I'm still a bit upset they paired the girl who didn't get chosen off with Reggie in both stories- it ruined the Betty/Jughead shipping opportunity XD!

Quote from: beatman10 on November 28, 2022, 09:19:11 PMI check out this series every now and then to see how this story is progressing. It's very slow moving and I have no clue where the storyline is heading to. Moose and Ethel are a couple right now but, I don't get a feeling they will last. It seems like most of the girls want to hook up with this Seth guy. The artwork is great but I don't understand why characters are drawn like munchkins whenever they get excited or emotional.

That sounds like a very "anime" influence, looking at some of it. The big heads and such. A lot of artists like mimicking that even without the anime style.

What's funny is the 5 pages of comments on each comic (man, is this way more popular than I'm imagining it is? I had only just heard of it!) are full of complaining, mostly about how they rushed through all the recent storylines and blew off a lot of drama just in the past couple of issues.

Quote from: beatman10 on November 28, 2022, 09:59:13 PMIn the "Veronica" story, Mr. Lodge tries to frame Reggie for bribery and extortion. And then he lies to Veronica about Archie demanding a million dollar dowry before he would marry her. Mr. Lodge felt as long as Veronica was married to Archie, she would lack the killer instinct needed to take over Lodge industries.Mr. Lodge's meddling nearly ended their marriage. It didn't help that Veronica believed her "Daddy" over Archie. So yeah, Mr. Lodge was antagonistic to both Archie and Reggie.
    In the "Betty" story , Mr. Lodge vowed to ruin Archie and anyone else associated with him for turning down his bribe to leave Betty and marry Veronica. It nearly worked until Veronica found out about it and got her father to leave her friends alone.  From what I've read, most readers didn't like seeing Mr. Lodge as a villain.
    I believe the storyline where Jughead marries Midge and Archie didn't know about it until after the fact was in the original "Archie Wedding" series. This was Mr. Uslan bringing out the "SURPRISE"!!! I kind of knew something would happen to Jughead because he said earlier in the story 'No girl trapped me!" Archie and Betty did go to Jughead's wedding in LWA issue #5 and are kind of shocked  to see that Jug "finally noticed a girl".
    If you go in with the mindset that the "10th Anniversary" is only a mini series and isn't trying to compete with the 4 year, 37 issue "Life With Archie"  you may feel more positive about it. This really only focuses on what is going on with Archie's marriage(s) at the 10 year mark. There are some real issues discussed here that happen at that point in a marriage. And there are some surprises. Plue Archie doesn't die!!!!

ahhhhhhhhh- I remember the "You MUST leave Betty for Veronica!" plot point! Yeah, that was wild, and seemed out of nowhere with Mr. Lodge as the bad guy. 

Yeah I remember the "Married Life" stories re-treating old ground and fixing some stuff up- Jughead & Midge were seen slowly falling in love instead of going all "LOL surprise, best friend! I'm married!". I had forgotten they had retconned out that bit of Archie being in the dark. Thanks!

I think Jughead's lack of appeal to modern readers is more linked to Archie's current fanbase, of which a huge portion is female. They typically went over that audience above all others... this means that Betty & Veronica typically does the best, and then Archie (the flagship) does the rest. Jughead kind of loses out among the Big Four, as he ends up with the most male-centric book (since Archie's book also involves Betty & Veronica inherently).

Add to that things others have mentioned, like Jughead losing a lot of his "edge". As much as I liked a lot of the Boldman-Lindsey era, things tended to be a lot less antagonistic or snarky. You'd still see bits of it, like the arc where Jughead kept moving in to various people's houses and then being kicked out, but it wasn't as prominent.

The "Jughead outsmarts everyone" stories had kinda stopped happening, too. Instead of being as laid-back, he was more manic- DeCarlo Rules mentions him suddenly jumping onto various obsessions and fads. 

Oh wow, just checked this out. I'd literally never heard of it before... the art is really well done. Feels very much inspired by what's hot in webcomics right now... which is to say it's totally aping the style of "Lore Olympus" and other things, what with all the tall, handsome pointy-nosed guys and the distinctive way women are drawn, with the pronounced lips and wide eyes. The "Webtoons Style" comics have always been an odd thing to read, what with scrolling down instead of looking from side to side, with most panels being the same size. The characters almost seem a little bland in the stuff I checked out... but the blurb indicates that Ethel came back to raise hell but everyone else had changed too, so they're all just cool with each other? 

