Archie Comics Fan Forum

I know I said more than a week ago that I'd post the contents of the recent trade paperback, THE BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS, but then the more I got into it, the more detailed information I started adding, and going back over the list of contents of all the previous Josie collections to see what had been reprinted in prior collections, and what hadn't.

For print editions, your choices are pretty narrow, so if it's a physical book that you want, then THE BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS is a no-brainer, and it'll probably be a long time before some superior, more complete, collection of stories is published.

But let's go back and start at the beginning first. The very first reprint collections came in 1993 (August, most likely... with a cover date of "Fall") and January ("Spring") 1994, in the form most popular at that time, the Archie 48-Page Giant comics. Two issues were released, combining reprinted stories with a couple of new ones. New material is indicated on the contents table below in RED:

JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (1993) #1	(48-Page Giant)	source of 1st publication	Fall 1993	writer	penciller	inker
(Josie and the Pussycats on stage)		new cover illustration	Fall 1993		Dan DeCarlo	Alison Flood
Rock and Roll	8 pages	new	Fall 1993	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Alison Flood
Decisions, Decisions	6 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Pussy Footing	5 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
What Kind of Ghoul Am I	14 pages	JOSIE #64	Sept. 1972	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Josie & the Pussycats in outer space (pull-out poster)	2 pages	new pull-out pin-up poster	Fall 1993		Dan DeCarlo	Alison Flood
Up, Up, and Away!!	12 pages	Josie #58	Oct. 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (1993) #2	(48-Page Giant)	source of 1st publication	Spring 1994	writer	penciller	inker
"Josie & the Pussycats LIVE - The Hottest Cats in Town!"		new cover illustration	Spring 1994		Dan DeCarlo	Alison Flood
Love & War	8 pages	new	Spring 1994	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Alison Flood
Work of Art	6 pages	JOSIE #53	Feb. 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
To Grandmother's House	8 pages	JOSIE #64	Sept. 1972	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Jon D'Agostino
Josie & the Pussycats skiing (pull-out poster)	2 pages	new pull-out pin-up poster	Spring 1994		Dan DeCarlo	Alison Flood
Melody (1 page gag strip)	1 page	JOSIE #96	Oct. 1977	unknown	unknown	unknown
Brawn is Beautiful	5 pages	JOSIE #53	Feb. 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
If the Spirit Moves You	6 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #62	Nov. 1978	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Maxim Mix-Up	5 pages	new	Spring 1994	Hal Smith	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick

NOTES: The first Josie 48-Page Giant comic was published by ACP in the hopes of catching a wave of nostalgia (or younger readers newly discovering the Pussycats for the first time) as a result of Ted Turner's Cartoon Network cable station's acquisition of the Hanna-Barbera library of animated programming, and subsequently airing H-B's Josie and the Pussycats on a daily basis in 1993. There's no mistaking it because it says so right on the cover, and no less than THREE ad banners reminding readers to watch the show ran below the first or last pages of various stories. These are very nice to have, even though the paper is somewhat thin, it is white (not the lower-grade newsprint) and the colors on the reprints look pretty nice, unlike a lot of the older digests. They are worth having for those covers and pull-out posters alone, in addition to the three new stories. "Rock and Roll" is notable for a brief appearance of Alan M. after a long absence, and even more surprising, the return of Alexandra's magical powers of witchcraft, after almost a decade since their last mention. In "Rock and Roll" Mr. De has the Pcats sporting more skimpy, bikini-like costumes on stage. It's hard to believe, but in 1993 it had been years since ACP could spare the MVP talents of original creator, Dan D., to work on Josie, and the short 5- and 6-pagers appearing in TV LAUGH-OUT (and later LAUGH Vol. 2) had at that point been mostly assigned to Gladir and Goldberg for at least a half-dozen years. I don't think "Love & War" and "Maxim Mix-Up" had been reprinted until the recent BEST OF trade collection either.

Next post -- BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS TP (2001)

Sort of off topic but I picked up Archie's Big Book Magic Music and Mischief yesterday.  I remember you saying you had gotten it, DCR.  I was surprised after the title billed Josie & the Pussycats to find so many pre-Pussycats Josie stories in it.  Not disappointed AT ALL.  I love the size of this book too; almost as big as the original comics. 

Continuing our review of various Josie collections (post #2 of 8*), both print and digital, we come to the first TRUE Josie trade paperback collection, from June of 2001. Once again, it took a media tie-in (in the form of a live-action movie) to motivate ACP to reprint a bunch of old Josie stories. Ah... it's ever the way with them. This happens to coincide with Josie & the Pussycats being promoted from a backup feature to taking the lead spot (and cover) of ARCHIE & FRIENDS, beginning with issue #47 (itself a reprint), but with #48-49, they got a 4-chapter, 22-page story by Dan Parent (w) and Rex Lindsey (a), broken into 2 chapters per issue ("Music For the Masses"). In the following issue, Holly Golightly stepped in to contribute the artwork, and she'd soon be writing the stories as well, for this too-short, but much-beloved (by me!) run of A&F. Suddenly Josie and her friends had a brief moment in the spotlight and a higher profile at Archie Comics than they'd had in almost two decades. This trade kicked off the celebration, with Rex Lindsey contributing a very nice cover (presumably Holly G was drafted as an afterthought, to replace Lindsey for some reason, but Rex had almost been drawing more covers for ACP at this point than even the prolific Stan Goldberg, so it's obvious that the editor was pretty happy with his work for the company. Perhaps his utility as a cover artist (not to mention as a Jughead artist) was just too valuable for him to be able to do a regular ongoing Josie strip as well.

*(I couldn't believe there were that many!! AND I'm even leaving out Tania Del Rio's Josie the Manga digital collection, and the recent New Riverdale J&tP trade!)

(https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/n_iv/600/603247.jpg)

BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS	100-page TP	source of 1st publication	June 2001	writer	penciller	inker
cover		new cover illustration by Rex W. Lindsay			Rex W. Lindsay
Whoever Heard of Girls With Guitars?	2 pages	BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS	June 2001	Paul Castiglia
A Gym Dandy	8 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
First Appearance of Alexandra Cabot	1 page (excerpted)	JOSIE #8	Sept. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
First Appearance of Alan M. Mayberry	1 page (excerpted)	JOSIE #42	Aug. 1969	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Evolution of Alexandra's Stripe and Sebastian the Cat	1 page (excerpted)	JOSIE #43	Sept. 1969	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Decisions, Decisions	6 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Pussy Footing	5 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Quiet on the Set	8 pages	JOSIE #50	Sept. 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Josie and the Pussycats Come to TV	1 page	(ad originally appeared in multiple comics)	Aug. (?) 1970		Dan DeCarlo
Brawn Is Beautiful	5 pages	JOSIE #53	Feb. 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Ban the Blonde	5 pages	JOSIE #55	June 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Early Worm Gets the Bird	5 pages	JOSIE #56	Aug. 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Ghost of Dark Valley Manor	16 pages	JOSIE #57	Sept. 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Up, Up, and Away!!	12 pages	Josie #58	Oct. 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Pussycats Get A New Look!	1 page (excerpted)	ARCHIE GIANT SERIES #540	Aug. 1984	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
Limo Rock	5 pages	ARCHIE GIANT SERIES #562	Aug. 1986	George Gladir	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
Cat at the Crossroads	11 pages	ARCHIE GIANT SERIES #584	Sept. 1988	Kathleen Webb	Stan Goldberg	Rudy Lapick
J&tP Skiing (pin-up)	1 page	JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (1993) #2	Spring 1994		Dan DeCarlo	Alison Flood

NOTES: There's good and bad to be said about this collection. In contrast to my previous post, in this instance the listings in RED indicate a story which hasn't yet been included in any of the subsequent collections (print OR digital), and that's a fair number of stories, so this collection is far from obsolete, despite having many collections come afterwards. BUT it does also contain the superior and unusual "Cat at the Crossroads" by Kathleen Webb, where Josie experiences a life crisis about where she's heading with her future career.

It opens with a 2-page introduction by Paul Castiglia, "Whoever Heard of Girls With Guitars? ". Unfortunately, the editor here chose to include a number of "highlight" moments from stories, in the form of 1-page excerpts, as opposed to just printing the whole story. I could certainly have skipped the excerpt of Alan M's first appearance, plus the excerpt of the Pussycats as punk rockers, for just ONE of those stories complete (or even a single chapter of a 4-part longer story). The sorest point would be JOSIE #43 (as was standard practice, a booklength storyline comprised of four individual Chapters, or Acts) -- the one that explains how Alexandra discovers her ancestor, Sebastian Cabot (whose name was stolen from a notable television actor, who played "Mr. French" on Family Affair), was in fact suspected of "consorting with witches", and she realizes that his spirit may have been reincarnated in her pet cat Sebastian, who shares the same name -- thus, whenever Alexandra is in contact with her cat, she can perform black magic, and believing absolutely that it is so, she finds a book of sorcerous spells to study (self-fulfilling prophecy?). Thereafter, she will attempt to bedevil Josie with her newfound mystic skills, until someone (usually Melody) unwittingly snaps their fingers and breaks her spell. If this sounds familiar, it's because much later on, Sabrina's pet (familiar) cat Salem will also turn out to be a human trapped in a feline body. It hasn't happened yet, but I really want to see that entire issue (JOSIE #43) reprinted. It seems the Cabots have a family history of malicious, restless spirits who remain bound to the mortal plane and who have the ability to possess the bodies of the living (as both Alex and Alexandra will discover in JOSIE #70's "Vengeance From the Crypt").

Bottom line is, there are still quite a few stories here that are in no other collections, so buy it if you can find it at cover price or less. The 2-page pullout Dan DeCarlo pin-up poster of Josie and Valerie skiing (and Melody wiping out) from JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (1993) #2 is reduced here to a single page image.

Next post --  the SHE'S JOSIE: BEFORE THE PUSSYCATS Digital Exclusive collection.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 02, 2017, 04:00:23 PM
Continuing our review of various Josie collections (post #2 of 8*), both print and digital, we come to the first TRUE Josie trade paperback collection, from June of 2001. Once again, it took a media tie-in (in the form of a live-action movie) to motivate ACP to reprint a bunch of old Josie stories. Ah... it's ever the way with them. This happens to coincide with Josie & the Pussycats being promoted from a backup feature to taking the lead spot (and cover) of ARCHIE & FRIENDS, beginning with issue #47 (itself a reprint), but with #48-49, they got a 4-chapter, 22-page story by Dan Parent (w) and Rex Lindsey (a), broken into 2 chapters per issue ("Music For the Masses"). In the following issue, Holly Golightly stepped in to contribute the artwork, and she'd soon be writing the stories as well, for this too-short, but much-beloved (by me!) run of A&F. Suddenly Josie and her friends had a brief moment in the spotlight and a higher profile at Archie Comics than they'd had in almost two decades. This trade kicked off the celebration, with Rex Lindsey contributing a very nice cover (presumably Holly G was drafted as an afterthought, to replace Lindsey for some reason, but Rex had almost been drawing more covers for ACP at this point than even the prolific Stan Goldberg, so it's obvious that the editor was pretty happy with his work for the company. Perhaps his utility as a cover artist (not to mention as a Jughead artist) was just too valuable for him to be able to do a regular ongoing Josie strip as well.

