Quote from: terrence12 on August 11, 2017, 09:16:22 PM

Quote from: irishmoxie on August 11, 2017, 02:12:24 PM
Why oh why can't they make a Betty and Veronica series marketed towards women?

You know,That's a good question.Why Archie couldn't make some betty and Veronica comics aimed at women,Even though the times are changing that people can read whatever they like gender or not.

VIXENS is written by a woman (Jamie Rotante), and drawn by a woman (Eva Cabrera). Why would you think it wouldn't be marketed towards women? If the concept doesn't float your boat at all, then perhaps you should discuss the topic of why all women don't like the same type of comics with Jamie Rotante, whose idea it was. It would be a mistaken assumption to think that all women just naturally like the same comics that you do. Do you think all men like exactly the same type of comics? The biggest thing I think you're missing here is that ALL comics combined have such a tiny audience relatively speaking, compared to television and movies. MOST people have no interest in comics whatsoever, whether they are male or female, but historically, far fewer women have adopted the the habit of reading those traditional floppy comic books. Many may feel such a stigma towards the format that they wouldn't even consider touching them, while they may not necessarily feel the same about a graphic novel or a manga paperback. But that's assuming they've been exposed to comics in that format to begin with, which is by no means a given. These aren't always so obvious considerations to female readers of digital format comics, because they just assume anyone could get them, so what's the problem? I think it's more a question of "But why would they want to in the first place?" If you assume there's nothing of interest to you there, then you're not looking -- but publishers can't sell female-oriented titles to a potential audience that isn't even looking.

But if you want a real answer to your question in general, just look at all the attempts Marvel (especially) has made to market comics written and drawn by women, featuring female protagonists. There just aren't enough women readers reading comics in the floppy format, that mainly have to be purchased from a comic book store, to support a title all by themselves. If the title doesn't also appeal to male readers as well, then it's certainly doomed to be cancelled right from the start. That may work fine for manga paperbacks, but that's because both the economics and the distribution are entirely different.

Let's take a look at that cover again... (this is the main cover, with artwork by interior artist Eva Cabrera).



Maybe I'm a little dense here, but could you tell me, specifically, what it is about that cover image that seems to you like it's obviously appealing to a male reader, as opposed to a female one? Because I can easily think of at least a half-dozen things about that design that are dead wrong in terms of M-appeal.

A couple of other things I forgot to mention here about stories I found surprising. There's one Gladir/DeCarlo Sabrina story here where she's reminiscing about when she was a little girl (which also includes an appearance by Harvey), that I would bet dollars to donuts pre-dates any appearances of Little Sabrina in the Little Archie stories. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, I don't think Bolling ever used Little Sabrina in his original run on Little Archie, and she was first incorporated into the strip by Dexter Taylor after he had taken over the writing and art on Little Archie.

There's one Little Archie story here by Bolling that's quite recent because I saw it as the lead story in one of the digests within the past couple of years ("The New Kid"), and although it's a 5-page short, it does involve a fantasy angle, where an alien kid lands his UFO on earth and meets up with Little Archie, who's on his way to a costume party, and naturally both Little Archie and the kids at the party think the alien kid is just another friend in a weird costume, before Little Archie eventually learns the truth.

Also notable was a story in which Veronica appears in a Josie story when Alexander's car has trouble, and she stops to offer Josie and Alex a lift. Alex's bloated ego is profoundly insulted when Veronica asks him to wipe the mud off his feet before getting in the car. He refuses the ride, and determines to revenge himself for what he considers Veronica's insult. He knows not who he's dealing with...

ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK: MAGIC, MUSIC & MISCHIEF is a full-sized (same page size as a standard comic book), 304-page collection of some of the best stories (all older ones) from Sabrina, Josie and Little Archie. I get the impression that they're putting this out to try to build familiarity with Archie readers for these, their next three biggest character franchises, and you really couldn't ask for a better introductory volume.

MAGIC: Most of the Sabrina stories here were just recently reprinted in the SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH COMPLETE COLLECTION v1, which I reviewed above, but there they were printed in black & white at the smaller page size used for the Best of Archie Comics trade collection. Here they're full-sized and in color. The editor selected all Dan DeCarlo-illustrated stories (with one exception, a short drawn by Stan Goldberg) for this collection, including all of his key earliest ones from Archie's Madhouse. The rest are choice early stories from Archie's TV Laugh-Out, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and one from Sabrina's Christmas Magic.