I did love seeing Trula, though! That alone indicates that the writer knows their "deep cuts", at least of semi-modern characters. I wonder if she shows up any more. 

It's more "Alternate Archie Universe" stuff, of course- I wonder how much money this is drawing into the main line of comics? 

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on November 26, 2022, 03:59:02 PMThe major flaw is a lack of any general plan or direction (until looming cancellation forces one upon Kupperberg; i.e. "The Death of Archie"). The pendulum swings wide with Mr. Lodge initially as the seeming villain, and then (as things take a distinct turn towards more of a harder SF theme) seemingly Dilton Doiley... but then Kupperberg backs away on the SF angle (perhaps due to reader reaction?) shortly after launching a meandering plotline featuring Veronica's lost plane crossing into the Bettyverse. Sure the various twists kept readers on tenterhooks from issue to issue of the magazine, but read as a whole there's no real plot structure overall. Various characters' threads get lost in the miasma in the latter half.

ARCHIE: THE MARRIED LIFE 10th ANNIVERSARY has Mike Uslan back in the driver's seat again, but this time it's "10 Years Later" after the original "ARCHIE MARRIES..." (ARCHIE #600-606), and while incorporating some of Uslan's ideas from LIFE WITH ARCHIE Magazine #1, goes off on completely different tangents than Kupperberg's story did.

Ah, OK- I can't remember the specifics this long after the fact, but I recall the huge first issue for sure- all that wild stuff being added in. I felt a very sudden narrative shift at some point in the first year (what you describe as the "pendulum swing") and that's probably what I'm thinking of. Dilton doing the science-fiction stuff comes in heavy and then feels like it's dropped completely. 

I'm forgetting "Hiram the Villain" but I definitely recall him being antagonistic at some point. Was it to Archie/Veronica or to Reggie? Boy I don't remember a plane crossing universes either, lol- so much of the comic really left my memory ages ago. 

In retrospect the one thing that still bothers me is that Jughead MARRIES MIDGE and Archie only learns about it after the fact. As if at any point someone would get married and not tell their best friend XD. 

I barely recall the "10th Anniversary" book coming out and I never checked it out. Reviews weren't great but now I'm curious, lol. The benefit of hindsight can help out a LOT of stories. 

Quote from: Fernando Ruiz on November 28, 2016, 01:08:59 AM

Quote from: SAGG on November 25, 2016, 08:12:00 PMI've got two: What if ACP wanted to change the direction of Archie like they have now, but wanted to keep you Classic artists? Would you have any trouble doing what they wanted, or would you have felt uncomfortable with the change? What if they wanted you to change your artwork as well to match the change in the story retro-wise, something more "serious-looking"? 

  If Archie had opted to have the classic artists draw the reboot books, I would draw it just as I would any other job. I'd already modified my approach to the characters somewhat while I was drawing the Life With Archie magazine series. If ACP had wanted the looks of the characters modernized, I certainly, as a professional, would have no problem doing that. As a fan, of course, my preference would be for the characters to remain in their classic style! I have always worked very hard to remain a diverse artists capable of working in many styles, genres, and tones. Drawing a more serious or mature Archie simply would have been just another job for me.


At New York Comic con this year, I had my very first conversation with Archie president Mike Pellerito since my "departure" from Archie Comics. To his credit, the conversation came about at his suggestion and as an attempt to repair the relationship between Archie Comics and myself. (Rest assured nothing came of this.) In the course of this exchange, I'd suggestion that one of the reasons why my "dismissal" had been unnecessary was because I easily could've drawn any one of the reboot titles. He responded very quickly with, "It wouldn't have sold."


I have no illusions that a reboot title drawn by myself would've sold in the same numbers as the Fiona Staples drawn issues, but we would have seen a boost in sales simply from the reboot alone. We also would have seen that boost be far more sustainable since I would have stayed with the title far longer than Staples' three issues. (The book has been bleeding readers since she left!) Plus, with a more moderate modification, they would've had material that could more seamlessly be used in the digests further on down the line.


Unfortunately, Pellerito was fixated on using (however temporarily) "big names" and trying to use the "news" of a total stylistic overhaul both in terms of story and art to further bolster the "splash" they were looking to make. Admittedly, they did make a bit of a splash, but the ripples of that splash are very evidently waning now.


