND ME #68, Jan. 1974), and was really just a way of grouping all those random Archie stories which took place in other times and places under one heading, with a slight skew towards literary or film parodies. Some similar concepts like Archie 1 (the gang as prehistoric cave-people), Archie the Barbarian, or Starship Rivdale had made strings of appearances elsewhere (in LIFE WITH ARCHIE or EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE) before, as well. But in The Mighty Archie Art Players we never really see any framing device to the stories where our "players" appear out of character and/or behind the scenes as actors, so they could all have been stand-alone stories appearing randomly in different titles, rather than a "series" connected by nothing more than a loose concept. Still, some of these are kind of fun. Volume 2 of LAUGH had a fairly short run of only 29 issues, so I'm going to see how many of this run I can manage to collect. They seem a lot less scarce than older issues of JOSIE or SABRINA, or even T.V. LAUGH-OUT.

BETTY AND ME #111, 112, 153, 162, 170, 176
BETTY'S DIARY #3 (Aug 1986)
BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR (Archie Giant Series) #559 (Jun 1986), #575 (Oct 1987)
Archie's Girls BETTY AND VERONICA (1950) #290, 296, 299 (1980); #343, 344 (1986)
BETTY AND VERONICA (1987) #23 (Sep 1989)

BETTY AND VERONICA JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #263 - Good issue. Notable stories include 1990s Sabrina by DeCarlo, classic 1960s Doyle/DeCarlo BETTY AND ME stories, Part 1 (of 5) of the reader-voted "And The Winner Is..." where Cheryl appears on the TV dating game show Lonely Hearts Club (no appearance by the band, too bad), and weirdly, two different Dan Parent stories where Veronica attempts to go from home to school (one just a normal school day, the second for the prom) in the private Lodge helicopter. [Spoilers: she doesn't make it.] Too bad this issue arrived in the mail two weeks late.


FLEX ARMSTRONG & THE FLEX FIGHTERS #1-3 (of 3)
KILL OR BE KILLED #19 (of 20)
SAVAGE DRAGON #234
RICK & MORTY #38
VAMPIRONICA #2 - I have to admit I liked the second issue better than the first. There was a lot less action, but a lot more story, and somewhat intelligently scripted, in addition to being well-drawn, by the Smallwoods. As much as I have a natural resistance to the idea of totally reinventing the Archie characters in this genre, I would probably have to admit that this could be the best of the Archie Horror titles so far. It even manages to be a better female vampire heroine story than the last couple of attempts by Dynamite at presenting Vampirella in a series. If it manages to to actually ship on a regular, consistent basis this could become one of ACP's best selling, and longest-running titles.

JUDGE DREDD: UNDER SIEGE #1
INFINITY COUNTDOWN: CAPTAIN MARVEL #1 (one-shot)
MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #6
LOCKJAW #4 (of 4)

DOOMSDAY CLOCK #5 (of 12)
JUSTICE LEAGUE: NO JUSTICE #4 (of 4) - It was really odd reading these two titles (both of which supposedly take place in the 'mainstream' DC universe) back to back, because it really highlights the contrast. The two titles just don't feel like they take place in the same universe, despite them featuring a lot of the same DC characters. I mean, yes, it's obvious that if they were taking place in the same universe, the two stories couldn't be taking place concurrent to each other -- one would have to begin and end prior to the other. Yet because of the nature of the backstory connections and what No Justice leads immediately into, it feels like it's more part of the current DC mainstream universe (three new ongoing JUSTICE LEAGUE series will spin off the events of NO JUSTICE). It seemed to start off great from a conceptual POV, with the introduction of a big cosmic menace to the whole universe, which can only be defeated by disassembling the all of the current DC hero teams, and dividing them up again into four new Justice League teams with key supervillains as part of the line-ups -- all overseen with the help of Brainiac, the only one smart enough to figure things out, and how to defeat the big cosmic threat.  And of course, there's immediate chaos among the heroes and conflict over the "but can we trust him?" factor. The first three issues of No Justice were all a build-up in tension, whereas the last one just seems like the threat was resolved far too easily -- a real deus ex machina ending. We are assured by the characters in the story, however, that the universe has been irrevocably changed and will never be the same after these events. It didn't feel too convincing to me. By where it left off at the end of issue #3, it seems like the plot/storyline hadn't even quite reached the half-point of development, and it felt like the series should have taken its time to play things out over at least 6 issues, if not 8 or 12. Events were set into motion by something (the breaking of the Source Wall) which occurred in the earlier event series METAL (which I didn't read past the first couple of issues because it was so convoluted). I blame Scott Snyder, who masterminded both METAL and this (although DC employed other writers to actually script from Snyder's plot). I didn't care for Snyder's take on Batman, and I don't care for the idea of DC making him the 'architect' of its universe.

