The SHEENA QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE Collection DVD. This has 2 seasons (25 episodes) from the 2000 syndicated TV series (starring Gena Lee Nolin of Baywatch as Sheena), and the 1984 feature film (starring former Charlie's Angel Tanya Roberts), plus 5 bonus episodes (poor quality) from the little-seen Sheena syndicated TV series from the 1950s (starring Irish McCalla as Sheena).

I was surprised to see nudity in the 1984 feature film (which I'd amazingly never seen before), since it clearly says it's rated PG. I guess maybe they can get away with brief nudity as long as it doesn't involve "sexually suggestive" situations? For the most part it's handled tastefully (and in one scene, comically). Ironically, the 2000 syndicated series has a Sheena who's showing less skin than her 1950s counterpart (Irish McCalla wore what amounted to a jungle minidress) -- here Gena Lee Nolin is more covered-up than she was on Baywatch. I'd put the 1950s series (which I'd seen before) on a par with the George Reeves SUPERMAN or the Clayton Moore LONE RANGER TV shows from the same decade... too bad there don't seem to be any existing decent-quality copies of the episodes.

It's okay for the $12 I paid for it, though.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on January 26, 2018, 06:15:33 PM

Quote from: terrence12 on January 26, 2018, 11:31:30 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on January 26, 2018, 07:03:25 AM
Reviews have absolutely no bearing on whether a series continues as an ongoing title, or ends. Only sales.

Which is probably the same reason there was no solicitation for a fifth issue of MIGHTY CRUSADERS in the March 2018 ACP solicitations, as well.

Sadly I agree and if this continues Archie comics will go bankrupt unless it be saved when it is bought by IDW who publishes the classic strips or Warner bros since they broadcast the classic strips

Or unless they come out with a TV show that lasts at least 3 seasons and another one on Netflix.  That might help.

It helps make the copyright holders of intellectual property rights profit, but it doesn't help make the publishing end of things any more profitable. A television series based on comic book characters is a licensed property, and likewise there are many characters being published in the comic book medium that are also produced under license from the intellectual property owners. Ultimately it might be more profitable for the intellectual property holder to reduce its own overhead costs by becoming a business entity whose sole business is in licensing those intellectual property rights to other businesses, including comic book publishers.

It also accounts for many existing phenomena in the comic book industry which would otherwise seem puzzling and counter-intuitive... like why the Walt Disney Company, which owns Marvel Comics, the largest comics publisher in the industry, would license their company-owned properties like Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Uncle Scrooge (and STAR WARS, for that matter) to other publishers like Fantagraphics and IDW. Or why Marvel Comics goes to ACP to publish a digest reprint collection of its superhero characters. What it ultimately comes down to is recognizing and acknowledging that another publisher has the know-how when it comes to producing and marketing a particular type of product. ACP has already licensed their characters to various other publishers (DC, Dark Horse, IDW) in the past for different reasons (rebooting existing characters, or special deluxe reprint collections) -- so there's no reason to believe another comics publisher might not do as well or better at marketing ACP's company-owned characters to consumers.

Reviews have absolutely no bearing on whether a series continues as an ongoing title, or ends. Only sales.

Which is probably the same reason there was no solicitation for a fifth issue of MIGHTY CRUSADERS in the March 2018 ACP solicitations, as well.

Quote from: SAGG on January 24, 2018, 04:50:18 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on January 24, 2018, 12:28:26 PM
Well, I couldn't find a copy of the one-shot, but unless they actually SHOW Jughead transforming into a werewolf, I'm gonna say he's not (despite whatever the covers show you); it didn't happen ONCE in issues #1 or 2.

Comixology has it on digital, if you prefer it....

Have to admit I only read it because I was able to easily borrow issues #1 & 2. I read them more out of curiosity than any real interest. It sure seems like they've telegraphed the fact that Jughead is NOT, in actuality, the werewolf in this series. I've never particularly cared for Frank Tieri's writing on any of the Marvel titles he's worked on over the past couple of decades, but VeganJughead got me interested enough to take a gander at how the Kennedy brothers handled a horror title. The results are serviceable enough, but by no means outstanding by comparison to any other artists working in the adventure/horror comics style. Especially when I think about how polished their cartooning has become over the last few years working in the traditional Archie house style.

