My own analysis of the history of Archie Comics indicates that attempting to slice the company's history into decades doesn't present the best approach to understanding the evolution of change in its publishing history. All the natural landmarks along the road point to an approach by which a better understanding of the company can be had by looking at it in chunks beginning in the middle of one decade, and ending in the middle of the following one.

1939-1945: Pre-war and WWII - In this period, the company was not yet defined by Archie as the dominant character and force behind its publishing. Archie appears first as an anthology feature in the otherwise superhero-dominated titles Pep and Jackpot and receives his own title in 1943, but the majority of the company's output is still dominated by adventure features. Also in 1943, the company branches out with media adaptations of two of its most popular characters, with the radio series The Adventures of Archie Andrews, and The Black Hood. The former is a success and will continue running on one network or another for a decade, while the latter is a failure and lasts a single season. A pulp fiction magazine based on the Black Hood is also published to coincide with the radio series, but it too is a failure, lasting for only three issues. The success of Archie in his own self-titled comic book and as a radio series will decide the future direction of the company, with the shift from superheroes to comedy features in the anthology titles beginning almost as soon as the Black Hood's failure in other media becomes apparent, and will be largely complete by the end of the war. In actuality, the shift had begun even earlier, with the conversion of Top-Notch Comics (in which The Black Hood was the lead feature) to Top-Notch Laugh Comics (which continued to retain The Black Hood, but as a subordinate feature to other comedy features), beginning with issue #28, dated July 1942. Top-Notch Laugh Comics will end with issue #45 in May of 1945. Black Hood (the company's most successful superhero, along with The Shield) will outlive Top-Notch Laugh Comics in his own title, but only until issue #19 (June 1946).

1946-1955: Postwar Period - Superheroes are out of favor following the end of WWII, and comedy features (with ARCHIE as the flagship title) dominate the publisher's philosophy. "MLJ Magazines" is accordingly rechristened as "Archie Comic Publications" at the beginning of this period, and the Archie newspaper strip, launched early in 1946 under the sole creative control of Bob Montana, is the standard to which the comic book writers and artists look for their cues. In a very short time, the strip will be carried in hundreds of papers, exposing the character to audiences of millions not otherwise familiar with Archie in the comic books. This 10-year span also coincides with a boom period for the entire industry, with total industry sales peaking in the last couple of years prior to the institution of the Comics Code Authority seal on all comics distributed in 1955, indicating a sea-change for the entire industry. New titles spinning off from Archie begin proliferating at the end of the 1940s: Archie's Pal Jughead, Archie's Rival Reggie, Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica, and Archie's Pals 'n' Gals. Apart from the model established by Montana in the newspaper strip, no particular writers or artists on the Archie-related titles dominate the style or direction of the characters. By the end of this period, the erosion of sales will be heavily felt due to the rise of television as the dominant form of entertainment.

1956-1965: The Boomer Decade - Harry Lucey emerges as the major definer of Archie and his friends in the comic books, largely superseding Montana's conception as presented in the newspaper strip. Samm Schwartz does likewise in becoming the major artist defining Jughead as the star of his own series. At the beginning of the decade, Dan DeCarlo joins the company, at first moonlighting from his major employment at Atlas/Marvel, but by late in 1958 becoming a full-time freelancer at ACP. After that time, his importance in defining Betty and Veronica in their own title and as separate characters from Archie, gradually gains dominance over the Lucey conception of B&V at the beginning of this period. The importance of DeCarlo increases with the launch of Josie in 1963. Little Archie is conceived, written and drawn by Bob Bolling from 1956-1965, but is turned over to Dexter Taylor in 1965 in order to remake the low-selling title into something more closely resembling the main Archie title. Additional titles like Archie Giant Series, Archie's Madhouse, Archie's Joke Book, Jughead's Jokes, Life With Archie, and Archie and Me are launched and thrive. An attempted revival of Reggie in his own title is not successful, nor are other short-lived titles like Jughead's Fantasy. Samm Schwartz leaves Jughead and the company in 1965 to work for Harry Shorten at Tower Comics.