It was when I was counting the pages that I noticed there are just about 80 pages of Sabrina stories here, and that the cover illustration of Sabrina (which is also used in a larger image for the title page of the Sabrina section) is the same one that appeared as the cover of the formerly-solicited, then cancelled, SABRINA 80-PAGE GIANT, so I think if that comic had actually been published these are exactly the same stories you would have seen reprinted in that 80-Page Giant. While there are a few more than 80 pages in both the Josie and Little Archie section, I noted (again) that the images used on both the cover of this collection and the title pages of those characters' sections were the same as the ones that appeared on the covers for the respective 80-PAGE GIANT comics solicited, then cancelled, for JOSIE and LITTLE ARCHIE, so I'm guessing that 80 pages out of each of those sections would have made up those Giant comics.

MUSIC: Well, not all music. Three of the longer stories that begin this section ("A Gym Dandy", "Footlight Follies", and "Sweater Girls") are non-musical/non-Pussycats stories reprinted in their entirety (they were book-length stories) from early issues of She's Josie. Issues #1-3, in fact. I couldn't have been more delighted. I consider the longer early stories of She's Josie to be the very best stories Archie Comic Publications have ever produced, and these three showcase the talent of Frank Doyle and Dan DeCarlo at the height of their artistic powers. If ACP is ever wondering how to produce a new comic book that will actually be good, then they should dissect and analyze the way these stories are written and structured, and try to adapt that to stories about modern teenagers taking place today. I'm not saying they could do it, but they should at least attempt it. Josie was an interesting creation, because it involved the three main female characters taken from a proposed newspaper strip which Dan DeCarlo tried, and failed, to interest newspaper syndicate editors in. The male characters didn't come from those prototype strips though. They came from the last thing that Frank Doyle and Dan DeCarlo had worked on together, which was "The NEW" Wilbur. If you look carefully at Albert and Alexander, they're really just Wilbur and his rival Alec from the aforementioned series, with slightly different hairstyles and more stylish (for 1963) clothes. Albert even originally had the same flattop/brushcut hairstyle as Wilbur's, except that Wilbur was blond, and tended to dress more like the 1950s Archie, with letter sweatervests, saddle shoes, and checkered pants. The main difference here between Alec (from Wilbur) and Alexander Cabot is that instead of just being upper-middle class like Reggie Mantle, Alexander Cabot is filthy rich like the Lodges, and just as spoiled by it as Veronica. Otherwise the early Alexander looks and acts almost identically with Wilbur's rival Alec. Then there is Sock (short for Socrates, by the way, in case you didn't know), the big, dumb, (but good-natured) jock athlete who's absolutely bananas for Pepper and would do anything for her. He's an evolution of Tiny, who played a similar role (inspired by Moose, of course) in Wilbur's stories. Then there's Pepper, who had a namesake in the earlier Wilbur stories, but was nothing like Josie's Pepper, personality-wise. Although she may have taken some personality bits from a character in Wilber named Dodo. I have been fascinated by how "The NEW Wilbur" fits into the picture of characters' evolution in Archie Comics ever since I began noticing all the similarities. It's not so obvious, when you look at the characters of Alexander, who evolved considerably further in later stories of Josie and the Pussycats, and even Albert and Pepper evolved a little differently towards the end -- before being dropped altogether to make way for Alan M. Mayberry and Valerie Brown (later Smith). Did I mention that all the Josie stories (including the Pussycats ones) reprinted in this collection are also illustrated by Dan DeCarlo? All except one, just like in the previous Sabrina section. There's one final short drawn by Stan Goldberg, reprinted from years later than the original run of J&tP.

MISCHIEF: I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't actually read this section yet. But they all look to be early LA stories written and drawn by Bob Bolling. Bolling is an interesting writer to me, because he has very specific tastes, and includes very distinctive elements of fantasy, mystery, adventure and the supernatural in his stories (that goes for most of them, if he's allowed the page length to develop those ideas, regardless if it's a regular Archie story, a Betty story, or a Little Archie story). The shorter Little Archie stories rarely have those elements in them, and those are the ones mainly reprinted in the digests. This section contains at least two longer (both look to be book-length) stories containing those elements, that I plan on reading later. They are "Little Archie on Mars" and "The Strange Case of the Mystery Map". These both seem to contain complex plots, and other interesting incidental characters. I couldn't tell you what it is about stories featuring mainly a cast of primary-school children that disinterest me, but it is what it is.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 10, 2017, 05:29:46 PM
I agree zombies and werewolves are gross but not AS gross as chicks dressed like bikers in my opinion.  I want to stress that I'm a hardcore feminist and believe women who want to be bikers should do so.  I'm only stating a personal preference when it comes to what art I want to look at.  I have a certain image of Betty and Veronica and that's what I prefer.  It's not that I think it's WRONG that they're making them bikers, it just turns me completely off.   BUT as I said, I'll give issue one a try and if the writing is great, I'm sure I can deal with the image.  It will just have to be REALLY great. 