*(I couldn't believe there were that many!! AND I'm even leaving out Tania Del Rio's Josie the Manga digital collection, and the recent New Riverdale J&tP trade!)

(https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/n_iv/600/603247.jpg)

BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS	100-page TP	source of 1st publication	June 2001	writer	penciller	inker
cover		new cover illustration by Rex W. Lindsay			Rex W. Lindsay
Whoever Heard of Girls With Guitars?	2 pages	BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS	June 2001	Paul Castiglia
A Gym Dandy	8 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
First Appearance of Alexandra Cabot	1 page (excerpted)	JOSIE #8	Sept. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
First Appearance of Alan M. Mayberry	1 page (excerpted)	JOSIE #42	Aug. 1969	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Evolution of Alexandra's Stripe and Sebastian the Cat	1 page (excerpted)	JOSIE #43	Sept. 1969	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Decisions, Decisions	6 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Pussy Footing	5 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Quiet on the Set	8 pages	JOSIE #50	Sept. 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Josie and the Pussycats Come to TV	1 page	(ad originally appeared in multiple comics)	Aug. (?) 1970		Dan DeCarlo
Brawn Is Beautiful	5 pages	JOSIE #53	Feb. 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Ban the Blonde	5 pages	JOSIE #55	June 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Early Worm Gets the Bird	5 pages	JOSIE #56	Aug. 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Ghost of Dark Valley Manor	16 pages	JOSIE #57	Sept. 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Up, Up, and Away!!	12 pages	Josie #58	Oct. 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Pussycats Get A New Look!	1 page (excerpted)	ARCHIE GIANT SERIES #540	Aug. 1984	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
Limo Rock	5 pages	ARCHIE GIANT SERIES #562	Aug. 1986	George Gladir	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
Cat at the Crossroads	11 pages	ARCHIE GIANT SERIES #584	Sept. 1988	Kathleen Webb	Stan Goldberg	Rudy Lapick
J&tP Skiing (pin-up)	1 page	JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (1993) #2	Spring 1994		Dan DeCarlo	Alison Flood

NOTES: There's good and bad to be said about this collection. In contrast to my previous post, in this instance the listings in RED indicate a story which hasn't yet been included in any of the subsequent collections (print OR digital), and that's a fair number of stories, so this collection is far from obsolete, despite having many collections come afterwards. BUT it does also contain the superior and unusual "Cat at the Crossroads" by Kathleen Webb, where Josie experiences a life crisis about where she's heading with her future career.

It opens with a 2-page introduction by Paul Castiglia, "Whoever Heard of Girls With Guitars? ". Unfortunately, the editor here chose to include a number of "highlight" moments from stories, in the form of 1-page excerpts, as opposed to just printing the whole story. I could certainly have skipped the excerpt of Alan M's first appearance, plus the excerpt of the Pussycats as punk rockers, for just ONE of those stories complete (or even a single chapter of a 4-part longer story). The sorest point would be JOSIE #43 (as was standard practice, a booklength storyline comprised of four individual Chapters, or Acts) -- the one that explains how Alexandra discovers her ancestor, Sebastian Cabot (whose name was stolen from a notable television actor, who played "Mr. French" on Family Affair), was in fact suspected of "consorting with witches", and she realizes that his spirit may have been reincarnated in her pet cat Sebastian, who shares the same name -- thus, whenever Alexandra is in contact with her cat, she can perform black magic, and believing absolutely that it is so, she finds a book of sorcerous spells to study (self-fulfilling prophecy?). Thereafter, she will attempt to bedevil Josie with her newfound mystic skills, until someone (usually Melody) unwittingly snaps their fingers and breaks her spell. If this sounds familiar, it's because much later on, Sabrina's pet (familiar) cat Salem will also turn out to be a human trapped in a feline body. It hasn't happened yet, but I really want to see that entire issue (JOSIE #43) reprinted. It seems the Cabots have a family history of malicious, restless spirits who remain bound to the mortal plane and who have the ability to possess the bodies of the living (as both Alex and Alexandra will discover in JOSIE #70's "Vengeance From the Crypt").

Bottom line is, there are still quite a few stories here that are in no other collections, so buy it if you can find it at cover price or less. The 2-page pullout Dan DeCarlo pin-up poster of Josie and Valerie skiing (and Melody wiping out) from JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (1993) #2 is reduced here to a single page image.

Next post --  the SHE'S JOSIE: BEFORE THE PUSSYCATS Digital Exclusive collection.

I love this book.  I got it a few years ago when Archie was blowing out their graphic novels.  They practically gave it away, like 2 bucks or something.  I know it will never happen but I would love to see a complete pre-Pussycats Josie done in a nice hardback. 

Very informative! Thanks!
You said there are 8 Josie collections?!!? I have the 3 books you reviewed already, plus the one that just came out. I can't imagine what the other 4 are.

Quote from: Ronny G on September 02, 2017, 07:38:25 PM
You said there are 8 Josie collections?!!? I have the 3 books you reviewed already, plus the one that just came out. I can't imagine what the other 4 are.

Here is a list of the Josie collections to date:

1.  1993-94 - Josie and the Pussycats (Vol. 2) #1 & 2 (48-page giant comics)

2.  Jun. 2001 - Best of Josie and the Pussycats TP

3.  Dec. 2013 - She's Josie: Before the Pussycats (digital exclusive collection)

4.  Dec. 2014 - Best of Josie and the Pussycats: Greatest Hits (digital exclusive collection)

5.  Oct. 2015 - Josie and the Scaredy Cats (digital exclusive collection)

6.  Mar. 2016 - Archie 75 Series #12: Josie and the Pussycats (digital exclusive collection)

7.  Aug. 2017 - Archie's Big Book: Magic, Music & Mischief TP

8.  Aug. 2017 - Best of Josie and the Pussycats TP (The Best of Archie Comics series)


In addition to the above-listed, there were Josie and the Pussycats: The Complete Manga!, originally released in Nov. 2013 (digital exclusive collection, and later re-released as Pep Digital No. 170), collecting the complete backup series (67 pages) by Tania Del Rio and Chris Lie from Sabrina the Teenage Witch (2003) #68 & 72 and Archie & Friends #96-104; and Josie and the Pussycats Vol. 1 TP (2017) collecting the first 6 issues of the rebooted 2016 comic book by Marguerite Bennett, Cameron Diordio and Audrey Mok. Since those stories stand apart from the traditional version of Josie and there's little crossover in content with other collections, I didn't include them, but here are the covers of those collections, anyway.

(https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/6/67663/3431982-01.jpg)(https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/6/67663/5145862-170.jpg)
(https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/6/67663/5870454-01.jpg)

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 02, 2017, 05:21:09 PM
I know it will never happen but I would love to see a complete pre-Pussycats Josie done in a nice hardback.

Never say never. Every single knowledgeable fan of Archie Comics (including Dan Parent) that I've communicated with has agreed that JOSIE, (as a whole, but in particular the pre-Pussycats Doyle/DeCarlo stories) is one of, if not THE, finest comic series that ACP ever published. Eventually, someday, someone is going to figure out that there are enough people willing to drop some serious cash for a quality hardcover complete chronological reprinting of that series -- either ACP itself, or Dark Horse Comics, IDW Comics/YoeBooks, or Fantagraphics Books.

I just hope I'm still around when it happens. Archie is having a difficult time transitioning from a publisher whose traditional audience is casual pre-teen readers (without a lot of money to spend on more expensive collections) to a much smaller audience of older nostalgic comic book connoisseurs, some of whom are seriously invested in amassing a library of archival hardcover comics. The recent Deluxe Edition hardcover re-release of The Best of Archie Comics Volume 1, plus things like the Sabrina the Teenage Witch Complete Collection v1 gives me hope that they'll eventually figure it out.

Even as you get older, you continue to discover an appreciation for things, to which you'd been ignorant when younger, and my relatively recent conversion (beginning about 3 years ago) into a rabid fan of classic cartooning-style teen humor/girl humor comics is proof that it does happen. Reviews from respected sources, whether on the internet comics websites or in collector-oriented magazines like those published by TwoMorrows (Back Issue, Comic Book Creator, The Jack Kirby Collector) go a long way. Who'd have thought, twenty or thirty years ago, that a company like Fantagraphics (traditionally a publisher of Mature Readers titles like The Complete Crumb and Love & Rockets) would ever have released a hardcover like Innocence and Seduction: The Art of Dan DeCarlo ?

Who'd have thought there would ever be a Criterion Collection DVD release of old monster movies like Gojira/Godzilla (1954) or Island of Lost Souls (1932)? Those were movies which had not traditionally been given any serious consideration for their artistic merit, unlike the films of directors like Akira Kurosawa, Francois Truffaut, or Orson Welles. You can bet that people who never gave a passing thought to those films all of a sudden viewed them in a different light when given the stamp of approval that came with the inclusion of a film under the Criterion Collection umbrella. An appreciation for things which seemed ephemeral and inconsequential in their own time needs enough time to pass, to be reexamined and reassessed, like the vintage of fine wine. People reading Charles Shultz' Peanuts in their Sunday newspaper comic sections 40 years ago would stand agape in slack-jawed disbelief if they could peer into the future and see that the entire run of the comic strip would be collected in a series of expensive hardcover volumes, beginning some 30 years later.

The next JOSIE collection released was the first to be a digital exclusive (it was later re-released with an altered cover design as PEP DIGITAL No. 69). It contained stories from five complete issues of She's Josie (1963), only one issue of which (She's Josie #1) was completely reprinted in any of the later Josie collections. Unfortunately, the collection didn't reprint ALL of She's Josie chronologically from the beginning -- after issue #1, it skipped to reprinting the stories from issues #8, 9, 10 and 13. Subsequently, all of the stories from Josie #2 and 3 were included as reprints in Archie's Big Book: Magic, Music, & Mischief (the complete contents of which will be detailed in an upcoming post).