1966-1975: Everything's Archie - Beginning slightly earlier in 1965, there is a great deal of experimentation in response to the impact of cultural awareness of "camp" and "pop art", particularly resulting in the remaking of Archie, Jughead, Betty, and Reggie into superheroes as Pureheart, Captain Hero, Superteen, and Evilheart. The success of Silver Age superheroes at DC, and especially at Marvel, had resulted in revamping The Adventures of the Fly (running since 1959) as Fly-Man, and the revival of several of the company's Golden Age superheroes, resulting in the spinoff title The Mighty Crusaders. "Camp" abounded in these titles and on Archie's covers for most of 1966. The rise in popularity of DC and Marvel superhero comics in the early 1960s will affect not only competing comic book publishers, but also the content of Saturday morning animated programming in the 1966-1967 seasons. History will repeat itself, in a way, just as the crime and horror comics of the early 1950s inspired a parental backlash, a small vocal minority of concerned mothers will begin a movement against action/adventure-dominated children's fare on television, resulting in Filmation animation producer Lou Scheimer turning to Archie Comics in his search for a source of program content of a more innocuous and inoffensive nature. Archie Comics benefited from an unexpected windfall as the brief sales boom in superhero comics subsided in 1968, and ACP's new direction would take its cues from the successful Saturday morning animated shows The Archie Show, followed by Sabrina the Teenage Witch and then Josie and the Pussycats. Dan DeCarlo is given the responsibility of cover artist for the entire Archie lineup at the end of the decade, signaling the domination of his style as "the" Archie style. New titles will again proliferate beginning in the late 1960s: Archie's TV Laugh-Out, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, That Wilkin Boy, and the conversion of Archie's Madhouse into The Madhouse Glads, and Josie into Josie and the Pussycats. The animated shows bring an influx of new readers to Archie Comics, and titles like Everything's Archie are added to capitalize on the pop chart success of The Archies. As the superhero craze on television dies down by 1968, sales on superhero comics dwindle after a brief boomlet, and Archie Comics experiences a new sales boom of its own in teen humor titles during this period, with Archie outselling even Superman and The Amazing Spider-Man, and character merchandising at an all-time high. Archie's success as a publisher will even inspire the creation of teen humor titles at rival publishers DC and Marvel, along with other publishers. The animated adaptations continue to morph into different variations from season to season, but remain ubiquitous on television in various combinations of new episodes and reruns, from 1968-1975. It is during this period, as the main protagonist of Betty and Me for ten years, that Betty Cooper gradually gains acknowledgment from Archie that he sees her as more than a friend and "back-up date" and that he actually harbors romantic feelings for her. While she still remains the underdog in her rivalry with Veronica, the "Triangle" has been truly established by the close of the period. Late in this period, the company will briefly experiment with horror comics (Madhouse, Chilling Tales of Sorcery) under the Red Circle imprint, after the Comics Code is revised in 1972 (they are not successful). In 1975, Bob Montana dies, and ACP turns responsibility for the important newspaper strip over to Dan DeCarlo.

1976-1986: Changing Times - Newsstand sales begin to shrink in this period, but the worst is yet to come in the next period. As the latter half of the 1970s draws to a close, the animated adaptations are producing far fewer new episodes and reruns move from the major networks to syndication on local UHF stations. The boom of the previous period has ended, and the early 1980s sees the cancellations of many long-running titles that began in the previous period: Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycats, That Wilkin Boy, Reggie and Me. By the end of the period that will include all of the legacy titles: Pep, Laugh, Madhouse, Archie's TV Laugh-Out, Betty and Me. The first series of Betty and Veronica and Jughead will come to an end, to be replaced by new #1 issues beginning in 1987 (Betty and Me will be replaced by Betty #1), with only Archie carrying on the legacy numbering. Digest comics will become the major success for ACP by the end of this period, and by the next period they will dominate over sales of standard-format comic books, with the number of digest titles proliferating. At the end of the previous period, newsstand sales were still the dominant method of distribution for comic books, but by the end of this period, the balance will have shifted to specialized comic book stores catering mainly to hardcore comic book fans. The resultant loss of mass distribution in regular retail establishments across the country will profoundly affect ACP, as comic book shops cater to a much smaller audience of older consumer-collectors whose main interest is in the superhero genre.

Quote from: SAGG on September 10, 2017, 11:31:29 PM
Lucey vs. DeCarlo? I didn't know they were competing against each other... 

Perhaps not as overtly as Betty competed with Veronica, but in this analogy the reading audience is "Archie", and you can love both (the girls or the artists' interpretations of them), but ultimately you have to choose only one.

