Wow, it just gets better in issue No. 2!  And hey, look! Dan brought back Assie from Dumb-Ass Express No. 1 (1998)... Could we possibly see an appearance by The Carneys (Linda-Louise being my favorite) in a future story? And they have superheroes lined up for issue No. 3, which I never would have expected (doesn't hurt to cover all the bases)! I'm loving it! Were the Bill Golliher single page strips brand new, or older material created some time ago but never seen before? It was nice to see Bill contribute something.

Can't believe nobody posted about this yet, it's been out for a few days now (I was just behind)!

REBOOTS. They seem to follow me around like stray puppies, whenever I become emotionally invested in something. I hadn't posted for a week, in the pre-Apocalyptic time before the Archiefans.com reboot (in this case an unplanned one, no fault to Oldiesmann). But that's just the way my life seems to go. DC Comics (The New 52), Archie Comics (and Archie Digital for Android and PC users), Marvel Comics (Secret Wars), Monster High... whenever I get too interested and involved in something, the universe comes in with a giant cartoon mallet to smash my head in with a reboot, demolishing all that was, pulling the rug out from under my feet. Thus providing ample reminder to me that all things are ephemeral and the Law of Entropy rules over all (and never moreso than the digital realm).

I was getting behind on everything and not finding the time to get things done in general, but more endemic to the topic at hand, not finding the time for comics reading and a bunch of indexes and other research projects I'd been working on (hopefully more on those later). For my 4000th post, I'd wanted to post something substantial, and not just "Post #4000! Woo-hoo!!!" (that's essentially all I posted for #2000, and #3000 just slipped by me during a flurry of replies on various threads) ... but just couldn't find the time to write it up. When I finally found the time to complete some of those little research projects and went back to post on Friday morning, March 25th... no forum existed ("Unable to connect to DNS server").  Then when the forums finally came back, everything was gone. EVERYTHING. All the posts, all the bank accounts, all the galleries... It was just SO depressing that I wasn't sure I was even going to sign up again. After all, I reflected, haven't I already said everything I needed to say about "The New Riverdale", and the Riverdale TV pilot?  That seemed to be where 90% of the posting was going on. A day or two after the boards came back, I lurked to see what was going on, and I saw someone else (chancebond) already registered under the username DeCarlo Rules, so that seemed to be the final straw. The universe seemed to be sending me a message. I wasn't sure I'd ever come back at that point, and if someone else was going to take the name, I might not have.

One of the little side projects I was working on was a complete list of all the trade paperbacks and hardcovers that had been solicited over the last 2 years by ACP (and later cancelled), and working on that list was an enormously depressing revelation, because it seems to indicate that ACP is no longer interested in publishing any trade collections beyond the 1000 Page and Giant Digests (which I don't really consider real TPBs, just a compilation of the same digest material from 3-4 months earlier). Sure, they're easy to do, no work involved. That may be no big deal to many Archie fans, since TPBs are not their preferred method of reading/collecting, but that's how I started out, and I'm a firm believer that it's important for a comics company to keep important stories of the past in print and available for new fans. (It also prompted me to fill a few remaining holes in my TPB collection, in the knowledge that further collections are probably NOT forthcoming from ACP.) I also had time to reflect on the still-unsolicited (since announced last Fall) ARCHIE MEETS RAMONES, and despair now of it's ever being published... at least, as anything more than a Digital Exclusive. With "The Many Loves of Archie Andrews" wrapping up in the next few issues of Betty and Veronica Double Digest (and it remains yet doubtful if even that will see the completion of its projected 10-part series), that seemed the only thing left of Classic Archie left to look forward to.

Sorry for all the negativity.

Here's what I've been reading in the last couple of weeks...