Most of the older pre-Pussycats issues of JOSIE were reprinted in older issues of World of Archie Double Digest (with the exceptions of JOSIE #12, 14, 17, 38, and 42-44), so we know ACP has usable copies of the majority of those stories -- the remaining missing art pages could be reconstructed digitally by scanning pristine copies of the printed comic books and using Photoshop to clean up the scans. Can a Complete JOSIE ARCHIVES hardcover reprint collection be more than a decade away in the future? Time will tell... but in the meantime, this collection is a must-have, even for those of us (like myself) who much prefer print comics over digital.

Try staring intently at the image of Josie and Albert for a minute...
    ... It takes on a psychedelic 3-D effect!!
(https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/6/67663/3535563-01.jpg)

She's JOSIE: Before the Pussycats!	(124 pages)	source of 1st publication	Dec. 2013	writer	penciller	inker
A Gym Dandy - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Neat Workers - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Muscle Hustle - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Track Down - Chapter IV	6 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
The Unhappy Hero - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #8	Sept. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Saved By The Belle - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #8	Sept. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
And Away We Go - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #8	Sept. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Happy Ending - Chapter IV	5 pages	JOSIE #8	Sept. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
You're The Tops - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #9	Oct. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
A Run For Your Money - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #9	Oct. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Fair Play - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #9	Oct. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Cereal Story - Chapter IV	5 pages	JOSIE #9	Oct. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Team Spirit - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #10	Dec. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
No Help Wanted - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #10	Dec. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Sideline Stars - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #10	Dec. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
The Last Man - Chapter IV	5 pages	JOSIE #10	Dec. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
The Schemers - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #13	Jun. 1965	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
The Dreamers - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #13	Jun. 1965	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Now You See It - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #13	Jun. 1965	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Now You Don't - Chapter IV	5 pages	JOSIE #13	Jun. 1965	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo

Next post -- the BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS: GREATEST HITS digital exclusive collection from Dec. 2014.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 03, 2017, 04:15:01 AM
Try staring intently at the image of Josie and Albert for a minute...
    ... It takes on a psychedelic 3-D effect!!

And it occurs to me that some of you may look and say "Are you sure you're feeling all right, DCR?"... but the effect really is there.
It helps if you stare at it JUST the central image of the two figures on the cyan and magenta background, and it employs what is known as
the "anaglyphic" 3D effect -- the same as used in old 3D comic books and movies that use those glasses with red and blue (or green) lenses.
The parallax of slightly different views from both eyes and the high-contrast of the two-color background will appear to make the figures "float"
on a plane in front of the background lettering. Pretty clever use of two of the three primary ink colors used in the comic book printing process.

(https://www.archiefans.com/index.php?media/file/josie.3524/)

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 03, 2017, 04:15:01 AM
The next JOSIE collection released was the first to be a digital exclusive (it was later re-released with a altered cover design as PEP DIGITAL No. 69). It contained stories from five complete issues of She's Josie (1963), only one issue of which (She's Josie #1) was later completely reprinted in any of the later Josie collections. Unfortunately, the collection didn't reprint ALL of She's Josie chronologically from the beginning -- after issue #1, it skipped to reprinting the stories from issues #8, 9, 10 and 13. Subsequently, all of the stories from Josie #2 and 3 were included as reprints in Archie's Big Book: Magic, Music, & Mischief (the complete contents of which will be detailed in an upcoming post).

Most of the older pre-Pussycats issues of JOSIE were reprinted in older issues of World of Archie Double Digest (with the exceptions of JOSIE #12, 14, 17, 38, and 42-44), so we know ACP has usable copies of the majority of those stories -- the remaining missing art pages could be reconstructed digitally by scanning pristine copies of the printed comic books and using Photoshop to clean up the scans. Can a Complete JOSIE ARCHIVES hardcover reprint collection be more than a decade away in the future? Time will tell... but in the meantime, this collection is a must-have, even for those of us (like myself) who much prefer print comics over digital.

Try staring intently at the image of Josie and Albert for a minute...
    ... It takes on a psychedelic 3-D effect!!
(https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/6/67663/3535563-01.jpg)

She's JOSIE: Before the Pussycats!	(124 pages)	source of 1st publication	Dec. 2013	writer	penciller	inker
A Gym Dandy - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Neat Workers - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Muscle Hustle - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Track Down - Chapter IV	6 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
The Unhappy Hero - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #8	Sept. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Saved By The Belle - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #8	Sept. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
And Away We Go - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #8	Sept. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Happy Ending - Chapter IV	5 pages	JOSIE #8	Sept. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
You're The Tops - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #9	Oct. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
A Run For Your Money - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #9	Oct. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Fair Play - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #9	Oct. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Cereal Story - Chapter IV	5 pages	JOSIE #9	Oct. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Team Spirit - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #10	Dec. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
No Help Wanted - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #10	Dec. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Sideline Stars - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #10	Dec. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
The Last Man - Chapter IV	5 pages	JOSIE #10	Dec. 1964	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
The Schemers - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #13	Jun. 1965	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
The Dreamers - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #13	Jun. 1965	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Now You See It - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #13	Jun. 1965	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Now You Don't - Chapter IV	5 pages	JOSIE #13	Jun. 1965	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo

Next post -- the BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS: GREATEST HITS digital exclusive collection from Dec. 2014.

this is fantastic research, DCR.  Thanks so much!

And now a Preview of our Coming Distractions....
(https://www.archiefans.com/index.php?media/file/josies-nightie-nightmare.3527/)
                 "Abra, Abra-Kadabra, I wanna reach out and grab ya...!"

Usually you have to read a Betty's Diary story if you want to look at pictures of young girls wearing skimpy nighties. But I guess it's not all that surprising that all kinds of creepy things seemed to want to take possession of Josie's body, whether they were Alexandra's relatives or not. Here we see Josie trapped in the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? opening credits sequence (possibly the result of too many slices of anchovy pizza before bedtime?)

It reminds me that there was a time when Stan Goldberg, on a good day, could work a little good girl art magic almost as well as Dan DeCarlo, the master.

And how about those kooky kreeps? Altogether oooky! Whenever this type of subject matter turned up (which was seldom) in a Dan DeCarlo or Stan Goldberg nominally comical comic book story, the spooks and hobgoblins always seemed to look just about halfway between a typical Jack Kirby monster and something out of a Warren Kremer Casper the Friendly Ghost comic. Which makes a weird kind of sense, I suppose. I mean, you've got the shrouded dude at the foot of the bed, reaching out and looking fairly convincingly menacing, but then the goofy-looking blue ogre and the green ghostly-worm thingy behind him suitably defuses that by having that sort of "obviously a nightmare" quality about them.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 03, 2017, 10:30:17 AM

It reminds me that there was a time when Stan Goldberg, on a good day, could work a little good girl art magic almost as well as Dan DeCarlo, the master.

I would've sworn that was Dan DeCarlo's art! Surprised that its Goldbergs. I usually could tell the difference, but he was good in his own way....However, I've been seeing some of Goldberg's later art in the digests I've been subscribing where they actually credit the artists. I don't know what years active he was at Archie. I'm guessing some of his stories are from the nineties judging by the fashions. I wondered what happened to his work?? It looked like a rush job. B & V's faces weren't attractive at all. Big round jawlines, and the eyes seemed out of place. I was thinking it might be the fault of the inker, too.
I tried to upload some pics of what I'm talking about, but it won't let me.

Quote from: Ronny G on September 03, 2017, 12:19:40 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 03, 2017, 10:30:17 AM

It reminds me that there was a time when Stan Goldberg, on a good day, could work a little good girl art magic almost as well as Dan DeCarlo, the master.

I would've sworn that was Dan DeCarlo's art! Surprised that its Goldbergs. I usually could tell the difference, but he was good in his own way....However, I've been seeing some of Goldberg's later art in the digests I've been subscribing where they actually credit the artists. I don't know what years active he was at Archie. I'm guessing some of his stories are from the nineties judging by the fashions. I wondered what happened to his work?? It looked like a rush job. B & V's faces weren't attractive at all. Big round jawlines, and the eyes seemed out of place. I was thinking it might be the fault of the inker, too.
I tried to upload some pics of what I'm talking about, but it won't let me.

No, I know exactly what you mean. There's like a world of difference between the start of the 1990s and the end of the 1990s, and by the end of the decade, it seemed like he was drawing roughly 50% of the pages of new stories Archie Comics published.

I don't know what to tell you. Maybe he foresaw the way it was all going eventually and figured it was too late to reinvent himself somewhere else, so all he could do was focus on getting more and more pages out faster and faster, in the hopes that he could stash away a nest egg for when he wasn't going to have any work offered, or be even capable of doing it any more. It seems like it must be something like that. Slowly over the course of the last 20 years or so of his career it seemed like he stopped caring at all and was just operating on cruise control.  In the 1970s, 1980s, and even into the early 1990s his work just seemed more alive, but something must have happened that seemed to grind him down. Maybe it was the "dumbing down" of the sexiness of the girls. Sometime in the 1990s they all started wearing loose, baggy clothes so as not to be offensive to the mothers buying the digests for their daughters, I guess -- or maybe because that was easier for him to draw faster. DeCarlo seemed to resist that trend almost to the end, and they probably couldn't tell him he was wrong, because he was too valuable to the company. But somehow, Goldberg seemed capable of turning out the pages faster and faster, if with less feeling. Some pages he seemed to draw almost in his sleep, and perspective is skewed, eyelines are off-center, and all kinds of things, because you can tell he was trying to get it finished as fast as possible. But yeah, everything became round, round, round... because it's easier to draw a circular or oval line quickly -- wham, bam, on to the next page.

Don't get me wrong. I have total sympathy with him for whatever his motivations were. Comics is not an industry that is kind to most of its elder statesmen. You are a freelancer without a retirement pension, company-paid health plan, all the things most people take for granted, so I'm sure he had his reasons, and knew he wasn't going to be able to continue forever, so he had to make as much as he could before it wasn't an option any more.

Okay, I gave some more thought to Stan Goldberg's situation, and I'll be honest with you. I'm not an expert on Stan's career, or Dan DeCarlo's either. I've read very few details about their life histories, or whatever personal situations, family situations, health situations, and the like they may have had to deal with. But I do have a fair grasp of the history of the comic book industry, so I can think of a few pertinent things that might help shed some light on a few things or give a little perspective. Mind you, apart from some confirmable facts I'm going to tell you, how it applied to Goldberg or how it affected how he felt about the work -- that's all just speculation on my part.

Dan DeCarlo, Al Hartley, and Stan Goldberg were all roughly of the same generation of comic book artists. All of them began their careers in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and by the mid-1950s each of them had settled at Martin Goodman's company, known now as Marvel, but at the time we're talking about, the 1950s, that's what's called "the Atlas era". Atlas because sometime in the early 1950s, Goodman decided he could make even more money if he self-distributed his own comic books and magazines. He had all kinds of magazines, movie fan magazines, puzzle books, whatever seemed to be popular at the time, and one of those things was "men's magazines", or "the sweat mags" as they were called. Just all very macho stuff, and as risque and sexy as they could be without risking being banned. Racy cartoon digest/joke books, with (non-nude) "girlie pin-up" photos, stuff like that.

