Making a bit more progress now. I'm basically done with the properties and made a template for characters that I need to test out soon.

At this point I don't have a lot left that I want to do...
Still need to finish up the licensing templates
Need to add templates for other things (albums, songs, TV shows, movies, creators, series and issues)
Need to add forms for the other templates

Still in testing:
Ability to login or create an account with you Google or Facebook account. I need to make sure these don't conflict with one another (just in case someone tries to link a single account to both Facebook and Google), need to see how they handle linking to an existing account and also make sure they're configured such that a local account will be created as well, so you can still login if you lose access or unlink accounts in the future.

I'm guessing the profit margins on the digests are pretty high since they only have to pay for the cover art and maybe one new story, compared to the cost of three or four new stories in a standard sized book. At this point most of the artists that do work for them are independent, so they only pay per job, which is cheaper than having a full-time artist on payroll as well.

I'm not sure how these collaborations like the upcoming Jay and Silent Bob issue work though. I'd imagine Kevin Smith is getting something out of the deal. I may ask Fernando if he knows anything about that (I'm friends with him on Facebook).

Either way, there should still be some interest in the floppies. In 20 or 30 years it'll be hard to find Archie back issues in comic book stores because they rarely publish floppies anymore (finding digests in comic shops is nearly impossible)

I was always a fan of the Archies even though their music gets dismissed as bubblegum. I know they were really a project of Don Kirshner using session musicians and songwriting by artists like Andy Kim. One of my favorite songs was "Jingle Jangle" which had, as always, Ron Dante, doing the male lead vocal as well as Toni Wine doing the female co-lead vocal. In the comics and cartoon, it was always Archie shown doing lead and I remember seeing Jughead "singing" the bass part in "Rock And Roll Music". But I don't recall ever seeing Betty or Veronica doing any singing. I wonder if there was ever a story showing one of them doing the singing in 'Jingle Jangle" and which of the girls would be doing that part. My guess is it would be Betty because it remember reading a story that said Veronica couldn't sing. Plus, she was always shown playing keyboards whereas Betty was mostly shown playing tambourine. Has there been a story written showing which girl does the singing parts in the Archies? Thanks!

Unfortunately Archie Comics has become a quite boring company at this point. I understand that the market is different and that there might be less interest for traditional Archie comics, but I would still try to publish a monthly title with new stories. Digests are boring.

Also...10 variants for this single issue you mentioned? WTH! Stop the variants nonsense!

I am happy to see that this project is continuing and I look forward to testing it. 

Quote from: PTF on May 09, 2025, 08:25:25 PMSo I guess it has to include all the horror comics, too, huh?

Yes, I'll also include pages relating to the Archie Horror issues. I'm not into that at all, but it's still relevant for documenting everything relating to Archie. I'll probably also include pages for non-Archie titles published by the company such as the Sonic and TMNT things they published for a while (especially since they even did an "Archie meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" issue)

So I guess it has to include all the horror comics, too, huh?

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on May 06, 2025, 11:34:46 AMWill there be anything regarding shipping? Pairing one character with another, whether canonical or not? Sources from canon, list of ship names, stats regarding how popular that the ship is, etc.

I'm not planning on anything like that.

Will there be anything regarding shipping? Pairing one character with another, whether canonical or not? Sources from canon, list of ship names, stats regarding how popular that the ship is, etc.

Almost done adding properties now. Still have some more I want to add - ones for brother/sister and son/daughter, as well as one for album (for songs) and one for who portrayed someone (TV shows/movies), but that won't take long at all (it only takes a few seconds to add a new property - create a page, add the text along with the special code to specify what type it is and save).

After that, I'll work on the templates and forms, then start adding content.

Other stuff in the works (low priority): Allowing you to sign up or login with your Facebook or Google accounts.

Note that you will need to register separately on the wiki if you want to edit anything or post on the talk pages (see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Talk_pages if you don't know what a talk page is). I may also add more social stuff like article comments, polls, etc. at some point, but the main focus for now is the content.