Not really a comic, but I'm reading "The Gremlins" by Roald Dahl (writing as 'Pegasus', with illustrations by the Walt Disney Studio) from the December 1942 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine, as reprinted in the back of The Return of the Gremlins hardcover, a Dark Horse Comics sequel to the story (which later was expanded to book form in 1943). The story (and 1943 book) was intended to form the basis of a (never-produced) Disney animated movie. Roald Dahl wrote it when he was in the RAF, still a young man in his twenties. He later went on to write such books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and The Witches (all of which have been made into films). These Gremlins have nothing whatsoever to do with the popular 1980s film directed by Joe Dante. Also in the back of the hardcover are some reprints of short comic strips by Walt Kelly from WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES from 1942 and 1943.

Quote from: Fernando Ruiz on April 21, 2016, 12:29:21 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 21, 2016, 07:08:15 AM


Sharry the Spy Girl appeared in other stories? This is news to me! Where, pray tell?

I know she was in a few of my crowd scenes in Life With Archie.




Sadly, you'll probably never see Sharry again!

Awww...   

Quote from: PTF on April 08, 2016, 12:20:11 PM
Sharry the Spy Girl. I've seen Ruiz draw her in a few stories and I never got why he liked her so much.

You pretty much can't go wrong with a Tom DeFalco Archie story. I don't think I've ever read one that was as much as 'just average'. He's definitely in the top tier of Archie writers, despite not having that long a list of credits.

Sharry the Spy Girl appeared in other stories? This is news to me! Where, pray tell?

Quote from: Nicasio on April 21, 2016, 05:27:32 AM
Our members have a lot to remember.

And even more to forget! 

Quote from: Nicasio on April 21, 2016, 05:27:17 AM
Every time a comment is different, we will learn more.

That is SO true, Nicasio -- for a spider, you are pretty perceptive. You wouldn't have anything to sell me by any chance, would you? For some reason, I'm feeling very amenable to persuasion today.

Nothing to do with JATP, but anyone interested in viewing Gisele's original art pages for ARCHIE #636 ("The Great Switcheroo!") can do so >HERE

You should get The Art of Archie: The Covers at ArchieComics.com before they sell out of it. I got it last year from there, at a pretty good discount (I forget now whether I was able to combine a discount code with the already sale-priced hardcover). The other two books are a lot more recent, and shouldn't go out of print for a little while yet.

Quote from: irishmoxie on April 20, 2016, 07:13:16 PM
How did you like Huck? I read the 1st two issues and it was basically a superhero story starring an everyman.

I like it. It has a real upbeat quality to it, unlike a lot of superhero comics. I see it as taking the original stripped-down Superman concept and crossing it with Forrest Gump.

Quote from: irishmoxie on April 20, 2016, 07:13:16 PM
What did you think of Heartthrob?

I don't think I'll continue on this one. I found the artwork... "interesting", not to say bad, but the artist made the protagonist character look unattractive most of the time by giving her these odd facial expressions (or maybe he's trying, but just has trouble drawing the eyes). Apart from that though, the whole thing was just kind of a drag to read, like the script was really bogged down; it was taking a long time to plow through it, and the whole thing just left me with the impression of being too depressing to really be entertaining. A fair amount of what's happening is predictable, so the fact that it takes so long for the writer to get there is kind of irksome. It's easy to imagine this being turned into a not-bad movie, though (which I'm sure they're hoping).

What I read today 04-20:

BACK TO THE FUTURE #7 (IDW)
ASTONISHING ANT-MAN #6 - Nick Spenser does an interesting job of mixing serious stuff with light comedy. Fun book.
SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL #4 - The best part was when Spidey and Pool went on a double date, and wound up being forced to dance in a club on stage in their underwear. You just don't see enough of that type of thing in superhero comics. PS: Deadpool was wearing his Spider-Man underpants.
HOWARD THE DUCK #6 - Case closed! Boy, does Howard love to say that, even when it really isn't. He just wants it to be true so bad. Did I mention he has a talking cyborg cat named Biggs? Well, he calls him a "robocat" but he's pretty much a cyborg.
ASTRO CITY #34 (DC/Vertigo) - I'll keep going on this as long as Kurt Busiek wants to write the thing.
TITANS HUNT #7 (of 8 ) - Oh well, might as well see how it ends now, I guess.
HYPERION #2  - this will be my last
HUCK #6 (of 6) (Image)
DONALD DUCK #379 (IDW) - Wow, I just realized all these Disney titles have 36 pages of story for $4!
GUTTER MAGIC #4 (of 4) (IDW)
CAPTAIN AMERICA SAM WILSON #8- Getting close to dropping this, I think.
TOTALLY AWESOME HULK #5 - Getting close to dropping this, I think.
INVINCIBLE #127 (Image) - still kinda lost
SNOWFALL #3 (Image) - I think this will be my last
BLACK-EYED KIDS #1 (Aftershock)
HEARTTHROB #1 (Oni Press)
JONESY #3 (of 4) (Oni Press)

I gotta start dropping some stuff.

