Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 19, 2018, 01:04:43 AM

Quote from: SAGG on October 19, 2018, 12:43:36 AM
...Anyone watch this? I do. The newest episodes are on YouTube. It's best described to me as a cross between Sailor Moon, Archie, and Spider Man...

I've been watching it since the first volume of Season 1 came out on DVD, but there was a huge gap between seasons 1 & 2, and when I went back to YouTube a few months ago, it was hard to find the English dubs of the second season episodes, so I only saw a couple of them. It's probably better covered now that I got too busy to keep up with it and lost track of the new episodes. I keep hoping that they'll just put Season 2 episodes out on DVD (NickTV covered the first season broadcasts, and Shout! Factory the DVDs). So far I haven't heard anything about broadcast rights or DVD rights in the North American market.

Marinette is something else. There's a definite Spider-Man influence, along with that of Japanese tokusatsu/henshin hero/magical girl shows, and a few other things as well, as the creators were aiming for something accessible to a global market.

YouTube has them all, and in the case they somehow are blocked, Watch Cartoons Online has them. There are only two left for the season, and they're supposed to be even better than the "Queen's Battle" trilogy, "Catalyst", and "Mayura". It really frustrated me that they screwed with the release dates throughout this year...

...Anyone watch this? I do. The newest episodes are on YouTube. It's best described to me as a cross between Sailor Moon, Archie, and Spider Man...

FINALLY! Sears has declared bankruptcy! It's dead! A(nother) retailing icon is gone! The suffering is over!

After a long period, I added something to my album, the original one, that is.  It's a throwback ad about winning a sweepstakes with the original Nintendo Entertainment System! Ah, the memories... 


By the way, I got both the mini classics for both the NES and the SNES....

One word: Recycling. 😆

Curious. In the second comic, DeCarlo drew this for another comic book publisher in 1966? He was making his mark in ACP then, yet they let him do some freelancing? 🤔

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 15, 2018, 12:18:55 AM

Quote from: SAGG on April 14, 2018, 11:18:22 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 14, 2018, 06:42:42 AM

Quote from: SAGG on April 14, 2018, 04:57:46 AM
When I want to read any old comics on Comixology, I use the Unlimited subscription package. When I finish a book, I just return it. Very practical for me....

Not very practical if what you're looking to read is an issue of BINKY'S BUDDIES, DEBBI'S DATES, or ANGEL LOVE... or THAT WILKIN BOY or MADHOUSE GLADS from the late 1960s or early 1970s. Obscure older titles just don't attract enough readers to be viable candidates to be digitized, unless they're so old that the copyrights have entered public domain. There are torrents, I guess, if issues about piracy don't bother you.

Torrents? Please.  I'm aiming for more generalized comics in the mainstream, like DC or Marvel. Many old titles come out on occasion. As for Archie, it's old digests that can be borrowed as well...

The thing about a back issue is that you know that it was published, so it has to exist somewhere. Not so for digital comics, which only exist if the companies who hold the copyrights to a printed comic book consider it worthwhile digitizing... if they think there's a market for it from which the publisher can generate some extra profit. It's incredibly frustrating to me that I'll never be able to read hundreds of pages of comics that Dan DeCarlo drew for Marvel in the 1950s (MILLIE THE MODEL, SHERRY THE SHOWGIRL, MY FRIEND IRMA, and on and on), because nobody at Marvel considers those issues worth making available in digital format. You might think that anything Marvel or DC ever published that was worth reading would have been reprinted or digitized by now, but only a small fraction of what they've published over 80 years or so has been.

Ditto for Archie Comics, which still hasn't digitized hundreds of its published comics from the 1960s, like JOSIE. Only a scant few of the published stories are available in digital format, appearing in digests or collections. As back issues, many of those JOSIEs are extremely difficult to find or prohibitively expensive as collectibles for all but the most well-heeled of comic book collectors.

When it comes to public domain material, where the copyright on the original comics has expired, it only takes ONE person with a copy of that comic book and a desire to share his or her love of the stories with other readers to scan it and upload it to one of the existing public domain comic book websites, as a labor of love.

I could sit here and make lists of hundreds of comic books (or just individual stories) that I know exist and would love to read, but I will never be able to read or own, due to the relatively few copies of the printed comics still in existence, most of them locked away in private collections, or too expensive for me to ever afford as collectibles. It's incredibly frustrating, so I have to make due with what I can find in lesser conditions, catch as catch can, while rifling though longboxes of cheap old back issues. At least those comics you can see and examine, to discover what the contents of the comic book are. Unless you know that a particular comic contains stories or work by a particular artist that you want to read, you'd never even look for or at it.

