Last week:
BATMAN: SINS OF THE FATHER #4 (of 6)
JUSTICE LEAGUE: NO JUSTICE #2 (of 4)
HARLEY LOVES JOKER #2 (of 2)
FUTURE QUEST PRESENTS: THE HERCULOIDS #10
SUPERMAN SPECIAL #1 (one-shot)
CABLE #157
CAPTAIN AMERICA #702
AVENGERS #2 (actually #692)
THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT: SEE-TA THE SAVAGE #2 (of 2)
SAVAGE TALES VAMPIRELLA #1 (one-shot) - I was surprised to see that Fernando Ruiz drew the last half of the lead Vampirella story. Looks good!
ASSASSINISTAS #5
DRY COUNTY #3
THREE STOOGES SLAPTASTIC SPECIAL #1
KICK-ASS #4
MOONSHINE #10
GIDEON FALLS #3
SUPERMANSION #2 (of 2)
THE ARTIST BEHIND SUPERMAN: THE JOE SHUSTER STORY OGN TP
DISNEY MASTERS VOL 01: MICKEY MOUSE IN THE DELTA DIMENSION HC

Picked up about 30 Archie Comics back issues from the 50c boxes last week. Don't know when I'll get around to reading them, but some of those are actually in pretty good condition, for ACP comics from the late 1980s. Some early issues of VERONICA, DILTON'S STRANGE SCIENCE, LAUGH (Vol. 2), plus BETTY AND ME, BETTY AND VERONICA, and a couple of Archie Giant Series B&V SPECTACULARs.

Looking through the first four issues of GO-GO AND ANIMAL, I think I'm going to take back what I said about Harry Lucey not contributing that many pages to Tower Comics. It looks like the bulk of the stories in GO-GO were all by Harry Lucey. There are other people in there as well, and at least a few stories that have kind of an 'unfinished' Dan DeCarlo look to them, like maybe DeCarlo did the rough layouts (or breakdowns, as they were sometimes called) and another artist did the finished pencils, inked over by yet another artist.

The Harry Lucey stories look quite distinct, however... full pencils on those by Lucey.

I like Go-Go. 

Is it just me or does she seem like the love-child of Josie and Albert?

I should add that perhaps not coincidentally, sometime around August or September of 1966 Dan DeCarlo began doing ALL the cover artwork for the ACP line of teen humor titles. This may have been ACP's way of insuring that they kept him busy (and at a better page rate, as covers paid more than interior page rates) -- too busy to work for other publishers like Shorten's Tower Comics, even if Shorten paid better rates for interior story pages, and keeping DeCarlo happy enough to remain with ACP exclusively as a freelancer. It was a win/win situation for ACP, because consistent, quality cover artwork helped solidify the brand at that time.

After Bob Montana died, and Dan DeCarlo took over the assignment of drawing the Archie daily and Sunday newspaper strip, it's possible that there was an actual contract involved in DeCarlo doing that work; the newspaper syndicate may have insisted on it. Or not -- the syndicate's contract may have been exclusively with ACP, with it being left up to them who they assigned to write and draw the strip, as long as the end product was satisfactory to the syndicate.

Quote from: SAGG on May 14, 2018, 11:18:56 PM
Curious. In the second comic, DeCarlo drew this for another comic book publisher in 1966? He was making his mark in ACP then, yet they let him do some freelancing?

Despite what some people may think, Dan DeCarlo was never a regular "employee" in the usual sense. He began with ACP in 1951, with the 4-page story "No Picnic" in Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica #4 -- which is the same year that the Bingo story posted above was published in Standard Comics' Kathy #8; meanwhile, DDC was also working for Stan Lee at Atlas/Marvel, and drawing The Yardbirds for Ziff-Davis' G.I. Joe.

The point to be made here is that Dan DeCarlo was never under any sort of contract with any publisher; not with Atlas/Marvel, and not with Archie Comic Publications, either. He started, and remained for the duration of his career, a freelance contractor, paid by the page.