DOOMSDAY CLOCK, on the other hand, is a sequel to WATCHMEN (1986), DC's most-reprinted graphic novel collection, and is written by Geoff Johns. For a number of years prior to the 2011 New 52 DC reboot, Johns had been the mastermind behind revitalizing a number of DC's character franchises that had gone fallow, including JSA/Justice Society of America, Hawkman, Teen Titans, Green Lantern (with GL: Rebirth), Flash (beginning with FLASH: Rebirth, that brought back the dead-since-CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS Barry Allen Flash), Superman (with SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN and a run in ACTION COMICS), Booster Gold (in collaboration with BG's creator, Dan Jurgens), and the CRISIS sequel INFINTE CRISIS, as well as the line-wide GL-centric big event series DARKEST NIGHT and its sequel BRIGHTEST DAY. Despite also being the writer of the execrable (but best-selling) editorially-concocted FLASHPOINT, which destroyed the remnants of the old DCU and led into the New 52 reboot, Johns was then promoted to the position of DC's Chief Creative Officer, and given the flagship New 52 JUSTICE LEAGUE to insure a strong backbone series for the N52 relaunch -- but since giving it up the writing on JL last year, it's not surprising that last year's relaunch/refresh (but not a reBOOT, per se) of DC's main universe was rolled out under the REBIRTH banner for all their main universe titles. Johns wrote the introductory one-shot REBIRTH issue, which hinted at the arrival in the mainstream DCU of survivors from the WATCHMEN universe, and followed up last year with a four-part crossover in BATMAN and FLASH tying together plot threads from FLASHPOINT with both WATCHMEN and the general scheme of the current state of reality across the DC Multiverse. Which brings us to DOOMSDAY CLOCK, with a handful of Watchmen refugees (Ozymandias, Dr. Manhattan, Nite-Owl, Rorschach, and The Comedian, as well as a few minor characters) appearing to shake things up in the regular DCU. It feels carefully written, and evocative of the general tone and style of the original WATCHMEN, but somehow seems at odds with the general feel of DC's current line. Things here, as in WATCHMEN, are handled in more of a real-world way, with the rise of a populist backlash to superheroes in general, according to a belief in what is called "The Superman Theory", a conspiracy claim that the vast numbers of superheroes (in the U.S., particularly) is attributable to the fact that most superheroes are, in fact, products of a secret government plan to create a metahuman army, stimulating metagene-positive individuals by exposure to various traumatic conditions in order to activate their latent superpowers. All well and good, but it really doesn't seem to fit with the general ethos of the DCU. Why would the public suddenly become suspicious and hostile towards superheroes after years of them being around? The lesson to be learned from the orignal WATCHMEN is that too much grim and gritty reality undermines the basic fantasy element necessary for the suspension of disbelief that allows an entire fantastic genre of superheroes to exist in ongoing monthly adventures; if there is change in the DCU, it is mostly of the illusory sort -- i.e., the changes are temporary and reversible, according to the whims of editors, writers, and consumer reactions. In the Watchmen universe, designed to adhere more closely to the real world as its basic premise, consequences of actions and the impact on the status quo is permanent and irreversible. Dead is dead, if you saw the body buried. In the DCU, Superman, Batman, Robin, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, and Wonder Woman have all died at least once (and in some cases, multiple times) but are still around, and none the worse for wear, still ready to do their jobs of selling more comic book stories every month, even if they sometimes got a temporary time-out to be replaced by someone else carrying the names and wearing the costumes. Since we know that, unlike the original Watchmen, the DCU characters must go on and on in monthly adventures, after the conclusion of this series, rather than being irrevocably altered by the impact of events in this self-contained storyline, one might wonder what exactly is the point of the plot, here? Well, to sell comic books, obviously -- but can there ever be any really satisfying conclusion to this story? One wonders, too, where are the original Charlton Comics characters (owned by DC Comics since 1985) on whom the Watchmen were based -- Captain Atom (Dr. Manhattan), The Blue Beetle (Nite-Owl), The Question (Rorschach), Peacemaker (The Comedian), and Thunderbolt (Ozymandias)? While they have kept a relatively low profile in the DCU since 1985 as second-string heroes, it would be fascinating to see them by comparison and contrast to their darker/more realist counterparts from Watchmen. Little things about the DCU just seem kind of "off" in DOOMSDAY CLOCK, like the former villainess Killer Frost (as recent as a couple of months ago, now a member of the Justice League of America) making an appearance, looking totally different (in fact, her appearance in DOOMSDAY CLOCK goes back to her original look created for FIRESTORM in the 1980s, while her current DCU appearance is quite a bit altered since then). Batman is wearing the yellow-circled bat-emblem on his costume that he hasn't worn in years now. Superman already has his red shorts back, even before Brian Michael Bendis arrived at DC to restore them in the new MAN OF STEEL miniseries. None of that will matter to the many readers who'll be reading this story in a later collected edition -- readers who've read Watchmen but are not regular followers of the current DC line. And perhaps the series was designed to be so, as opposed to seamlessly blending with the current stream of DC's mainstream universe reality.

