Quote from: SAGG on July 07, 2017, 11:36:46 PM
I was reading two Archie stories in a row, and both had "unknown" under the artist and/or pencilled credit. How in the world could ACP not know who did the artwork? It just seems odd...

The credits you DO see aren't always 100% correct, either. I know I catch mis-identified art credits on stories every so often, so you have to wonder about the other credits as well. I doubt that they have complete accounting records of who was paid for what story in which issue, so probably a lot of what's credited is based on Vic Gorelick's memory, or some digest editor's guesswork.

I caught up on BLACK MAGICK too. I re-read the first 5 issues (reprinted in the first TP) and the newest one, issue #6.

WEEK OF 07-05-17:
MILLENNIUM: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO #1 - reviewed on my review thread.
ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN #4 (of 6)
RICK & MORTY #27

SAUCER COUNTRY TP VOL. 1: RUN (= issues #1-6)
SAUCER COUNTRY TP VOL. 2: THE RETICULAN CANDIDATE (= issues #7-14)
SAUCER STATE #1 & 2 (of 6) - An interesting series that asks the question "What if the new U.S. President was a UFO abductee?" The original series was published by Vertigo(DC) in 2012-13 and followed the election campaign of Arcadia Alvarado, the Mexican-American (and divorced) Democratic Governor of New Mexico, after she and her ex-husband are abducted the night before announcing her candidacy for President, and the new sequel series (now published by IDW) follows after Alvarado wins the election (after a series of odd turns of events that may have been manipulated) and takes charge of the Oval Office. In the sequel series a huge alien spacecraft now appears to be heading straight for Earth and the general public is made aware of it. President Alvarado recalls an alien who appeared to tell her "You are all property." It's a bit like West Wing meets The X-Files. Lots of intrigue and UFOlogy lore, a twisty plot and oddball characters.

BLACK MAGICK VOL 001 TP: THE AWAKENING (= issues #1-5)
BLACK MAGICK #6 - I'm SO much more interested in this right now than ChAoS. This issue is a standalone flashback interlude that constitutes an "origin story" of sorts for protagonist Rowan Black, and details her awakening as a witch on her 13th birthday. You'll have to read the story (no spoilers) to understand what 'awakening' means in this context. There is a powerful conspiracy (that we don't quite understand just yet) targeting Rowan in the main storyline, and in this story we discover that a character who had appeared briefly in an earlier group scene of the 'convocation of evil' (as I'm calling them) had played a key role in an event affecting the course of Rowan's life. Just a beautifully written comic with some absolutely amazing artwork. The series had taken an extended hiatus while the writer/artist team of Greg Rucka/Nicola Scott worked on the first 25 bi-weekly issues of the DC Rebirth WONDER WOMAN, but they seem to have left that title (for now at least), so hopefully we'll see new issues of BLACK MAGICK on a more regular basis beginning with issue #7 in August.

CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA #7 - Kind of starting to lose interest. Sabrina wasn't even IN this issue; instead it was all about her father, Edward Spellman (who looks just like Eddie Munster as a kid). Wait, wasn't that what I said about the issue that was all about Salem? But I did like that one issue that was all about Madame Satan. In fact, my favorite Archie Horror Sabrina story wasn't even an issue in this series, it was an issue of AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE. Now that I think about it, 4 issues out of 7 isn't a lot of panel time for a supposed 'main character' whose name appears in big letters in the title logo. In fact it's pretty hard to maintain much of any reader level of interest/anticipation for an imprint which releases no more than 2 or 3 issues per year (and that's including both ChAoS and AWA), so the idea that ACP even contemplated a third AH title (speculated to be based either on Vamperonica or some horror twist on Josie & the Pussycats) is sort of laughable.

WORLD OF ARCHIE SUMMER ANNUAL DIGEST #70 - I was disappointed to find NO Wilbur section in this WoA Annual, since a Wilbur section had appeared previously in issues 65, 67, 68 and 69.  This issue did have sections of Archie 1 and Archie 3000 stories and a couple of beach stories, but apart from those and the new lead story, a pretty ho-hum issue.

JUGHEAD AND ARCHIE COMICS DOUBLE DIGEST #26 - I'll review this later on my review thread.