... and no solicitation for a MIGHTY CRUSADERS issue #5, so that may be it for the superheroes. Not so much surprised, but saddened, as I thought it was the best of the floppy titles they're currently publishing.

Well, I couldn't find a copy of the one-shot, but unless they actually SHOW Jughead transforming into a werewolf, I'm gonna say he's not (despite whatever the covers show you); it didn't happen ONCE in issues #1 or 2.

And by "Fantasy", what they are talking about is stories like "B&V: Spy Girlz", "Robbin' Arch of Riverwood Forest", "Mirrordale", and "The Great Switcheroo". All stories that most of us have read somewhere (if not in the original printing) and already own -- but all great stories, regardless.  It's still nice to have them in one big collection. Despite the recent vintage, it's a great collection.

I can hardly believe that the Time Police TPB will actually get published, but we'll see.

WEEK OF 01-24-18 (so far):
BLACK MAGICK #10
X-MEN BLUE #20

BETTY AND VERONICA: VIXENS #3 - There are a few things that bug me about this book, starting with the fact that overall it seems like it's set in the fifties or early sixties, yet they have smartphones and computers. I'm liking it a little better as of this issue, but only in anticipating that there's an actual story here which has an ending.

ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK VOL 02: FANTASY TP - All but about 18 pages here are reprinted from ACP comics published in the last decade. I mention that not as a detraction, but as a matter of interest in pointing out how the past decade (particular the half-decade between 2010-2014) was one of the most interesting and creative in the entire 75-year history of the characters. Nearly ALL the stories here are reprinted from issues of ARCHIE between #418 and #464, a span of about 46 months. And they're all pretty good stories. The weakest stories here are those 18 pages I mentioned earlier, which reprint "The Mighty Archie Art Players" shorts from issues of LAUGH (2nd series) from the late 1980. Those stories could (and should) have been left out, as there were several other good issue-length stories from the last decade that they could have squeezed in instead.

B & V FRIENDS JUMBO COMICS #248 - They seem to have swapped the lead stories (as solicited) between this issue and BETTY & VERONICA JUMBO COMICS #249 (which I assume will have the Marcy story which was solicited as appearing in this issue, since this issue has the Harper story promised for that issue).

JUGHEAD: THE HUNGER #1 & 2 - So, everyone seems to think Jughead's a werewolf (including Jughead)... but I saw no proof of it in these two issues. So... probably not. Bingo Wilkin is a werewolf, though, and unless I misread things, Reggie is too. I'm not too enthused, but I might check out one or two more issues.

SCOOBY-DOO TEAM UP (with Birds of Prey) #34
LOONEY TUNES #241
SHERLOCK FRANKENSTEIN & THE LEGION OF EVIL #4 (of 4)
EMPOWERED & SISTAH SPOOKY'S HIGH SCHOOL HELL #2 (of 6)
MEGA MAN: MASTERMIX #1 (of ?) - 80 pages of Megaman manga in color for $8. This is old material previously appearing in a UDON translation in the standard b&w paperback format. It looks good in the larger size with color. Makes me want to re-read the Archie Action Megaman run, at least to compare, because it really is the same story.

Quote from: Original Sin on January 17, 2018, 11:43:35 AM
I am reading 'Men Explain Things To Me'.  Its pretty great.

At least she didn't title it (ugh) "Mansplanations"... ! 