I'm about 80% through my second reading of this book, and I have to report that upon analyzing what Beaty has to say (and just importantly, what he omits talking about) I'm far less happy with the book than I was upon my initial reading. Probably because the first time around I was just bedazzled by the fact that anyone had taken the time to write a book about Archie that didn't amount to a company-approved summary of the publisher's history.

In fact, I'm going to say that I'm finding the book to be incredibly myopic and biased based on the author's own interests, so it presents nothing like a balanced and fair critique of (as I was expecting) the comic books published by Archie Comic Publications during the period of the 1960s when the cover price of those comics was twelve cents (cover dates from Dec. 1961 to July 1969).

Really the only thing that's of interest to Beaty in discussing is the comic book stories published by ACP in that period that directly featured Archie (and to a much lesser extent, Jughead). And even more to the point, Archie stories that were drawn by Harry Lucey (and to a much lesser extent, Jughead stories drawn by Samm Schwartz). Other comics (and characters) are mentioned either matter-of-factly, or in a way that is critical (in the negative connotation of that word) and/or dismissive. Writers like Frank Doyle are only mentioned in the context of their having written a script which was particularly brilliantly executed by either Lucey or Schwartz -- and Doyle is about the only writer mentioned (and once or twice, Bob Bolling). Now to be fair, the writers were not credited in the actual comics as published in this period, but shouldn't Beaty have taken the time to determine that information as much as is possible?

Dan DeCarlo is mentioned numerous times, but usually in a factual context, and barely discussed at all. The greatest wordage devoted specifically to DeCarlo is reserved for Beaty's observation of his design usage of the non-character "foreground girls" that decorated at least one panel of one story in every DeCarlo-drawn issue of B&V, and he presents it in such a way as to cast it in the light of a negative idiosyncratic oddity perpetrated by the artist. There is no discussion (although mentioned a few times in passing) of JOSIE, for example, because DeCarlo doesn't interest Beaty at all, nor do any comics which ACP published that were not focused specifically on Archie (and to a much lesser extent, Jughead). Various other titles are mentioned or discussed in a dismissive light, possibly some deserving of it, like the various Joke Books, but Beaty tends to feel negatively about anything that diverges from the standard, classic middle-of-the-road Riverdale story. Things that vary from that, like stories in Life With Archie, are invariably, when deemed worthy of mention at all, in for a harsh drubbing. "Caveman Archie" only escapes that same fate by dint of many of the stories having been handled by Lucey.

Other important characters are discussed, but only insofar as how they related to Archie Andrews in the stories, so once again -- no great amount of wordage is devoted to discussing Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica, because Harry Lucey (and Samm Schwartz) had little to do with that title. On the other hand, we get things like a two page discussion/analysis of a single-page Doyle-written, Schwartz-drawn Jughead gag, so that Beaty can discuss the brilliance of how Schwartz turned a lamely-written, unfunny joke into an exercise of turning a piece of crap into cartooning gold.

The minor-minor characters (Moose, Midge, Dilton, Ethel) are discussed and dismissed summarily as bad one-note ideas -- which may not be entirely unfounded, yet somehow they're still around, even if they might have been nothing more than reoccurring plot devices in those earliest stories.

Somehow, though, I find myself wishing for a critical analysis that was a little less biased and little more representative of ACP's total publishing output, even within a limited period like the twelve-cent era. Maybe that's my own bias because I find a lot of stuff that I like about that period had nothing to do with "standard Archie" (Josie, Sabrina, Madhouse) and I like stuff that Beaty clearly hates (Pureheart, The Man From R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E., The Archies). On the other hand, while he admits that Archie's Girls Betty & Veronica was the second best-selling title in this period, he spends very little time actually discussing it, certainly less than he devotes to Jughead, the third best-selling title, so it has to do less with their relative importance in the factual sense than it does with Beaty's abiding interest in both Archie and Jughead, and Lucey and Schwartz, and relative lack of interest in Betty & Veronica (apart from their function within Archie stories drawn by Lucey, and how they related to Archie in general) and Dan DeCarlo. Beaty spends an overlong amount of time constantly returning to explanations of how ACP's lack of continuity functioned within the stories, to the point where it seems like overkill.

