Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 28, 2017, 07:50:31 AM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 28, 2017, 06:30:07 AM

Agree with everything you wrote!  However, that's why I think I love Josie so much.  She's mysterious.  I know something is going on and I want to get closer to her to find out!

The allure of woman of mystery, eh?

There are a scant few stories where Josie actually seems to have something more important to say or do than her friends, that don't involve some dating drama with Alan or Alex. One is Holly G's "O Solo Mio", where she accidentally started a solo career doing musical commercials, and another is the story (forgot the title now) where the band was experiencing a stall-out in their career, and Josie started thinking about going back to school. While she's conflicted about her musical career, she goes on a camping sabbatical, leaving Val and Mel to play a gig themselves with the "help" of Alexandra. The stories rarely seem to focus on Josie like that though.

Thanks I gotta find that!  I like Holly G's stuff!

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 28, 2017, 04:24:33 AM
Welcome to the forum, Ronnie. Our stories are quite similar. Josie and Sabrina are my two favorites, largely based on having watched those TV cartoons as a kid. Like you, my initial re-interest in Archie Comics came about through an appreciation of Dan DeCarlo's work, in those books published by Fantagraphics and IDW collecting some of his work, and through two of the earliest trade paperback collections ACP put out, The Best of Josie & the Pussycats (2001) and Betty & Veronica Summer Fun (2003). After that my interest became attracted when the multipart storylines began appearing, especially the work of Dan Parent.

Strangely enough, I always felt Josie was the least defined, personality-wise, of all the characters in her self-titled series. Melody and Pepper (from the pre-Pussycats She's Josie incarnation of that title) were always the ones I found most interesting, and after that, Alexandra and Valerie. Even Alex is more interesting, in his own way. Josie seems nice, and she's pretty. She's the leader of the group, and sometimes is fought over for her attention by Alex and Alan M. (or before that, Alex and Albert in She's Josie). Other than that though, there isn't much I can say about what makes her character distinctive. There's a lot more to say about Melody, Pepper, Alexandra, and Valerie. (Alan M.'s kind of bland, when you get down to it -- in fact, so bland that he seems to have been quietly dropped after the original Josie series was cancelled in the early 1980s, and barely anyone noticed. He's made scant appearances since then.)

Just like with Archie, Josie is the character that the others seem to orbit around, like planets in a star system, but just like I feel about Archie, all of the real interest seems to be what's happening with the satellite characters, not with the star. Josie doesn't seem to be the one that initiates action or even reacts to situations as much as the other characters. Plot motivation for stories always seems to be initiated by Alex, Alexandra, or Melody, but never from Josie, who just seems to be the one caught up in the center of the whirlwind. Both Pepper and Valerie seem to play a similar role in the stories for their respective but non-overlapping eras, equivalent to the role Jughead frequently plays in Archie stories (stories where Jughead is the star more often operate by a different logic), that of the detached cynical observer, the smartest or most sensible of the group, and the one most likely to offer a creative solution to any given problem.

Agree with everything you wrote!  However, that's why I think I love Josie so much.  She's mysterious.  I know something is going on and I want to get closer to her to find out! 

Quote from: SAGG on August 27, 2017, 05:38:14 PM
Scary thought: Were the 80's the last great Archie story period? 

Not for me.  I liked quite a few of the issues in the last couple of years before the reboot.  .


Especially Occupy Riverdale, Reversedale, and Mirrordale, and the one where they go to Riverdale Zoo and everyone turns into animals. I thought they did some great work, but unfortunately it wasn't selling.   

Welcome Ronny!!!  I've had a crush on Josie forever! 

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 24, 2017, 03:56:11 AM

Quote from: irishmoxie on August 23, 2017, 06:53:41 PM
They've been doing that bait and switch forever. I remember my first Betty and Veronica digest had Cheryl on the cover despite having no Cheryl story inside. She was staring in her own series at the time.

People who have been reading the digest titles for years have probably already noticed this, but a decade or more ago, the digests contained a significantly larger number of new story pages. Back in that time it was common for the covers to depict a scene from one of the new stories inside, and these stories could be anywhere from 10-20 pages. That was back when Nelson Riberio was the digest editor. ACP still published both regular and Double Digest titles devoted to its most popular characters, there were 8 ongoing digest titles, and the Archie digests were outselling just about every comic book published in the direct market.