I may have to tell the wonderful, heart-warming story about how us "classic guys" first learned of the reboot. It's a beautiful story that is very pertinent to the Holiday season, but its a story for another time...

I'd love to hear this story about the "classic guys" learning that... well, the comics were rebranding without them. Especially now that the reboot has entirely fizzled out.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on November 07, 2019, 12:21:29 AMSeems like it's ignoring everything after LIFE WITH ARCHIE #1 (i.e., all of "The Married Life" stories written by Paul Kupperberg). I like the art (well, except for Dan's decision that an older Archie should have a huge jaw in order to distinguish him from teenage Archie), but it's still too soon for me to pass final judgment on it as a story. I plan to re-read the whole thing in one sitting sometime after the last issue is released (or I might just wait for the TP), and maybe I'll have a clearer feeling about it by then. Clearly it's not a sequel to the run of LIFE WITH ARCHIE as written by Kupperberg, though. Having re-read the whole prior Married Life story fairly recently, both the strengths and flaws inherent in that series became a lot more obvious to me. After reading the whole thing again, I revised my initial opinion downward in terms of plot and story continuity, but felt like where it stood out was in terms of character interaction scenes and dialogue (only possible where you have a lot of pages for that kind of stuff).

That said, the story doesn't have anywhere near the same room to breath as the original LIFE WITH ARCHIE magazine, and the plot is necessarily compacted to fit into six standard-sized floppy comic issues -- which amounts to the same as only THREE magazine-sized issues of The Married Life, so it's hardly fair to compare one to the other as a complete series, either. Then again, I can recall the same sort of complaints about the final B&V story arc by Uslan and Parent. Either one is still miles better than what we're getting in the current ongoing ARCHIE title and miniseries like SABRINA.

I'm curious what you think the flaws were. Apologies if the re-read is now too long ago for you to remember XD.

I found that it had definitely gone off the rails at some point (I believe during a writer switch) and sometimes the two universes weren't different enough to really justify having both stories. It was neat seeing Little Ambrose and others return, though . 

Just adding to this one... I apparently left in *2017*. Ouch. That's too bad. I always think it was less time than it actually was. In this case, I had tired of a lot of the content being produced, and they'd been producing very little new content. Fernando Ruiz had just been largely turfed (I understand he returned and got a bit more work, but not THAT much) and only the solo "Archie" book by Waid was coming out. So I kind of just moved on from here.

The REAL killer, I will say, was the initial death/erasure of the old forum. I'm not blaming anyone in particular, but having the ENTIRETY of our post-count being destroyed just killed it for a lot of people. We had had a ton of very fun topics on here by that point, with all the Digests still in production and talks of all kinds of obscure characters (Crickett! Trula! Della!)... and there was a wonderful "Random Pictures" archive as well. And when the forum died, it took all of that with it. While we could sort of begin again... it really hurt not being able to look up those old topics.

And so I, personally, started to drift away. A handful of unpleasantness on the forums didn't help- I recall some new poster was bullying another, much younger/less-stable poster, and we had a certain argumentative individual a lot of you probably remember XD. 

I do miss coming to ArchieFans- I used to make this a regular haunt EVERY DAY. But I got older, got more responsibilities and new hobbies, and eventually the forum I missed coming to was the OLD one. 

But I'm still glad this one is still here.

Quote from: Fernando Ruiz on November 24, 2022, 09:38:23 PMNow in its second year, Life With Archie was drifting into a weird schizophrenic limbo of an existence. No one was sure what to do with it. Comic shops hated it because... well, it was an Archie product... but it was an oddly sized magazine so they didn't know what to do with it. Newsstand outlets were still shoving issues among their Tiger Beat magazines and other kiddie fare. This seemed incongruous with the magazine's adult storylines like "Miss Grundy dies of cancer" and "Homophobia runs rampant in Riverdale!" 

Oh man, amazing info! So glad I came to check out the forum for the first time in YEARS and find your post .

I mostly remember the comic having some INCREDIBLE issues to start, but as time went on, little problems popped up. The original creative teams leaving really altered how the stories worked.

