Quote from: SAGG on April 14, 2018, 04:57:46 AM
When I want to read any old comics on Comixology, I use the Unlimited subscription package. When I finish a book, I just return it. Very practical for me....

Not very practical if what you're looking to read is an issue of BINKY'S BUDDIES, DEBBI'S DATES, or ANGEL LOVE... or THAT WILKIN BOY or MADHOUSE GLADS from the late 1960s or early 1970s. Obscure older titles just don't attract enough readers to be viable candidates to be digitized, unless they're so old that the copyrights have entered public domain. There are torrents, I guess, if issues about piracy don't bother you.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on April 13, 2018, 07:43:24 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 13, 2018, 01:08:49 AM
I forgot which timeline it was, but at the beginning didn't one of the Cheryls run off to Hollywood to be discovered as an actress, but then she winds up waitressing when she didn't make it (eventually returning to Riverdale humbled)? And why's Jason slaving away working for Lodge in some middle-management position in the Veronicaverse, if his dad is still a billionaire?

I don't remember Jason working for Mr. Lodge, but that does sound kind of familiar. All that I remember is, in the Bettyverse, when Cheryl returns home, she's living in a mansion. I might have to go back and flip through those issues.

In the Veronicaverse, Cheryl did indeed go off to Hollwood and ended up waiting tables. Same in the Bettyverse (albeit mentioned in retrospect instead of shown). The difference is, in the Bettyverse, Cheryl returns home due to her life being derailed by breast cancer, whereas, in the Veronicaverse, she comes home only when she's invited to Jughead and Ethel's wedding, and she's happy to pose for glam shots for Raj as he's recording her with his camera.

I guess my point there was that I couldn't see Cheryl waitressing (even if she failed to make it as an actress) or Jason working in some undistinguished position for Lodge if Daddy Blossom is still Mister Megabucks Techstartup-IPO; they'd expect handouts of cash, or dad's help and connections in establishing careers for themselves. Unless, as I speculated, he had disinherited Cheryl & Jason (perhaps not even with vindictiveness or malice, but in an attempt at character-building and teaching them a lesson about making their own way in life, even as he had to, when growing up).

Paul Kupperberg hadn't been a regular writer for Archie Comics prior to taking on the LWA gig, so it's entirely possible that in doing his background research on the characters for The Married Life, he hadn't even read the 2008 story from Betty and Veronica Double Digest where Mr. Blossom regained his lost fortune, and was still proceeding under the misapprehension that Blossom having lost his fortune sometime after moving to Europe, and being demoted to working for Lodge Industries after moving back stateside, was still the then-current status quo.

EDIT:  Thinking about this whole thing again just now, I realize it's both a mistake to blame Paul Kupperberg (because, as I picked up Book One of THE MARRIED LIFE and flipped to the opening page, I realize that I'd forgotten that Michael Uslan was also involved as a writer at the beginning of the LWA series). The mistake here would be in assuming that since LWA, the magazine series, began in 2010, the future storylines depicted in The Married Life should reflect the status quo as it was in the "main continuity of the Archieverse" (for whatever that's worth) as it existed in 2010. It doesn't, because The Married Life is actually an extension of "Archie Marries" (from ARCHIE #600-605), written by Michael Uslan and published somewhere around July or August of 2009. Since Uslan was also not a regular writer of Archie stories, it's fair to say he probably did whatever research he needed as a basis for projecting the supporting characters' possible futures months and months earlier than that, and in that event it's very likely he had never read the Cheryl story published in BETTY AND VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #166 -- the one where the Blossoms regained their wealth, which would have appeared somewhere around November of 2008. It seems to me that planning for a major event like ARCHIE #600 would have been in the works many months earlier than the normal production lead time of say, three or four months before the story appeared for sale, because of the need to coordinate and advance publicity -- hitting the #600 milestone mark was going to be a big deal for ARCHIE, so they would have taken to planning it the year before that. Something that affected a character like Cheryl's status would not necessarily have been considered important enough to impact Archie's marriage to Veronica and Betty. Thus, when Archie in the story decides to wander in the Yellow Wood, down Memory Lane, the point at which the timelines are diverging from the "main continuity Archieverse" is likely sometime in 2008, about as current as Michael Uslan could have been expected to read in published Archieverse stories before starting to assemble his notes and plot points regarding various supporting characters to be included in "Archie Marries".