Tippy Teen (and its spinoff title, Go-Go and Animal) were published by Tower Comics (perhaps more famously remembered by comic fans for publishing T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and its spinoff titles Dynamo, NoMan, and U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent). Tower Comics' owner was Harry Shorten. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Shorten was, from the early 1940s until the early 1960s, an editor for MLJ (and later Archie Comic Publications). In fact, Shorten had been the editor of PEP Comics #22, which introduced Archie. Shorten had a variety of side publishing projects, one of which was a syndicated comic panel (in collaboration with Super Duck artist Al Fagaly) entitled There Oughta Be A Law! (which, to put it bluntly, was a lesser imitation of the more well-known syndicated comic They'll Do It Every Time by Jimmy Hatlo).

In an effort to promote his own comic strip, Shorten (who had some direct connections with printers) on several occasions self-published collections of There Oughta Be A Law!. The last couple of these appeared under the Tower Books imprint, and at this point Shorten published some other paperbacks, so now he was officially a publisher. As a side note, Shorten was involved as a middleman in helping ACP gain the license to publish a Shadow comic book -- Archie's version went the superhero route, while at the same time, Tower Books' paperback line published writer Dennis Lynds' update of the 1930s Street & Smith pulp hero to the then-popular superspy genre, inspired by James Bond and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. 

In 1965, noticing the rise in popularity of superhero comics, Shorten decided to start his own comic book publishing company, Tower Comics, and contracted with Wallace Wood to oversee those superhero titles as a "packager" of editoral/story/artwork. Not wanting to overlook the genre with which he had the most experience as an editor, he persuaded ACP's Samm Schwartz to oversee and package the stories and art for Tippy Teen. Because the format of all the Tower comic books was 25c for 68 pages of all-new material, the first issue of Tippy's comic also included contributions from Harry Lucey and Dan DeCarlo, in addition to the bulk of pages by Schwartz.

As a result of Schwartz' decision to go with Shorten's new company (one could hardly blame him, since he was probably offered a much better page rate by Shorten for packaging the entire contents of the Tower teen humor titles), ACP cut off all Schwartz' freelance assignments. It's not known if Schwartz simply declared that he was leaving ACP, or whether (it's been rumored) he was caught working on Shorten's material in the ACP offices, or whether he was given some sort of ultimatum -- but regardless of the fact that ACP regulars Lucey and DeCarlo also contributed (and perhaps they were threatened by ACP in some way, which would account for the relatively few pages they contributed to Tippy and Go-Go), Samm Schwartz was the only ACP regular to suffer a total loss of freelance assignments at ACP. After Tower Comics folded, Schwartz migrated to DC Comics to work on A Date With Debbi and Debbi's Dates, and didn't return to ACP until the early 1970s, after DC had cancelled those titles, along with Swing With Scooter, Leave It to Binky and Binky's Buddies -- abandoning the teen humor genre entirely.

^^ Dan DeCarlo in KATHY #8 (Aug. 1951, Standard Comics) ^^







^^ Dan DeCarlo in TIPPY TEEN #10 (Dec. 1966, Tower Comics) ^^

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on May 11, 2018, 08:56:40 AM
Only Cheryl Holdridge (Betty) was in both pilots.

Oh yeah... Lumpy Rutherford. Really can't imagine him as Archie; even less than the other guy (whose name I forget). Oh, that Archie and his wacky inventions! (what th- ?!?) And what was up with William Schallert as Archie's dad in that 1964 pilot? If the pilot had sold, he could never have played Fred Andrews since he was already playing Patty's father on The Patty Duke Show!

Cheryl Holdridge was the only one who I thought completely nailed it, as Betty in the 1964 version. Veronica wasn't too bad (but she probably needed to be a little more bad, for that time period).

Although Dwayne Hickman made a pretty convincing Wilber Wilkin (the "new", Doyle/DeCarlo Wilber, I mean) in The Many Loves of Dobey Gillis.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on May 10, 2018, 05:23:58 PM

the 1962 and 1964 pilots

There were TWO 1960s pilots? I've only seen one (I think that's the 1964 one). I know there was more than one attempt made to adapt Archie to TV in the early sixties, but I'm not sure if any of the other ones actually made it to the point of having completed a finished pilot film.