Manga:
  SAINT SEIYA: SAINTIA SHO VOL 02 [tankobon Pb] - This is another manga which is a cosmic/mythological science-fantasy action saga (a spinoff of the popular 1980s/90s Shonen Jump series Saint Seiya, known in translation as KNIGHTS OF THE ZODIAC) in the general vein of Jack Kirby's THOR or THE NEW GODS, or Jim Starlin's various cosmic superhero sagas with Thanos. The goddess Athena has been reborn on earth after many centuries, and is beginning her process of 'awakening' in the body of a young Japanese woman, in anticipation of the coming Galaxian Wars. The evil Eris, goddess of discord, has also been similarly reborn into the body of an earthwoman and is awakening to her full power. Athena is dedicated to preserving justice, and devoted to protecting mankind from the machinations of the gods, and so a cadre of guardian-warriors have been recruited to wear special metallic 'cloth', a kind of body armor capable of reconfiguring itself independently of its user, and become Athena's "Saints", her personal bodyguards until she awakens fully to her powers, and afterwards her private army to defeat the evil being sown among humans on earth by Eris and her confederates. Saints must develop their innate 'cosmo' which is a kind of psychically-deployed means of transmuting matter and energy, in order to wear the sacred cloths based on various zodiacal signs, and best serve Athena in her battle to protect humanity from destruction.

Quote from: ASS-P on May 27, 2018, 05:11:23 AM
...TIPPY TEEN material was,  additionally,  reprinted in the 70s by Martin Goodman's short-lived Atlas Seaboard Comics,  relettered,  to be called VICKI.