Quote from: SAGG on April 13, 2018, 07:44:41 PM
Quick question, DR: Where are you getting these comics, from print, digital, or both? 

Mostly NOT digital, unless you see me list a title that's pre-Code, and public domain (those are available for free browsing and downloads at such sites as the Digital Comic Museum and Comic Book Plus).

Generally, these are just a result of my rummaging through the longboxes of 50-cent comics at my LCS. Every few weeks it seems like new acquisitions from somebody's collection make their way into the store. If I had more time, and was better organized and systematic in my sifting through these boxes, I could undoubtedly find more old comics than I do; but as it is, a lot of my time is taken up looking through and reading this week's new comics. I'm always keeping an eye out for comic book obscura, those titles that are short-lived, from tiny (sometimes unheard-of) publishers or self-published, and genres generally unpopular with comic book collectors (like teen humor or romance comics), or just anything oddball or retro-looking. You have to sift through hundreds, if not thousands, of titles from Marvel, DC, Image, and other well-known publishers to find the off-trail titles, the ones collected only by the rare few. Mostly what I find are comics that have been READ (in fact, often "read to death"), but not COLLECTED by anyone per se... merely saved, but in a casual manner that indicates that the last owner didn't place much value on them (unless they're pretty recent, from the last few decades, and so didn't receive much handling; read but once, and stuck in a box somewhere). Often they are falling apart, crumbling with age and flaking apart if 40 or more years old; with tears, folded corners, rips and hand-written on by kids (often kids would write their names on the covers, or doodle on the cover or interior pages using pens of various colors).

If I happen upon Archie titles (or ANY teen humor title), it's always worth at least flipping through to see what's in it. Since I know the owner of the store and have been friends with him for many years, I often take a stack home to read, then return most of them a few days or a week later (except the maybe 10-20% that may be of particular interest, and in better than 'fair' condition). Since other customers rarely seek these kind of titles, it's NBD if they disappear from those 50-cent boxes for a week or so. Rarely, if it's an older one even in the most beat-up condition, I may keep it (bagging and boarding it to prevent it falling into even worse condition, even though it's practically worthless as a collectible) if it contains some stories I haven't seen reprinted elsewhere.