Quote from: SAGG on January 17, 2018, 05:31:43 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on January 16, 2018, 06:40:12 PM
01-11 to 11-16-18:
The Little Book of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
The Little Book of BATMAN
The Little Book of SUPERMAN
The Little Book of WONDER WOMAN
MANGA CLASSIC READERS: MOBY DICK TP
MANGA CLASSIC READERS: WAR OF THE WORLDS TP
H.P. LOVECRAFT'S THE HOUND and Other Stories (adapted by Gou Tanabe)
JIMMY'S BASTARDS #6
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM UP (with the Legion of Super-Heroes) #33
FUTURE QUEST PRESENTS: BIRDMAN #6
BATMAN/TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II #3 (of 6)
BUGS BUNNY (1990) #2 - Strangely enough, of the 3 stories in this issue, NONE of them was a Bugs Bunny story!
WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT: THE CORPSE MAKERS #5 (of 5)
SHEENA #5
KILL OR BE KILLED #15
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NICK WILSON #1
ICE CREAM MAN #1
FIGHTING AMERICAN #4
KONG ON PLANET OF APES #3 (of 6)
ASSASSINISTAS #2 (of ?)
NEMO HC (adapted by Bruno)
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA HC (adapted by Gary Gianni)

What in the world is a "Little "Book"?     And what did you think about the Birdman book, DR? I  liked the part about Avenger being able to understand Birdman....

The Little Books are small (Flexicover, 4.7 x 6.5 in., 192 pages) books by Taschen, a German publisher specializing in highly graphic books about art, photography, and popular culture. The Little Books are like character histories told through graphic images and captions. They actually derive their content from larger, more expensive hardcover histories of comics written by Paul Levitz (DC) and Roy Thomas (Marvel). There were images in some of these books that even I hadn't seen before. I've provided links to the Taschen site for each of the comic-related Little Books so you can get an idea. Considering that the cover price of a floppy comic is $4, these Little Books are an absolute steal at $10 SRP.

The Little Book of AVENGERS https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48614/facts.the_little_book_of_avengers.htm
The Little Book of CAPTAIN AMERICA https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48617/facts.the_little_book_of_captain_america.htm
The Little Book of FANTASTIC FOUR https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48616/facts.the_little_book_of_fantastic_four.htm
The Little Book of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48615/facts.the_little_book_of_spider_man.htm
The Little Book of BATMAN https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48602/facts.the_little_book_of_batman_tm.htm
The Little Book of SUPERMAN  https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48601/facts.the_little_book_of_superman_tm.htm
The Little Book of WONDER WOMAN https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/48603/facts.the_little_book_of_wonder_woman_tm.htm



The FUTURE QUEST Birdman was good. I pretty much buy whatever comics Steve Rude draws anyway. He's a genius.

I'm not so much looking forward to the upcoming Mightor issue(s)... that character was a little too rebooted. Taking him out of his prehistoric world (and changing the simple costume) is a bad idea. At least Space Ghost hinted that the Galaxy Trio is still alive out there somewhere, and that he's going to find them (the previous Galaxy Trio stories were flashbacks).

They'll license some property eventually.

I'm glad they aren't doing a reboot of DICK TRACY, though. I'm happy with the version that's running in newspapers (and online) now, the daily & Sunday strip written by Mike Curtis and drawn by Joe Staton. Those guys have made Dick Tracy into a better strip than it was before. They brought back Moon Maid (sort of), revealed that a certain Tracy villain was the cousin of Oswald C. Cobblepot (The Penguin), had guest appearances by Harold Teen and characters from Gasoline Alley, and even wrapped up a storyline left unfinished when Little Orphan Annie got cancelled. Mike Curtis is constantly name-dropping references to comics and other in-jokes. In a storyline a couple of years back, they even had Dick Tracy meet The Spirit. DICK TRACY doesn't need rebooting. It's absolutely perfect as it is.






Besides, why do I want to pay $4 for an inferior reboot of DICK TRACY, when I can read the ongoing strip online for free?
http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/

"Reboots" are for people who get taken in by gimmicks like a publishing company using the name of a famous character for its publicity value. All of a sudden, people who were never interested in the character become interested, and chances are the people doing the reboot don't know squat about the character to begin with -- to them it's just work, another paying gig. VERY few reboots wind up being any good, and they're useless to the people who are already fans of the character.