ARCHIE SUMMER ANNUAL DIGEST #280 - A couple more beach stories; I liked the one (written by Dan Parent) where B&V compete as ice cream vendors on the beach by wearing different swimsuits and trying to outdo each other attracting male customers --  not much else to comment on here.

Edgar Rice Burroughs' THE GREATEST ADVENTURE #3 (of 9)
PROJECT SUPERPOWERS: HERO KILLERS #2 (of 5)

KINGS QUEST TP
FLASH GORDON: KINGS CROSS TP - Both of these TP collections were sequels to Jeff Parker's earlier KINGS WATCH, the first series which teamed up King Features adventure comic-strip characters Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician & Lothar, Jungle Jim, and Prince Valiant.

PREDATOR HUNTERS #3 (of 5)
STREET FIGHTER VS. DARKSTALKERS #3 (of 8 )
SKYBOURNE #4 (of 5)

DEATHSTROKE #21
IRON FIST #5
DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE AGAIN #1 - I found these 3 comics (which I borrowed) pretty boring, so I'm done reading them. Those were the only DC or Marvel titles I read this week!

ARCHIE CROSSOVER COLLECTION TP - Will review on my review thread later.

NURSE HITOMI'S MONSTER INFIRMARY TP VOL 06
Shigeru Mizuki's KITARO VOL 03: THE GREAT TANUKI WAR TP VOL 03

Quote from: terrence12 on July 07, 2017, 12:17:02 PM


But since the riverdale series is considered a hit according to critics and people like it especially the reboot series gain positive reception ,I think the company will be fine.However,If what you said about the continuation of sales decline and Archie's attempt to make a experimental products for new readers.It is as if the road to bankruptcy and closure is coming.

New Riverdale Archie IS a spinoff. So was Life With Archie, and Afterlife With Archie... and Riverdale (both the television series and the comic book based on it). They are all, every single one of them, spinoffs of the original ARCHIE series (the one that ran 666 issues), and Your Pal Archie is also a spinoff of that, in the same way that Archie's Pal Jughead was a spinoff back in 1950, and those spinoffs continue to 'spin off' even though the original series was discontinued in 2015.

You might say that the TV series Riverdale is a partial spinoff of the early issues of New Riverdale Archie, or that the comic book Riverdale is a spinoff of the TV series Riverdale, BUT Your Pal Archie is no more derivative of any of those than they are of the comics that came before them (but especially the original Archie comic book series). THERE'S NO MAIN SERIES ANY MORE. New Riverdale Archie is the longest-running consecutively-numbered spinoff series published by ACP left at this point, but it's still a mere 2-year-old in comic book history.

Critics can't arbitrarily decide what's a "hit". They can give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down, but critics are few in number, and can only try to influence the choices other people make. Hits are decided by consumers who support something by buying products. Hits generate lots of money for the company that produces them. At this point New Riverdale Archie is still selling better than the original Archie was when it was cancelled with #666, but not so much better that it can be called a "hit". Its sales are marginal in comparison to those of comic book titles from other publishers, and it has lost huge numbers since the earliest issues published. That is not a hit by any definition. Maybe the FIRST issue of the new Archie could be described as a "hit", but not currently-published issues. It is, by default, the best-selling ongoing FLOPPY COMIC title ACP is still publishing at this point (but look how few ongoing floppy comic series are left at this point). It still sells poorly compared to the digests ACP publishes. ACP still derives the majority of its income from publishing the digest titles, and more people read those new Dan Parent stories than any other new material ACP is generating right now.

And you BEGAN this discussion by proposing that its days are numbered and it is destined to be replaced, so why are you holding it up as ACP's savior for the future now? The people who buy it may LIKE it, but there aren't enough people who DO buy it.

Quote from: terrence12 on July 07, 2017, 09:32:41 AM

QuoteYour Pal Archie is sort of testing the waters, while not exactly a real return to where they left off with ARCHIE #666. They're trying to find some compromise to appeal to new readers while not losing old ones.

Maybe,I guess they are just making this series to gain back the old readers ,However time change and people will probably move on besides the company will still focus more on the reboot since it gain good reception and Your Pal Archie is still a spinoff and is aimed for some retro all age readers. Heck I kinda like Dan parent's new style it kinda suits him just fine.