Original appearance:		story title:		writer:	artist:
1960s:
LIFE WITH ARCHIE #72	Apr. 1968	"Labor of Love"	11 pages	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo
ARCHIE #185	Sept. 1968	"Music Soothes"	6 pages	Frank Doyle	Harry Lucey
1970s:
EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE #8	Jun. 1970	"Mister Appetite"	6 pages	Frank Doyle	Harry Lucey
LIFE WITH ARCHIE #120	Apr. 1972	"Reggie Mantle, Super Star"	12 pages	Dick Malmgren	Bob Bolling
EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE #21	Aug. 1972	"Bubble Trouble"	5 pages	George Gladir	Bill Vigoda
ARCHIE'S T.V. LAUGH-OUT #37	Feb. 1976	"Group Gripe"	5 pages	George Gladir	Harry Lucey
1980s:
EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE #111 (?)	May 1984	"Sign Off!"	5 pages	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo Jr.
ARCHIE'S T.V. LAUGH-OUT #96	Aug. 1984	"Rock n' Roll Is Here to Stay See"	5 pages	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg
ARCHIE'S T.V. LAUGH-OUT #98	Dec. 1984	SABRINA in "Monster Melody"	6 pages	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg
EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE #129	May 1987	The Vocal	5 pages	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg
EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE #135 (?)	Mar. 1988	"The Name of the Game"	6 pages	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo Jr.
1990s:
EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE #148	Mar. 1990	"The Fame Game"	5 pages	George Gladir	Doug Crane
ARCHIE & FRIENDS #16	Nov. 1995	CHUCK CLAYTON in "What's In A Name?"	5 pages	Bill Golliher	Bill Golliher
SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH (1997) #7	Nov. 1997	SABRINA in "Mr. Hoagland's Opus"	6 pages	Bill Golliher	Dan DeCarlo
2000s:
ARCHIE & FRIENDS #52	Dec. 2001	JOSIE in "Oh Solo Mio"	11 pages	Dan Parent	Holly Golightly
SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH (2000) #41	Mar. 2003	SABRINA in "Between a Rock and a Hard Place"	6 pages	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly
ARCHIE & FRIENDS #124	Dec. 2008	"Battle of the Bands" - Part 1	22 pages	Jane Smith Fisher	Stan Goldberg
ARCHIE & FRIENDS #125	Jan. 2009	"Battle of the Bands" - Part 2	22 pages	Jane Smith Fisher	Stan Goldberg
ARCHIE & FRIENDS #134	Oct. 2009	"The Archies in New York"	12 pages	Hal Lifson	Dan Parent
2010s:
ARCHIE #623	Sept. 2011	"Banded Together!"	22 pages	Dan Parent	Fernando Ruiz
ARCHIE #625	Nov. 2011	"Send in the Clowns!"	22 pages	Alex Simmons	Dan Parent
		THE ARCHIES' ROCKIN' WORLD TOUR!:
ARCHIE #650	Jan. 2014	Part 1 - "Bollywood Love!"	20 pages	Dan Parent	Dan Parent
ARCHIE #651	Feb. 2014	Part 2 - "Love on the Road"	20 pages	Dan Parent	Dan Parent
ARCHIE #652	Mar. 2014	Part 3 - "Blunder Down Under!"	20 pages	Dan Parent	Dan Parent
ARCHIE #653	Apr. 2014	Part 4 - "Close to the Borderline"	20 pages	Dan Parent	Dan Parent

Curiously, while the original dates of publication are sourced for these stories, the actual titles and issue numbers of the comic books they appeared in do not appear in the credits in this trade collection. I've tried to source those comics here (with a couple of guesses when I couldn't confirm the original appearance for certain).

All of the stories (except for three Sabrina stories, one Josie story, and one Chuck Clayton story) feature The Archies, unless noted in the story titles above. Not a bad collection overall, but one could have hoped for more classic stories from the sixties and seventies... but actually, the best stories in this collection are the most recent ones from the 2010s. "Battle of the Bands", the two-parter from ARCHIE & FRIENDS #124-125 is kind of a slight story. Not bad per se as Archies stories go, if it were a standard 5 or 6-pager... maybe even a 12-pager. But at 44 pages, it takes up far too much space in this collection that could have been devoted to better stories. Since they did reprint both "The Archies Rockin' World Tour" 4-parter, and "Banded Together!" which preceded it, both of which advance the romance story of Archie and Valerie, they probably should have reprinted the whole "Archies and Josie & the Pussycats" multi-parter that kicked off the (then-)surprising love story, so you could see the whole thing (apart from the future timeline where Archie Marries Valerie, already reprinted in the "Rock and Roll Romance" trade collection). They could definitely have left out "Oh Solo Mio" (good story though it is), since that one appeared in both last Fall's BEST OF JOSIE trade collection, and last month's B&V FRIENDS JUMBO COMICS digest, and of course, the entire "Rockin' World Tour" arc appeared in its own trade collection back in December 2014 (under the slightly modified title ARCHIE - ROCKIN' THE WORLD!) as Volume 24 of the Archie & Friends All-Stars series (on better paper, too). As an aside, the previous collection's title modification was a result of there already having been a previous volume (No. 11) in the Archie & Friends All-Stars series released back in July of 2011, entitled ARCHIE: WORLD TOUR (which collected the multipart story from ARCHIE & FRIENDS #117-120).