My feeling is that I'm never going to prefer a digital comic if it's just something that's commonly available as a print comic. If they both cost the same and are just as available, why would I want the digital version? It's only attractive to me if it's something I can't otherwise get as a real book, or a cheap replica of an otherwise expensive or hard-to-find collectible. Public domain Golden Age comics that have been scanned and are FREE are a major attraction by comparison to expensive, uncommonly found, and physically fragile paper collectibles from the 1940s or 50s, and so are Japanese manga scanned and translated by otaku, that wouldn't otherwise be available to read in English. Other than those type of things it's hard for me to see where they have any superiority over print comics.

Got something for you:
https://www.comixology.com/search?search=Millie+the+Model
Couldn't find the other two, but at least it has one....

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 14, 2018, 06:42:42 AM

Quote from: SAGG on April 14, 2018, 04:57:46 AM
When I want to read any old comics on Comixology, I use the Unlimited subscription package. When I finish a book, I just return it. Very practical for me....

Not very practical if what you're looking to read is an issue of BINKY'S BUDDIES, DEBBI'S DATES, or ANGEL LOVE... or THAT WILKIN BOY or MADHOUSE GLADS from the late 1960s or early 1970s. Obscure older titles just don't attract enough readers to be viable candidates to be digitized, unless they're so old that the copyrights have entered public domain. There are torrents, I guess, if issues about piracy don't bother you.

Torrents? Please.  I'm aiming for more generalized comics in the mainstream, like DC or Marvel. Many old titles come out on occasion. As for Archie, it's old digests that can be borrowed as well...

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 14, 2018, 01:11:22 AM

Quote from: SAGG on April 13, 2018, 07:44:41 PM
Quick question, DR: Where are you getting these comics, from print, digital, or both? 

Mostly NOT digital, unless you see me list a title that's pre-Code, and public domain (those are available for free browsing and downloads at such sites as the Digital Comic Museum and Comic Book Plus).

Generally, these are just a result of my rummaging through the longboxes of 50-cent comics at my LCS. Every few weeks it seems like new acquisitions from somebody's collection make their way into the store. If I had more time, and was better organized and systematic in my sifting through these boxes, I could undoubtedly find more old comics than I do; but as it is, a lot of my time is taken up looking through and reading this week's new comics. I'm always keeping an eye out for comic book obscura, those titles that are short-lived, from tiny (sometimes unheard-of) publishers or self-published, and genres generally unpopular with comic book collectors (like teen humor or romance comics), or just anything oddball or retro-looking. You have to sift through hundreds, if not thousands, of titles from Marvel, DC, Image, and other well-known publishers to find the off-trail titles, the ones collected only by the rare few. Mostly what I find are comics that have been READ (in fact, often "read to death"), but not COLLECTED by anyone per se... merely saved, but in a casual manner that indicates that the last owner didn't place much value on them (unless they're pretty recent, from the last few decades, and so didn't receive much handling; read but once, and stuck in a box somewhere). Often they are falling apart, crumbling with age and flaking apart if 40 or more years old; with tears, folded corners, rips and hand-written on by kids (often kids would write their names on the covers, or doodle on the cover or interior pages using pens of various colors).

If I happen upon Archie titles (or ANY teen humor title), it's always worth at least flipping through to see what's in it. Since I know the owner of the store and have been friends with him for many years, I often take a stack home to read, then return most of them a few days or a week later (except the maybe 10-20% that may be of particular interest, and in better than 'fair' condition). Since other customers rarely seek these kind of titles, it's NBD if they disappear from those 50-cent boxes for a week or so. Rarely, if it's an older one even in the most beat-up condition, I may keep it (bagging and boarding it to prevent it falling into even worse condition, even though it's practically worthless as a collectible) if it contains some stories I haven't seen reprinted elsewhere.

When I want to read any old comics on Comixology, I use the Unlimited subscription package. When I finish a book, I just return it. Very practical for me....