It will be interesting to see whether this turns out to be Betty & Veronica "dressed like" bikers, or Betty & Veronica AS bikers. There's a huge gap between those two to me. Not all bikers are the same, but as long as they remain Betty & Veronica (as I understand them), and there's some sense of humor to it, I'll be happy with it. Adam Hughes' version did not meet those requirements for me.

Can they be convincing (in whatever context they're using, which may turn out to be more fantasy than reality) as bikers, and still BE Betty & Veronica? That's what I'm interested in finding out. I suspect that a little TOO much reality here could torpedo the whole idea, because it would force the characters to change to fit the situation. If it turns out that the Vixens in the story are merely lookalikes for B&V, and aren't really those characters at all, as they've been previously established, I'll drop it like a hot potato.

Normally I'd find a female who doesn't bathe and wallows around in filthy mud with a bunch of pigs to be a turnoff to me personally (in real life), but you know what? In comics, Moonbeam McSwine really made that look work for her.

Quote from: terrence12 on August 10, 2017, 10:10:47 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 10, 2017, 08:47:51 AM
Hey, everything they've been publishing (except the digest stories) since mid-2015 has been an "alternate take" as far as I'm concerned. And before that, Afterlife With Archie. And before THAT, Life With Archie, and before THAT, "New Look Archie" and "Manga Sabrina".

Ok,Ok so most of the brand stories except the main one are  alternate takes of the characters.

You still failed to grasp my point, terrence. What you are calling "the main one" IS an alternate take, no different than the rest of those I mentioned (and the many others I failed to mention). If it's not "classic Archie", then by definition it's "an alternate take". And at its current longevity of 22 issues, it still has a long way to go to beat the previous alternate take record-holder (Life With Archie magazine).

That's not to say I dislike all alternate takes. There are plenty of them "in the classic Archie style" (as they used to say in the ads for the digests)... Pureheart the Powerful (& friends), Jughead's Time Police, Archie 1, Archie 3000!, Archie's Weird Mysteries, Agents B&V, Archie's Explorers of the Unknown, Jughead Jones Semi-Private Eye, Betty & Veronica's Storybook, Archie Cyber Adventures, Betty Cooper Super-Sleuther, etc.

Before the appearance of Your Pal Archie #1, ACP had completely ceased publishing any "regular, non-alternate" Archie comic books in the floppy comics format for two years, while the new 5-page "regular" stories in the digests continued on.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 10, 2017, 06:46:26 AM
Still, biker chicks are gross, something I've never said about B&V.

Zombies and werewolves are gross, but I didn't read you raising a stink about it when they turned Jughead into one of them. Maybe you're just saving up your outrage for when they turn him into a surfer dude?

I have no interest in reading "Jughead is a werewolf". Stupidest idea ever. Unless there turns out to be more to it than just that. Like if his future time-travelling self had to hunt down his past werewolf-self by chasing him throughout history or something. Probably still pointless though, since it would be obvious he's already succeeded (think about it).

My point is, on a relative scale? Oh, in this series B&V ride motorcycles. Big whoop, I'm appalled. A drop in the bucket compared to any of a half-dozen plot twists Aguirre-Sacasa has served up on a platter. That's just the TV show, not AWA.

Hey, everything they've been publishing (except the digest stories) since mid-2015 has been an "alternate take" as far as I'm concerned. And before that, Afterlife With Archie. And before THAT, Life With Archie, and before THAT, "New Look Archie" and "Manga Sabrina".

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 10, 2017, 06:46:26 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 09, 2017, 07:47:55 PM

Quote from: terrence12 on August 09, 2017, 01:15:56 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 09, 2017, 09:56:27 AM
I doubt that Betty & Veronica VIXENS will be anything like Sons of Anarchy, but we'll see I guess.

Yeah,Besides Sons of Anarchy has biker genre. So maybe VIXENS will do the same thing except it probably pays more homage to the Biker films from the late 60's to 70s

Maybe it's me, but trying to read between the lines there I didn't get the slightest impression that VIXENS was going to be a "MR" title, so probably no sex and drugs, or anything R-rated there, I think. More like some fantasy B&V 'girls gone wild' thing, while remaining all-ages, like the New Riverdale titles. Who knows, maybe we'll see Nick St. Clair again? 