Not bad, but not what I was expecting. I was expecting to see reprints of all those musical guest-stars not included in previous trades, like Lady Gaga, the Veronicas, and the School Gyrls, plus the usual stories where celebrity pop stars of the day are alluded to, but not named as such. While I was slightly underwhelmed, all things considered I guess I should just be grateful they didn't waste my time by reprinting that Archies one-shot from last year, and shut up and be happy about it.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on April 12, 2018, 07:42:11 PM
The family became wealthy again in late 2008 / early 2009. Cheryl's breast cancer storyline didn't begin until 2012. (I know LWA continuity doesn't completely line up with regular Archieverse continuity.) There's no indication in LWA that they're poor. In fact, when Cheryl returns home, she's living in a mansion. It's simply unspoken regarding how her initial treatment was paid for and who knew what when. All that's certain is Jason didn't know anything until after she'd had the mastectomy and lost her hair, by which point she was gaunt.

I forgot which timeline it was, but at the beginning didn't one of the Cheryls run off to Hollywood to be discovered as an actress, but then she winds up waitressing when she didn't make it (eventually returning to Riverdale humbled)? And why's Jason slaving away working for Lodge in some middle-management position in the Veronicaverse, if his dad is still a billionaire?

Dang, I gotta find the time to read this whole thing again.

It's been a while since I've read this, so I don't recall what the deal was with the Blossoms losing all their wealth again. Or maybe it's just that at the point where LWA took off, that was still the case in the regular comics, when Mr. Blossom had lost his fortune, and the story proceeded from that presumption (where in the regular comics Blossom developed some new IT software and became wealthy again). Or was there some insinuation there that the wealthy parents had disinherited Cheryl and Jason because of their immature antics?

04-05 to 04-11-18:
HEART THROBS #1, 2, & 4 (of 4) [Vertigo 1999]
MY TERRIBLE ROMANCE #1 [Apr. 1994]
COWBOY LOVE nn [1998]
THRILLING LOVE 3-D [3-D ZONE #17, 1989]
CONFESSIONS, ROMANCES, SECRETS and TEMPTATIONS TP by John Benson [May 2008]
TRUER THAN TRUE ROMANCE:  Classic Love Comics Retold! TP by Jeanne Martinet [Jun. 2001]
MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX: Another Kind of Love TP [Feb. 2007]
WELCOME TO THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS #1 (of 3) [1995]
B & V FRIENDS JUMBO COMICS #260
BETTY AND VERONICA JUMBO COMICS #262
THE ARCHIES #6 (of 7)
ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK VOL 03: ROCK 'N' ROLL TP
ANGEL LOVE #5, 8 (1986)
BINKY'S BUDDIES #6 (Dec. 1969)
THAT WILKIN BOY #14 (Sept. 1971)
MADHOUSE GLADS #80 (Sept. 1971)
JUGHEAD #7 (Aug. 1988)
LAUGH #284 (Dec. 1974)
BETTY AND VERONICA #35 (Nov. 1990)
BETTY AND VERONICA #90 (Aug. 1995)
BETTY #14 (Jun. 1994)
ARCHIE 3000! #10 (Aug. 1990)
TITANS #22
WONDER WOMAN #44
DETECTIVE COMICS #978
BATMAN #44
THANOS #18
CAPTAIN AMERICA #700
RESIDENT ALIEN: ALIEN IN NEW YORK #1 (of 4)
DRY COUNTY #2 (of ?)
GIDEON FALLS # 1 & 2
MARS ATTACKS KISS (one-shot) [Jan. 2013]

Quote from: tvminded on April 10, 2018, 09:58:41 PM
Most companies keep multiple vault copies, so I thought maybe they were thinning down by one to keep things going until they hit a "sweet spot." 

If ACP ever vaulted multiple copies of those Golden Age MLJ comics, those must have been "thinned" ages ago. I'm not even entirely convinced that they have a single copy of every comic book they ever published. If they did, those comics would probably be bound in volumes as hardcovers, originally intended for editorial reference only, which might make them unsuitable for scanning (unless the hardcovers were taken apart beforehand). At any rate, I don't think ACP has the time and personnel to get all that scanning done (not to mention post-scanning color removal and clean-up of the black-and-white line artwork). Up to this point, I think they've only done it bit by bit, as different projects demand it. I've seen reprints of some stories where no post-scanning cleanup of the artwork was done at all.