Four issues, with covers drawn by Stan Goldberg. Stan G didn't do any of the interior artwork for Harry Shorten's Tippy Teen or Go-Go and Animal. He was a regular-salaried employee (head colorist for the entire line) in Marvel's production department from 1949 (age 17) until 1968, when he went freelance. From then on, he continued to color and draw stories for Marvel (Millie the Model and Millie's Rival, Chili), while freelancing on teen humor art assignments for DC (on Debbie, Scooter, and Binky), Archie, and those four Vicki covers for Chip Goodman's Atlas Comics. Stan got around, becoming known among publishers as the go-to guy for a quick turnaround on a teen humor story, or especially, a cover.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on May 26, 2018, 08:40:11 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 25, 2018, 04:55:36 PM
I really think in pushing hard for television adaptations like Riverdale and Sabrina, Jon Goldwater's true goal is to raise Archie's cultural awareness just high enough to attract a big media conglomerate as a buyer for ACP.

I would imagine he's got something like a hundred-million figure in mind for the sale of all ACP's intellectual property, but I bet if he got a serious offer about a third of that size, he'd sign on the dotted line and bail out next month -- if Nancy Silberkleit is willing to take her cut and walk.

Nancy might just block it for spite depending on her financial condition.

This is all just my subjective impressions, but the general vibe I got from Nancy is that she wanted to keep Archie in the traditional mode, for the traditional audience (pre-teens and young kids, girls especially), whereas the impression I get from JG is that he doesn't give a fig about comics as a medium, the characters, OR the audience -- he just wants to make money. If the newsstand market is evaporating, he's probably correct in the assessment that ACP can only try to cater to the smaller (but fairly stable and dedicated) audience of comic shop consumers if he wants to continue in publishing. Not that he actually "wants" to continue as a publisher per se, just that he wants to build a small heap of material suitable to attract the attentions of media adaptations, which is hopefully raising the coin of ACP's intellectual property holdings to the extent that some corporation might see some potential in owning those characters as exploitable, marketable, pre-sold audience material. He's just looking to cash out and retire in ease. On the other hand, Nancy Silberkleit has demonstrated in the past that she does care about some things, at least -- kids with disabilities, literacy, and so forth, and wants to use the characters' familiarity to help those causes. That's my read on the situation, anyway.

Not that I'm implying that makes Jonboy G out to be something like the Antichrist of the comic book industry or anything. In my opinion, it just makes him... well, pretty much the same as any of the folks making the business management decisions at Marvel or DC, or... most comic book publishers, medium-sized or even small. Like any other line of work, there are people who are in the comic book business because they love the work and can't imagine doing anything else, and people... who are not. Hey, the way I look at it, most people think about a lot of the same things in their jobs. "I'd like to keep my job. I'd like to make my boss happy, and not have him breathing down my neck. I'd like to get a promotion and do less of the grunt work, have more responsibility. I'd like to make more money so I don't have to worry about current bills, or my future. I've worked long enough; I'd like to retire now comfortably and just relax for a while." Had I entered the biz via the same route JG did, I can't say with any assurance that I'd do things any differently than he is. My only real gripe with the guy is both an aesthetic and practical one -- that he's putting out fewer and fewer pages of new material of the kind of Archie Comics I enjoy reading. And I guess I can't even really be an objective judge of whether or not someone "loves comics" or doesn't, because they might just have polar opposite tastes in what's good than I do -- just like anyone involved in any aspect, not only of the comic book industry, but ANY media that employs characters originating in comics. I can absolutely love something like Cartoon Network's JUSTICE LEAGUE ACTION cartoon, while looking at the trailer for Warner Brothers' JUSTICE LEAGUE movie with a blank-faced "What the what?" and shrugging, "Doesn't have anything to do with me; sorry, no interest." I can love the idea of ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66, or the DC characters appearing in SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP, while not giving two beans about what's going on in the regular ongoing DC universe BATMAN or SUPERMAN comic books. Same with Archie comic books; same with RIVERDALE. There will always be something else to read (or watch), I guess, whether new or old.

I really think in pushing hard for television adaptations like Riverdale and Sabrina, Jon Goldwater's true goal is to raise Archie's cultural awareness just high enough to attract a big media conglomerate as a buyer for ACP.