FRIDAY 03-18
WORLD OF ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST 56
JUGHEAD & FRIENDS DIGEST 12

SATURDAY 03-19
WORLD OF ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST 57
JUGHEAD & FRIENDS DIGEST 14

SUNDAY 03-20
ARCHIE'S AMERICANA VOLUME 2: BEST OF THE 1950s HC (IDW)
JUGHEAD & FRIENDS DIGEST 19, 20, 21, 28

MONDAY 03-21
JUGHEAD & FRIENDS DIGEST 30
JUGHEAD WITH ARCHIE DIGEST 184, 186

TUESDAY 03-22
JUGHEAD JONES DIGEST 68, 72
ARCHIE'S AMERICANA VOLUME 3: BEST OF THE 1960s HC (IDW)
JOSIE 37 (Oct 1968)
SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH 60 (Jun 1980)
ARCHIE'S T.V. LAUGH-OUT 77 (July 1980)
ARCHIE'S GIRLS BETTY & VERONICA 264 (Dec 1977)
ARCHIE'S GIRLS BETTY & VERONICA 302 (Feb 1981)
ARCHIE GIANT SERIES 529 (Aug 1983) BETTY & VERONICA SUMMER FUN
ARCHIE'S MADHOUSE 44 (Dec 1965)
BETTY AND VERONICA 272-278 ("Farewell, B&V")
ARCHIE & FRIENDS: NIGHT AT THE COMIC SHOP TPB

WEDNESDAY 03-23
BILL & TED GO TO HELL #2 (of 4)
HELLBOY & THE B.P.R.D. 1953: BEYOND THE FENCES #2 (of 3)
PATSY WALKER A.K.A. HELLCAT #4
(It was a hellish week all around.)
HOWLING COMMANDOS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. #6 (final issue)
HYPERION #1
THE INFINITY ENTITY #3 (of 4)
TOTALLY AWESOME HULK #4
LORDS OF THE JUNGLE (starring Tarzan & Sheena) #1 (of 6)
WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT #9 (of ?)
THE BADGER #2 (of 5)
SNOWFALL #2
INVADER ZIM #8

THURSDAY 03-24
ARCHIE COMICS SPECTACULAR (#1) SCHOOL DAZE
ARCHIE 232 (Feb 1974)
LAUGH 289 (Apr 1975)
LAUGH 345 (Dec 1979)
ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH 70 (March 1980)
ARCHIE'S PALS 'N' GALS 140 (May 1980)
EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE 83 (May 1980)
LIFE WITH ARCHIE 214 (June 1980)

FRIDAY 03-25
ARCHIE'S AMERICANA VOLUME 4: BEST OF THE 1970s HC (IDW)
ARCHIE: OBAMA & PALIN IN RIVERDALE TPB
ARCHIE MEETS GLEE TP

SATURDAY 03-26
ARCHIE'S FAVORITE HIGH SCHOOL COMICS TPB
PATIENCE by Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics Books, 2016) HC

SUNDAY 03-27
ARCHIE'S SUNDAY FINEST: Classic Newspaper Strips From The 1940s and 1950s (IDW, 2012) HC (STARTED)

MONDAY 03-28
ARCHIE'S SUNDAY FINEST: Classic Newspaper Strips From The 1940s and 1950s (IDW, 2012) HC (FINISHED)
B&V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST 219, 220

TUESDAY 03-29
B&V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST 239
B&V FRIENDS EASTER ANNUAL 247

WEDNESDAY 03-30
JUGHEAD 5
UNBEARABLE SQUIRREL GIRL 6
HERCULES 5
CAPTAIN AMERICA SAM WILSON 7
BACK TO THE FUTURE 6
JACKED 5
RAGNAROK 8
NOWHERE MEN 9
RICK & MORTY 12
STREET FIGHTER X GI JOE 2 (OF 4)

THURSDAY 03-31
ARCHIE'S PAL KEVIN KELLER HC (= VERONICA 202+205+207-210)
KEVIN KELLER: WELCOME TO RIVERDALE TPB (= KEVIN KELLER 1-4)
KEVIN KELLER: DRIVE ME CRAZY TPB (= KEVIN KELLER 5-8)

FRIDAY 04-01
BETTY AND VERONICA JUMBO COMICS #242
DONALD DUCK: SHERIFF OF BULLET VALLEY TPB

SATURDAY 04-02
DIE KITTY DIE! #2