The Golden Age MLJ comics (and some from the 1950s and early 1960s) are the only ones that could bring in the serious money, anyway. Even mint copies of the bulk of what they've published are barely worth breaking up a complete collection for what they'd bring in. They'd be better off selling the collection complete to a large retailer.

Quote from: tvminded on April 10, 2018, 12:59:45 AM
According to the website, I'm on the fence on whether Cosmo was supposed to be limited or not.  On the issue 4 blurb for the pre-order, it calls it a 5 issue limited series, but the first issue listed as a new on-going series, so I'm thinking it was rethought after poor sales.  The B&V books maybe will still run concurrently, but I've seen a big decrease in the number of grocery stores and retail outlets carrying them like they used to, so I can see them limiting titles.


I didn't realize until I looked at the last page in the story that Crusaders had ended. Not surprising since the title never lasts long.  It's just never been popular.  They would have done better bringing back That Wilkins Boy.


Also - what happened to the tease of Little Sabrina and Little Josie at the end of Little Archie One-Shot?  That was last summer and they said "Coming Soon"?


I just can't see a vision in place for the "New Archie", sometimes because I just can't get past the artwork - and yes, the stories are not great...


Did anyone else think that the auction for the complete run of Archie comics full-page ad sometime last year might be the company selling off the vault copies to raise capital?

Nope. Not them. They haven't scanned all those stories digitally yet, and they can't do that until they complete that task, unless they really ARE planning to sell off ALL the assets and bail out of the publishing business even sooner than many people think -- which means they would be giving up on digital as well.

Yes. "rethought due to poor sales" is just a more circumspect way of saying CANCELLED, which was the case for Reggie and Me, Cosmo, and Mighty Crusaders, all of which had first issue solicitations announcing them as "ongoing series".  And when a proposed comic is "cancelled" before it is ever even published, after being "rethought due to poor PRE-orders from retailers", you get things like the REGGIE 80-Page Giant #1, JOSIE 80-Page Giant #1, and LITTLE JOSIE #1 and LITTLE SABRINA #1. (There was also a non-"Little" SABRINA #1 one-shot which was solicited, and then cancelled.)

Quote from: tvminded on April 09, 2018, 10:40:57 PM
What titles actually WILL still be running by the end of the year?  Unless my list is wrong, titles that have been cancelled in the last few years are: Jughead and Archie Comic Digest (as well as more digests I'm sure, I kind of lost track), both Sonic series, Betty & Veronica (laughing that they still had "published monthly" in the publishing info even when #3 came out over a year later), Josie & the Pussycats, Black Hood, Hangman, Shield, and Jughead, presumably replaced with Jughead the Hunger.  My predictions of next-to-go: one of the Betty & Veronica digests, Afterlife with Archie (since they haven't published an issue in almost 2 years, but there's still a monthly subscription available! (What a joke), and Betty & Veronica Vixens will probably be done by the end of the year.  I just can't get my head around B&V as bad-ass biker chicks...sorry.

You forgot Mega Man, Reggie and Me, Mighty Crusaders, Cosmo, and Archie's Funhouse Double Digest, also all cancelled within the last 2 years. Although arguably, either Archie's Funhouse or Jughead and Archie digest was immediately replaced by Archie and Me Digest. Still, you can't compare the digests to the floppy comics. Both of the now-cancelled digests ran for three years, from 2014-2017, for 28 and 27 issues, respectively. But it's been established practice that the digests need to be refreshed every few years by replacing old titles with new ones. The only floppy comic to run over 20 issues since Mega Man (55 issues, 2010-2016 -- a healthy run) is the new ARCHIE. The Sonic titles seem to be a special case -- although the sales weren't as good as they once had been, the decision seems to have been Sega's, not ACP's (and a new Sonic title has just begun from another publisher, IDW).

I wouldn't worry about either of the B&V digests being cancelled, either... when both Jughead and Archie, and Archie's Funhouse digests began, B&V Friends digest was only published 6 times a year. In 2017, it actually got an increase in frequency from 6 to 10 times per year. Also, beginning in 2018, Archie digest, World of Archie digest, and the two B&V digest became permanent Jumbo Comics digests, so I guess that proves that they're not only still selling, but that people wanted more pages in them -- and are willing to pay the higher cover price of $6.99 to get those extra stories.