So Goodman distributed as well as sold his own magazines and comics under the "Atlas Distribution" banner, and put a little globe with the word "Atlas" on the covers -- thus, collectors now refer to those as Atlas comics. Pre-Marvel, the big genres for Goodman were war, horror/mystery, westerns, romance, and humor. They were HUGE in the humor genre, and tried to put out enough different titles to crowd everyone else's off the newsstand, including Archie Comics, so when they got DeCarlo, Goldberg, and Hartley... that was their thing. "Girl humor" comics featuring Millie the Model, Patsy Walker, and dozens of others now mostly forgotten -- but Atlas was as big, or possibly bigger, than Archie Comics was at it, and UNlike Archie, it wasn't the ONLY genre they were doing. John Goldwater took notice of DeCarlo's work right away, and tried and tried to wheedle as much freelance work as he could out of him. Atlas had tons of titles, and all those artists had to do was walk into the office to drop off a completed story, and they'd be handed a new script (or several, depending on the number of pages) and then pick up their check for the story they just delivered on the way out the door. Then came the whole big scare with the nation putting horror and crime comics on trial, so those genres were dying on the vine -- but if you were a cartoony/humor guy, despite falling sales on everything else, it seemed like the one safe genre to be in. Everyone was a little nervous about the whole industry as sales continued to drop from all-time highs in the early 1950s, but if that's the work you were committed to, humor seemed to be the safest place to be. Not everyone could just switch back and forth from straight-adventure style art to funny stuff and back again, but Stan Goldberg (and to a lesser extent Al Hartley) could do that, so they seemed to be safe.

Dan DeCarlo didn't really like doing the straight stuff. He was the best at humor, and everyone knew it, including John Goldwater, who had been trying to win him away from Stan Lee at Atlas for years. But Stan Lee and Dan DeCarlo had a pretty good working relationship, and Dan must have figured why mess with a good thing -- besides, Atlas paid better page rates than Goldwater did, so DeCarlo confined his Archie work to "moonlighting" jobs for Goldwater. He also didn't like being told to draw it in a "house style" imitative of Bob Montana's work on Archie. It seemed like more work for him to have to imitate someone else, rather that just follow his natural style. But something happened in 1958 that changed everything for DeCarlo, and that's when Goodman decided that he could actually get wider distribution through a deal with American News, the #1 distributor at the time. It was less hassle if he didn't need to run his own distribution operation, and the profits he made off that should easily be made up for by his titles' greater distribution reach and Goodman cutting his own overhead costs, so he decided to close down Atlas Distribution. Bad mistake. Shortly after scuttling his own company and making the deal with American, the big distributor came under federal investigation for alleged ties to organized crime, and a couple of months later, the government forced the distributor to disband. Goodman was in danger of watching his entire company go down the tubes, with no way to get his comics and magazine to the retailers. He was forced to crawl on bended knee to fellow publisher Jack Liebowitz of National (later DC Comics), to make a deal with him because National owned Independent News, who distributed both Nationals' comics and other publications. Liebowicz threw Goodman a bone, and said he was willing to help him out, at the usual percentage of the cover price for distribution... he told Goodman he'd be willing to handle as many as... oh, EIGHT comic titles per month of his. Yeah, one problem with that... under Atlas, Goodman had been publishing and distributing over FIFTY comics per month. Obviously he was going to have to tighten his belt to survive, so the next day he called Stan Lee into his office to tell him that whenever any of their freelancers showed up to deliver their last assignment, Lee would have to tell them that that was it. No new assignments for as long as it took for Lee to use up the inventory they'd already bought, and then 6 or 8 months later it would be just enough work left to keep 16 bi-monthly titles going. When DeCarlo heard, he knew what was what, and figured it was finally time to take up John Goldwater's offer. By 1958 the humor titles' sales had slipped a LOT from the highs of the mid-50s, and Atlas' few remaining humor titles were slowly shifted over to a more serious soap-opera romance style (this was the good thing about having all GIRL humor titles, because it wouldn't have worked for any outright Archie imitation that Goodman might have published). So Millie the Model and Patsy Walker and a couple of others survived as bi-monthly soap opera romances, because Stan Goldberg and Al Hartley were able to adjust their styles to go that route, even though they were just as capable as humor artists. What work Dan DeCarlo could still get at Atlas was with those "men's humor" mags, drawing sexy one-page gag panels (besides, it paid better than a regular comics page rate).

So Stan Goldberg lived through all that, but stayed loyal to Lee and Goodman (he had a job in the production department as the company's main colorist, so freelance work was all like overtime pay for him). Al Hartley continued to hang in there, drawing Patsy Walker (and Patsy and Hedy) until 1965, when Patsy and Hedy was finally cancelled. Millie the Model (once Dan DeCarlo's baby, back in the 1950s when it was still a humor title) was being done by Stan Goldberg. After Hartley went to work on Goodman's sexy men's magazine cartoons, he eventually had enough of it by 1968, decided he was a born-again Christian, and quit to go work for Archie Comics. Stan Goldberg hung in there at Marvel, getting freelance work on the side from ArchieCo (AND DC Comics) beginning around the same time as Hartley split, but kept drawing both Millie the Model and Millie's Rival Chili on the side while keeping his day job in the production department as a colorist. In fact, he hung right in there until the bitter end, when the last of the humor titles (converted back from soap opera romances around 1968 in an imitative response to Archie Comics' booming sales (as a result of an animation deal with Filmation), but too late for Al Hartley to take advantage of it. Stan G. continued to take on freelance jobs at Archie and DC, but finally, Stan Goldberg moved over to Archie full-time in the mid-1970s, after the production department at Marvel was reorganized in the wake of production manager Sol Brodsky's death.

So Stan G has been through some sh*t, and seen some sh*t, and knows how the industry works. He'd always been a loyal company man, which is why he was the very last of the humor artists to abandon Marvel. And when he went to Archie, he had to adapt. Dan DeCarlo had already been there full-time for a decade before Hartley and Goldberg even started getting work from Archie here and there. They sort of had to worm their way in by that time, because there were few humor comic books (except for the Gold Key and Harvey kiddie titles, and animated character books) being published by anyone by that time, and only a few at DC and Marvel, and you can bet that the guys who settled at Archie before Hartley and Goldberg came over from Marvel wanted to keep those assignments for themselves if they could. But they were lucky in a way, because Harry Shorten had just left to start his own company, Tower Comics, and he lured Samm Schwartz away from Archie with him. Plus, the TV adaptations were booming in the late 1960s, so Archie was starting new titles, and it looked like there were going to be plenty of freelance jobs for Al and Stan, despite them being late joiners.

Only thing was, by now Dan DeCarlo was like the #1 main man at Archie, and (sorry Harry Lucey) he got to draw all the covers (because Richard Goldwater said so), and because covers sold comic books, and oh, by the way, Stan... could you and Al try to draw the characters the same way Dan draws them on the covers? So ironically, Stan and Al faced the same problem that Dan first had with Archie Comics when he started freelancing a few jobs in the early '50s... could you draw it the Bob Montana way, Dan? Eventually, both artists learned to adapt, at least enough. Stan was more successful at looking like Dan's work.

Now, let's skip ahead to the end of the 1990s. Stan's an old hand now, and other than Dan DeCarlo, he's the last of the big-time old-timers (and I guess Bob Bolling, but Bob was Bob, and he couldn't be anything or anybody else, and I don't think he wanted to try either). BUT now all of a sudden a bunch of characters that Dan DeCarlo co-created with Frank Doyle are getting made into a "Major Motion Picture" (the quotation marks are for irony) and Dan the company man is thinking maybe he goofed, that instead of trying to stay loyal and crank out the most pages every week, he should have provided his family with some kind of legacy that would outlast whatever paycheck he was getting from Archie Comics every week, even if it was pretty good money compared to other freelancers that worked for ACP. I'll let you look into the outcome of that little confrontation, but I'll just say this. You can bet that Stan Goldberg was paying attention to everything that went on in that little legal dust-up, and what the fallout of it was and what happened to Dan DeCarlo as a result.

And -- it occurs to me that even while Stan was maybe shortcutting a little in order to be able to increase his piecework count -- and maybe he HAD to, because he wasn't getting a page rate equal to what guys 30 or 40 years younger than him were making at DC or Marvel, his work seemed to suffer artistically maybe... after Jack Kirby's death in the early 1990s, which ended (for Jack) years of protracted legal wranglings with Marvel? Stan Goldberg had known Jack personally in the 1960s when he worked for Marvel. And then this business around 2000 or so between Dan DeCarlo and Archie Comics, was a similar situation in some ways...  But I'm sure Stan Goldberg was observant of a lot of things about the comic book industry, and what happened to a lot of older guys on the downward parabola of their careers, and he certainly had plenty of connections with people from the old days, especially all the people who passed through Marvel Comics in the 25 years or so that Stan worked there.

So if he took a few shortcuts so that he could get more pages done, put away some funds for retirement or health care insurance, or pay off some mortgages, or whatever... I can't lay any blame on the man.

Wow! You sure know your stuff.. and you're really good at expressing yourself and putting your thoughts down on paper. I mean that as a compliment. You must be a writer! It takes me forever to find the rights words I want to say sometimes.

Yeah, now that I started thinking about all the stuff that was happening at Archie (and in the comics industry at large) from the beginning of the 1990s to when Stan Goldberg died, and the factors around him that may have had an impact on him somehow, it all seems to make more sense.

When did his work begin to look noticeably not as inspired any more? Seems to me it's right around the time when Jack Kirby died without getting any satisfaction from Marvel (1994), and coincidentally or not, that also happens to coincide with about the time that the next generation of Archie artists, recruited by the company in the late 1980s and early 1990s, began to assert their skills with confidence. Rex Lindsey was the first one to begin getting the more high-profile, better-paying assignments, like covers, pin-up posters in the 48-Page Giants, and merchandising artwork. Dan Parent was beginning to emerge from the shadow of his mentor, Dan DeCarlo, and he and Jeff Schultz became to the go-to guys for B&V covers and stories when Dan DeCarlo couldn't do it all. At first when these guys started, they just tended to be learning their craft and working at blending in with the house style, but as the mid-1990s were approaching, now they were beginning to step up as the new top talents.