Since Ribero left ACP (he went to work for Marvel's reprint collections division) the digests shifted to gag covers, and then to covers featuring mostly generic scenes from which the cover artwork could be re-used in a variety of different formats. The number of new story pages was reduced, and for a couple of years new stories disappeared from the digests altogether, before being restored to a standardized single new 5-page story per digest issue in 2014. Also since that time ACP has ceased to publish the "regular" (96-page) digest format, and the number of titles has dropped from 8, to 6 ongoing titles... and it looks like it's about to become just 4 ongoing titles.

We already knew that JUGHEAD AND ARCHIE was ending (I just got the final issue, #27) and being replaced by ARCHIE AND ME Digest, but the last solicitation for issues of both ARCHIE'S FUNHOUSE (#28) and B & V FRIENDS (#256) appeared in July's PREVIEWS (supposed to ship in September), and there should have been a solicitation for another issue in the September PREVIEWS catalog (for shipping in November), but none materialized. Barring a solicitation in October's catalog for an early December shipping date, it looks like this might be the end for Archie's Funhouse and B & V Friends, or maybe they'll be replaced by new digest titles, hard to say.

Everywhere that I go locally that carries the digest NEVER seems to sell any of them.  I don't know how much longer we'll see the digests, period, especially with the upcoming price hikes.  I can't imagine anyone paying that much for these books.  I subscribe to some of them and that's the only way I can afford to get them.  And of course, if we no longer see the digests, that's not good for ACP.  I don't think trade collections are enough to keep them in the black as far as publishing and both my local Barnes & Nobles have reduced their shelf space of Archie trade collections as well.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 20, 2017, 07:24:39 AM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 20, 2017, 07:16:03 AM
I'm really just doing this for fun.

Sure, there's nothing wrong with that. But isn't that what people say about tarot or psychic readings, palmistry, numerology, or astrology, which they also claim not to understand? Not saying it has to be important, just wondering if there's any real significance.

I don't know if there's any significance, but I would definitely put it above all those things you list.  At least this is based on science.  I don't think you can say that about those other things. 

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 20, 2017, 12:26:51 AM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 19, 2017, 07:28:03 PM

I'm not a scientist.  I don't know how they can tell, but it's a huge business and if it was a total scam I'm pretty sure we'd know that by now.  This isn't Tarot card reading.  As I say, it's not an exact science, but it evidently can give you an idea.

I'm surprised you're not even curious about how it supposedly works, given that you felt it was important enough to be tested for. Or that no basic layman's information explaining how DNA testing works (for your purposes) was provided by the lab doing the testing. Blind faith?

Which raises questions about who and what we are to begin with... biological machines bound to our DNA "Operating Systems"? The sum of two merged sets of accumulated "program code" encoded over millennia (some lines of code of which are dominant, and some recessive), running a "Software Application" program (determined by the accumulated information, bit by bit, of our life experiences)?

Or if not, then how important is it, given that you thought it was relevant in some way to who you are? It has to be admitted that we are limited in some ways by our DNA Operating System, which we can never change no matter what we do, but it does make me wonder, in this specific example, what is it about the "lines of code" (genes) in our DNA O/Ss that are specific to people historically inhabiting particular geographic locations on earth that is important in some way -- i.e., what sort of important code is conferred upon individuals with "Irish genes" as opposed to "French genes", or vice-versa, quantitatively or qualitatively speaking? I guess you can point to some observable physical characteristics endemic to either group, but what does it all mean to the individual?

DeCarlo, I doubt I'd understand how it works even if it was explained.  I'm not educated in science.  I'm not into genealogy but I have a friend who is way into her family tree and has been around this stuff for years.  She seems to think it's legit.  I'm not saying that means it is.  Have you not seen the commercials for ancestry.com, 23andme.com, or My Heritage just to name a few?  These companies have been around for awhile now and I'd think if it wasn't on the level, it would have been exposed. 


I'm really just doing this for fun.  I'm not a person who cares much about what my ancestors were.  I AM annoyed by French people (not all of course, again, I'm just having fun) so I thought it was funny that after 48 years of thinking I was 60-80 percent French that I came back as more Irish than French, especially since my name is Rene' Maurice Passarieu, which is about the most French name you'll see in the US.  Ha ha. 


Even if it's all BS and I really am more French than Irish, this just gave me something to kid around about with people at work.  My wife came back as 60 percent British.  We had no idea what she was.  So we went to a British pub to celebrate and had baked beans on toast, chips (fries), and Fullers ESB.  It's just something meaningless to celebrate.


Sorry if I came off as this all meaning something important! 

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 19, 2017, 12:59:04 PM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 19, 2017, 12:37:44 PM
I know it's not an exact science, DCR, but yes, you can tell that from a DNA test.