Maybe what's needed is a critical anthology, in which different writers could present essays on different aspects of Archie Comics that they found merited discussing or analyzing, whether focusing on various characters, titles, or publishing trends, or some subtextual aspects of the story dynamics not immediately apparent on the surface or which seem worthy of exploration.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 09, 2017, 01:01:56 PM
I have that book and i love that book, but even I, as a HUGE Lucey fan, was a bit taken back at his use of "by far".  I think he was just trying to be edgy since Dan DeCarlo is assumed by most casual observers to be THE Archie artist. 


For B&V, in that era I'll take DeCarlo.  If I can go across all eras, I'll take Dan Parent or Bob Montana, although I love Jeff Shultz's DeCarlo tribute style as well.   


I like Dan Parent's B&V, but Montana and DeCarlo drew during what in my opinion was a high point for women's fashion, so I guess I like Parent's Betty and Veronica heads and Montana and DeCarlo from the neck down.  Ha ha.

For the late '40s and early '50s, it's Bob Montana setting the pace and leading the way (on the newspaper strip and some covers), but as we get to the mid-'50s in the comic books, Harry Lucey began to emerge as the dominant artist, and it was he who largely defined the characters for the next decade's comic books. Overlapping in the early '60s, Dan DeCarlo's version begins to overtake Lucey's as the preeminent B&V depiction, which is pretty well solidified by the later '60s when DeCarlo becomes the main cover artist for all the comics. Lucey's artistic powers began fading in the 1970s comics due to his deteriorating health, and he retired completely in 1976. DeCarlo's dominance just continued to build in the 1970s, adding the newspaper strip to his duties when Bob Montana died in 1975. Becoming the main cover artist, and then the newspaper strip artist, is about all the validation needed to confirm that by the later 1970s, "the traditional Archie Comics style" had become Dan DeCarlo's style.

When discussing the Silver Age artists, one that never seems to get mentioned, or enough credit, is Bob White. He was brought into ACP's production department in the late '50s by Bob Bolling, and when he got to work on the main characters in the '60s, being new to the genre, he seemed to have a strong desire to prove his worth to the company by remaining faithful to the house style of the period, taking most of his artistic cues from DeCarlo's and Lucey's work (and maybe a little bit of Bob Montana). His work can be found in and on the covers of early-1960s issues of Archie and Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica, and he was also a regular contributor to Archie's Madhouse. But he seems to be primarily remembered as the artist on those 1965-1967 issues of Life With Archie that featured Pureheart the Powerful, The Man From R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E., and the prototype 3-man version of The Archies. His most distinctive contribution to the company remains the delightfully wonky Cosmo the Merry Martian, which he created, wrote and drew.


A couple of examples of Bob White's covers for Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica.

In the later 1990s, when Dan Parent began to emerge from DeCarlo's mentoring into his own, it seems like he and Jeff Schulz are pretty much neck-and-neck as B&V artists, but Dan Parent was becoming more the signature artist for Veronica. He also helped to launch Cheryl and Sabrina in their own late-1990s comics, eventually turning Cheryl over to Holly G. (who afterwards moved on to Josie and the Pussycats, and then Sabrina). Holly's slightly manga-influenced take on all those characters gave them a fresh look. She also broke away from the traditional method of drawing the girls' eyes as simple black dots with a single ink line representing the eyelash in medium and close-up panels, giving them delicate eyelashes and colored irises, which made them seem more expressive. Holly didn't do many B&V stories, but the one where Betty gets a Goth makeover is memorable.

Then in the 2000s, Dan is allowed to express his own individual style a lot more, and definitely becomes the iconic cover artist for both B&V. Breaking away from the DeCarlo influence a little, he develops a lot of his own signature facial expressions for the girls. Dan's abilities as a graphic designer really begin to impress me at about the time Betty & Veronica Spectacular gets a makeover as a fashion magazine-styled comic (#69-90), and that's about the time that I'd say he "owned" those characters, despite some nice work from Jeff continuing on interior B&V stories. Dan gets to do some fun stuff, like the storybook tales (Wonderland and Oz) and Agents B&V in the digests around the same time. And yes, Dan Parent definitely picked up on the fashion-conscious vibe that DeCarlo had paid real attention to, adding to that contemporary sensibility. I notice in a few of their most recent stories that the brothers Kennedy are really starting to pay attention to B&V's fashions, too.

Quote from: SAGG on September 09, 2017, 11:33:57 PM
In the bottom panel, this is NOT Betty. I remember this story....

True. But the resemblance is intentional, because in the story, Reggie mistakes this girl for Betty.