I would imagine he's got something like a hundred-million figure in mind for the sale of all ACP's intellectual property, but I bet if he got a serious offer about a third of that size, he'd sign on the dotted line and bail out next month -- if Nancy Silberkleit is willing to take her cut and walk.

05-17 to 05-24-18:
JIMMYS BASTARDS #8
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NICK WILSON #5 (of 5)
G.I. JOE VS THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN #4 (of 4)
HIT-GIRL #4

COSMO #5 (of 5) - Sorry to see it go. Along with YOUR PAL ARCHIE and MIGHTY CRUSADERS, it's one of a very few floppy comics ACP has published in the last year or two that I really enjoyed. There's still SUPERTEENS VS CRUSADERS upcoming, but that's a mere 2-issue microseries, and then ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66 (which I'm not sure how many issues there are supposed to be of... probably somewhere between 4 and 6). And then there's the upcoming DIE KITTY DIE: HEAVEN & HELL from AstroComix and (hopefully) more of SUPER SUCKERS from Darin Henry's SitComics.

SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP (with Blue Falcon & Dynomutt) #38 - It's officially my favorite DC comic book right now (with Future Quest Presents in 2nd place). Writer Sholly Fisch does a great job of working in Easter eggs and in-jokes for long-time DC fans, and handles the humor deftly with a light touch, and I'm loving the variety of DC and Hanna-Barbera guest-stars.

LOONEY TUNES #243 - It's good, but the writing tends to be variable from story to story.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: NO JUSTICE #3 (of 4) - DC heroes and villains reconfigured into new Justice League teams to battle 4 giant cosmic beings (somewhat like Marvel's Galactus in that they feed on the energies of entire planets)

FLASH #47 ("Flash War", Part 1) - Not sure if I'll stick with this, or if it's really going anywhere in particular with this story of Wally West's pre-Flashpoint/New 52 reboot memories.

DETECTIVE COMICS #981 - "Batmen Eternal" Conclusion. Looks like they're breaking up the Bat-family team that starred in this title since the first Rebirth issue (#934, which restored the legacy numbering) and changing the writer, so this might be my last issue. I enjoy the Batman-inspired protege characters, and liked seeing them interact as a regular team, and James Tynion IV was one of the few of the more recent crop of writers at DC whose work I liked. The new writer Bryan Hill, is an unknown to me, and the solicitations for #982 and beyond don't really interest me.

WONDER WOMAN #47 - I haven't been enjoying this as much the last couple of issues, but I guess I'll keep following it through issue #50, which appears to be the last written by James Robinson (an old favorite of mine). Looks like I'm dropping most of the few DC in-universe titles which I still read. (I'm not thrilled with the idea of Brian Michael Bendis taking over on Superman, either. He pretty much ruined Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy for me, over at Marvel.)

THE TERRIFICS #4 - Still reading this (for a while, at least) because I enjoy Jeff Lemire's work, especially on Dark Horse's BLACK HAMMER and its various spinoff miniseries).

INFINITY COUNTDOWN: DARKHAWK #1 (of 4)
THE BEEF #4 (of 5)
BLACK HAMMER: AGE OF DOOM #2
PELLUCIDAR: AT THE EARTH'S CORE #1 (one-shot)
STAR TREK: NEW VISIONS #21: "THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY"
THE SEASON OF THE SNAKE #1 & 2
Millenium Edition: Superman's Girl Friend LOIS LANE #1 (1958/2000 reprint)
Millenium Edition: Superman's Pal JIMMY OLSEN #1 (1954/2000 reprint)
Millenium Edition: Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD #1 (1952/2000 reprint)