1.  What do you consider Your Pal Archie a "spinoff" of?  (*Any more than say, Life With Archie, Afterlife With Archie, New Riverdale Archie, and the radio show, cartoons, and TV series [and the comic book based on the TV series] based on the original 1940s character. Yes, they are all spinoffs in the same sense as Jughead or Betty & Veronica starring in their own comic books...)

2.  When you think about it, "retro" and "all ages" is really a contradiction in terms. Not all ages can appreciate retro, because some will be too young to appreciate that quality about it.  They'd be truly better off if they could figure out what appeals to ALL ages, but of course that's no easy trick. The real question is, can Your Pal Archie be both kid-friendly and nostalgia-friendly, while capturing at least some of the important, lucrative 20-40 demographic -- that's where the money is loosest for floppy comic sales -- at the same time? Any one of the three might not be enough, maybe not even two.

3.  I don't think ACP is as committed to the "New Riverdale Archie" plan as you seem to think. Oh, I think they WERE, at one time, but since sales continue to ebb with every passing issue, I think they're open to trying just about anything at this point, and less sure of the idea of putting all their eggs in one basket, by trying to create "a line of titles" or "an imprint". At this point it seems to me they're trying to figure out what amounts of particular ingredients to use in what mixture to create a recipe for something called "Archie Comics" that will appeal to the greatest number of people, because "New Riverdale" does not seem to be that recipe. And it could be there's no answer except continuing to experiment and try something different with each new attempt at an iteration of Archie until they find a few version that will stick around.

Isn't Cheryl Blossom basically just Poison Ivy without the plant-powers anyway? 

Quote from: terrence12 on July 07, 2017, 02:01:08 AM

Quote from: Mr.Lodge on July 06, 2017, 05:49:18 PM

Quote from: terrence12 on July 06, 2017, 12:32:40 PMWill the Archie reboot end in about few years and replace with a new reboot?

You mean like DC, Marvel, etc..... 

Yes.But will not have a crisis event thing like Marvel and DC

Your Pal Archie seems like it's backing off the more extreme reboot of New Riverdale titles for ACP, just like the 2016 DC Rebirth seems like it's backing off a little (still not far enough for me) from the earlier 2011 DC New 52. Both companies lost a lot of former readers because the earlier reboots were too extreme, and now that some few years passed and the previous reboot lost a lot of its momentum (and sales), they're desperately trying to appeal to the old readers to get them back.

I don't think you'll be seeing any more New Riverdale titles launched, but Your Pal Archie is sort of testing the waters, while not exactly a real return to where they left off with ARCHIE #666. They're trying to find some compromise to appeal to new readers while not losing old ones.

Quote from: BettyReggie on July 06, 2017, 10:15:38 PM
I love how Archie looks there. He's adorable 💋 💋 💋. If the art is done in book like that. I will be happy.

That's one of two cover variants for issue #1, this one drawn by Amanda Connor, who won't be drawing the interior artwork for the comic.

The interior artwork will be done by an artist named Laura Braga, whose previous work I'm not familiar with.

What makes you think they're waiting for New Riverdale ARCHIE to end before rebooting again? Half an "UNboot" is still a form of REbooting.



Seems like they're having second thoughts, like "Maybe we went too far...?" and the failures of the New Riverdale Reggie & Me, Josie & the Pussycats, and Jughead are pointing out that they've alienated a big percentage of their traditional fans, so they're pulling back and trying to find some middle ground. Although if the truth be known, the New Riverdale ARCHIE alienates me far more than the new JUGHEAD did (but I realize I'm in the minority on that one).

And then there's Harley & Ivy meet Betty & Veronica, which again, seems like it's aiming somewhere "in the middle" between classic B&V and Adam Hughes' B&V... maybe slightly more to the New Riverdale side of things, while Your Pal Archie is skewing closer to the classic Archie side. Personally, I think they made a big mistake in not letting Dan Parent (or maybe Jeff Schultz or Pat & Tim Kennedy) draw this one...



And if either of those aren't big enough sellers to point the way forward to ACP, then they'll probably crank out more miniseries, up and down the tonal scale, with various mixtures of creators and percentages of comedy-to-dramedy...

Dang it.

You got me all excited for nothing. I was thinking more like Batman the Animated Series meets B&V "classic"...

Aww.... 