I just read THE ARCHIES #6 and can see why it was cancelled. It's truly an awful book. Dreary and depressing, with bad artwork to boot (but a GREAT Dan Parent variant cover, which is the only reason I bought it). Apparently, we're supposed to be convinced that the following equation actually balances:

[THE ARCHIES] - [humor] + [angst] = [FUN!]

The old Archies stories were fun and funny. The new Archies stories are drab, awful, tedious, and boring. I immediately regretted succumbing to the curiosity of reading the story featuring a guest appearance by Deborah Harry and Blondie, since I'd already bought it and had it in my hand (I should have just bagged & boarded it, and left well enough alone). Ouch! Big mistake. I felt so BAD after reading the story that I immediately had to stare forlornly at Dan Parent's cover for 20 or 30 minutes, drifting off into a daydream of how much better the story could have been if he'd been involved in it. In fact, I wrote my own little story in my head where The Archies meet Blondie, just so I could have something to wash the bad taste of issue #6's actual story out of my mind, and was pretty happy with the story that I came up with. If I can write one in my head, it really can't be THAT hard.

It would take several paragraphs of text to detail the story here, but it took place in the 1980s, and involved the modern-day Archies traveling back in time due to the sudden appearance of Deputy Marshall Forsythe P. Jones of the Time Police, and his supervisor, "Timekeeper January M" (because that's really all Archie Andrews and friends needed to know), who send the Archies back in time to the 1980s on a mission of vital importance to the very fabric of the multiverse, where they not only meet Blondie, but fill in as backup musicians for Debbie Harry when the rest of the band mysteriously disappears. Of course, Deputy Marshall Jones knows all about the 1980s, because that's where he spends most of his time, although the modern-day Archies are a little freaked out that he and January appear to them to be cartoon characters. And let's just say that this particular mission of vital importance to the history of the timestream as the 29th Century Time Police know it (all in a day's work for a Timekeeper), is of even more vitally personal importance to January.

Wow!    Mark, that is simply... AMAZING.

I am not sure I would be brave enough to construct an argument inferring that the main deterministic factor in what is (as you admit) a very intentional obscuring of which reality the death of Archie is taking place in, hinges upon... whether or not Cheryl has fabulous boobs.

On the other hand, maybe both universes' Cheryls eventually got breast cancer and had mastectomies. It's certainly possible, since we never really know for sure in the Veronicaverse; we just don't see enough of Cheryl's life there. Would Cheryl be vain enough to immediately get breast implants after a mastectomy? Again, it's certainly possible, as is the wearing of a wig. One big question in my mind is "Why would a cancerous breast tumor be treated by chemotherapy, causing Cheryl's hair to fall out?" Aren't localized cancerous tumors normally dealt with by surgery? A breast tumor would definitely be caught early enough to prevent the cancer spreading to vital organs where it couldn't be neatly cut out by surgeons. I admit I'm no cancer expert, so maybe I'm way off-base there.

Still, either way, there's a lot of arguments there based on "seems" and "likely", but no major slip where the evidence seen (or heard) is incontrovertible and definitive.

Somehow I think Kevin would be the best character determining which universe the story's taking place in, or maybe Reggie or Jughead, but maybe Kupperberg was just super-careful in covering all the angles.

Quote from: ASS-P on April 09, 2018, 01:01:56 AM
...I knew that already.  I ordered  it knowing that.  Thank you. [size=78%]More later. [/size]

Okay, that's good. It momentarily crossed my mind since they're starting to reprint collections of consecutive issues from older series like COSMO, LIFE WITH ARCHIE, and ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH that maybe they had decided to do a collection of older issues of REGGIE. I would kill  for a collection of the older REGGIE issues from #1-18, or even just a collection of REGGIE AND ME #19-23 (the Evilheart issues!)