Frank Doyle died around 1996, so maybe some of the feeling wasn't there for Stan in the scripts of the younger writers, as well. Then in 1997 Samm Schwartz died too. Guess who took up the slack of those pages he used to fill? Goldberg had to be feeling his mortality at his age, too. Then by 2000 there was that mess of DeCarlo vs. Archie Comic Publications, and you can't blame Dan for wanting to leave something for his kids and grandkids, but the reality of the outcome of that had to be a real joykiller for Goldberg too, and once again, who took up the slack of those pages that DeCarlo used to fill? I mean, that's about when it really seems like for Goldberg it became a question of... The countdown clock is ticking, so how much juice can I squeeze out of this lemon before it's completely dry? Like it was some kind of race against time for him to get his financial affairs squared away before work was no longer going to be available to him someday, and like he felt that was really his only salable commodity as a freelancer, to be able to fill all those pages by deadline, and be known as the guy who was a reliable workhorse. In a way, it's a lucky thing (it sounds awful to say it) that Stan died before the whole 2015 reboot thing happened, and I think he was probably aware that he wasn't going to merit any more special consideration for his "lifetime achievement" than Fernando Ruiz got for his 25 years of service.   :'(

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 04, 2017, 12:53:35 AM
Yeah, now that I started thinking about all the stuff that was happening at Archie (and in the comics industry at large) from the beginning of the 1990s to when Stan Goldberg died, and the factors around him that may have had an impact on him somehow, it all seems to make more sense.

When did his work begin to look noticeably not as inspired any more? Seems to me it's right around the time when Jack Kirby died without getting any satisfaction from Marvel (1994), and coincidentally or not, that also happens to coincide with about the time that the next generation of Archie artists, recruited by the company in the late 1980s and early 1990s, began to assert their skills with confidence. Rex Lindsey was the first one to begin getting the more high-profile, better-paying assignments, like covers, pin-up posters in the 48-Page Giants, and merchandising artwork. Dan Parent was beginning to emerge from the shadow of his mentor, Dan DeCarlo, and he and Jeff Schultz became to the go-to guys for B&V covers and stories when Dan DeCarlo couldn't do it all. At first when these guys started, they just tended to be learning their craft and working at blending in with the house style, but as the mid-1990s were approaching, now they were beginning to step up as the new top talents.

Frank Doyle died around 1996, so maybe some of the feeling wasn't there for Stan in the scripts of the younger writers, as well. Then in 1997 Samm Schwartz died too. Guess who took up the slack of those pages he used to fill? Goldberg had to be feeling his mortality at his age, too. Then by 2000 there was that mess of DeCarlo vs. Archie Comic Publications, and you can't blame Dan for wanting to leave something for his kids and grandkids, but the reality of the outcome of that had to be a real joykiller for Goldberg too, and once again, who took up the slack of those pages that DeCarlo used to fill? I mean, that's about when it really seems like for Goldberg it became a question of... The countdown clock is ticking, so how much juice can I squeeze out of this lemon before it's completely dry? Like it was some kind of race against time for him to get his financial affairs squared away before work was no longer going to be available to him someday, and like he felt that was really his only salable commodity as a freelancer, to be able to fill all those pages by deadline, and be known as the guy who was a reliable workhorse. In a way, it's a lucky thing (it sounds awful to say it) that Stan died before the whole 2015 reboot thing happened, and I think he was probably aware that he wasn't going to merit any more special consideration for his "lifetime achievement" than Fernando Ruiz got for his 25 years of service.   :'(

Interesting points, DR. DeCarlo was the only one who "fought" ACP, and paid a price for it. Goldberg and Schwartz "got in line". Bolling? I suppose he did as well...

Quote from: SAGG on September 04, 2017, 04:20:33 AM
Interesting points, DR. DeCarlo was the only one who "fought" ACP, and paid a price for it. Goldberg and Schwartz "got in line". Bolling? I suppose he did as well...

And when you think about it, it was probably something he'd thought about ever since the whole Kirby vs. Marvel thing became common knowledge in the industry, and even just a few years earlier, when Sabrina became a hugely successful live action TV series, it must have started gnawing at him. He was the only one at ACP who could have done it, because he was the only one left alive who could claim to have actually created something of value. Well, him and George Gladir, who co-created Sabrina with Dan. Who knows if Dan ever had a conversation with Frank Doyle about Josie while Frank was still alive -- but even then, Dan could still claim primacy of creation in that instance, because HE brought the idea for Josie to Archie Comics, and he had documented proof (sample newspaper strips he'd done prior to 1963) of having a prototype version of Josie before ACP (and Doyle) was ever involved. With Sabrina, it was just a script he got from Gladir, so if the two of them didn't agree to go up against ACP together, then there was no way one of them could have fought that battle alone -- so maybe Gladir didn't want to risk his one source of work in the industry. It was a risky thing for Dan to go up against Archie Comics as the creator of Josie, because if he won, then where else could he have taken the property? Marvel and DC weren't publishing anything like that in 2000. I think he was just looking to establish his authorship of the characters, and to ensure his family would have a continuing source of income from a percentage of profits from Josie. Schwartz didn't create Jughead, as valuable as he was to the company for that character, and Bolling... well, even if there HAD ever been any merchandising or licensing profits from Little Archie, what could Bolling have claimed to have created? A little kid version of a previously-existing character owned by the company? That was never going to fly in a courtroom.

The funny thing about the Kirby vs. Marvel thing is that it did not start out as Jack Kirby trying to reclaim some share of ownership or profits of the many major characters he created or co-created while working at Marvel. He just wanted his pages of original artwork back. In the 1980s, Marvel had a huge warehouse full of original artwork filed away going back decades, and they decided they didn't need the expense of maintaining that warehouse. Once the artwork had been photographed and turned into transparencies, it took up much less space and was easier to file -- that's where they created all their reprints from. So they just decided to empty this huge warehouse, and give the artists back all of their original artwork (which by that time, had become a valuable source of income for the artists themselves when sold to collectors). So Marvel started sending all the artists packages containing pages and pages of their work. And Jack got a package, containing some few hundred pages. A few hundred? Kirby had drawn thousands of pages for Marvel, and he wanted that back, so his family could benefit from selling it. And when Kirby pursued it, all of a sudden he was being sent all sorts of crazy documents to sign off on from Marvel's lawyers, before they would release those art pages to him... stuff basically signing away all claims of ever having created anything, stuff which would have been a legal document that he couldn't contest, saying that the company was the actual creator/author of the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, the Silver Surfer, Iron Man, Ant-Man, the Inhumans, the Avengers, etc. etc. etc. and Kirby and his heirs hereby renounced all future claims of any stake in ownership in any of those characters. Basically Marvel was withholding his original artwork as a lever to blackmail him, so THEY were the ones who turned it into a battle over who created what.

After reading the behind the scenes stuff, I now have more sympathy for Mr. Goldberg, and will cut him some slack the next time I read one of his latter stories where I feel the art is sub-par.


I surprised that Mr. Goldberg also drew for Chili. I am familiar with the comic book but I always felt it was a poor imitation of Betty and Veronica. I knew it was DC trying to copy the Archie style, but I didn't know it was one of Archie's own artists working for the competition.

Quote from: Ronny G on September 04, 2017, 06:19:19 PM
After reading the behind the scenes stuff, I now have more sympathy for Mr. Goldberg, and will cut him some slack the next time I read one of his latter stories where I feel the art is sub-par.


I surprised that Mr. Goldberg also drew for Chili. I am familiar with the comic book but I always felt it was a poor imitation of Betty and Veronica. I knew it was DC trying to copy the Archie style, but I didn't know it was one of Archie's own artists working for the competition.

I guess you could look at it that way, with 20/20 hindsight. But the reality is, Goldberg was just doing the same thing he'd been doing for the last 20 years... working in the production department at Marvel during the day as a full-time employee and the company's main colorist, while working on freelance art assignments at night (at that particular time, Millie the Model and Millie's Rival Chili for Marvel, Scooter and Binky's Buddies for DC, and various titles for Archie Comics). Since Stan G was capable of drawing both "straight" and humor style comics, I don't think there was ever a month that went by in those entire 20 years that his artwork didn't appear in some Atlas/Marvel comic book.

And yes, publishers paid attention to what was selling well for the competition, so the high sales and expanding number of titles published at Archie Comics coincident with the arrival of Filmation's The Archie Show and Sabrina the Teenage Witch cartoons on Saturday morning television did not go unnoticed by DC and Marvel, and led to them trying to get a piece of that market with a few titles done in the teen humor house style of Archie Comics. DC resurrected one of their old teen humor characters dormant since 1961, Binky, and converted another title, Swing With Scooter, to that style. Marvel converted Millie the Model back from soap-opera dramatics to its original humor style, and added a spinoff comic for Chili. Let's not forget that the "teen humor house style of Archie Comics" was synonymous with Dan DeCarlo's style, and this was exactly the time when Richard Goldwater determined that DeCarlo should become responsible for drawing ALL of Archie Comics humor title covers. The same Dan DeCarlo who'd been responsible for great sales in the 1950s on Atlas girl humor comics like My Friend Irma (about a ditzy blonde) and Millie the Model.

Which does beg the "What if... ?" question of what Archie Comics would have been like (or whether they'd have even survived this long) had former Marvel artists like DeCarlo, Goldberg, and Hartley not chosen Archie Comics as their major employer after 1958.

Quote from: Ronny G on September 04, 2017, 06:19:19 PM
I surprised that Mr. Goldberg also drew for Chili. I am familiar with the comic book but I always felt it was a poor imitation of Betty and Veronica.

Millie and Chili weren't particularly imitative of Betty & Veronica. Millicent Collins and Chili Storm (whose first appearance was in Millie the Model #5 in 1947) were both professional models who worked for the Hanover Modeling Agency, and as such, they naturally competed for work assignments and attention (especially with their handsome boss, Mr. Hanover). Chili often displayed jealousy of Millie (a small-town girl only recently arrived at the agency) and was vain and egotistical (what -- a professional model vain and egotistical!? How unrealistic...!). In terms of her personality, how she related to the star of the series, and how her character functioned within the plots of the stories, her closest analog at Archie Comics would probably be Alexandra Cabot.

Marvel didn't really have a book in which the two characters were both equals, and also best friends who had an ongoing rivalry, but the closest comparison would probably be with the title Patsy and Hedy. Both characters were high school girls, with Patsy the red-headed and virtuous "girl next door" type, and Hedy her dark-haired jealous rival, scheming to steal attention (and dates) away from Patsy, but Patsy was always the obvious hero and good-girl character, and Hedy the 'villain', who nearly always gets her comeuppance at the end of the story.

