Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on December 31, 2016, 12:16:17 PM
B & V FRIENDS JUMBO COMICS #252 came in the mail today. I'll be reading that later tonight and tomorrow. Already read the new lead story by Dan Parent. Very unusual theme to this one, entitled "OWL Be Seeing You!". Seems B & V are very concerned about birds flying into the large glass windowpanes of the Lodge mansion, due to a flock of migrating owls passing through Riverdale. Can't say I've ever seen any sort of variation on this particular plot before. I guess Dan just reads things in the news or sees them on television, and decides to write a story about it. He did that last year with a Jughead story about 'hoverboards' (which actually look like some kind of spinoff of the Segway technology) being unsafe and prone to malfunctions. Oh well, I guess he must get bored doing variations of the same typical plots we've seen dozens of times already.

Yeah I was curious where the inspiration for this one came from as well. Who knows?? At least we're getting something different.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on December 30, 2016, 02:45:32 PM
JUGHEAD & ARCHIE WINTER ANNUAL #24

Any good stories ie Boldman? I'm debating on whether to buy this or not. The last Jughead digest was really good.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on December 30, 2016, 04:00:38 AM

Quote from: irishmoxie on December 25, 2016, 12:39:32 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on December 25, 2016, 05:58:34 AM
Where is there a collection of Valentine's Day stories, that's what I'd like to know. New Year's, 4th of July, Easter, and Thanksgiving don't particularly excite me too much as themes for Archie Comics stories.

http://www.comics.org/searchNew/?q=archie+valentine%27s+day&search_object=all

After sifting through that list on GCDb, and eliminating the listings for covers, letters or text pages, fan art, advertisements, stories featuring The New Archies, Little Archie, and L'il Jinx, and 1-page (or less) gag strips, plus multiple reprint appearances of the same story, I pared down that listing to 15 actual stories, the longest of which is the recent 10-page "That's Some Val-entine!" (Part 3 of "The Many Loves of Archie Andrews", featuring Valerie Smith of the Pussycats, from B&VDD #239, Feb. 2016). The rest are 5 or 6-pagers. For a company that has published 75 years worth of stories about teenagers, a large percentage of which involve dating in some way, that seems like a ridiculously low number of Valentine's Day stories (one of those, by the way, is a Sabrina story). Of course, the percentage of Archie Comics stories that have been indexed on GCDb is ridiculously low to begin with, compared to other publishers like DC and Marvel, but still...

There are also some digital collections that may apply to Valentine's Day. I think one is called Sweethearts. I will look into jt closer to V day.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on December 27, 2016, 05:25:06 PM
Never mind all that. I'm still waiting for a proper Archie animated series. The first one (produced by Filmation) came the closest, but that isn't saying much. Of the main five characters, about the only one whose personality came even remotely close to being captured by the cartoon was Reggie (at least he could be relied on to pull underhanded tricks and prank Archie). Did we see comical situations caused by Archie's accident-prone nature, his inability to choose between Betty & Veronica, his constant chasing after various girls, his misadventures working various jobs in an attempt to make enough cash to date Veronica? We did not. Did we see episodes based on the contrasting nature of B & V's personalities? We did not. Did we see episodes based on Jughead's mooching, his willingness to do anything if there was a food reward involved, or his concentrated effort to avoid work? We did not. Did we see intense contests between Archie & Reggie over dating Veronica or Reggie's constantly outclassing Archie as more well-dressed, better in sports, with a nicer car and plenty of spending cash; B & V's rivalry over Archie, and the lengths each might go to, to gain the upper hand over the other; or the battle of wits between Jughead and Reggie? We did not. Besides the music, all we ever saw were generic comedy situations. That and lots and lots of Hot Dog's antics. The Filmation people absolutely loved Hot Dog... it was practically his show. Not surprisingly, since they were the ones who invented him.

I'm still waiting for this too. You would think with all the comics written, they would have tons of material for the above scenarios you described.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on December 25, 2016, 05:58:34 AM
Where is there a collection of Valentine's Day stories, that's what I'd like to know. New Year's, 4th of July, Easter, and Thanksgiving don't particularly excite me too much as themes for Archie Comics stories.

http://www.comics.org/searchNew/?q=archie+valentine%27s+day&search_object=all

I thought we had a thread about this awhile back but I can't find it now. While there are tons of Christmas stories, New Year's stories (and Thanksgiving ones, and to some extent Halloween stories) are few and far between. Here's a couple of New Year's stories I found:

It's Their Miserable Lives! - Cheryl Blossom throws a New Year's party. Includes a reprint of "Fall Guys" (the mud wrestling story) as a flashblack. [Cheryl Blossom Special #3 1995 series; reprinted in Archie's Holiday Fun Digest #9]

New Year's Wishes - 90's Sabrina story. Sabrina can grant 3 wishes before midnight but only to her true love. [from Sabrina #22 and reprinted in Archie's Holiday Fun Digest #9]

The New Year's Resolution contest - Archie and his friends each make a New Years Resolution and then meet again in a month to see who has kept their resolution. [reprinted in Archie's DD #148]

