Quote from: daren on April 28, 2016, 03:18:41 AM
The crafty look in Ronnie's eyes tells me she's got some devious plan that has nothing to do with romance.

Try telling that to Archie ! 

Quote from: irishmoxie on April 27, 2016, 01:48:26 PM
I keep meaning to read Life With Archie for the first time but keep getting bogged down with how depressing it is and never finish the first volume.

For me, I think it helped that The Married Life was my (re-)introduction to Archie. The long and drawn out storyline, with its convoluted soap-opera subplots and dire circumstances, is very common in the ongoing Marvel and DC titles (where there's always some new lurking menace or personal problem looming in the background). LIFE WITH ARCHIE seemed designed purposefully to attract readers who were long used to that kind of storytelling in comics.

On the plus side, you knew that these depressing circumstances were merely what you get when you emerge from the relative safety and carefree years of high school into adult life, and, being sequestered off in 'possible future' timelines, there was no chance of any of that seeping into the traditional classic Archie stories which were strictly episodic sitcoms. Here they were able to explore some situations and cater to fanboy/fangirl fantasies that couldn't be dealt with in the traditional style stories, where real change can never be allowed to accumulate.

It seems that ACP's takeaway from the publishing experience of LWA was to reboot Archie in his high school days, and add the longer continuing storyline with subplot elements of teenage angst and soap-opera dramatics (whether that be the breakup of a longtime relationship, or an evil Principal taking over the school), so if it doesn't bother you there, I don't see why it would bother you to see them as adults with problems in a 'possible future' setting. If you had said you didn't care for it because there were too many science-fictional elements in the story, that I could probably understand.

Now, the problem I have with the New Riverdale titles isn't their mere existence, for an audience that wants to purchase an "Archie variant", in the same way that LIFE WITH ARCHIE or AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE are "variant Archies". For me, it's "eh... been there, done that". That's all well and good, if what they were doing was merely expanding the audience by adding new options for types of Archie products, variants that would appeal to different audience demographic segments. The problem I have with it is that every indication is that the intention of ACP is to seed and fertilize the NEW garden of New Riverdale titles, while they let the OLD garden of Classic Archie wither and die out. All the resources are being diverted over there, and away from Classic Archie. It's not an Archie alternative, it's an Archie replacement.

Feud? What feud? 

Quote from: GingerGal on April 27, 2016, 04:40:59 PM
Perfect header for this thread

Somehow whenever I see a Betty/Reggie or a Veronica/Jughead shipping thread (the two most common ones), it makes me want to start a Betty/Jughead shipping thread (even though I don't particularly ship those two otherwise). It's just that I can easily find so many more examples of out-of-context panels for Betty and Jughead. More than that, there's a lot of subtextual reading, just in the general way that you see Jughead saying nice things about Betty and sticking up for her (over Ronnie) as being the superior choice for a girlfriend. Those examples are less situational and more genuinely indicative of Jughead's character. It's just that the other two imaginary relationships are heavily dependent on carefully-engineered circumstances, while what both Betty and Jughead have in common is that they're loyal, truthful, and sincere.

Quote from: daren on April 28, 2016, 02:26:15 AM
Some panels take on a life of their own.

Yeah, I know what you mean. This one has turned up in more image searches I've done than almost any single panel I can think of. It's been liked, re-posted, re-tweeted etc. all over the web. For a single out-of-context Archie Comics panel, this one fits the definition of "gone viral" better than any other I can think of.

Maybe it's because people who see it really want to believe that Reggie is offering a miserable, broken-hearted Betty a sympathetic and comforting shoulder to cry on, like she somehow penetrated his normally callous exterior.

Now I REALLY want to know what's going on in that story.

Quote from: GingerGal on April 27, 2016, 06:35:07 PM
I guess Reggie is speaking of the playboy Archie as the "Creep".

You constantly see people posting that panel, but I'd love to see the whole story. Reggie appears to have a very sincere expression on his face here, but I have my suspicions otherwise... I've never known Reggie to do anything that didn't involve his own self-interest.

Quote from: GingerGal on April 27, 2016, 04:48:11 PM
Here seems to be a crazy jealous Superteen Betty taking things into her own hands to save Archie from the villain Veronica. Another pretty funny one.

The Superteen stories are some of my favorite Betty stories of all time. I have scans of all but one of them, and I have most of them in reprinted versions too. In BETTY AND ME #4, there's a 13-page epic where she fights Magnet Girl, the "Maid of Mischief". I was looking at that the other day, and noticing that Magnet Girl is a redhead and a mean girl, who schemes to thwart Superteen at every turn. She looks and acts amazingly like Cheryl Blossom, but the Superteen stories were printed in 1965 and 1966, while Cheryl wasn't introduced until BETTY AND VERONICA #320 (1982). Still, we never do see Magnet Girl without her mask or learn her true identity...



Err... it's kind of difficult to explain exactly what's going on in this panel...

Quote from: GingerGal on April 27, 2016, 09:05:12 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 27, 2016, 08:25:55 AM

Quote from: GingerGal on April 27, 2016, 07:36:01 AM
So I also noticed with the Life With Archie comic I just read that they had one where where Archie Marries Veronica and one where Archie Mariies Betty. The story line is very similar in ways as it remains that Kevin is getting married, but in Archie Marries Veronica, Betty is with Reggie. It is kind of weird but I somehow like the two different angles.

