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It's good to get this because it represents kind of an annual survey of classic Archie stories. There were 48 stories in this book -- I got the feeling that a couple were left out to keep it down to 256 pages. By my account there should have been 50 Archie digest issues released in 2019; possibly a couple of those individual digest issues had more than one new story, so maybe as many as 52 new 5-pagers saw print in 2019. Of the 48 stories in this collection, Bill Golliher wrote 28 of them (and he's virtually the sole writer now for B&V stories). Francis Bonnet wrote 9 stories appearing in the 3 Archie digest titles, followed by Angelo DeCesare with 8. The remaining 3 writers only contributed a single story in 2019 (or if they did more, they weren't included in this collection). Dan Parent drew most of the B&V stories, and contributed a single Archie & Jughead story (which he also wrote) as well. I wish that Jeff Shultz and the Kennedy brothers had drawn more of the remaining stories; their work is sorely missed and I always appreciate seeing a new story by them.
I don't recall seeing any stories by Francis Bonnet prior to 2019, but on average, they're as good as any of the other stories in this collection. That just strikes me as really odd, that a new writer could potentially break in at ACP by writing classic Archie stories at a time when the number of pages of those stories is at an all-time low, but there it is. Unless "Francis Bonnet" is actually a pseudonym for some established writer who for some reason doesn't want to reveal his true identity. He does seem very familiar with the characters and typical Archie-style plots, though, so I wonder...
I no longer subscribe to any of the three Archie digests, although I still get the two B&V digests. It's good to be patient and get a large dose of the new Archie stories at the end of the year, though, which makes this compilation really worthwhile for me.
Good review. Wait, this is volume 2, and it covers 2018? So there was no volume covering 2016 (the first year in which new stories appeared in only the digests)?
Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on January 24, 2020, 10:06:56 AMGood review. Wait, this is volume 2, and it covers 2018? So there was no volume covering 2016 (the first year in which new stories appeared in only the digests)?
Sorry, I had a brainfart. Still stuck in the timewarp of last month, but at the same time trying to think "previous year". Since edited and corrected -- the stories are indeed from
last year,
2019. Volume 1 covered the stories from 2018. My bad.
New digest stories from years prior to that were collected in a series of digital-only releases entitled ARCHIE BEST OF 2015/2016/2017 DIGEST ANNUAL (https://www.comixology.com/search?search=archie+best+of+2014+digest+annual) (available on ComiXology, Amazon and elsewhere), but were never made available in a print collection, unlike the ARCHIE MODERN CLASSICS series.
If I recall correctly, ACP started including new 5-page stories in every digest issue sometime in 2014 (not sure of the exact month), so the year 2014 did not have a new story in every single issue of every digest title from January through December, but that was the year that the digests ARCHIE'S FUNHOUSE (#1, March) and JUGHEAD AND ARCHIE (#1, June) were launched, and the inclusion of new 5-page stories may have started with those first issues (if not the other digests published in the same months).