Resolution Revolution - Kevin and the gang compete to see which ones can keep their New Year's resolutions the longest, but during the contest he finds out things about his boyfriend Devon that he doesn't want to know. [Kevin Keller #12]

Party Time Out - Betty throws a New Year's Eve party for her friends. [reprinted in Betty and Veronica DD #207]

A Change in the Weather - Betty spends weeks preparing a New Year's Eve party at her house, only to have Veronica throw a bigger party at the mansion at the same time. [Betty #12; reprinted in Archie's Holiday Fun digest #5]

Happy New Year - The gang's New Year's party is visited first by an old man and then by a talking infant, each of whom try to impart some wisdom on the teens. [Laugh #251; reprinted in Laugh Digest #51]

Comes the Resolution - When they can't agree on making New Year's resolutions, the gang decide that each of them should make binding resolutions for another person. [Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica #35]

Resolved - Archie's new list of New Year's resolutions has Smithers resolving to quit. [Pep #262; reprinted in Jughead DD #100]

Ring Out the Old - 1940's Archie. Archie's loud New Year's party clashes with his parents' quiet one. [Archie #25; reprinted in Archie Archives #7]

Cheers for the New Year - Katy Keene story. Katy and Sis host a New Year's Eve party in their apartment. [Katy Keene #29]

New York Cheer - Katy and Sis visit their Aunt and Uncle in Kansas to celebrate New Year's. [Katy Keene #19]

Party Hearty - Katy plans on spending New Year's Eve with Rock on his plane but has to locate a defiant Sis in Times Square first. [Katy Keene #25]

New Year's Party - Wilbur story from the 40's. Snowball fight and New Year's Party. [Zip Comics #24]

Hmm...wonder why there are so many Katy Keene stories with a New Year's theme.

There's also a bunch of one pagers/pin ups and Li'l Jinx stories which you can find listed on comics.org.

Lots of Archie's Holiday Fun digests. I'm trying to add them as I go to comics.org. I already have a ton of the Christmas Giant Series issues and I thought these would be a repeat but so far the stories are mostly from elsewhere. Though I have read a lot of these stories before, probably in the digital Pep comics.

Honestly more interested in the storybook digest stories.

These Mickey Mouse shorts recommended by DeCarlo Rules which are hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC6qIbU1olyXQe1WOKt8UJ4hErx3D7qt8


Arthur Christmas


Frozen


Beauty and the Beast

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on December 15, 2016, 11:16:39 AM
WALT DISNEY'S MICKEY & DONALD CHRISTMAS PARADE #2 (2016)

This is a 68-page "bookshelf format" (thick glossy white pages, squarebound, with a stiff glossy cardboard cover) comic book, that contains only 4 pages of non-story material (and one contents page), for the very nice price of $5.99.

The new (to the USA, translated from the Swedish Kalle Ankas Pocket 422, 2013) lead story is the epic 43-page all-star adventure, "Tis No Season". In it, Mickey Mouse, returning from a time-traveling adventure in the 1890s in which he teamed up with Sherlock Holmes, arrives back in Mouseton 2016 to find that his friend Doc Static's laboratory is nothing but a dusty, disused building that looks like it's been vacant for decades. Doc Static had invented a device that charged Mickey's body with chronal energy, so he could visit the past without using a time machine. When the chronal charge dissipated, Mickey was supposed to return to the exact moment he left. He did return to 2016, but not the same 2016 that he left! So what happened? Seeking out the Doc, Mickey discovers that he's now a librarian, and had never even been a scientist! Even worse, he soon discovers that Christmas no longer exists! Accessing a computer, Mickey finds to his relief that the new timeline he finds himself in had nothing to do with his adventure in the 1890s, but that Christmas has been outlawed since 1956! Seeking to solve the mystery, correct the chronal divergence, and save Christmas, he turns to Donald Duck for help. Donald thinks his old pal Mickey has gone off his nut, since Don can never remember a time when Christmas was celebrated, but takes him to see Scrooge McDuck. Scrooge does remember Christmas (because he's way older than 60), and agrees to help Mickey (because having no Christmas season has negatively impacted Scrooge's many commercial ventures!), and Huey, Dewey, and Louie are very interested in this idea of a holiday on which kids receive tons of presents! Scrooge explains that on the night of December 24, 1956, when Santa Claus visited all the houses in the twin cities of Mouseton and Duckburg, instead of leaving presents, he robbed every single home! The shocking news quickly spread around the world, and people were so frightened by the idea, and the possibility of a repeat performance, that Christmas itself was quickly outlawed. Irascible Donald is still skeptical, but grudgingly agrees to help, and takes them to see Duckburg's resident genius inventor, Gyro Gearloose, who of course has a time machine on hand. Traveling back to the fateful night of the time divergence in 1956, Mickey, Donald, Scrooge and the boys all witness a horde of miniature robotic Santas wreaking havoc on their two hometowns and robbing homes of all their valuables, which attack our heroes with destructive ray beams when they are caught being observed in the performance of their pernicious programming. Obviously this must be the work of a sinister mastermind -- and why didn't the real Santa Claus stop it? To discover what happened to the real Santa, the pals take a quick trip to the North Pole, where they discover that Santa, his workshop, and all his elves and reindeer have been trapped in a time stasis bubble! Mickey quickly deduces that this plot is so perfidious, so diabolical, that only one arch-criminal mind can be behind it -- no one else but Mickey's nefarious Number One-nemesis, THE PHANTOM BLOT! How Mickey, Donald, Scrooge and the nephews track the Blot to his lair, free Santa from the time stasis bubble, defeat the Blot's evil army of killer Santa robots, and restore Christmas to its rightful place in history, makes for a fun and interesting Christmas story, in fact, the best Christmas story I've read in quite some time (although last year's MICKEY & DONALD CHRISTMAS PARADE also had quite a good, long Christmas story -- but I believe IDW has topped themselves this year).