But HOW can they tell by your genes? Given that even a generation ago such tests didn't exist? Even now the sampling of people that ever take such a DNA test has to be a minuscule fractional percentage of the overall population. So how do they know some specific gene is traceable back in time over many generations to populations from a specific geographic locale?  Even if they are able to access every single DNA test result ever given, the sampling has to be far too small to be definitive, but more importantly, there's no data going back in time for decades for comparative purposes. I find the concept somewhat baffling. It almost sounds like "Well, it's pretty simple -- all French people have the French Gene, and all Irish people have the Irish Gene", which sounds like some nutty "racial science" kind of crap.

I'm not a scientist.  I don't know how they can tell, but it's a huge business and if it was a total scam I'm pretty sure we'd know that by now.  This isn't Tarot card reading.  As I say, it's not an exact science, but it evidently can give you an idea. 

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 19, 2017, 10:26:28 AM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 19, 2017, 08:51:51 AM
"Just Because I'm Irish" by Jonathan Richman and Julia Sweeney


I just got my DNA test back and after my whole life thinking I was mostly French, I find that I'm more Irish than French!

They can tell what nationality your ancestors were by a DNA test? How does that work, exactly?   
It's not like DNA testing has been around that long, so what's their basis for sorting genomes based on geographical residence? I mean, how many people ever even get a DNA test that's looking at region-specific factors? Especially when you consider that people do tend to move around, ever since things like horses, boats, and even feet became all the rage for the mobility thing.

I know it's not an exact science, DCR, but yes, you can tell that from a DNA test.   My name is Rene Maurice Passarieu, which is about as French as you can get and my father was born in New Orleans in 1912 and his father was born in France in the 1800s.  I have always been told I was 80 percent French but my test came back 29 percent Irleand and 24 percent Iberian peninsula (south of France).  I'm actually relieved because I'm not a big fan of the French accent or language, and I love The Pogues. 

"Just Because I'm Irish" by Jonathan Richman and Julia Sweeney


I just got my DNA test back and after my whole life thinking I was mostly French, I find that I'm more Irish than French! 

Quote from: Bluto on August 15, 2017, 09:35:01 AM
http://www.cbr.com/jughead-drove-samm-schwartz-away/

This is fantastic!  Thanks for sharing!

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 13, 2017, 04:16:53 PM

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on August 12, 2017, 06:27:52 PM
I'm pretty sure we'll see a Your Pal Archie-style Betty and Veronica before long.

I wish I had your optimism about it, Vegan. I'm more worried right now about how many issues of YPA we can get before the plug is pulled. Ideally I would wish for "more than 22", but... comic shop consumers seem to give any kind of humor series a chilly reception.

Oh you didn't know YPA is already just a 5 issue miniseries?  Dan Parent says it "might" go further, but as I said before he hinted at another series or something and maybe that will be B&V.  I just can't see Archie having Vixens be the only Betty and Veronica product.  B&V are their most popular characters. 

I'm pretty sure we'll see a Your Pal Archie-style Betty and Veronica before long. 


The first issue of Adam Hughes' Betty and Veronica sold a ton because those two names are very popular, more than Archie himself.


It would be crazy for Archie Comics not to bring a near-classic Betty and Veronica to market soon. 

Quote from: irishmoxie on August 11, 2017, 02:12:24 PM
Why oh why can't they make a Betty and Veronica series marketed towards women?

I agree.  Even though I'm male, my taste runs more toward what women read, especially in comics. 

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 11, 2017, 12:18:36 PM
ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK: MAGIC, MUSIC & MISCHIEF is a full-sized (same page size as a standard comic book), 304-page collection of some of the best stories (all older ones) from Sabrina, Josie and Little Archie. I get the impression that they're putting this out to try to build familiarity with Archie readers for these, their next three biggest character franchises, and you really couldn't ask for a better introductory volume.

MAGIC: Most of the Sabrina stories here were just recently reprinted in the SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH COMPLETE COLLECTION v1, which I reviewed above, but there they were printed in black & white at the smaller page size used for the Best of Archie Comics trade collection. Here they're full-sized and in color. The editor selected all Dan DeCarlo-illustrated stories (with one exception, a short drawn by Stan Goldberg) for this collection, including all of his key earliest ones from Archie's Madhouse. The rest are choice early stories from Archie's TV Laugh-Out, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and one from Sabrina's Christmas Magic.