Then again, as Bart Beaty noted in his book, ALL girls in Riverdale are essentially the SAME girl, in terms of their bodies and facial features (except for Ethel, and occasional incidental characters meant to represent non-standard types). They are mainly distinguished by their hair colors and styles, and their styles of dress (harder still to distinguish when they're all wearing swimsuits). By Riverdalian standards, "the average girl" is a looker. And I wouldn't want it any other way. In a sense, we're getting the Archie-centric POV of things, where there are distractions and temptations everywhere he turns -- leading, of course, to potential comedic complications.

I've been re-reading Bart Beaty's TWELVE-CENT ARCHIE (since a new edition of the book came out with color illustrations) and seeing his comments in a somewhat different light than I did upon the first reading, a couple of years ago. I imagine that's because my understanding of the background context of the history of Archie has expanded considerably in the time since I first read it. Beaty is a devout admirer of Harry Lucey's work, and at one point in the book he makes the bold statement that "Of all the dozens of artists who contributed to Archie Comics in the twelve-cent era, the best, by far, was Harry Lucey." (emphasis mine) He goes on to say "His Archie is the most wide-eyed, his Betty and Veronica the most alluring, and his Jughead is the most relaxed."

"By far"? I had to think about that a bit, and while I'd certainly give it to Lucey when it came to Archie as the main character, and he draws a pretty sexy B&V, there's still something about his version of the girls that falls a little short, for me, of Dan DeCarlo's. How do I articulate exactly what quality it was that made DeCarlo's B&V superior to Lucey's?

When I think of Harry Lucey's version of the girls, it always seems to me that they carry themselves in a way a little too poised, a little too physically mature for their age. He's a good girl artist, but he subtracts a bit of his cartooning instincts and amps up his illustrator instincts when drawing them. His B&V seem reminiscent to me of the kind of glamour photography you might see from the 1940s or 1950s, and has a kind of "posed" quality to it, whenever B&V are strutting their stuff and showing off their curves.

Dan's B&V seem to have more of a relaxed, natural quality about them, as if caught in moments unaware that they're "having their picture taken". Despite the fact that they're both essentially the same girl in body and facial features with different hairstyles and clothing, Dan was better at making B&V each distinct by contrasting their different styles of body language. In thinking about it, I'd say DeCarlo better captured a balance in both girls' depiction between their youthful innocence and their physical charms, and that made them both more appealing and seem a little more real. I think he had a little better range on their expressions of different emotion than Lucey did, too.

Now, when it comes to who was the better ARCHIE artist (that is, the better artist for stories that focus on Archie as the main character), it's Lucey hands down. His range of portraying slapstick comedy, movement through space, and force and motion through body language was unequaled. He would have made a damn fine animator, if that had been the profession he'd chosen, because you can look at a Harry Lucey Archie story and see all the "key frames" (or "extremes") that would represent the points on which the animation turns, to be filled-in by in-betweeners. So if he had worked in animation, he'd either be the lead animator on the main character, or the director of the cartoon (who essentially does the same thing, in addition to coordinating all the other animators on the team). That ability to tell a story through slapstick action simply wasn't as essential a quality in most Betty & Veronica stories as it was in an Archie story.

And... I haven't quite decided whether Lucey was the best Silver Age Jughead artist or not, because I haven't quite spent enough time thinking about it or studying stories with that in mind, but my instincts are leading me to say... Samm Schwartz, particularly the pre-1965 Schwartz, whose earlier work I always liked better because of the inking quality on those stories before he left the company for the next four years (to go work for Tower Comics, and then DC). Schwartz' later Jughead is more minimalist, with fewer background details in the panels, and an unvarying ink line-weight, making everything look flatter and less 3-dimensional. But he still had a good storytelling sense of layouts and about the placement of figures within a panel to get some movement into it.

And beyond the Silver Age, after DeCarlo and then Lucey, who was the next best B&V artist after Lucey retired in the Bronze Age? I'm going to go with... Al Hartley. Especially when it came to Betty. Hartley seemed to have a real empathy for Betty, and it showed in his work, but beyond that, he was probably just, on average, the next best "girl artist". He didn't tend to flaunt that ability quite as much as DeCarlo and Lucey did, but when he wanted to, he could turn out some terrific stuff when the specific story allowed it. And after Hartley, once he'd been working at Archie for a few years and had gotten a handle on the characters and the house style... Stan Goldberg.