And also I was having a hard time keeping track of what was going on in which story! Like, all the same characters were in each one! So I'd remember stuff like Betty being a successful writer in NYC was the "Archie/Betty" one but lose track of which half had the "Reggie/Reggie's dad (I forget which) gets arrested" story.

LOL, now I wanna check out which "Norm-isms" you were copying.

And damn... how did it lead to the end for poor Stan? I know he was turfed almost immediately afterwards without a word. I remember a few websites being like "..." on the art in the "Archie Marries..." series, as it had become a bit less detailed than they were used to from him, but the man WAS quite elderly by that point.

LOL- I randomly decided to check out the forum after years away, and I immediately find a Trula Twyst post. Nice .

I was a big fan of Trula back in the day- Jughead's nonplussed reaction to everything and his utmost confidence in himself was one of his best traits... so a character who could up-end all of that was the perfect nemesis.

Granted, they sometimes overdid it by having her beat him EASILY, and she rarely, if ever, got her comeuppance. And the artist who first designed her started kind of cheaping out on her design as time went on (so her detailed, curly hair was now a big messy pile of it). But overall she was a very fun addition... if someone entirely located in the "Jughead-Verse" of stories. It might have been fun seeing her interact more directly with Reggie, Archie, etc.- or even find out more about her dating life (as she'd initially created the "J.U.S.T. Cause" as a means to get Jughead to date her, which made her seem more enticing and attractive to the boys in Riverdale.

I love Trula stories. Jughead scores so many wins that it's delightful that somebody can outwit him. The fact that there's this question as to whether or not she likes him makes it even more interesting.

I can't speak for all of Canada, but every mall I know of has hours it insists stores stay open. Department stores and restaurants are often open later, but every place has to be open until the mall is closed- this mystified me until I went to a mall with a lot of stores that'd shut down, and I realized that if stores closed whenever they wanted, then the mall would visually appear to be closing down or failing .

The only places around here that are allowed to close earlier are the travel agent shops and pharmacies- I assume it's because those people are trained professionals (like, more than us cashiers and can thus dictate their hours.


It makes the "outdoor shopping center" look more attractive to business owners, even if "walk-in traffic" is diminished.

I really hope malls don't fail, however. Shopping centers are lame places to visit compared to malls, the food is scattered everywhere instead of in one place, it's often freezing out, and anyone with kids will tell you it's REALLY inconvenient to have to walk from place to place with children (especially if they're in strollers). Malls are a god-send to people with kids.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on November 09, 2017, 10:55:53 AM

Quote from: Jabroniville on November 09, 2017, 09:35:56 AM
they have to pay staff to do nothing for hours on weekends

Huh?! Explain this, please.

It's simple:

Malls enforce the hours that businesses have to stay open.

Certain times of the day are infamously slow in malls, such as weekends after 6pm or so, some holidays, early mornings, etc. When I worked in a mall, Saturday after six was just DEAD- you only get business during the day.

Therefore, a business that has to stay open from 9 to 9 every single day has to pay staff to fill those twelve hours, even if a bunch of those hours aren't busy at all- the employees are thus drawn really thin for the times when it IS busy, and the stores basically blow money, because they're paying someone $/hour to sit around while no sales are made. My mom still works in a mall, and says there are days when you could roll a bowling ball down the halls and hit nobody. Yet every place is open.

I mean, yay, it's more hours for people who might need it, but it's a waste. Many business owners I know refuse to move in to malls directly because of this practice- paying staff for times when nobody's shopping is dumb.

Malls in Canada are a different situation: http://business.financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/better-design-and-atmosphere-why-canadian-malls-are-thriving-while-american-malls-struggle


The weather here prevents a lot of "outdoor shopping center" things. Though a lot of malls are learning that their "anchors" are unnecessary, and are looking into putting odd things in those locations- doctors' offices, gyms, etc. These places provide rent money, even if there's no "crossover" between one thing and the other Most of the malls in town are undergoing MAJOR renovations, too- they're spending money to look better and be more modern.

Also, Online Shopping is proving to be riskier and riskier for a lot of people, and could eventually peak (never mind that Amazon barely even makes money, if at all).

Personally, I'd hate to see malls disappear entirely- as archaic as some aspects can be (business owners HATE the enforced opening & closing times, as they have to pay staff to do nothing for hours on weekends), they're a much better "destination" than most shopping centers tend to be.