Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on January 10, 2018, 03:36:35 PM
I think I'm going to quit reading the Archie digests (not the B&V digests, just the Archie ones). There's this real feeling of blandness about them right now, like they're just in a holding pattern, waiting for their time to inevitably run out. That's probably true, to a lesser extent, of the B&V digests as well, but it's less apparent to me because those digest stories seem to have a greater aggregation of my favorite artists in each issue.
They seem to be done with any pretense of growth or evolution (while maintaining faithfulness to the core style), even in the new stories -- there's a real feeling of "just keep it average and homogenized, according to what sold in the past", so there's no real "trying" on the part of the digest editors -- they've basically given up, and aren't going to bother making ANY effort. There's a real contrast there to the period between the late '90s Archie Comics (both floppies and digests) up to 2015, when they were introducing new characters, trying new things, new kinds of stories (out of that came cousin Marcy, New Kids, Kevin Keller, Harper Lodge, and a lot of fun 'what if' variant stories, and even LIFE WITH ARCHIE). All that seems to be over now, and 'classic Archie style' just seems to be in a short period of maintenance until the final shutdown.
Sorry to hear your going to quit buying some of the Digests. I received super stellar deals on Digest subscriptions in the past so I pay about 1.50 per Digest. That's at least a 75% markdown on the current cover price. I can't find any other deal with color comics for that price point.