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 09, 2017, 01:09:56 PM
The only one of these I'm REMOTELY interested in is B&V Vixens but I'm only committing to one issue and hope it's better than the concept sounds. 

This might be a bridge too far for me.  Call me old fashioned but biker chicks disgust me and thinking of Betty as some kind of edgy biker (or Veronica for that matter) is disturbing. 

I've been pretty supportive of all the reboots up to now.  I'm hoping this one surprises me, but this might be the first Archie reboot I don't subscribe to.

Keep in mind that it's written and drawn by women, VJ. I very much doubt you're going to see B&V portrayed in the more realistic vein of the outlaw biker women on Sons of Anarchy, or the stereotypical biker chicks of the 1968-1972 R-rated biker exploitation movies. They won't be drinking beer, smoking pot, seeing which one can amass the biggest collection of tattoos, and having random sex off-panel with hunky biker dudes.

I imagine this will be more like a girly girlpower schoolgirl fantasy of... "Hey, did you ever imagine what it would be like if we were badass biker babes? Vroom! VaROOM!!"  "Oh wow, I wonder what THAT would be like...?" [...Cue harpstring chorus and wavy-gravy dissolve to the dream sequence.]  ...But if they're smart they'll realize that the title can't survive with only female readers, so they'll try to make sure it has some appeal to male readers as well.

I don't think this will be any more of an "action" title than the recently rebooted Josie and the Pussycats. I don't expect the kind of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa written/David Lynch-inspired "dark underbelly" take of an Afterlife With Archie. Veronica will still be picking out her designer original biker leathers from Paris, and Betty will still be stopping to help a little girl find her stray cat.

Maybe you should write it.  That doesn't seem as bad as what I'm fearing.  Still, biker chicks are gross, something I've never said about B&V.

I just don't see where you're getting a heebie-jeebie vibe from THIS cover (drawn by the actual interior artist), Vegan. This looks sort of quaint, almost like those fairy-tale covers.

Quote from: terrence12 on August 09, 2017, 01:15:56 PM

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Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 09, 2017, 09:56:27 AM
I doubt that Betty & Veronica VIXENS will be anything like Sons of Anarchy, but we'll see I guess.

Yeah,Besides Sons of Anarchy has biker genre. So maybe VIXENS will do the same thing except it probably pays more homage to the Biker films from the late 60's to 70s

Maybe it's me, but trying to read between the lines there I didn't get the slightest impression that VIXENS was going to be a "MR" title, so probably no sex and drugs, or anything R-rated there, I think. More like some fantasy B&V 'girls gone wild' thing, while remaining all-ages, like the New Riverdale titles. Who knows, maybe we'll see Nick St. Clair again? 

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 09, 2017, 01:09:56 PM
The only one of these I'm REMOTELY interested in is B&V Vixens but I'm only committing to one issue and hope it's better than the concept sounds. 

This might be a bridge too far for me.  Call me old fashioned but biker chicks disgust me and thinking of Betty as some kind of edgy biker (or Veronica for that matter) is disturbing. 

I've been pretty supportive of all the reboots up to now.  I'm hoping this one surprises me, but this might be the first Archie reboot I don't subscribe to.

Keep in mind that it's written and drawn by women, VJ. I very much doubt you're going to see B&V portrayed in the more realistic vein of the outlaw biker women on Sons of Anarchy, or the stereotypical biker chicks of the 1968-1972 R-rated biker exploitation movies. They won't be drinking beer, smoking pot, seeing which one can amass the biggest collection of tattoos, and having random sex off-panel with hunky biker dudes.

I imagine this will be more like a girly girlpower schoolgirl fantasy of... "Hey, did you ever imagine what it would be like if we were badass biker babes? Vroom! VaROOM!!"  "Oh wow, I wonder what THAT would be like...?" [...Cue harpstring chorus and wavy-gravy dissolve to the dream sequence.]  ...But if they're smart they'll realize that the title can't survive with only female readers, so they'll try to make sure it has some appeal to male readers as well.

I don't think this will be any more of an "action" title than the recently rebooted Josie and the Pussycats. I don't expect the kind of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa written/David Lynch-inspired "dark underbelly" take of an Afterlife With Archie. Veronica will still be picking out her designer original biker leathers from Paris, and Betty will still be stopping to help a little girl find her stray cat.

