Way late, but my review of "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...", the Jughead story from Riverdale One-Shot, is now up.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 17, 2018, 12:39:31 AM
I couldn't tell you how time progresses in the New Riverdale continuity (or continuities) -- it seems entirely possible (even likely) that they're not beholden to the 'seasonal' concept to published stories that binds the traditional classic Archie stories, and follow more of an assumed 'compressed time' scheme common to Marvel and DC continuity (which is to say that the amount of time passing during, and between, published stories does not match the passage of time in the real world). If indeed everything that happened from ARCHIE issues #1 through 32, published from cover dates September 2015 through September 2018, is assumed to have taken place, the characters have not aged 3 years during that time -- but if that's true, then they shouldn't have experienced 3 Christmases or 3 summer vacations during that time, either.

'Compressed time' is a concept more easily manageable in the Marvel and DC universes, because the characters aren't as closely tracked by events tied to a school calendar, regular seasons and holidays. It's more about creating a balance between the illusion of the passage of time, while keeping the characters from ageing too much. If a Marvel or DC character is acknowledged to have aged a year since (whatever prior story is being referenced), it's not that big of a deal, whereas in the world of Archie, ageing a single year has major ramifications on the lives of the characters.

The way that I tend to think of Archieverse continuity is: Anything that came out before the current school year perhaps kinda-sorta happened to the characters - in a vague kind of way. Any instances of multiple holidays / proms could be smoothed over / compressed into one. Once a story falls outside their high school timeframe (in this case, fall of 2015), the chances of it happening significantly decrease. Once it falls outside their lifetimes (in this case, 2001), we might as well just forget about it entirely.

So, for example, all 32 issues of Archie could still have happened (more or less) "last year". Same with Betty & Veronica: Vixens. Same with anything that came out fairly recently. It can just be vaguely glossed over like "Yeah, we did that stuff last year, but this is this year."

However, what remains is the precedent set by the story; in other words, the characters still have the potential to act a certain way, because it's already been put out there. So I like to think there's an ongoing accumulation of character traits (over the decades), resulting in an unseen internal battle that each character has to deal with. For example, maybe Betty tries to do good and volunteer everywhere, but she also struggles with an internal darkness, and she might have the secret desire to be a biker and kick some ass.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 17, 2018, 12:39:31 AM
Now that I think about it, this is even a bigger problem for Riverdale (as it was for Happy Days). Unlike say, Friends, it isn't a show about 20-somethings whose exact age is indeterminate (but who wound up being 30-somethings by the time the show ended its run). In Friends, that didn't really matter, because the cast's exact ages weren't central to the concept of the show. Unlike comics or animation, you can't simply ignore the fact that the cast is ageing in real-time, just like the show's viewers. You can't order your actors to simply stop ageing, to preserve the original concept of "a story about high school teenagers". Riverdale's been running long enough that the characters' high school years should have already ended. (I still haven't seen the show, BTW.) Perhaps Riverdale, if it continues, will be forced to become more like the magazine version of LIFE WITH ARCHIE.

Riverdale has already screwed up its continuity. In season 1 (which started in early 2017), the town celebrates the 75th anniversary of its founding (1941). Fred types up something to give Jughead an alibi (he was supposedly working for him) during the time of Jason's death over the summer, and it was clearly given a 2016 date. All of this indicates season 1 covers the 2016-2017 school year. Betty states she's a sophomore. However, in season 2 (2017-2018), they're still in the same school year. There's finally a Christmas episode, even though it was also snowing at one point in season 1. Not too bad. However, they screwed everything up by doing a promotion of the film Love, Simon in one episode, which the gang goes to see in the theater - and which has a very specific North American release date: March 16, 2018. So it seems season 1 was retroactively moved to the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year (and various moments from season 1 will have to be ignored).

I know. I'm just doing it to illustrate how quickly that issues become outdated. However, the upcoming Archie #699 seems to indicate the entire NR Archie run still happened, regardless of how long ago that the issues came out. For example, the first two issues came out before the current gang even entered high school! I wonder how the upcoming renumbered Archie series will handle this. We know Betty and Veronica is finally moving on to senior year officially. I wonder if Archie will do the same and indicate the previous run occurred "last year".