Quote from: ASS-P on April 08, 2018, 02:25:34 PM
...To engage in thread conservation,  I'll mention that I ordered the REGGIE AND ME TPB this last week from Walmart. Com.  It COULD even be waiting for me now at my mailboxes place!

Um, you know that's the trade collection of the (New Riverdale) REGGIE AND ME miniseries from 2017, and not a collection of the old REGGIE AND ME comic books that ran from 1966 to 1980, right?  Just checking, since I don't recall you mentioning anything about the newer Archie comic books before this...

So yesterday (Saturday) I got my subscription copies of both B&V FRIENDS JUMBO COMICS #260, and BETTY AND VERONICA JUMBO COMICS #262.

(As an aside, it annoys me a little that the two titles are so close in numbering that I'll probably never be able to keep straight which one is slightly ahead, and always have to check to make sure I didn't miss one issue somewhere. Anyway...)

B&V FRIENDS came out in comic shops last Wednesday, so it was four days late for me. But BETTY & VERONICA doesn't technically come out until next Wednesday in comic shops, so for me it was four days early. This business of having one digest (from the previous Wednesday) and another (from next Wednesday) arrive in the mail on the very same day has happened to me a LOT as a subscriber. I'd say it's happened about four or five times in the last year (out of the ten times a year both digests ship) which is pretty weird, but there you have it. You might think it should happen less now that I've let my subs to the two ARCHIE digests run out, but I swear that the same thing happened with the same two B&V digests about 2 or 3 months ago. It's either feast or famine, and now that I'm down to just the two B&V digest subs that means there will be a long stretch between until the next digest arrives. So yesterday was a DOUBLE JUMBO COMICS digest day for me to read lots & lots of B&V stories, but I wanted to make sure I got them read this weekend because next Wednesday the trade collection ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK VOL 3: ROCK 'n' ROLL comes out, and I'll want to get to that one as soon as I can, so I can't let these things pile up on me.

There were a few stories in each of those Jumbo Comics issues that I wanted to comment on for one reason or another, but I'll get to most of those in a later post. Interestingly, I had commented last month about the lack of JOSIE reprints in the digests since last Fall, and the new B&V FRIENDS not only HAS a Josie section, but it's a whole 22 PAGES of Josie, including "O Solo Mio", a Dan Parent/Holly G collaboration (that was also included in last year's BEST OF JOSIE collection), followed by the less-often reprinted "Dreams", a classic Doyle/DeCarlo 6-pager, followed by the 1990s 5-page Hal Smith/Stan Goldberg "The Octopus and the Pesticide" (the title a pun which you'll have to read the story to discover, since if I explained it, it would spoil the joke). A nice selection spotlighting 3 of the 4 main Josie artists. 

The new BETTY & VERONICA also devotes 22 pages to Sabrina, in another case of stories taken all from the same issue (with art by Holly G and Fernando Ruiz).

The thing that got me to thinking were the two Cheryl Blossom stories. Each digest has one, in the case of B&V FRIENDS, it's "We've Got It Maid!!", which is technically a B&V story, and in the case of BETTY & VERONICA it's "Who Is Cheryl Blossom?" from BETTY AND VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #160 (Jun. 2008). That story more or less summarizes Cheryl's status up to that point in time, and it's sort of a prequel/re-intro for Cheryl before the 5-part series "And the Winner Is...", that originally appeared in BETTY AND VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #161-165. Issues #166, 167 and 169 all had new Cheryl stories in them, too, so it was almost like a try-out miniseries. That series had a tie-in for readers to vote for one of a series of potential boyfriends, and the winner of the popular vote would become the new steady boyfriend for Cheryl (spoiler: the winner, George, didn't last as Cheryl's steady guy for very long -- just until next year's BETTY AND VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #179 (Nov. 2009) story, "The Seven Month Itch").