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 12, 2018, 02:33:22 AM
04-05 to 04-11-18:
HEART THROBS #1, 2, & 4 (of 4) [Vertigo 1999]
MY TERRIBLE ROMANCE #1 [Apr. 1994]
COWBOY LOVE nn [1998]
THRILLING LOVE 3-D [3-D ZONE #17, 1989]
CONFESSIONS, ROMANCES, SECRETS and TEMPTATIONS TP by John Benson [May 2008]
TRUER THAN TRUE ROMANCE:  Classic Love Comics Retold! TP by Jeanne Martinet [Jun. 2001]
MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX: Another Kind of Love TP [Feb. 2007]
WELCOME TO THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS #1 (of 3) [1995]
B & V FRIENDS JUMBO COMICS #260
BETTY AND VERONICA JUMBO COMICS #262
THE ARCHIES #6 (of 7)
ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK VOL 03: ROCK 'N' ROLL TP
ANGEL LOVE #5, 8 (1986)
BINKY'S BUDDIES #6 (Dec. 1969)
THAT WILKIN BOY #14 (Sept. 1971)
MADHOUSE GLADS #80 (Sept. 1971)
JUGHEAD #7 (Aug. 1988)
LAUGH #284 (Dec. 1974)
BETTY AND VERONICA #35 (Nov. 1990)
BETTY AND VERONICA #90 (Aug. 1995)
BETTY #14 (Jun. 1994)
ARCHIE 3000! #10 (Aug. 1990)
TITANS #22
WONDER WOMAN #44
DETECTIVE COMICS #978
BATMAN #44
THANOS #18
CAPTAIN AMERICA #700
RESIDENT ALIEN: ALIEN IN NEW YORK #1 (of 4)
DRY COUNTY #2 (of ?)
GIDEON FALLS # 1 & 2
MARS ATTACKS KISS (one-shot) [Jan. 2013]

Quick question, DR: Where are you getting these comics, from print, digital, or both? 

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on April 11, 2018, 02:39:50 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on April 09, 2018, 07:11:21 PM
One big question in my mind is "Why would a cancerous breast tumor be treated by chemotherapy, causing Cheryl's hair to fall out?" Aren't localized cancerous tumors normally dealt with by surgery? A breast tumor would definitely be caught early enough to prevent the cancer spreading to vital organs where it couldn't be neatly cut out by surgeons. I admit I'm no cancer expert, so maybe I'm way off-base there.

No idea. Cheryl had already had the mastectomy, and her hair had already fallen out, by the time that she called Jason (when she was about to come home). No idea how she managed to pay for it. She hadn't told Jason anything about it until the phone call (by which point she was in fragile shape). Maybe she told her parents, they paid, and she swore them to secrecy. Dunno.

I'd figure her parents would foot the bill. When they found out her condition, of course they would come to her aid. She's their daughter....

I glanced at bits and pieces of LWA, but I just had the time to read it from the beginning. When I saw the volumes, I started. That's how I approach reading older comics. I get the whole thing in a major storyline at one time.... 😁

And what happened to Miss Grundy in the AMV universe? She died in the AMB universe, but I didn't see her at all in the other one. I guess the writers had AMB be Riverdale High-centric for the AMB universe, and deliberately Riverdale City-centric in the AMV universe. So many loose threads remain, with Mirth and that woman with him. Hey, maybe we can get Mr. Ruiz to fill in the blanks, since he did one of the stories! Was the ending rushed, or something? Also, Bella Beazley was the scheming redhead in the AMB universe, while Cheryl Blossom was the now-sympathetic redhead in the AMV universe. 


Also again, did anyone notice that the ending of LWA coincided with the beginning of the "new" Archie? I think LWA was the "farewell" for Classic Archie (outside of the new stories for the digests), and it fulfilled the "what if" scenario of fans wondering what it would look like if Archie and his friends grew up and dealt with the Real World. Hey, DR, everybody, which story did you prefer? AMV? AMB?

I just finished reading it through Comixology in the volumes. I'd recommend using the Unlimited service to just "borrow" a published book, then when you finish it, "return" it. You'd pay a monthly fee. I think it's worth it, but I digress. On to the story, or in this case, stories, since there are two of them, with Archie either marrying Betty (AMB) or Veronica (AMV).


Both universes had good stories in the soap opera style, if you're into that sort of thing. LWA was unique in that it showed The Gang & Co. all as adults, not as a dream, but as actual, real stories. I found myself referring the AMB universe as the more realistic storyline, though the AMV one may have been the more exciting storyline with the Fred Mirth angle. However,  I wonder what happened to him? Did he vanish from the face of the earth? Dangling plot device unanswered.


That little crossover between the two stories was interesting, but I had some confusion because Archie seemed to be all over the place as he and his other self switched places. Seeing Ambrose was nice, but having him as the "connection" between the two realities was strange at best, but I  guess the writers had to explain how the realities merged. I think I'm glad he settled in the AMB universe. He seemed far better a fit there.


I'm speeding it up a bit to the end, obviously with Archie's death as the main plotline. I noticed that the writers shrewdly "merged" both universes because I couldn't tell which one was which. Maybe it didn't matter, which was the point.


I've obviously skipped several points, which I hope others here will chime in on. What do you guys think? Thanks....

...Is available on Comixology. However, 99 cents for only 11 pages?    No way, pass....