Quote from: Gisele on April 20, 2016, 02:04:15 AM
Looking at those old pencils and these newer ones from that digest last year...
http://www.pixietrixcomix.com/images/Josie-Gisele-samples.png
It's quite the change!

Thanks! It was great to see those a little larger and in black and white. I'd have loved to see that become a regular (or even semi-regular) feature in one of the B&V digests, but timing is everything I guess, and new classic Archie stories just started drying up like a puddle on a hot summer day... alas. 

Quote from: invisifan on April 19, 2016, 02:03:16 PM
... and not a single Dark Circle title listed ... 

It's always a possibility that the publication of Dark Circle comics was deemed to be of less importance in the allocation of ACP's limited financial resources than the hiring of more artists to draw more variant covers. However, knowing the way ACP's thinking runs of late, I'd probably have to dismiss that possibility as sounding too soundly logical to actually be the case. By which I mean that they're obviously going to be selling more copies of those cover variants than they are of any Dark Circle comic. Hey, don't shoot the messenger -- I'm not buying either of those things, just making an observation.

So I was just reading HOWARD THE DUCK (2016, Vol. 2) #6, which is, in addition to being the second part of a crossover with THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL (also 2016, Vol. 2) #6, a story that takes place in between HOWARD THE DUCK (2016, Vol. 1) and HOWARD THE DUCK (2016, Vol. 2), that explains just where the heck Howard got that cyborg cat that he's had hanging around since the beginning of Vol. 2.

Now, the interesting thing here, is that a running footnote/sidebar metatextual commentary (which is the usual case for things in SQUIRREL GIRL, but not in HOWARD THE DUCK) reveals some previously unknown facts of major significance to the Marvel Universe mythos. To wit, and with reference to the character of Weapon II (who, I guess I need to explain, is a mutant cyborg squirrel, and a product of the same clandestine government program that produced Weapon X, whom most of you may know as Wolverine): As it turns out, "Weapon II" is (shockingly, I know) NOT pronounced as "Weapon Eye-Eye" but as "Weapon Two" ("II" being the Roman numeral for "2"), which means, by implication, that "Weapon X" is not pronounced "Weapon Echhs" either, but as "Weapon TEN" (again, "X" being the Roman numeral for "10"). THAT, in itself, was mind-staggering enough to those of us who had been pronouncing it "Weapon Echhs" all these years, but THEN, to have it revealed (still in the aforementioned running footnote/sidebar metatextual commentary - stay with me here) that IN ACTUAL FACT, Professor Xavier had meant to create a team of mutants known as the "Ten-Men" (his idea being that he could find 10 mutants to fill out the team ranks), but had tried to be clever and used the Roman numeral X as the designation for the number of mutants in the team. Well, obviously he did not succeed in finding his ten suitable mutants for the team, and gave up after finding only five. Since everybody was already calling his mutant team "The Echhs-Men", he just let them think he meant the English letter of the alphabet X, and not the Roman numeral, all along. This is the kind of shocking revelation that totally rewrites TOHOTMU (that's The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, in case you haven't been paying attention). Oh, and there's a story in here (HOWARD THE DUCK #6, still) with both Squirrel Girl and Howard in it (and the aforementioned cyborg cat - not to be confused with Weapon II, who is a cyborg squirrel), as well. AND THERE ARE THOSE WHO SAID THAT THIS TITLE WAS NOT IMPORTANT TO THE MARVEL UNIVERSE!! HAH!, I say, HAH!

Quote from: MLJ 1939 on April 19, 2016, 07:34:49 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 19, 2016, 02:40:59 PM
On the other hand, I suppose some people can now breathe a sigh of relief to see that "ALL NEW!" on the covers of the rebooted ARCHIE and JUGHEAD, and rest easy in the assurance that they won't contain any of those annoying time-wasting classic reprints in the back.

Haven't Archie and Jughead had "All New!" on their covers since they were relaunched?

I just checked that, and it turns out you're right (not that I spent much time looking at those earlier covers, I just happened to  notice it this month). Silly me, expecting Archie Comics not to lie!

I guess sticking a real truth-in-advertising-type "MOSTLY NEW!" blurb on the cover wasn't really considered for a moment. Now, if they'd merely chosen to call it "The ALL NEW, ALL DIFFERENT" ARCHIE, then we could reasonably be expected to understand that "all new" was referring to the character, and not the relative vintage of the story content.

Guess I'll just have to wait and see whether I still get to read some classic reprints in the back (actually, that's the only part of ARCHIE that I'm still reading when I borrow a copy).

I'm going to vote for THIS as my favorite Betty & Veronica cover of the month!

Quote from: The Bee on April 14, 2016, 04:32:31 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 13, 2016, 05:15:14 PM
Gotta say that I liked Shrill's old look better. I wish the original version of her had been in more stories.

Shrill has grown up a little which could mean some of the change in appearance, but you can definitely still see she has some of that inner Goth left in her.

Now I'm wondering if Dan considers her more Goth or Emo. There's some possible overlap there, but the older Shrill is definitely leaning more on the Emo side.