I just crunched some numbers. I was curious as to how many issues/episodes representing each type of continuity within the Archie multiverse have come out within the time frame that the "current" gang has been in school (2015-2019).
I've sorted these into a few categories:
Digests (D)New Riverdale (NR)Archie Horror (AH), regardless of each of the different continuitiesClassic Archie (CA), just the floppy titlesAlternate Future (AF), the Life With Kevin miniseriesRiverdale (R), both episodes and issues (Riverdale Digest issues are counted under Digests)DC: the crossovers with DC( Harley and Ivy, Batman '66)Reprints (RP), the reprint floppy comics (Betty and Veronica: Friends Forever)

Here's the breakdown:
Ninth Grade (2015-2016, ages 13/14 - 14/15)

D: 32
NR: 12
AH: 2
CA: 1

Summer Vacation (2016, age 14/15)

D: 14
NR: 6
AH: 2
AF: 1

Tenth Grade (2016-2017, ages 14/15 - 15/16)

D: 33
NR: 31
R: 16
AF: 2
CA: 1
AH: 1

Summer Vacation (2017, age 15/16)

D: 13
NR: 7
R: 3
AH: 2
CA: 2
AF: 1

Eleventh Grade (2017-2018, ages 15/16 - 16/17)

D: 41
R: 32
NR: 20
AH: 8
DC: 6
CA: 3
AF: 1
RP: 1

A bit late, but this week I review "The New Archies" segment, "Jughead's Millions".

This week, I review "Fall from Grace" from Riverdale One-Shot.

This week, I review Betty & Veronica: Vixens #8.

A bit late, but this week I review "Summer Nights" from Riverdale One-Shot.

This week, I review "The New Archies" segment, "Gunk for Gold".

I think part of the problem might be the fact that there isn't much perceived value in a 20-page comic book - at least, not as much as in a Middle Grade or Young Adult novel.

Up until recently, Archie Comics had been charging $3.99 per digital issue (including back issues of current series). While I was willing to fork over $3.99 for each issue of Vixens, even I was relieved when the prices dropped. $0.99 makes each issue a much better value - pretty much on par with an episode of the show, which contains approximately twice the story and costs $1.99 to buy digitally on Amazon.
However, consider this. Buying season 1 at once brings the per-episode cost down to $1.54. Buying season 2 at once brings the per episode cost down to $0.91. Yet Archie Comics is charging $19.99 for trade paperbacks, which contain (I believe) six issues. So you can get six 20-page stories or 22 40-minute episodes for the same price. The trades are a worse value than the single issues at this point!

There's a 280-page Riverdale prequel novel coming out on December 26. It's $5.99 digitally and $9.99 in paperback form. Either way, it's a much better value than any of the comics (around 2.14 or 3.57 cents per page versus 4.95 cents per page for a comic or *shudder* 16.66 cents per page for a trade).
Also, there seems to be not much crossover appeal between the show and the comics. When I was at the Riverdale reddit, the only interest, comics-wise, was in the Riverdale comics, which are in continuity with the show but less "bonkers". The massive success of Riverdale isn't translating into interest in more comedic iterations of the characters. There really isn't that sense of fan interaction that viewers of the show have. The show is successful in large part because it was engineered for the current Internet generation. With the comics, prospective readers are expected to pay up, read a 20-page partial story (or, in the case of Riverdale, two 10-page stories), and then wait a month or two to see what happens next; that's it.
What I think might be most successful, on the publishing side, is to do novels instead of comics. Maybe have the artists do covers and a few interior illustrations, but otherwise have the writers tell the stories. It doesn't have to be strictly like the comics or the show; just write stories that today's audience would be willing to buy. Do a 100-page novella and sell it for $2.99. Let different writers work on them and keep churning them out. Set up a print-on-demand option for those that really want it. I'm guessing they'd sell better than any single issue or trade collection of the comics.

A bit late, but this week I review "Sweetwater" from Riverdale One-Shot.

This week, I review Betty & Veronica: Vixens #7.

Late, but this week I review "Romance 4Ever!", the new lead story in Archie and Me Comics Digest #8.

I just checked Amazon. Most of the back issues have dropped to $0.99. Issues #6 and even the recently-released #7 have dropped to $1.99.

A bit late, but this week I review "Roughing It!" from B&V Friends #262.