Quote from: Archiecomicxfan215 on September 08, 2017, 09:20:44 PM
This is also on Hottopic.com and every size is sold out except for Extra Large

Some nice Dan Parent head shots there. Maybe it's me, but doesn't it seem a little weird that the shirt design allows space for a dozen character head shots, but it's the same six characters, repeated twice? ... Rather than, as would seem to make a lot more sense to me, including Moose, Midge, Chuck, Nancy, Cheryl, and Dilton? I suppose they could have made the main cast's heads a little larger, and the supporting cast's heads a little smaller (and mixed up the pattern) to make the main characters faces stand out a little more.

Quote from: CAPalace on September 08, 2017, 11:15:43 AM
Thanks for posting all this info, DeCarlo. 

I was bummed-out about not being able to get the new collection, but it looks like most of those stories are reprints from other collections or stuff I have already so now I know I can hold off on it for awhile. 

You're welcome. I meant to get these all posted a week or so ago (I already had the tables in Excel) but it turned out to be a bear formatting the text in tables for posting on the SimpleMachines forum board, because I had to format the text in each cell with HTML tags nested within tags... a very time-consuming process, especially for the larger collections. I could have left out some of the details (I was forced to omit a short synopsis of each story, because it just took up way too much space, even after trying to pare the synopses down to as basic as possible), but it's really hard to compare if you're just looking at text that isn't separated into columns.

Now in summary, I'd say my recommendations for anyone would be:

If you prefer digital, you DEFINITELY should get --
(CapPalace, I'm pretty sure you must already have all, or at least most, of these):

BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (2001) - the digital version is on Comixology/Amazon for $6!
SHE'S JOSIE: BEFORE THE PUSSCATS! (2013)
BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS: GREATEST HITS! (2014)
JOSIE AND THE SCAREDY CATS (2015)

There's a little duplication between those, but not that much. [Believe me, it's nowhere near as bad as the redundancy on the FIVE different digital exclusive SABRINA collections.] If you have those four above in digital, you can easily skip the ARCHIE 75 SERIES: JOSIE collection, unless you really,really have to have that one 8-page story "Rebellion" from JOSIE #20 (and I admit, it's a great story, where the women in town revolt and take charge, in the most physical way possible)... but it is just ONE story.

You could also add the digital version of ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK, if so inclined. That would largely be an individual choice, depending on how you felt about the Little Archie and Sabrina (all DeCarlo, but one) stories, but the main reason for Josie fans to have it would just be for the complete 4-part stories in JOSIE #2 and 3 -- worth buying just for that, IMO, but your call.

Then you'll have most of the stuff you need. I don't know, look at the list of titles in red from the new BEST OF trade paperback, and make up your mind if you can't live without those for the digital version (but it might be cheaper to just find copies of the original comics or digests in some cases).


And for those people who don't do digital, it's even simpler - just get THE BEST OF JOSIE (2001), ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK, and the new 2017 BEST OF JOSIE trade paperback.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 08, 2017, 06:11:44 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 07, 2017, 11:49:14 PM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 07, 2017, 01:02:23 PM
I just got this in the mail.  I'm at work so I don't have time to read it yet but on first glance it looks really cool!

Dare we hope for a complete review (of the Archie-related contents) in the near future?? 

I'm not really the reviewing type DCR, but YOU are.  I'm more of a consumer than a collector of comics.  How about this?  When I'm done (it will probably take me a few weeks as I'm reading about 30 things at once, LOL), I'll let you know, then you PM me your address and I'll send it to you and if you want to, you can review it for us to read.   If you don't want to, you still get to read the book.  You can't lose (and if you review it for the forum, we all win).

It's a deal!!

FRINGE BENEFITS OF BEING THE MANAGER OF AN ALL-GIRL ROCK BAND...

AND HE CLAIMED HE WAS "ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY" (AND TO PISS OFF HIS SISTER)

And finally, we come to the most recent (and largest) collection of Josie stories yet, THE BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (Aug. 2017) -- and at 385 pages, it outweighs the previous BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSCATS: GREATEST HITS! digital exclusive collection by a whopping 92 pages of comics. You may have noticed that this is the third time they've used the words "The Best of Josie and the Pussycats" in the title of a collection. We had the 2001 trade paperback collection by that name, the 2014 digital exclusive collection subtitled "Greatest Hits!", and now this, which, by the physical dimensions of the book, I guess is intended to be considered part of "The Best of Archie Comics" series of trade collections.