01-11 to 11-16-18:
The Little Book of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
The Little Book of BATMAN
The Little Book of SUPERMAN
The Little Book of WONDER WOMAN
MANGA CLASSIC READERS: MOBY DICK TP
MANGA CLASSIC READERS: WAR OF THE WORLDS TP
H.P. LOVECRAFT'S THE HOUND and Other Stories (adapted by Gou Tanabe)
JIMMY'S BASTARDS #6
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM UP (with the Legion of Super-Heroes) #33
FUTURE QUEST PRESENTS: BIRDMAN #6
BATMAN/TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II #3 (of 6)
BUGS BUNNY (1990) #2 - Strangely enough, of the 3 stories in this issue, NONE of them was a Bugs Bunny story!
WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT: THE CORPSE MAKERS #5 (of 5)
SHEENA #5
KILL OR BE KILLED #15
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NICK WILSON #1
ICE CREAM MAN #1
FIGHTING AMERICAN #4
KONG ON PLANET OF APES #3 (of 6)
ASSASSINISTAS #2 (of ?)
NEMO HC (adapted by Bruno)
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA HC (adapted by Gary Gianni)

Quote from: Archie Comics Collector(Kalell) on January 15, 2018, 11:50:12 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on January 10, 2018, 03:36:35 PM
I think I'm going to quit reading the Archie digests (not the B&V digests, just the Archie ones). There's this real feeling of blandness about them right now, like they're just in a holding pattern, waiting for their time to inevitably run out. That's probably true, to a lesser extent, of the B&V digests as well, but it's less apparent to me because those digest stories seem to have a greater aggregation of my favorite artists in each issue.

They seem to be done with any pretense of growth or evolution (while maintaining faithfulness to the core style), even in the new stories -- there's a real feeling of "just keep it average and homogenized, according to what sold in the past", so there's no real "trying" on the part of the digest editors -- they've basically given up, and aren't going to bother making ANY effort. There's a real contrast there to the period between the late '90s Archie Comics (both floppies and digests) up to 2015, when they were introducing new characters, trying new things, new kinds of stories (out of that came cousin Marcy, New Kids, Kevin Keller, Harper Lodge, and a lot of fun 'what if' variant stories, and even LIFE WITH ARCHIE). All that seems to be over now, and 'classic Archie style' just seems to be in a short period of maintenance until the final shutdown.

Sorry to hear your going to quit buying some of the Digests. I received super stellar deals on Digest subscriptions in the past so I pay about 1.50 per Digest. That's at least a 75% markdown on the current cover price.  I can't find any other deal with color comics for that price point.

It took me quite a while to get a handle on the history of the digests (your online article helped a lot). But you really need to spend a lot of time analyzing exactly how they evolved over the last decade or so, which means looking at the subtle changes in content over time.

IMO the high point in digest history begins somewhere around 2008. You can tell by looking at the covers. Most of the digest titles received a makeover with new logos at that time. This was a short time (about a year or so) after the "New Look" stories were first introduced. They also started putting the little logos in the corners highlighting a new semi-regular reprint series being featured in all the titles. I've noticed this is the era where the covers become less oriented around the generic gag, and more story-based... and this was because for the next 3 or 4 years, all the digest titles began featuring more pages of new stories than ever before, somewhere between 10 to 20 pages of new stories (but usually more like 12-15) in every title. The variety of the reprints seemed to increase at the same time (as indicated by those little corner logos I mentioned).

I'm not entirely sure, but I think this coincides with a time where Nelson Ribeiro was the editor of the digests, and he seemed to take a real interest in trying to improve them. He had been around as an editor for awhile, at least since the time when they cancelled both Laugh Comics Digest and Jughead With Archie Comics Digest, and replaced those two titles with Tales From Riverdale Digest and Jughead and Friends Comics Digest. The new titles were both great improvements IMO, and always carried new stories in every issue. Alas, they only lasted 38 issues. I'm still missing 8 or 9 issues from both runs.