I'm surprised you were able to figure out what was going on, without knowing too much about the story beforehand, given that this was an issue from the middle of the 37-issue run. I read the whole thing in trade paperback from beginning to end (6 volumes) and there were times I couldn't keep straight what was happening with each character in which story.

It was hard. They had this little description of the major relationships going on in the story before you got into the actual comic. That helped a little bit. I actually liked the Veronica comics I read much better though.

That reminds me, re-reading the entire The Married Life series has been on my to-do list forever. I want to read it through the second time by just reading "Archie Marries Betty" from beginning to end, and then "Archie Marries Veronica" from beginning to end - instead of reading one chapter of each alternating back and forth (the way it appeared in LIFE WITH ARCHIE). I wonder if it will make more, or less, sense that way.

Quote from: GingerGal on April 27, 2016, 07:36:01 AM
So I also noticed with the Life With Archie comic I just read that they had one where where Archie Marries Veronica and one where Archie Mariies Betty. The story line is very similar in ways as it remains that Kevin is getting married, but in Archie Marries Veronica, Betty is with Reggie. It is kind of weird but I somehow like the two different angles.

I'm surprised you were able to figure out what was going on, without knowing too much about the story beforehand, given that this was an issue from the middle of the 37-issue run. I read the whole thing in trade paperback from beginning to end (6 volumes) and there were times I couldn't keep straight what was happening with each character in which story.

Quote from: GingerGal on April 27, 2016, 07:32:15 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 27, 2016, 04:05:57 AM
Hmmm, chewy AND fizzy? They look to be about the same texture as Tootsie Rolls - which are usually chocolate flavored, but not actually made with chocolate, although I know they've produced other flavors. I guess you'd call Tootsie Rolls basically taffy-like, it's the fizzy that throws me, because while we've had various kinds of fizzy candy products, none of them have been the least bit Tootsie Roll-like.

Fizzers are like taffy but the fizz is actually quite weird. When you chew into the candy and bite a fizz area of the candy you will get a strong fizzy burst in your mouth. Other times you eat the candy you may miss those areas and won't get the fizzy sensation as much.

From your description, it sounds like they took a taffy-type candy and put Pop Rocks inside the taffy. Pop Rocks (which irishmoxie mentioned earlier) are just like the 'fizz areas' you describe, but it's just those, and they fizz and pop in your mouth. I don't know if they're easy to find in stores any more, but they used to be a lot more popular years ago. You can still buy them on Amazon. There are a lot of 'nostalgia candy' companies now that specialize in older candies that used to be popular, but you don't find commonly in stores any more, but they'll ship them to you by mail.

Quote from: GingerGal on April 26, 2016, 08:32:59 PM
I also really love these. These can actually be found in South Africa, but not like here in America.

Various brands of gummy bears are pretty common over here. There are a lot of commonly available gummy candies, like Gummi Worms or Swedish Fish. In fact it's so common that they make gummy vitamins - for adults!

Hmmm, chewy AND fizzy? They look to be about the same texture as Tootsie Rolls - which are usually chocolate flavored, but not actually made with chocolate, although I know they've produced other flavors. I guess you'd call Tootsie Rolls basically taffy-like, it's the fizzy that throws me, because while we've had various kinds of fizzy candy products, none of them have been the least bit Tootsie Roll-like.

This week's comics for me:
SQUADRON SUPREME #6
RICK AND MORTY # 13
JACKED #6 (of 6)
HELLBOY AND THE B.P.R.D. 1953: BEYOND THE FENCES #3 (of 3)
BILL AND TED GO TO HELL #3 (of 4)
3 DEVILS #2 (of 4)
JUSTICE LEAGUE #49
DARK KNIGHT III: MASTER RACE #4 (of 8 )
MICRONAUTS #1
BATMAN '66 MEETS THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. #5 (of 6)
TWILIGHT ZONE: THE SHADOW #1 (of 4)
LORDS OF THE JUNGLE #2 (of 6)
GODZILLA: OBLIVION #2 (of 5)
LOST IN SPACE #2
VELVET #14
SIMPSONS COMICS #228
PATSY WALKER A.K.A. HELLCAT #5

Those are my favorite digital comics, the free public domain ones! It's not like Archie Digital is giving you the option to buy that stuff even if you wanted to. They didn't even have the 1940s issues of ARCHIE until Dark Horse Comics had them available in hardcover first.

I finished reading ARCHIE BY BOB MONTANA: THE COMPLETE DAILY NEWSPAPER COMICS 1946-1948. That was really good. Today I got ARCHIE'S PAL JUGHEAD ARCHIVES VOL. 1 hardcover from Dark Horse Comics, which reprints the first 8 issues from 1949-1951, so (after reading this week's current releases) that is what I'll probably be getting into next. After I finish that I plan to get the next ARCHIE BY BOB MONTANA: THE COMPLETE NEWSPAPER COMICS hardcover volume from IDW, which covers the years 1960-1963 (don't ask me why they skipped 1949 through 1959).