MILLENIUM: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO #1 - This was a 62-page story for $5.99, and it was interesting. Quite involved, actually, and I was surprised to find despite the length that it's only the beginning of a longer story (how much longer, I have no idea). I haven't previously read any of TGWTDT stories, and while the story itself was good, it didn't seem like a very good introduction to the character. It seems whoever wrote the comic assumed any reader picking this up would already be familiar with the character. The story in this issue mainly follows another character -- a writer who's just been framed for defamation of character in trying to expose a grafting politician, as HE takes on the role of investigating a seemingly unrelated mystery involving a decade-old missing person case. He takes on the cold case as a means of obtaining some information on the man who's targeting him for revenge, trying to destroy his reputation as an investigative journalist. Lisbeth (TGWTDT) is involved with troubles of her own, seemingly unrelated to the writer's case. She'd just been involved in a privately-commissioned investigation into his character and background (she works for a security consulting firm, so she's sort of a modern private detective). It's a bit hard to relate to the punkish, pierced-&-inked Lisbeth, a character carrying around plenty of pent-up angst (possibly with good reason; we learn in the story that she'd been in and out of foster homes from age 13 through 18, but it's now 11 years later). Probably not coincidentally, the case that Mikhal (the writer) is investigating involves the disappearance (or possible murder, it hasn't been established) of a girl 11 years ago, whose uncle hires Mikhal to look for leads. The uncle is one of several relatives that are part of a rich and powerful business family with all sorts of internecine grudges, all of whom live on a private island (in Sweden, where the story takes place). Most of the story here in this issue focuses on Mikhal, not Lisbeth. While it seems likely that the two characters will eventually become reconnected, how exactly isn't clear. I sort of wish this first issue had filled in more of Lisbeth's basic details of how she got involved in the private investigation business, and what she'd done up to this point, rather than assume all the readers of this comic had read the previous novels by Steig Larson or seen the movie (which I haven't). Some of the covers seem to convey the idea that there's something more to Lisbeth's dragon tattoo than just a tattoo, but that may just be artistic license, or it may turn out to be something mystical (although the story seems very straightforwardly 'real-world' crime fiction up to this point). It's a little slow-moving in parts, but the plot seems well-constructed and easy to follow, so far.

You mis-numbered your pages. You actually have TWO "page 2"s, so it's a 9-page story (fairly uncommon, I think, if it were an actual published story). Not that it's a big deal, but you may want to fix it.

TOYBOX TIME MACHINE HC
STAR WARS: DROIDS UNPLUGGED #1 (one-shot)
ASTRO CITY #45
ANNO DRACULA #4 (of 5)
STAR TREK TNG: MIRROR BROKEN #2 (of 6)
THE COMPLETE DICK TRACY HC VOL. 21: 1962-64:  MOON MAID  | 52 GANG
THE COMPLETE DICK TRACY HC VOL. 22: 1964-65: MR. BRIBERY | UGLY CHRISTINE
FANBOY #1, 2, 3, & 6 (of 6)
KONG OF SKULL ISLAND #12 (of 12)
SKULL ISLAND: THE BIRTH OF KONG #2 (of 4)

Does it not work ALL the time, or only SOME of the time?

If it's only some of the time, maybe try some different things like rebooting, closing excess tabs, or even trying another browser. Might be something on your system hogging your own computer's memory.

Or if it's on a phone, it might be your carrier network.

It's too bad they didn't do more Jughead trade collections, especially the Boldman/Lindsey stories.

Practically every other multi-part continued story got a trade collection except for that Jughead "Movin' In"/"A Jughead in the Family" story, and it was one of the best ones, too. That was pretty close to the end of Jughead's title, so I guess sales must have been bad.

Quote from: Tokyo on July 01, 2017, 01:16:20 PM
At this point I think I'm only going to edit the stories where the color on the page is consistent (1989 comics and later). It's gonna be way too much time and effort cleaning up the older stories, and I don't think I'll be satisfied with the results unless I go in and recolor those myself, which...no.

I can't quite recall now whether there was a way to save a particular combination of editing adjustments in Photoshop, so that you can repeat the same operations on a number of different files, maintaining the same consistency. That's the sort of thing that's helpful in applying changes to all of the pages in a single comic book scanned. I used to save a lot of pages from public domain Golden Age comic scans, so yellowing/browning of pages was often the big issue, as the original scanner just uploaded raw unedited scans of the comic.