WORLD'S FINEST COMICS #166 (May 1967) - This was the first and only appearance of Bron Wayn E7705, the 20th direct descendant of Bruce Wayne and the future Batman of 2967. In this story, "The Danger of the Deadly Duo" written by then-High School student Jim Shooter (later to become the editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics in the 1980s), he first teams up with the Superman of 2967 [Klar Ken T5477] to battle their two archenemies, the future Joker and Superman's arch-foe Muto (a yellow-skinned hyperencephalic mutant with advanced telekinetic powers). The story was a sequel to previous appearances of the Superman of the 30th Century in SUPERMAN #181 and ACTION COMICS #338-39 (all written by Edmond Hamilton, who also wrote many of the early Legion of Super-Heroes stories). Unlike some other occasional diversions from the normal Superman continuity of the time, this one was not labeled as an "Imaginary Story" that "may or may not ever happen someday", but this was the final story in this sequence of future Superman tales. I loved searching out and discovering these oddball "special" stories as a young comic book collector. All of them were reprinted in the 2008 trade paperback collection, SUPERMAN: PAST AND FUTURE.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on May 24, 2018, 12:17:43 PM
I can't really see returning to classic style helping all that much. It wasn't selling which is why the reboots happened to begin with.


I think to most people, Archie Comics are an anachronism.  Not sure there's much they can do except continue the gimmicks like horror, the tv show, and crossovers (Batman '66) until they run out of ideas.

That's pretty much the size of it, Vegan. I can see something like, once RIVERDALE has run its course, it getting an animated spinoff that's more comedy oriented, and then there being a floppy comic book based on that, but I think that's about as close as we'll get, apart from the occasional crossover miniseries or one-shot. The crossovers are all aimed at an older, nostalgic audience of comic book collectors, as proven by the properties chosen: Kiss, Predator, The Ramones, and Batman '66 (even Harley & Ivy, arguably most familiar to the audience that watched Batman the Animated Series in the early 1990s). Still hoping to see one with Scooby-Doo.

The fact that ACP doesn't want to invest in more new pages of classic Archie stories to keep feeding the source material for ongoing digest reprints indicates that they don't see those digests having much longer of a future.

Quote from: DakotaArchieFan on May 23, 2018, 08:16:03 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 23, 2018, 01:51:18 PM

Quote from: terrence12 on May 16, 2018, 11:05:10 AM
Archie comics has gained a renaissance after going through low sales throughout the 80's,90s and 2000s all thanks to the  the leadership of current CEO  Jon Goldwater.

Archie Comics' average monthly sales are still lower than they were in the '80s, '90s, and from 2000-2009.
So if you want to spin those statistics under the heading of "renaissance", then yeah whatever, I guess.

So you can't really compare numbers to those time periods, you'd have to look at how they did vs all the other companies - where did they rank in sales for the month, and if those relative numbers improved.

I don't know where you'd find accurate comparative sales statistics, because the only sales available are those for the direct (comic shop) market -- and we all know Archie does terrible in that market, both then and now. Perhaps a little less terrible in that market than they did 5 years ago, but on the other hand, ACP's newsstand sales continue to slide, and I hardly imagine a couple of blips like the Death of Archie, new ARCHIE #1, and Adam Hughes' B&V #1 were able to counterbalance the overall downward trend. It's easy for ACP to spin the hype, because it's all a magician's game of misdirection -- getting you to look only at what they want you to look at. Yeah, look at those amazing sales on ARCHIE #1... but don't ask about all the "ongoing" titles we launched in the last three years, and then cancelled. Don't ask what our sales are like outside the direct market; ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies.

But you have to wonder how, if ACP had half-a-dozen ongoing floppy comics in the 2000s, they can only have a couple now in the 2010s  (ARCHIE and RIVERDALE). You can't count titles that are as new as VIXENS, THE HUNGER, or VAMPIRONICA, or "supposedly" ongoing ones like AFTERLIFE and SABRINA, which have no actual publication schedule. I read that as, if ACP was doing relatively as well as they were in the 2000s, they'd still have half-a-dozen stable ongoing floppy titles, even if (on average) they were selling less copies overall.