Ahh... Charlotte's Web.  A web-spider named "Charlotte". Isn't that cute? 

05-03 to 05-09-18:
LOVE-O-RAMA 2000: Romance Stories That Will Touch You in a Special Place! TP by Dan Parent & various
DIE KITTY DIE VOL 01 HC
DIE KITTY DIE SUMMER VACATION SPECIAL #1
DIE KITTY DIE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL #1
DIE KITTY DIE VOL 02: HOLLYWOOD OR BUST! HC
DIE KITTY DIE: I Love You to Death! FCBD 2018
LIFE WITH KEVIN TP
YOUR PAL ARCHIE TP
THE BEST OF ARCHIE AMERICANA VOL 02: SILVER AGE [1960s-1970s] TP
BETTY AND VERONICA: FRIENDS FOREVER #1
SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH #67 (Jun. 1981)
LIFE WITH ARCHIE #228 (Dec. 1981)
PEP #276 (Apr. 1973)
DETECTIVE COMICS #980
WONDER WOMAN #46
JUSTICE LEAGUE: NO JUSTICE #1 (of 4)
BATMAN AND HARLEY QUINN HC
BETTY AND VERONICA: VIXENS #6 - I read it. Didn't like it, so I didn't buy it. I'm bored with this.
FIGHTING AMERICAN: THE TIES THAT BIND #3 (of 4)
WORLD OF TANKS: CITADEL #1 (of 5)
SOUTHERN BASTARDS #20
AVENGERS FCBD 2108
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN FCBD 2018
DEADPOOL #300

Ah, you almost had me interested there, until I read this review:
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/4/13/17233064/lost-in-space-netflix-remake-review-reboot-revival-season-1

I should just stay away from reboots of old properties anyway. There are just too many ways to screw those up.

Quote from: gillibean on May 07, 2018, 07:34:39 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 04, 2018, 10:24:08 AM
Who's next, Eyeda? (In the story where Cricket dates Archie, they go to an art gallery show, and there was a painting of floating eyeball - the centerpiece of some other elements - that strongly reminded me of Eyeda, whom Dan had previously used as a supporting character in his Sabrina stories in the early 1990s in the back of ARCHIE & FRIENDS).

A little version of Eyeda was in the background of the free comic book day issue of Die Kitty Die

I'm not clear on what's up with that in terms of copyright status, but Eyeda (the older teenage version) is indeed a regular supporting character in DKD. Dan Parent created The Carneys for ACP in 1993, around the same time that Eyeda was appearing as a supporting character in Sabrina at Gravestone Heights 91313 (as a backup feature in ARCHIE & FRIENDS, beginning with #2), and the Carneys are also regular supporting characters in DKD, so it's clear that the copyright to The Carneys belongs to Dan Parent.

Eyeda may or may not have been created by Dan Parent, however. She appeared in digest reprints of at least two 1960s Archie stories as a student attending Riverdale High...


"The Masked Marvel" - Page 1


"The Masked Marvel" - bottom 2/3rds of Page 3


"The Masked Marvel" - top 2/3rds of Page 4



"The Masked Marvel" - 3 panels excerpted from last page

...but it's unclear whether or not the last panel shown above represents editorial tampering to the original story's artwork, as it appears in a 1990s digest reprint of "The Masked Marvel" -- if that's the case, then this "Masked Marvel" story may be an altered version of the one by that title which appeared in LAUGH #170 (May 1965), in which the original character revealed beneath the mask in the panel shown above was Ophelia Glutenschnable (a kind of early prototype for Big Ethel Muggs). I haven't actually seen that issue of LAUGH, so I can't confirm it.