08-09-17:
NEWSBOY LEGION & BOY COMMANDOS SPECIAL #1
MISTER MIRACLE #1 (of 12)
DETECTIVE COMICS #962
THE PHANTOM: PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S MISSION #1 (of 5)
THE SHADOW #1
GREEN HORNET '66 MEETS THE SPIRIT #2 (of 5)
THE GREATEST ADVENTURE #4 (of 9)
ASH VS. THE ARMY OF DARKNESS #2
KILL OR BE KILLED #11
VIOLENT LOVE #7
FREEWAY FIGHTER #4 (of 4)

Quote from: terrence12 on August 09, 2017, 01:15:56 PM
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Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 09, 2017, 09:56:27 AM
I'm surprised you didn't mention the rebooted COSMO, since that's the only title they specifically mentioned as being an Archie Action title.

Actually COSMO hasn't been announced yet or greenlighted

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/archie-comics-ceo-taking-risks-classic-characters-future-riverdale-1027516?utm_source=twitter&utm_source=Direct

THAT sure sounded like an announcement to me... plus the confirmation that Sonic is moving to IDW.

The Mighty Crusaders is written by Ian Flynn, so there's some hope there that it might follow in the same vein as his New Crusaders: Rise of the Heroes miniseries.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the rebooted COSMO, since that's the only title they specifically mentioned as being an Archie Action title.

I doubt that Betty & Veronica VIXENS will be anything like Sons of Anarchy, but we'll see I guess.

QUEEN EMERALDAS HC GN VOL 02 (Kodansha 2017) Here's hoping for a reprint of the original Captain Harlock manga someday, although Kodansha doesn't have those rights.

Eternal Wanderer EMERALDAS: The Children of Eden #1-4 (Eternity Comics 1990) Not bad as Eternity titles go. This was one of their better ones.

MONSTERS: MARVEL MONSTERBUS HC VOL 01 (Marvel 2017) - Well, they've now reprinted every Jack Kirby pre-Marvel superhero SF/fantasy story in this (and a second volume) HC collection, but they did leave out a few giant monster stories which Kirby didn't draw. Hopefully someday Steve Ditko will get a similar comprehensive reprinting of SF/fantasy pre-superhero stories from Marvel. They did release a complete AMAZING FANTASY OMNIBUS a few years back, which was all Ditko stories, but that by no means represents the bulk of his contributions to the pre-Marvel Age fantasy titles.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on August 06, 2017, 02:52:22 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 06, 2017, 05:24:56 AM
In the context of cartoon reality, it's funny...when Archie is oblivious to anyone's feelings but his own

Not sure why this would be considered funny. I'm currently re-watching an episode of "Archie's Weird Mysteries" where Archie is obsessed with his car and not really paying attention to the girls. The girls are offended but just kinda take it, and they sigh in frustration. I keep thinking "Quiet DUMP the idiot! He's not gonna notice your lack of presence in his life anyway!"

It's something that I think about whenever I see it in a story, and it's something that makes Archie an exasperating character, especially since he's the main protagonist in most of these stories. It's one of the things that makes it hard for me personally to identify with Archie and to root for him. I don't want to see him win, I want to see him lose, because that makes for a funnier story. But as long as the story is existing for the purpose of creating comedic situations, and the characters are drawn in a simple humorous manner, ultimately you can't get too worked up about it, because you know the events of the story have no cumulative effect. By the next story, it will be as though none of the events happening in this story ever happened. That's why Archie never really learns any life lessons, or grows or changes as a character. There can be stories whose resolution seems to result in Archie learning some kind of lesson, but ultimately that has no effect on how his character (or Betty's, or Veronica's, or any of them, really) are written or behave in subsequent stories.

At least that's how the character was conceived originally, and how it worked in classic-style Archie stories for 75 years. Now they're trying to retrofit those characters into a different storytelling mode altogether, one in which stories are routinely ongoing, and there IS supposed to be some kind of cumulative continuity that would allow the characters to change and evolve in the progression of the stories. It's not a situation comedy any more, with familiar tropes repeating themselves over and over in short, self-contained stories -- they want to try treating the characters as more "real". It doesn't work for me.

If they were giving the reality treatment to a typical plot involving Reggie, it might be Moose Mason being arrested by the police, while Reggie Mantle lay in the ICU after being brutally beaten by Moose, regretting the day he stopped being a cartoon character who could instantly recover from those kinds of injuries by the beginning of the next story.

In the context of cartoon reality, it's funny when Reggie acts like a total jerk or pranks people, or when Moose goes into a blind rage and beats the crap out of Reggie, or when Archie is oblivious to anyone's feelings but his own... not so much in a storytelling mode where you're trying to treat the characters 'seriously'.