During that period I mentioned between 2008 and 2012 (which seemed to kick off around the same time that those special "Past Meets Present" stories appeared in Archie, Betty and Veronica, Jughead, and Archie's Pals 'n' Gals Double Digest) there were a lot of changes, but a lot of the new digests that appeared were good ones -- the early World of Archie Double Digest, Archie and Friends Double Digest, Jughead Double Digest (from around #144-200), and B & V Friends Double Digest replacing the old 96-page Betty and Veronica Digest with issue #209. Then for some reason they just dropped the idea of promoting an ongoing reprint feature in those digests with the little corner logos, and sometime towards the end of 2012 or 2013, the new stories stopped altogether. I don't know why. Then they started up again midway through 2014, and stayed regular, in all the titles, but rarely if ever going even one page over the 5-page rule. For a while there seemed to still be a fairly decent variety to the reprint mix (and World of Archie is the best barometer for the overall diversity of content across the digest line), but now things have just gotten too bland and middle-of-the-road, too plain vanilla.

On studying what went on (since I didn't start buying the digests myself until 2014), and comparing them to the contents of the most current issues of Archie, World of Archie, and Archie and Me Comics Digest, I simply concluded that I'm better off spending my money on trying to collect those back issues I missed from the 2008-2013 period, and a few other older digest runs (like Tales From Riverdale and Jughead and Friends).

Quote from: Mr.Lodge on January 13, 2018, 09:30:53 PM
How about Chloe Mancuso as a photographer, Trula Twyst as a psychologist or Cricket O'Dell as an investment banker?

I once had an idea for a LIFE WITH JUGHEAD series which would have been about Jughead and Trula as a young married couple. One of those odd marriages where people look at them and say "I just don't know what they see in each other -- they seem completely mismatched", but it would actually be a modern spin on an I Love Lucy-type series (with Jughead in this case playing the "Lucy" role), or some stories would be more like The Honeymooners with Jughead combining the roles of both Ralph and Norton. Actually, it would also be a little bit like The Bob Newhart Show, with Trula in the role of Bob Hartley, too.

I can definitely see Chloe Mancuso as some kind of papparazzo, but I've never really figured out how Cricket's mutant olfactory power to smell money would work in the real world of finance.

Quote from: SAGG on January 13, 2018, 11:28:56 AM
Archie Jumbo Double Digest 285 has an interesting story called "Snowbound". It's what I call an "Action Archie" story, you know, the adventure ones that have Goldberg illustrating where Archie is in danger, or fighting some really nasty bad guys who want to off him, those stories. Here, however, it's done by DeCarlo....

Well, it's an oddity, I'll grant you that much, but it seems like a waste of DeCarlo's real talent. "Snowbound" is another of those seemingly endless mild variations on the exact same plot which appeared far too frequently in stories from both ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH (with Chuck sometimes taking the role of the main, endangered, hero), and LIFE WITH ARCHIE. Because the plot always attempts to highlight the element of danger, the stories are totally humor-free. In fact, the plot at its most basic level is a variation of the old "Reggie attempts to trip up Archie using a variety of dirty tricks", but at least those stories are played to slapstick violence, so the essential humor element is maintained.

In the LWA version of the same plot, it usually involves a wider competition in which Archie is a main favored competitor, and introduces a new character (or two) -- unsavory, underhanded types who will stoop to any level to win by cheating, and usually endangering Archie's life in the bargain. The new character(s) are most often students at Central High, or some other rival high school to Riverdale (and will never be seen again after this story, either). Despite enduring multiple hazards along the way, we KNOW Archie's intrinsic goodness and fairplay are going to triumph over the dirty tricks and pitfalls laid by his nasty rival, and he'll expose the blackhearted cheater for his dishonest deeds. The stories are never really long enough for the plot to become TOO complicated either, so there's not even an element of "how will he do it?" for the reader to challenge the writer by guessing some mystery either. The main element that changes in these stories is the sport involved (skiing, hiking, running a marathon, mountain biking, etc.) and the nature of the obstacles to be overcome -- but it's the same plot every time. If you've read one, you've basically read them all.