Now, I don't know if anyone noticed, but BETTY AND VERONICA JUMBO COMICS #260 reprinted a 2-part Cheryl & Reggie team-up story "Love Is Nasty" (and its epilogue, "How's Tricks?"), all of which were 6-page shorts, from BETTY AND VERONICA DIGEST #180-182. The ending of the three stories left Cheryl in the situation of dating Reggie Mantle, but checking the original publication dates, the last of those shorts appeared just one month prior to "Who Is Cheryl Blossom?", so despite B&V's antipathy towards Cheryl, apparently they felt that even she deserved better than dating Mantle the Mouth, and so they attempt to set her up on a series of blind dates with potential new boyfriends, in the 5-part series "And the Winner Is..." (but let's be honest, B&V are really doing this to make sure they can keep Cheryl away from dating Archie).

The thing about Cheryl is, her status since losing her own title was actually changing in nearly every story, so there is some continuity there and the stories have to be placed in order for Cheryl's evolution as a character to make some sense. I'm working on a chronology of her original appearances. The 1980s and 1990s are pretty straightforward and easy to figure out, continuity-wise, but after CHERYL BLOSSOM #37 (Mar. 2001) things get a little more vague. There seems to be a large gap of a few years there between that issue and her next major storyline, "Love Showdown 2" in B&V SPECTACULAR #60 and ARCHIE & FRIENDS #79 (also known as "Lights, Camera, Action!!"). I can identify the multipart story Cheryl appearances pretty easily from 2004's "Love Showdown 2" through 2011's "Queen B", but I still wonder what she was up to between CHERYL BLOSSOM #37 in 2001 and "Love Showdown 2" in Feb/Mar 2004. Most of those stories ... and when I'm talking about "a Cheryl story", I don't necessarily mean one where she's the solo star, or has her own logo on the first page, but neither do I mean the (many) appearances where she's just 'one of many' supporting characters who play minor bit parts in a story -- what I mean by "a Cheryl story" is one in which Cheryl is one of three or four main characters in the story, where she plays a major part in moving the plot forward. These are what I call the "significant" Cheryl stories, or the ones that are important to the overall "Cheryl Saga" or whatever you want to call it. I still haven't been able to locate the story in which she moved out of the country (post-CHERYL #37), so if anyone has a clue to where I might find that, let me know. Once I've had a chance to spend a little more time cross-checking the chronology I'm currently trying to hammer out -- let's call it CHERYL: 2001-2014, I'll post it here.

More comments on some of those other stories in those two Jumbo Comics digest issues later. This post has gone on long enough.

Quote from: SAGG on April 07, 2018, 10:37:45 PM
I glanced at bits and pieces of LWA, but I just had the time to read it from the beginning. When I saw the volumes, I started. That's how I approach reading older comics. I get the whole thing in a major storyline at one time.... 😁

Well, that's pretty much how I started to get serious about Archie Comics. I'd read some of the recent floppy comics here and there, in a casual way, just borrowing them or reading them in the store (because my LCS owner is a long-time friend). I'll often try things that look interesting, or just for the curiosity factor. That's often true of things that might smack of some marketing gimmick ("Okay, let's see what this crap is all about...") that I have a negative/cynical attitude towards.

I did not at first connect the Death of Archie thing with "The Married Life" over in LIFE WITH ARCHIE magazine (although I obviously knew of that already) because I saw the floppy comic format issues first. I was surprised by the whole convoluted backstory leading into DoA, as I mentioned, so then I made it a point to read both the Archie Marries trade collection, and all of The Married Life TPBs, starting with the first. LWA in magazine form was a turn-off to me as a comic book collector, with the cover blurbs and short articles about Justin Bieber like some teen magazine. Then I started seeking out all of the other trade collections of then-recent multipart stories ((anything I could still order through Diamond Comics or Amazon, or whatever original issues I could find of multipart stories like ARCHIE MEETS KISS, etc.). Then "just" the SABRINA, JOSIE, and B&V trade collections... then KEVIN KELLER, because it was a short-run series and easy to get my hands on. Then ALL the rest of the ACP trade collections, then those 1000 Page Comics digest whoppers. Ongoing digest titles were the very last thing I began reading, some six or eight months after I'd read Death of Archie, unless you count the ongoing search for non-reprinted back issues. Then I started spending hours and hours online reading databases, Wikipedia and other sources of info about Archie Comics, getting a feel for the company history and compiling want lists. And the rest is history...