Hi Everyone- As well as a daily newspaper strip Archie also had a full page Sunday strip. If you want to read a few hundred of them - enjoy! Open a file. Click on the first one at the top. When you're done reading it hit the arrow on the right side of the picture to move on to the next one. Note: The one's from the 60's have that great Bob Montana artwork.

https://ilovecomixarchive.app.box.com/v/Archive/1/6482607901

Here is the sites main page (a to z) to read Lots of other classic newspaper strips as well. Alley Oop, Out Our Way, Dick Tracy, etc.

https://ilovecomixarchive.app.box.com/v/archive

One time in the store, where I used to purchase Archie digests, I had to take a 'Sonic' book to get the deal of 3 digests for $10. As the digests sell in Canada for $6.99, taking a 3rd book that I didn't want still paid off. I will say one thing for the sonic books, the art is good, but not my taste in comics. It's a good example of a book that people complain about, but is a good seller for the publisher. I do agree that Archie losing this source of revenue is going to hurt. I guess we'll have to see if Archie Publications give the title the 'dreaded vote of confidence'. One has to wonder if the reboot of Archie titles was not just a big ploy to give them time to make the company look attractive to a potential buyer. It would be interesting to see what a Warner Bros. or Disney would do with it.

Back in the day you had 3 channels, no cable. Now, lets move along to 2017. We have 500 channels. Getting a ratings hit today is extremely difficult. Networks just don't give a show a chance to develop anymore. They order 13 episodes, sometimes less. If the show does poorly, it's gone. Anyone remember the joke from the TV show "Family Guy"? Where Peter comes in the door & tells everyone their show's been cancelled. Any chance? They ask. Peter say's, well, if any of these shows get cancelled from FOX we have a chance. He then rattles off about 30 TV shows that aired that season on FOX. Every one of them cancelled.

Different series(s) but they also did that to WKRP in Cincinnati, The Fugitive (1960's series), and The Untouchables (1960's series). In each case the music was changed for the DVD releases. The worse of them all was WKRP. Venus Fly would say something & then Johnny Fever would put a record on, which would complete the joke. Since they changed all the music the jokes made no sense. Luckily people taped it off Nick at Night & TVLand back in the 90's when they were still airing the original versions. It's amazing what gets cut out of TV shows when they're released on DVD. The 1960's British Adventure series "Sir Francis Drake" from the 60's had 2 minutes cut out of an episode titled "Mission To Paris". Drake is in France talking with the extremely paranoid Queen of France. Drake is forced to run a sword through one of her guards as they try to kill him. He utters the line "My sword is warmed up & ready for any Frenchman". Entire thing cut out.

Here's another casualty of the modern age. HMV in Canada is closing all 102 stores throwing 1340 employee's out of work. It's the end of an era. HMV used to be the biggest retailer of records, CD's & DVD's in Canada. Back in the 80's when you went to Toronto their Younge St. store was a 'must' go to place. Originally, in the 60's & 70's, it was 'Sam the Record Man'. Canada's biggest record store. New records on the main floor. Other stuff on the 2nd floor, & then deleted stock on the 3rd floor. I remember buying the album 'First Base' by 'Babe Ruth'. Released in 1972, deleted, and cleared out for 99 cents. A good quality vinyl copy now will set you back $60. bucks Canadian. Sam's was forced into bankruptcy in 1993 by HMV, A&A Records, and this new thing - the internet.

If you want to read up on the band 'Babe Ruth' there's an excellent write up here: Scroll down to the 'Reviews' section.
https://www.discogs.com/Babe-Ruth-First-Base/release/635470

Canada has had a 3 cent cost for a plastic bag for quite a while. WalMart here was one of the last business' to charge for bags. It's no surprise, with California's environmental laws, that they are a State that charges for bags. While you were in San Francisco did the new soda tax kick in yet?

The big problem in animations is that an actor/actress usually does more than one character voice. I will say one thing for the 1968 animated 'The Archie Show'. For the voice of Jughead they got a good one! Howard Morris! Who did Moose, Jughead & Dilton in the show But howard Morris will forever be known as Ernest T. Bass in 'The Andy Griffith Show'. Someone mentioned the radio shows from the 40's & 50's. You'll notice that the character voices from the first animated series are patterned almost exactly like those in the radio series. A famous classic tv character came out of the radio shows. Bob Hastings. He played Lt. Elroy Carpenter on the 1960's show 'McHale's Navy'.

This may not mean anything to you, but I'm not sure. One of the BIG highlights of this series is Season 3, episode 6  from Oct 30th, 1998 - "Good Will Haunting". As it's a Halloween episode there are many guest appearances. What makes it BIG for viewers of classic TV is that cast members from the cult 1960's TV show "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in" show up. Gary Owens, Ruth Buzzi, Jo Anne Worley, Dave Madden, & Alan Sues. If you're too young to remember "Laugh-in" lets put it this way- the show became an instant super-hit TV show. Giving smash ratings for NBC & making stars out of its cast. It also created 'catch phrases' that are still with us to this day. If you've ever heard the name "Tiny Tim", or the song "Tiptoe through the tulips". That's Laugh-in & much, much more.