It was when I was counting the pages that I noticed there are just about 80 pages of Sabrina stories here, and that the cover illustration of Sabrina (which is also used in a larger image for the title page of the Sabrina section) is the same one that appeared as the cover of the formerly-solicited, then cancelled, SABRINA 80-PAGE GIANT, so I think if that comic had actually been published these are exactly the same stories you would have seen reprinted in that 80-Page Giant. While there are a few more than 80 pages in both the Josie and Little Archie section, I noted (again) that the images used on both the cover of this collection and the title pages of those characters' sections were the same as the ones that appeared on the covers for the respective 80-PAGE GIANT comics solicited, then cancelled, for JOSIE and LITTLE ARCHIE, so I'm guessing that 80 pages out of each of those sections would have made up those Giant comics.

MUSIC: Well, not all music. Three of the longer stories that begin this section ("A Gym Dandy", "Footlight Follies", and "Sweater Girls") are non-musical/non-Pussycats stories reprinted in their entirety (they were book-length stories) from early issues of She's Josie. Issues #1-3, in fact. I couldn't have been more delighted. I consider the longer early stories of She's Josie to be the very best stories Archie Comic Publications have ever produced, and these three showcase the talent of Frank Doyle and Dan DeCarlo at the height of their artistic powers. If ACP is ever wondering how to produce a new comic book that will actually be good, then they should dissect and analyze the way these stories are written and structured, and try to adapt that to stories about modern teenagers taking place today. I'm not saying they could do it, but they should at least attempt it. Josie was an interesting creation, because it involved the three main female characters taken from a proposed newspaper strip which Dan DeCarlo tried, and failed, to interest newspaper syndicate editors in. The male characters didn't come from those prototype strips though. They came from the last thing that Frank Doyle and Dan DeCarlo had worked on together, which was "The NEW" Wilbur. If you look carefully at Albert and Alexander, they're really just Wilbur and his rival Alec from the aforementioned series, with slightly different hairstyles and more stylish (for 1963) clothes. Albert even originally had the same flattop/brushcut hairstyle as Wilbur's, except that Wilbur was blond, and tended to dress more like the 1950s Archie, with letter sweatervests, saddle shoes, and checkered pants. The main difference here between Alec (from Wilbur) and Alexander Cabot is that instead of just being upper-middle class like Reggie Mantle, Alexander Cabot is filthy rich like the Lodges, and just as spoiled by it as Veronica. Otherwise the early Alexander looks and acts almost identically with Wilbur's rival Alec. Then there is Sock (short for Socrates, by the way, in case you didn't know), the big, dumb, (but good-natured) jock athlete who's absolutely bananas for Pepper and would do anything for her. He's an evolution of Tiny, who played a similar role (inspired by Moose, of course) in Wilbur's stories. Then there's Pepper, who had a namesake in the earlier Wilbur stories, but was nothing like Josie's Pepper, personality-wise. Although she may have taken some personality bits from a character in Wilber named Dodo. I have been fascinated by how "The NEW Wilbur" fits into the picture of characters' evolution in Archie Comics ever since I began noticing all the similarities. It's not so obvious, when you look at the characters of Alexander, who evolved considerably further in later stories of Josie and the Pussycats, and even Albert and Pepper evolved a little differently towards the end -- before being dropped altogether to make way for Alan M. Mayberry and Valerie Brown (later Smith). Did I mention that all the Josie stories (including the Pussycats ones) reprinted in this collection are also illustrated by Dan DeCarlo? All except one, just like in the previous Sabrina section. There's one final short drawn by Stan Goldberg, reprinted from years later than the original run of J&tP.

MISCHIEF: I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't actually read this section yet. But they all look to be early LA stories written and drawn by Bob Bolling. Bolling is an interesting writer to me, because he has very specific tastes, and includes very distinctive elements of fantasy, mystery, adventure and the supernatural in his stories (that goes for most of them, if he's allowed the page length to develop those ideas, regardless if it's a regular Archie story, a Betty story, or a Little Archie story). The shorter Little Archie stories rarely have those elements in them, and those are the ones mainly reprinted in the digests. This section contains at least two longer (both look to be book-length) stories containing those elements, that I plan on reading later. They are "Little Archie on Mars" and "The Strange Case of the Mystery Map". These both seem to contain complex plots, and other interesting incidental characters. I couldn't tell you what it is about stories featuring mainly a cast of primary-school children that disinterest me, but it is what it is.

I was already going to get this but now I'm EXCITED to get it, thanks to you.  I agree with you that She's Josie is the best Archie Comics ever did!!  And I agree that they should try to do something like this now.