There was at least one title that Marvel did, that could be charged as a "clone" of Archie Comics, and that was KATHY "The Teen-Age Tornado!". It ran for 27 issues, from 1959-1964, and came uncomfortably close to B&V, as drawn by Stan Goldberg in a style as close as possible to Dan DeCarlo's (but once again, Kathy was the star, and her brunette frenemy Liz, merely a supporting character -- ironically, before BETTY ever got her own title at Archie Comics). Marvel was perhaps stinging from the then very recent loss of DeCarlo during Goodman's moratorium on purchasing new stories while he scrambled to cut his former line of 50+ titles down to a mere 16 bi-monthlies, and once Archie Comics had gotten their hooks into him, it seemed unlikely they were ever going to let DeCarlo NOT have enough art assignments to keep him busy. (Still, he managed to sneak in those gag pin-ups for Goodman's mens' magazines for the next 4 years, but the money involved must have been too good to pass up.)

(https://www.archiefans.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.comicbookdb.com%2Fgraphics%2Fcomic_graphics%2F1%2F557%2F183272_20130612153258_large.jpg&hash=9bbd8257c38cb304635eaa986a6e518b12da4e87)

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 05, 2017, 07:27:15 PM
Millie and Chili weren't particularly imitative of Betty & Veronica.

Right. What I really meant to say (but had trouble articulating), was it looked like Marvel was copying the look of B&V. I knew the character's were different, but their facial features were similar. They just changed the hairstyle. Their noses and eyes were the same as B&V. The nose in particular, I always associate with B&V. They could've done a crossover appearance, and they would've fit right in.  :)

Quote from: Ronny G on September 05, 2017, 10:05:21 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 05, 2017, 07:27:15 PM
Millie and Chili weren't particularly imitative of Betty & Veronica.

Right. What I really meant to say (but had trouble articulating), was it looked like Marvel was copying the look of B&V. I knew the character's were different, but their facial features were similar. They just changed the hairstyle. Their noses and eyes were the same as B&V. The nose in particular, I always associate with B&V. They could've done a crossover appearance, and they would've fit right in.  :)

If it SEEMS like Archie Comics invented something, a genre or a style... that's just an illusion, caused by an ignorance of history. Really all that the company can be credited with is a publishing decision to commit their lot (beginning in 1943), for better or worse, to a single genre -- comedy. 1943 is the year they made that decision, and the company had converted all of its books (and most of its features) to that genre by 1946, at which point they changed their name to Archie Comic Publications.

As far as how their Archie Comics "house style" of artwork evolved, the only thing the company can be credited with is keeping Dan DeCarlo employed. HIS style became the Archie Comics style, but his style was never derived from, or influenced by, Archie Comics artists who came before him -- in fact, when asked to draw B&V in Bob Montana's style, he balked at the idea as extra work he'd rather not bother with (and eventually John Goldwater relented). All they really had to do was instruct the other artists to draw it like Dan's style as much as possible... and that's certainly something that isn't protectable by copyright, so it was just as easy for another publisher to issue the same instructions.

In fact, if you were ignorant of the artists' names, you could have looked at a Betty & Veronica comic book in 1960, and said "Hey, did you notice they're now copying the old Millie the Model style?"

But getting back now to the listings of contents of the various JOSIE collections, the next one to be released (in Dec. 2014) was the largest so far at 308 pages: BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS: GREATEST HITS! In many ways this is sort of a prototype for the BEST OF print collection just released in August 2017, but there would be many changes in contents between the 2014 digital exclusive collection and the 2017 trade paperback collection. This digital exclusive collection would also be re-released later with an altered cover design, as PEP DIGITAL #123.

(https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_medium/6/67663/4285210-01.jpg)

BEST OF JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS: GREATEST HITS	(308 pages)	source of 1st publication	Dec. 2014	writer	penciller	inker
Decisions, Decisions	6 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Pussy Footing	11 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Off to a Good Start	5 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
A Moment of Truth	7 pages	JOSIE #55	June 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
A New View	5 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #84	Feb. 1982	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg
Head Count	6 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #95	June 1984	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
Oh Solo Mio	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #52	Dec. 2001	Dan Parent	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Dog Daze	6 pages	JOSIE #82	June 1975	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
Bad News Boys	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #53	Jan. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Stage Fright	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #55	Apr. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
The Driving Force	6 pages	JOSIE #77	Aug. 1974	Dick Malmgren	Stan Goldberg	Jon D'Agostino
Litter by Litter	6 pages	JOSIE #51	Oct. 1970	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Photo Oops!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #68	May 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski
Say Cheese!	1 page	ARCHIE'S PALS 'N' GALS #194	Jan. 1988	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Rod Ollerenshaw
Pussycats on the Runway!		ARCHIE & FRIENDS #85	Nov. 2004	Abby Denson	Fernando Ruiz	Rich Koslowski
Sounds Silly to Me...	5 pages	JOSIE #47	Apr. 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Swingers	6 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #97	Oct. 1984	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
What Price Failure	6 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #96	Aug. 1984	George Gladir	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
Safe & Sound!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #73	Oct. 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski
Club Crisis	6 pages	JOSIE #93	Dec. 1976	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Ice Princess of the Lost Civilization	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #54	Mar. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Gig Gala!	5 pages	LAUGH #4	Dec. 1987	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Hy Eisman
Fame Blame	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #70	July 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Al Bigley	Al Milgrom
The Brad-to-Be!	5 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #79	Mar. 2004	Angelo DeCesare	Dan Parent	Jon D'Agostino
Take Me to Your Leader	10 pages	JOSIE #51	Oct. 1970	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
A Singular Idea	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #63	Dec. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Alexandra's Liberation	8 pages	JOSIE #53	Feb. 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Gimmick Happy	6 pages	LAUGH #1	June 1987	Bill Webb	Stan Goldberg	Jon D'Agostino
Melody Malady	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #80	Apr. 2004	Angelo DeCesare	Dan Parent	Jon D'Agostino
Think Jinx	6 pages	JOSIE #56	Aug. 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Costume Capers	5 pages	LAUGH #16	Aug. 1989	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Mike Esposito
Go Figure!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #69	June 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Al Bigley	Al Milgrom
Show Offs!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #76	Dec. 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski
Backstage Pass	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #56	June 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Using His Head	11 pages	JOSIE #48	June 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Music for the Masses, Chapter 1	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #48	July 2001	Dan Parent	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski
Music for the Masses, Chapter 2	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #48	July 2001	Dan Parent	Rex W. Lindsey	Bob Smith
Music for the Masses, Chapter 3	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #49	Aug. 2001	Dan Parent	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski
Music for the Masses, Chapter 4	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #49	Aug. 2001	Dan Parent	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski
Isle be Your Dream Date!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #83	Aug. 2004	Angelo DeCesare	Dan Parent	Jim Amash
The Image	5 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #98	Dec. 1984	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Rudy Lapick
It Starts with a Kiss!	22 pages	ARCHIE #608	June 2010	Dan Parent	Bill Galvan	Rich Koslowski

Stories listed above in RED don't appear in any other collections. Apart from stories which appear in both this collection and the Aug. 2017 BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS trade paperback collection, this collection has fewer stories repeated from the remainder of the collections. The main negative point of this collection compared to the 2017 BEST OF collection would be that the stories in this collection aren't presented in chronological order of their original publication. Bottom line: If you're buying digital, get this collection rather than the digital version of the 2017 BEST OF collection. It has fewer pages, but more stories that are unique to this collection. If you're a print comics only person, then this digital exclusive collection isn't even an option for you.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 04, 2017, 12:53:35 AM
Yeah, now that I started thinking about all the stuff that was happening at Archie (and in the comics industry at large) from the beginning of the 1990s to when Stan Goldberg died, and the factors around him that may have had an impact on him somehow, it all seems to make more sense.

When did his work begin to look noticeably not as inspired any more? Seems to me it's right around the time when Jack Kirby died without getting any satisfaction from Marvel (1994), and coincidentally or not, that also happens to coincide with about the time that the next generation of Archie artists, recruited by the company in the late 1980s and early 1990s, began to assert their skills with confidence. Rex Lindsey was the first one to begin getting the more high-profile, better-paying assignments, like covers, pin-up posters in the 48-Page Giants, and merchandising artwork. Dan Parent was beginning to emerge from the shadow of his mentor, Dan DeCarlo, and he and Jeff Schultz became to the go-to guys for B&V covers and stories when Dan DeCarlo couldn't do it all. At first when these guys started, they just tended to be learning their craft and working at blending in with the house style, but as the mid-1990s were approaching, now they were beginning to step up as the new top talents.

Frank Doyle died around 1996, so maybe some of the feeling wasn't there for Stan in the scripts of the younger writers, as well. Then in 1997 Samm Schwartz died too. Guess who took up the slack of those pages he used to fill? Goldberg had to be feeling his mortality at his age, too. Then by 2000 there was that mess of DeCarlo vs. Archie Comic Publications, and you can't blame Dan for wanting to leave something for his kids and grandkids, but the reality of the outcome of that had to be a real joykiller for Goldberg too, and once again, who took up the slack of those pages that DeCarlo used to fill? I mean, that's about when it really seems like for Goldberg it became a question of... The countdown clock is ticking, so how much juice can I squeeze out of this lemon before it's completely dry? Like it was some kind of race against time for him to get his financial affairs squared away before work was no longer going to be available to him someday, and like he felt that was really his only salable commodity as a freelancer, to be able to fill all those pages by deadline, and be known as the guy who was a reliable workhorse. In a way, it's a lucky thing (it sounds awful to say it) that Stan died before the whole 2015 reboot thing happened, and I think he was probably aware that he wasn't going to merit any more special consideration for his "lifetime achievement" than Fernando Ruiz got for his 25 years of service.   :'(

Schultz to me never left the house style. Parent evolved form DeCarlo's....

Quote from: SAGG on September 06, 2017, 11:24:22 PM
Schultz to me never left the house style. Parent evolved form DeCarlo's...

Dan Parent was largely mentored early in his employment at ACP by Dan DeCarlo, and you can find many stories from the early days of Dan P's career that are co-credited to the two Dans. The "traditional Archie Comics style" was Dan DeCarlo's style, and every artist who was employed by ACP after Dan started working there was encouraged to study his work, and adhere to that style as closely as possible. That didn't apply to artists who started working for ACP before DeCarlo came on board full-time in 1958, like Harry Lucey and Samm Schwartz, but to everyone else, yes. Even the younger generation of artists who started at the company in the late 1980s/early 1990s stuck very close to the house style until the 21st century, when they were at last allowed to express their individuality a little more distinctly.

Jeff Schultz always seemed like the one who was earliest able to master the DeCarlo style, and he never seemed to vary from that right up to the present. I can detect very little difference between his earlier work and his most recent work, and I must admit it took me some time at first to even be able to distinguish Jeff's work from DeCarlo's on uncredited stories from the 1990s. Nor is Jeff's uncanny ability to closely mimic another artist's style limited to Dan DeCarlo's, as anyone whose seen his work on Boom Studios' PEANUTS comic book can attest. Jeff is a fantastic artist, and I can't wait to see those new issues of his and Darin Henry's SUPER 'SUCKERS!