Quote from: terrence12 on May 16, 2018, 11:05:10 AM
Archie comics has gained a renaissance after going through low sales throughout the 80's,90s and 2000s all thanks to the  the leadership of current CEO  Jon Goldwater.

Archie Comics' average monthly sales are still lower than they were in the '80s, '90s, and from 2000-2009.
So if you want to spin those statistics under the heading of "renaissance", then yeah whatever, I guess.

Quote from: PTF on May 21, 2018, 02:35:36 AM
PTF Reviews The Blue Baron 1.2

Man, reading digital comics is a pain now. Stupid Windows photo keeps going with clicking on the curser and enlarging a portion of the comic...and the zoom doesn't work. I mean, yeah, I can reset it easily enough, but then it's right back up. Seriously, what doorknob at Microsoft thought this was a good idea? I decide what is good!!

Whatever made you think that? Your only real decision is what software you'll buy or use for any particular purpose, and whether to install it or uninstall it. You have absolutely ZERO influence when it comes to how that software is going to be designed. And if it's perfect just the way it is, then just wait until the next upgrade -- they can always find things to fix that ain't broke... 'cause y'know... they gotta sell those ridiculous unnecessary upgrades, whether the software needs it or not. That's the way the game is played.

In this instance though, there's nothing wrong with the software design. The problem here is the end user. You're using the wrong piece of software. Your first major clue should have been the name of the software... Windows PHOTO. Are you looking at photos? No, you're looking at images. All photos are images, but not all images (like a scan of a piece of line-drawn artwork) are photos. It's called Windows PHOTO because it's designed for people who take photographs, and want to be able to manipulate those photos (hopefully improving the photo) by EDITing them. You're not editing the image you're looking at, so the primary function that Windows Photo was designed for is of no use to you.

What you want is a piece of software designed mainly just for VIEWING images, not for editing them, like Microsoft Picture VIEWER (stupidly renamed Microsoft PHOTO Viewer in later versions, just to make things more confusing). Picture and image mean the same thing, but while all photos are pictures, not all pictures are photos. I could draw you a picture, but I couldn't draw you a photo. Now, the fact that Microsoft went from calling this piece of software Microsoft PICTURE Viewer, to calling it Microsoft PHOTO Viewer in later versions, tells you something about Microsoft right there. They are pretty much making some presumptions about what the average computer user wants to view. Dropping VIEWER from the name of the product leads them even further out on that tangent of assumption. Presuming that nobody's going to be reading digital comics using this software, why not make it even more useful for those people who are photo buffs and want to take photos and tweak the images by editing? It makes no difference that Microsoft is absolutely right about that (statistically speaking) in the case of the vast majority of computer users. By making that assumption, they IMPROVE the usefulness of the software for MOST people, but REDUCE the usefulness of the software for a minority of users (such as people who want to use it as a digital comics reader).

The old MS Picture/Photo Viewer software is pretty simple to work. The default view is the image at 100% size, unless the image is too big to fit the window -- then it defaults to make the maximum image height the height of the viewer window. There's a button on the simple toolbar that you click once to toggle that view to maximize the image's width (or fit the width of the viewer window, whichever is smaller) and clicking it again returns to the former default view. There are arrows on the toolbar for back and forward (to the previous image, or on to the next one), and a little magnifying glass with a + sign in it for scaling the zoom on the image manually. Very simple to use. Maybe you used to have that in an older version of Windows before Windows 10. You can still get it back, though. You should decide that Windows Photo is not the right software for viewing images that aren't photos and that you don't want to edit. That would be a good decision.

How to get Windows Photo Viewer back in Windows 10
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-get-windows-photo-viewer-back-in-windows-10/

How to Make Windows Photo Viewer Your Default Image Viewer on Windows 10
https://www.howtogeek.com/225844/how-to-make-windows-photo-viewer-your-default-image-viewer-on-windows-10/