I only wish ACP could offer something in a similar format. These Christmas specials from IDW aren't tied to any particular year, really (which explains how a time travel story that was published in Sweden in 2013 can easily be updated in translation, and lose nothing). Or at the very least, they should make a new, long story (25-30 pages) and include it in the ARCHIE COMICS SUPER SPECIAL Christmas issue. Since ACP loves to sell direct through the mail, these could be stocked (and advertised as still available in the digests) for years, until they were all gone.

The special also contains a couple of one-page Xmas gag strips featuring Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck, a 5-page Big Bad Wolf story called "That Sinking Feeling" where B.B. Wolf seemingly turns over a new leaf and gains the Christmas spirit (but Practical Pig, being the skeptical sort of swine, is still suspicious), and closes out with a 12-page Donald Duck and Gyro Gearloose adventure called "Vacation INGENIOUS" in which, during a blizzard in Duckburg, overworked and frazzled inventor Gyro decides to join Donald on an impromptu ski vacation, to get away from constant work and relax (but somehow, he's just unable to stop inventing things!) -- this last tale isn't really a Christmas story, but more of a "winter vacation" story. As with the lead story, all of these are translated from European-generated Disney comics, and appear here for the first time in a US publication.

Great review! I love Christmas comics. I wish there was more of them. I have this on order from Midtown since it doesn't come in digital.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on December 15, 2016, 05:08:29 AM

Quote from: irishmoxie on December 14, 2016, 08:49:04 PM
How was Motor Crush? Would I like it? Is it girlie?

Would I like Duck Avenger if I like the Duck Tales movie from the 90s?

No and no.

Motor Crush is kind of some alternate universe Speed Racer thing with motorcycles instead of cars, with a female drug-addicted protagonist.

Duck Avenger is Donald as a superhero, but in a 60-page story it gets a little tedious.

I'm not going to continue reading either of those.

If you want a recommendation of something that seems girlie to check out, try SPELL ON WHEELS by Kate Leth & Megan Levins, a 5-issue miniseries from Dark Horse Comics. It's about 3 witches trying to recover their stolen magical items from a thief, and while the story didn't interest me enough to continue beyond the first issue, it's competently enough written and drawn, and I had no problem following what was going on. The character interaction between the three main protagonists may be enough to hold your interest.

Thanks. I've read the 1st 2 issues of Spell on Wheels. It was ok. Maybe I'll reread them to see if they grow on me.

Jem and the Holograms (80s cartoon)
The Secret Life of Alex Mack

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on December 12, 2016, 06:18:31 AM
PLUTO: URASAWA x TEZUKA VOL. 5, 6, 7, & 8 (of 8 ) - That was great. One of the best manga series I've ever read. Really impressed. Five stars *****!
REGGIE'S WISE GUY JOKES #13, 24, 30, 34 - IMO, this is the best of all the Joke Book titles. Why? I dunno, maybe the one-page gag just suits Reggie better than Archie or Jughead. Here you find more one-page gags with Reggie dating Midge again, and also more of his insults and put-downs aimed at Ethel (but mostly, Archie is the victim of his zingers more than anyone else).
MOTOR CRUSH #1
DUCK AVENGER #2

How was Motor Crush? Would I like it? Is it girlie?


Would I like Duck Avenger if I like the Duck Tales movie from the 90s?

Blind box figurines from tokidoki and Moana

Reggie: Lots of exposition and set up. Of all the new Riversale titles, the writing is the most similar to classic Archie. Another dog narrator? Why?? But Vader was more charming than Hot Dog. I was never a huge fan of Reggie but I'll continue. It's a light read and his dashund is cute.


Josie: my favorite of all the new Riverdale titles. The humor is definitely targeted towards millennials like Archie is targeted towards teens. Continue with at least one Mean Girls reference per comic please! Case in point the Back to the Future reference went over my head. The comic is definitely targeted towards girls (thank you ACP for thinking of us!) with its wordiness and pop culture mentions. With the word count, it's actually worth the cover price in how long it takes me to read it. Whereas other $4 comics I can read in about 2 minutes. And the high waisted bikinis which were causing a fuss over on the Archie Facebook page. Girls look at that and say that outfit looks cute. I want one. Whereas guys automatically deem the girls not sexy enough. I agree the pace of the story is off and Marguerite should fix that. But so is DC Bombshells. It jumps around with non sequiturs but girls love this stuff. Otherwise why would Gilmore Girls be so popular?