When Archie closed shop for 2 weeks for their move to new offices, that's when the problems started. During the move, you could send them email, but nobody answered you back. During that time I missed 3 (THREE) digests. When they finally answered me back they said they couldn't resend the books because they were 'sold out'. An Archie digest sold out? Right. And the check is in the mail. From that point on I had nothing but trouble. For every six digests released I was missed either 2 or 3 of the 6. You'll notice when you email Archie subscriptions no one ever uses their real name. You get replies from 'Betty Cooper', or any other character name. I had taken a 2 year subscription on every book, but this was before many of the digest were reduced in totals. The worst was 'B & V Friends' that went from 11 times a year to 6. So my 2 year subscription became 3 for that book. The other 'strange' thing is that every time the digest was an oversized book (Annuals, jumbo, etc.) those were the books I was usually missed on. I've mentioned this before, I don't subscribe any more. I head over to Wal-Mart & pick the books up 3/$10.00. A VERY good deal for me because the subscriptions are all in U.S. Dollars, & the Canadian Peso doesn't smear that far. Here in Canada the books are mailed from Southern Ontario, I believe it's the City of Burlington. But every now & then one of my digests would arrive mailed from the U.S. I suspect that the subscription department of Archie is done by either part-time or casual employees. A few days work a month, & then the rest is probably machine done. If it's done by computer, Archie really needs to replace those Commodore 64's.

It is rare for a business going under to recover. There are a few famous one's. A very big one is Chrysler. Back in the 80's they were about to go under, but came back big with the K-car. K-Mart is long gone in Canada. They were bought out by Zeller's, which became Target (Canada) - which was a disaster! for Target. They thought they were going to sell overpriced stuff. Didn't work. The killer for target was not bringing in any of the products sold at Target USA, which is what everyone wanted.

This is becoming an 'Archie' thing. Just wanted to comment about the latest 1000 page book 'Archie 1000 page comic spree'. This book had a release date of October 25th. Well, at least it got released. Except that here in Canada it JUST showed up in stores. Been haunting my local Superstore like Sabrina's Uncle Ambrose. I guess with a 40% off cover price I have to wait 40% longer. As I said, at least it came out in print. Before anyone comments - I'll say it first. The 1000 page books are reprints of the recently printed digests, with all the non-Archie stores removed. I just stopped buying the digests recently, because of the lack of new stories. Will miss that. All we're missing at 'Archie' is the band playing 'Nearer to God than thee'' as the boat sinks.

The big problem with reboots is titles cannibalize themselves. Example? Marvel Comics. Something terrible happens! Gasp! It drags all their titles into it, and then. . . it's all solved by the Fantastic Four.  All titles are reset to issue #1 & then a year later it starts all over again. As mentioned above it's all about the 'buzz' that it generates. That may work for the super hero titles of Marvel & DC, but Archie? Different animal. The fact that Archie reprints less & less older stories is a real shame. I've mentioned this story before & I still laugh about it. It's the one where all the kids are being kissed by a 'kissing bandit', which turns out to be Betty. I think the story is funnier today than 50 years ago. I really think, for the last few years, that THAT is what is missing. I've heard it from other people. 'Why aren't Archie comics funny anymore?'. It's like Woody Allen movies, which he parodied in one of his films. Why don't you make funny movies anymore Woody? Like your old one's.

Digests are a good value for money. As I've mentioned before where I shop I can get 3 digest for $10. Canadian. That is cheaper than subscribing. That's why I personally don't mind when content gets reprinted in digest form. Not just classic Archie, but the 75th Anniversary content. A puzzle to myself is why they don't reprint entire issues in digest form. If a digest came on the market & the cover said 'Pep Comics #100 to 110' (for example), you could mark it as 'sold'. I think reprinting entire issues of classic Sabrina would be a good seller.

Season one of 'Hullabaloo' (1965). I got what survives of the two seasons from a private collector. Sadly NBC destroyed the color broadcast tapes of the series. Only 4 color episodes survived with the remaining episodes as black and white 16mm kinescopes. It was a fun show, but for me 'Shindig', 'Shivaree' and 'Hollywood a Go-Go' were better shows. I always thought that 'Shivaree' looks like the sets were made with $200 bucks from Home Depot, but needed a millions dollars worth of accident insurance.  But where else could you watch the Rolling Stones perform on a staircase 6 inches from screaming fans?

From the animated series (1970) I always liked the portrayal of Sabrina's Aunt's. Cousin Ambrose, a close 2nd.