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 07, 2017, 12:08:53 AM

Quote from: SAGG on September 06, 2017, 11:24:22 PM
Schultz to me never left the house style. Parent evolved form DeCarlo's...

Dan Parent was largely mentored early in his employment at ACP by Dan DeCarlo, and you can find many stories from the early days of Dan P's career that are co-credited to the two Dans. The "traditional Archie Comics style" was Dan DeCarlo's style, and every artist who was employed by ACP after Dan started working there was encouraged to study his work, and adhere to that style as closely as possible. That didn't apply to artists who started working for ACP before DeCarlo came on board full-time in 1958, like Harry Lucey and Samm Schwartz, but to everyone else, yes. Even the younger generation of artists who started at the company in the late 1980s/early 1990s stuck very close to the house style until the 21st century, when they were at last allowed to express their individuality a little more distinctly.

Jeff Schultz always seemed like the one who was earliest able to master the DeCarlo style, and he never seemed to vary from that right up to the present. I can detect very little difference between his earlier work and his most recent work, and I must admit it took me some time at first to even be able to distinguish Jeff's work from DeCarlo's on uncredited stories from the 1990s. Nor is Jeff's uncanny ability to closely mimic another artist's style limited to Dan DeCarlo's, as anyone whose seen his work on Boom Studios' PEANUTS comic book can attest. Jeff is a fantastic artist, and I can't wait to see those new issues of his and Darin Henry's SUPER 'SUCKERS!

Is there a link where I can see Schultz's work on Peanuts, DR? Thanks in advance....

Quote from: SAGG on September 07, 2017, 04:19:43 AM
Is there a link where I can see Schultz's work on Peanuts, DR? Thanks in advance....

Nothing specific that I could find. Jeff Schultz doesn't seem to have much of a presence on the internet. No facebook or twitter page, blog or website of his own that I could find. In trying to search for images, I found that Boom Studios' PEANUTS series has since been discontinued, and there's a possibility that the estate of Charles Schulz did not want new Peanuts comics to be created by other writers and artists (there were some hints that Schulz' will specified as such), and that Boom Studios was creatively interpreting that directive to mean no new comic STRIPS (in newspapers) but not including comic BOOKS. I don't know if the previously-released Boom Studios' PEANUTS comics are still available in digital format, but that's your best bet, besides finding back issues or trade paperbacks.

Moving on with the next digital exclusive JOSIE collection, JOSIE AND THE SCAREDY CATS was released in Oct. 2015.  It was later re-released with altered cover image as PEP DIGITAL No. 166.

(https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/6/67663/4861354-01.jpg)

Josie and the Scaredy Cats	(96 pages)	source of 1st publication	Oct. 2015	writer	penciller	inker
The Ghost of Dark Valley Manor	16 pages	JOSIE #57	Sept. 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
What Kind of Ghoul Am I	14 pages	JOSIE #64	Sept. 1972	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
My Brother's Keeper	8 pages	JOSIE #65	Oct. 1972	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Mario Acquaviva
Follow the Leader	6 pages	JOSIE #66	Dec. 1972	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Swamp Mist Monster!	8 pages	JOSIE #67	Feb. 1973	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Mario Acquaviva
Breath of Evil	8 pages	JOSIE #67	Feb. 1973	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Falcon's Claw	8 pages	JOSIE #68	Apr. 1973	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
Terror in the Park	6 pages	JOSIE #69	June 1973	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Fraidy Cat Friday	5 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #82	July 2004	Hal Smith	Stan Goldberg	Jon D'Agostino
Return to Nightmare Nursery	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #58	Aug. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Studio Scare	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #84	Oct. 2004	Abby Denson	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski

The stories "The Ghost of Dark Valley Manor", "What Kind of Ghoul Am I", "My Brother's Keeper" and "The Swamp Mist Monster!" also appeared later in the Aug. 2017 BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS trade paperback collection, but the rest of the stories (listed here in RED) haven't appeared in any other JOSIE collections. Another reason to get this collection and the previous GREATEST HITS digital exclusive if you're buying digital, and skip the digital version of the 2017 BEST OF collection. We also get another excellent story from Holly Golightly's run on ARCHIE & FRIENDS, "Return to Nightmare Nursery" -- this one's a sequel to the Frank Doyle/Bob Bolling classic story from LIFE WITH ARCHIE #125 (Sept. 1972), which was not a Josie story!

Moving on to Mar. 2016, another digital exclusive Josie collection was released as part of the ARCHIE 75 SERIES. This was the 12th in that series to be released.

(https://www.archiefans.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcomicsalliance.com%2Ffiles%2F2016%2F03%2FArchie75Series_JosieAndThePussycats-0.jpg&hash=092ff7bf308d372a2889d0be2fb3d74b344ac615)

ARCHIE 75 SERIES (#12)  - JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS	(83 pages)	source of 1st publication	Mar. 2016	writer	penciller	inker
A Gym Dandy	8 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vince DeCarlo
Neat Workers	6 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vince DeCarlo
Muscle Hustle	5 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vince DeCarlo
Track Down	6 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vince DeCarlo
Beach Fashions (pin-up)	1 page	JOSIE #17	Dec. 1965		Dan DeCarlo	Vince DeCarlo
Rebellion	8 pages	JOSIE #20	June 1966	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vince DeCarlo
Decisions, Decisions	6 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Pussy Footing	5 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Using His Head	11 pages	JOSIE #48	June 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Quiet on the Set	8 pages	JOSIE #50	Sept. 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Think Jinx	6 pages	JOSIE #56	Aug. 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
My Brother's Keeper	8 pages	JOSIE #65	Oct. 1972	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Mario Acquaviva
Some You Win	5 pages	JOSIE #98	Oct. 1978	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick

The only story in this collection that doesn't appear in any of the other Josie collections is "Rebellion", and though it's a great story, is it worth the price of the collection for that one 8-page story? Once again, we get a complete reprint of JOSIE #1, but if you have the SHE'S JOSIE digital exclusive collection, you don't need it again. To be honest, I can't really see any reason to purchase this one unless you just want a complete set of the ARCHIE 75 SERIES.

Now we're caught up to last month, and we're back to print comics with ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK: MAGIC, MUSIC & MISCHIEF trade paperback collection. I'm not going to list the Sabrina and Little Archie stories here, because they're not relevant to a comparison between collections focusing on Josie.

(https://www.previewsworld.com/SiteImage/CatalogImage/STL019087?type=1)

ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK: MAGIC, MUSIC & MISCHIEF Vol. 1	(111 pages)	source of 1st publication	Aug. 2017	writer	penciller	inker
A Gym Dandy - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Neat Workers - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Muscle Hustle - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Track Down - Chapter IV	6 pages	JOSIE #1	Feb. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Footlight Follies - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #2	Aug. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
The Bright Side - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #2	Aug. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Show Biz Blues - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #2	Aug. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
It's Curtain Time - Chapter IV	5 pages	JOSIE #2	Aug. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Sweater Girls - Chapter I	8 pages	JOSIE #3	Oct. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Bad Sort - Chapter II	6 pages	JOSIE #3	Oct. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Native Nuisance - Chapter III	5 pages	JOSIE #3	Oct. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Force Feed - Chapter IV	5 pages	JOSIE #3	Oct. 1963	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Vincent DeCarlo
Off To A Good Start	11 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Take Me To Your Leader	10 pages	JOSIE #51	Oct. 1970	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Please Take Note	5 pages	JOSIE #55	June 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Sing A Song of Sixpence	6 pages	JOSIE #59	Dec. 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Club Crisis	6 pages	JOSIE #93	Dec. 1976	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Image	5 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #98	Dec. 1984	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Rudy Lapick

Once again, stories exclusive to this collection are listed in RED, which includes a complete reprinting of the stories from SHE'S JOSIE #2 & 3! Worth it for that alone, IMO, even if you're mainly a digital reader collecting all the other digital exclusive collections.

I just got this.  I love the size!  GREAT collection.

Quote from: Vegan Jughead on September 07, 2017, 10:02:56 AM
I just got this.  I love the size!  GREAT collection.

Yeah, I'm surprised what a difference it makes. It's not like you ever have to strain your eyes reading a digest-sized reprint, or even the slightly larger "Best of Archie Series" TPB format, or the one they used to use for the "Archie & Friends All-Stars". But it's really nice to see them printed at the same size as the original comics. Even better on the larger, magazine sized pages used for the Archie Comics Super Specials and those IDW "Best of" Archie artists hardcovers. Maybe the ultimate (even though it only reprinted selected stories from the first two hardcover volumes of IDW's The Best of Dan DeCarlo) was that ARCHIE by Dan DeCarlo Treasury Edition, with pages that measure almost 10"x 13"!!

If you're a Josie fan, I recommend IDW's Archie Hardcover book, "The Best of Dan DeCarlo" Volume 4. I have all 4 volumes, but vol. 4 is my favorite because it has a six Josie stories (pre-Pussycats) nicely reproduced in large format on quality paper. Two of the stories are from Pep and Laugh before she got her own series.

Quote from: Ronny G on September 07, 2017, 05:18:40 PM
If you're a Josie fan, I recommend IDW's Archie Hardcover book, "The Best of Dan DeCarlo" Volume 4. I have all 4 volumes, but vol. 4 is my favorite because it has a six Josie stories (pre-Pussycats) nicely reproduced in large format on quality paper. Two of the stories are from Pep and Laugh before she got her own series.

No, (She's) JOSIE #1 was her true first appearance. Some people think it was Archie's Pals 'n' Gals #23, but that actually hit the stands a week or so later. During the 1960s, PEP and LAUGH were the true anthology titles where you might find any of the Archie characters. Some issues even had short comics featuring The Jaguar, or The Fly (or Fly-Girl), for a while. Josie was in some issues of each of those titles before Archie's TV Laugh-Out came along, but it was while she had her own comic book.

What I want to know about is this cover image....

(https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1323041787l/13154521.jpg)

Found that on the internet, with a claim that it was published April 24, 2012 by Archie Comics (supposedly a 160-page hardcover). The design actually looks more like one of the IDW books, but I'm not yet convinced that this thing actually exists. It's possible, though, if it were some sort of exclusive deal made by Archie Comics with a major bookseller, and wasn't available elsewhere, like the comic shop direct market.

Thanks for the info! I thought she started out in other comics first--sorta like Sabrina started out in the pages of Archie's Mad House. Thanks for clearing that up.
Regarding the other Best of Josie you pictured. I had pre-ordered it on amazon when it first showed up, but as the date approached, they cancelled it. I don't think it exists either.  :(
Would you happen to know about Katy Keene? I would like to read some of her old stories. I know some were reprinted in the digests, but they seem to be sporadic.  Do you have, or do you know of a list of reprinted Katy stories like the one you are doing of Josie.