If that isn't the case, then it's clear that this wasn't Eyeda's first appearance in a story, since Betty & Veronica recognize her immediately and already know her name. At any rate, Dan Parent is at least responsible for rescuing Eyeda from obscurity, by making her a regular supporting-cast member for Sabrina in the early 1990s, and she even became well-established enough to appear in her own puzzle-page feature in a digest:



I believe it was Dan Parent who was also responsible for rescuing the formerly-obscure (only a few 1960s appearances) Cricket O'Dell and bringing her back in 1990s stories.

It's in Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #288. The story is "Sniffing Around".

Eeeeww. Hope she's not related to that icky Fox News Channel dude. Not that it would mean she shared his political views, but whatever.

I guess the original Bridgitt (or Brigette or however it's spelled) story made a point that Reggie made fun of her for being overweight when she arrived at RHS as the new girl, but was proven wrong when everyone realized how musically and vocally talented she was. Keeping her around after her singing/composing talent was discovered just didn't fit into the world of Riverdale, however. Maybe it would have worked better if she'd been a new supporting character in an ongoing Josie and the Pussycats series, or if they somehow tied her story into the Archies, but after she'd gotten her big break in the music world, there didn't seem to be much point in her return appearances.

Bought a few DVDs at Walmart (I used to buy DVDs like crazy a few years back, but have since scaled it back to just a couple occasionally).

SCOOBY-DOO AND BATMAN: THE BRAVE & THE BOLD -  It's a pretty straight sequel to the B:tB&tB animated series, and has a bunch of guest-stars (Martian Manhunter, Plastic Man, The Question, Detective Chimp, Aquaman, Black Canary, and also scads of Bat-villains, including Catwoman wearing her rarely-seen Silver Age costume) in a 90-minute feature film (the DVD also includes the 2 episodes of The New Scooby-Doo Movies from the 1970s where Batman & Robin were the guest-stars, as bonus features). But it also reminded me quite a bit of the current SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP comic book, which I also love. So the basic premise here is that Mystery Incorporated have been invited to join The Mystery Analysts of Gotham City (which was, for few brief years in the 1960s, a real thing in the Batman comics). There is a mystery involving one of Batman's early cases, and his failure to save a scientist's life in a teleportation experiment gone wrong (and it now appears the ghost of the scientist is haunting Batman as a creature calling itself "The Crimson Cloak"). It's got one of twistiest plots I've ever seen in either a Scooby-Doo story, OR a Batman story, and Daphne wearing a Batgirl costume (that's a good thing). I even learned that Daphne is a whiz at word scrambles (also known as anagrams). Just when you think the solution to the mystery villain in obvious, they throw in another twist that you didn't see coming. It was a lot of fun.

JUSTICE LEAGUE ACTION Season One, Part 1: SUPERPOWERS UNITE! - I hadn't seen the show prior to buying the DVD, but it was $10 for 26 episodes, so I figured I'd take a chance... turns out the episodes are only 10-11 minutes long (I can't imagine... does Cartoon Network program 15-minute time-blocks now?). But I didn't feel ripped off, because they packed a whole lot of story (and action) into that 10 or 11 minute cartoon. A variety of different characters pop up in any given episodes, with lots of callbacks to DC Comics history, so I won't complain about Superman's lack of red overshorts or Wonder Woman's missing golden eagle emblem. They could have made much more radical character changes (I'm thinking here of the series called "THE BATMAN"... ) I could quibble about not liking the character designs as much as the original Justice League cartoon, or pick nits about a whole list of this or that character, but on the whole (and considering most of the DTV animated feature films WB/DC has been releasing over the last decade or so), I'm pretty happy with it. This show feels like a breath of fresh air compared to the tone of the feature films, with rare exceptions like the one above, BATMAN & HARLEY QUINN, BATMAN '66, and one or two others. It feels like a return to the "good ol' DC Animated Universe" of the 1990s/early-2000s. A good ongoing DCU animated series has been missing for a bunch of years now, so I was surprised and glad (since I'd stopped paying attention) to see this. Sweet!

ARCHER Season 8 - Haven't watched it yet, but I love this show! Didn't realize another year had already gone by since I bought the Season 7 DVD set. Looking forward to it, since I never know what to expect in terms of what curves they'll throw at the viewer.