Waitaminnit... how can I say 385 pages, when it says right on the cover of the trade paperback "Over 400 Pages"? Well, technically the book IS over 400 pages. Just not 400 pages of comics, and that's all I'm counting -- the actual pages of comics reprinted. Add the contents, credits and comments pages by some notable names in the comics biz (and elsewhere) and it does total over 400 pages -- but you're only buying it for the comics, right?

That being the case, let's be absolutely honest here and admit that the last 30 pages of comics in this book really don't count, because they're included for ACP's own self-serving purposes as advertising -- so that means there are really only 62 pages more of comics in this trade paperback collection than there are in the 2014 "Greatest Hits!" digital exclusive collection. My reasoning is as follows: The 20-page story from JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (2016) #1 is immediately followed by a full-page reproduction of the cover of the trade paperback collecting the first 5 issues of that series (advertising). The 10-page story reprinted from RIVERDALE #3 only appeared a few months ago, in July 2017. By what stretch of the imagination can these stories honestly be judged as "the best of" anything? Unless you've been living under a rock somewhere, if you are a fan of Josie, you're already aware that these stories exist, and if you care about that kind of thing, you've probably already read them -- or, you've decided you don't care about them -- as the case may be. Even accepting the hypothetical premise that some under-rock-dweller might not have been aware that these stories existed, they're far too recent for any value judgment regarding their relative quality as among the "best of" Josie stories to be honestly assessed. These stories are included here by ACP solely for the purpose of promoting trade paperback sales (of JOSIE) and floppy comic book sales (of RIVERDALE). Harsh, but undeniably true. Nuff 'said.

All that said, apart from those, there are only 6 other stories in this collection (totaling 56 pages) that have never been included in any previous Josie collections. The 2014 "Greatest Hits!" digital exclusive compilation has 10 stories (totaling 84 pages) that aren't duplicated in any other Josie collections. So if digital is your preference in buying comics, you're much better off purchasing that collection as opposed to the digital version of this one. Apart from those 6 stories unique to this collection, you can get the other ones not common to the "Greatest Hits!" collection in other Josie collections. Furthermore, 2 of those stories ("Love & War" and "Maxim Mix-Up") did first appear in JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (1993) #2, so there's another 13 pages you can subtract if you can manage to find a copy of that comic book. "Zero to Rock Hero" is another excellent story exclusive to this collection, but unfortunately, only the second part of the two-part continued story is reprinted here. And finally, it should be duly noted that one of those 6 stories, "Vengeance From the Crypt" from JOSIE #72, while undeniably a classic and also a first-time reprinting, is reproduced as shot straight from the printed comic book pages, giving it a somewhat muddy look compared to the other stories reprinted here, with, sadly, no attempt made at digital clean-up.  If there is a single story included in this collection but no other, that represents a worthy argument for buying this collection over 2014's "Greatest Hits!" digital exclusive, it's "Showstopper!", the sole Josie story ever drawn by Gisele Lagace, originally appearing in B & V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #244. As with my previous contents listings, the ones in RED listed here are the stories unique to this collection.

BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS	385 Pages	source of 1st publication	Aug. 2017	writer	penciller	inker
cover		JOSIE #50			Dan DeCarlo
Decisions, Decisions	6 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Off To A Good Start	11 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Pussy Footing	5 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Sounds Silly To Me	5 pages	JOSIE #47	Apr. 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Using His Head	11 pages	JOSIE #48	June 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Quiet On The Set	8 pages	JOSIE #50	Sept. 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Shopping Spree	5 pages	JOSIE #50	Sept. 1970	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Litter By Litter	6 pages	JOSIE #51	Oct. 1970	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Take Me To Your Leader	10 pages	JOSIE #51	Oct. 1970	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
A Moment Of Truth	7 pages	JOSIE #55	June 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Please Take Note	5 pages	JOSIE #55	June 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Power Shortage	6 pages	JOSIE #55	June 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Ghost of Dark Valley Manor	16 pages	JOSIE #57	Sept. 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
My Brother's Keeper	8 pages	JOSIE #65	Oct. 1972	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Mario Acquaviva
The Swamp Mist Monster!	8 pages	JOSIE #67	Feb. 1973	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Mario Acquaviva
Vengeance From The Crypt	10 pages	JOSIE #72	Oct. 1973	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Jon D'Agostino
Club Crisis	6 pages	JOSIE #93	Dec. 1976	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Some You Win	5 pages	JOSIE #98	Oct. 1978	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
A New View	5 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #84	Feb. 1982	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg
Head Count	6 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #95	June 1984	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
What Price Failure	6 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #96	Aug. 1984	George Gladir	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
The Swingers	6 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #97	Oct. 1984	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Image	5 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #98	Dec. 1984	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Rudy Lapick
Gimmick Happy	6 pages	LAUGH #1	June 1987	Bill Webb	Stan Goldberg	Jon D'Agostino
Gig Gala!	5 pages	LAUGH #4	Dec. 1987	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Hy Eisman
Say Cheese	1 page	ARCHIE'S PALS 'N' GALS #194	Jan. 1988	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Rod Ollerenshaw
Gig Gaga	5 pages	LAUGH #5	Feb. 1988	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Rudy Lapick
Costume Capers	5 pages	LAUGH #16	Aug. 1989	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Mike Esposito
Oldies But Goodies	5 pages	LAUGH #20	Apr. 1990	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Rod Ollerenshaw
Double Duty	5 pages	LAUGH #23	Aug. 1990	George Gladir	Dan DeCarlo	Mike Esposito
Love & War	8 pages	JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (1994) #2	Spring 1994	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Alison Flood
Maxim Mix-Up	5 pages	JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (1994) #2	Spring 1994	Hal Smith	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
O Solo Mio	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #52	Dec. 2001	Dan Parent	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Bad News Boys	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #53	Jan. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Ice Princess of the Lost Civilization	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #54	Mar. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Stage Fright	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #55	Apr. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
A Singular Idea	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #63	Dec. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Photo Oops!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #68	May 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski
Go Figure!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #69	June 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Al Bigley	Al Milgrom
Fame Blame	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #70	July 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Al Bigley	Al Milgrom
Show Offs!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #76	Dec. 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski
Zero To Rock Hero, Part 2	22 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #131	July 2009	Stephen Oswald	Bill Galvan	Al Milgrom
It Starts With A Kiss!	22 pages	ARCHIE #608 (June 2010)	June 2010	Dan Parent	Bill Galvan	Rich Koslowski
With This Ring!	20 pages	ARCHIE #632	June 2012	Dan Parent	Dan Parent	Rich Koslowski
Showstopper!	6 pages	B & V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #244	Sept. 2015	J. Torres	Gisele Lagace	Rich Koslowski
(no title)	20 pages	JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (2016) #1	Nov. 2016	Marguerite Bennett	Audrey Mok	Audrey Mok
Wild Things	10 pages	RIVERDALE #3	Jul. 2017	James DeWille	Joe Eisma	A. Syzmanowicz

Hey, I just realized... Archiecomicxfan215's new t-shirt is Vegan Jughead! 

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 07, 2017, 01:02:23 PM
I just got this in the mail.  I'm at work so I don't have time to read it yet but on first glance it looks really cool!

Dare we hope for a complete review (of the Archie-related contents) in the near future?? 

Oh, and as for how this all relates to the sales of Archie Comics, it's helpful to remember that ACP's sales have traditionally been strongest in the Newsstand & Subscription Channel (not sure if direct mail-order sales are included in "subscriptions", as that's something that ACP has leaned heavily on in the past to shore up a shrinking newsstand marketplace).

No doubt in the past 6 years both digital and trade collection sales have helped somewhat to make up for the newsstand market that ACP was traditionally dependent on for its bread & butter sales, but book channel sales still lag behind those of comic book shops, a market where ACP is at its weakest, and digital sales appear to have leveled off within the last 3-4 years. The biggest growth of the total marketplace over the past 6 years has been in the graphic novel/trade collection format (up nearly $200M from 2011 to 2016), while both digital and newsstand sales have remained largely the same over a period from 2013-2016.

I thought some people here might be interested in seeing these statistics. The bar graphs were created by Kate Willaert, from data jointly compiled by John Jackson Miller of Comichron, in collaboration with Milton Griepp of ICv2. I've no idea of where they got access to statistics such as total book market sales, digital sales, and newsstand/subscription sales, but I have faith that these are reasonably close estimates that represent the most accurate snapsnot of the total market as anyone's likely to get. The graphics ought to be self-explanatory.