Quote from: Ronny G on September 07, 2017, 07:10:44 PM
Thanks for the info! I thought she started out in other comics first--sorta like Sabrina started out in the pages of Archie's Mad House. Thanks for clearing that up.
Regarding the other Best of Josie you pictured. I had pre-ordered it on amazon when it first showed up, but as the date approached, they cancelled it. I don't think it exists either.  :(
Would you happen to know about Katy Keene? I would like to read some of her old stories. I know some were reprinted in the digests, but they seem to be sporadic.  Do you have, or do you know of a list of reprinted Katy stories like the one you are doing of Josie.

Katy Keene reprints have occasionally shown up in B & V Friends Double Digest. There was one in the latest issue, but it's from the Andrew Pepoy series of shorts which ran in ARCHIE & FRIENDS, and I suspect you're referring to the earlier ones. (I actually rather liked Pepoy's 21st century update of the character, all of which have been reprinted in a trade paperback collection, Katy Keene: Model Behavior from 2008.) There hasn't really been a digest title which had Katy reprints as a regular feature, but a few of them showed up in 2009-2012 in Betty and Veronica Double Digest #168, 169, 175, 178, 179, 185, 196, 197, and 199. Some of those issues (and others in-between) had Ginger reprints, too. Katy may possibly have been in other issues around that time, but I don't have a complete listing of contents of all the issues.

One thing I'm curious about is that whenever I do see Katy Keene reprints, they're never reprints of the 1980s series (another which I liked, of the few I've actually had a chance to read). The 1980s series of Katy Keene comics might still be found relatively more easily than her original series that ran from 1949 to 1961, so here's a list of them:

KATY KEENE SPECIAL #1 - 6 (September 1983 - October 1984)
KATY KEENE (Vol. 2) #7 - 33 (December 1984 - January 1990)
KATY KEENE COMICS DIGEST MAGAZINE #1 - 10 (1987 - 1990)

It seems to me that if you're looking for the most Katy stories you can get in one place, finding copies of those 10 digests would be your best bet. Unfortunately I don't own them myself, and the contents aren't indexed at the Grand Comics Database, so I can't tell you what the stories are, but it was a regular-size (96-page) digest, issued 4 times annually. Hope that helps.

Here's a typical issue's cover:

(https://www.archiefans.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fd1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net%2Fn_iv%2F600%2F819009.jpg&hash=a947cab60f2779fe20890ece34000a50ff2dbd2a)

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/cmx-images-prod/Item/561907/561907._SX1280_QL80_TTD_.jpg)

And finally, we come to the most recent (and largest) collection of Josie stories yet, THE BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (Aug. 2017) -- and at 385 pages, it outweighs the previous BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSCATS: GREATEST HITS! digital exclusive collection by a whopping 92 pages of comics. You may have noticed that this is the third time they've used the words "The Best of Josie and the Pussycats" in the title of a collection. We had the 2001 trade paperback collection by that name, the 2014 digital exclusive collection subtitled "Greatest Hits!", and now this, which, by the physical dimensions of the book, I guess is intended to be considered part of "The Best of Archie Comics" series of trade collections.

Waitaminnit... how can I say 385 pages, when it says right on the cover of the trade paperback "Over 400 Pages"? Well, technically the book IS over 400 pages. Just not 400 pages of comics, and that's all I'm counting -- the actual pages of comics reprinted. Add the contents, credits and comments pages by some notable names in the comics biz (and elsewhere) and it does total over 400 pages -- but you're only buying it for the comics, right?

That being the case, let's be absolutely honest here and admit that the last 30 pages of comics in this book really don't count, because they're included for ACP's own self-serving purposes as advertising -- so that means there are really only 62 pages more of comics in this trade paperback collection than there are in the 2014 "Greatest Hits!" digital exclusive collection. My reasoning is as follows: The 20-page story from JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (2016) #1 is immediately followed by a full-page reproduction of the cover of the trade paperback collecting the first 5 issues of that series (advertising). The 10-page story reprinted from RIVERDALE #3 only appeared a few months ago, in July 2017. By what stretch of the imagination can these stories honestly be judged as "the best of" anything? Unless you've been living under a rock somewhere, if you are a fan of Josie, you're already aware that these stories exist, and if you care about that kind of thing, you've probably already read them -- or, you've decided you don't care about them -- as the case may be. Even accepting the hypothetical premise that some under-rock-dweller might not have been aware that these stories existed, they're far too recent for any value judgment regarding their relative quality as among the "best of" Josie stories to be honestly assessed. These stories are included here by ACP solely for the purpose of promoting trade paperback sales (of JOSIE) and floppy comic book sales (of RIVERDALE). Harsh, but undeniably true. Nuff 'said.

All that said, apart from those, there are only 6 other stories in this collection (totaling 56 pages) that have never been included in any previous Josie collections. The 2014 "Greatest Hits!" digital exclusive compilation has 10 stories (totaling 84 pages) that aren't duplicated in any other Josie collections. So if digital is your preference in buying comics, you're much better off purchasing that collection as opposed to the digital version of this one. Apart from those 6 stories unique to this collection, you can get the other ones not common to the "Greatest Hits!" collection in other Josie collections. Furthermore, 2 of those stories ("Love & War" and "Maxim Mix-Up") did first appear in JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (1993) #2, so there's another 13 pages you can subtract if you can manage to find a copy of that comic book. "Zero to Rock Hero" is another excellent story exclusive to this collection, but unfortunately, only the second part of the two-part continued story is reprinted here. And finally, it should be duly noted that one of those 6 stories, "Vengeance From the Crypt" from JOSIE #72, while undeniably a classic and also a first-time reprinting, is reproduced as shot straight from the printed comic book pages, giving it a somewhat muddy look compared to the other stories reprinted here, with, sadly, no attempt made at digital clean-up.  If there is a single story included in this collection but no other, that represents a worthy argument for buying this collection over 2014's "Greatest Hits!" digital exclusive, it's "Showstopper!", the sole Josie story ever drawn by Gisele Lagace, originally appearing in B & V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #244. As with my previous contents listings, the ones in RED listed here are the stories unique to this collection.

BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS	385 Pages	source of 1st publication	Aug. 2017	writer	penciller	inker
cover		JOSIE #50			Dan DeCarlo
Decisions, Decisions	6 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Off To A Good Start	11 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Pussy Footing	5 pages	JOSIE #45	Dec. 1969	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Sounds Silly To Me	5 pages	JOSIE #47	Apr. 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Using His Head	11 pages	JOSIE #48	June 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Quiet On The Set	8 pages	JOSIE #50	Sept. 1970	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Shopping Spree	5 pages	JOSIE #50	Sept. 1970	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Litter By Litter	6 pages	JOSIE #51	Oct. 1970	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Take Me To Your Leader	10 pages	JOSIE #51	Oct. 1970	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
A Moment Of Truth	7 pages	JOSIE #55	June 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Please Take Note	5 pages	JOSIE #55	June 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Power Shortage	6 pages	JOSIE #55	June 1971	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Ghost of Dark Valley Manor	16 pages	JOSIE #57	Sept. 1971	Dick Malmgren	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
My Brother's Keeper	8 pages	JOSIE #65	Oct. 1972	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Mario Acquaviva
The Swamp Mist Monster!	8 pages	JOSIE #67	Feb. 1973	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Mario Acquaviva
Vengeance From The Crypt	10 pages	JOSIE #72	Oct. 1973	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Jon D'Agostino
Club Crisis	6 pages	JOSIE #93	Dec. 1976	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
Some You Win	5 pages	JOSIE #98	Oct. 1978	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
A New View	5 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #84	Feb. 1982	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg
Head Count	6 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #95	June 1984	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
What Price Failure	6 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #96	Aug. 1984	George Gladir	Dan DeCarlo	Jim DeCarlo
The Swingers	6 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #97	Oct. 1984	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
The Image	5 pages	ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH-OUT #98	Dec. 1984	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Rudy Lapick
Gimmick Happy	6 pages	LAUGH #1	June 1987	Bill Webb	Stan Goldberg	Jon D'Agostino
Gig Gala!	5 pages	LAUGH #4	Dec. 1987	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Hy Eisman
Say Cheese	1 page	ARCHIE'S PALS 'N' GALS #194	Jan. 1988	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Rod Ollerenshaw
Gig Gaga	5 pages	LAUGH #5	Feb. 1988	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Rudy Lapick
Costume Capers	5 pages	LAUGH #16	Aug. 1989	George Gladir	Stan Goldberg	Mike Esposito
Oldies But Goodies	5 pages	LAUGH #20	Apr. 1990	Frank Doyle	Stan Goldberg	Rod Ollerenshaw
Double Duty	5 pages	LAUGH #23	Aug. 1990	George Gladir	Dan DeCarlo	Mike Esposito
Love & War	8 pages	JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (1994) #2	Spring 1994	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo	Alison Flood
Maxim Mix-Up	5 pages	JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (1994) #2	Spring 1994	Hal Smith	Dan DeCarlo	Rudy Lapick
O Solo Mio	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #52	Dec. 2001	Dan Parent	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Bad News Boys	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #53	Jan. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Ice Princess of the Lost Civilization	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #54	Mar. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Stage Fright	11 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #55	Apr. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
A Singular Idea	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #63	Dec. 2002	Holly Golightly	Holly Golightly	John Costanza
Photo Oops!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #68	May 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski
Go Figure!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #69	June 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Al Bigley	Al Milgrom
Fame Blame	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #70	July 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Al Bigley	Al Milgrom
Show Offs!	6 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #76	Dec. 2003	Angelo DeCesare	Rex W. Lindsey	Rich Koslowski
Zero To Rock Hero, Part 2	22 pages	ARCHIE & FRIENDS #131	July 2009	Stephen Oswald	Bill Galvan	Al Milgrom
It Starts With A Kiss!	22 pages	ARCHIE #608 (June 2010)	June 2010	Dan Parent	Bill Galvan	Rich Koslowski
With This Ring!	20 pages	ARCHIE #632	June 2012	Dan Parent	Dan Parent	Rich Koslowski
Showstopper!	6 pages	B & V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #244	Sept. 2015	J. Torres	Gisele Lagace	Rich Koslowski
(no title)	20 pages	JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS (2016) #1	Nov. 2016	Marguerite Bennett	Audrey Mok	Audrey Mok
Wild Things	10 pages	RIVERDALE #3	Jul. 2017	James DeWille	Joe Eisma	A. Syzmanowicz

FRINGE BENEFITS OF BEING THE MANAGER OF AN ALL-GIRL ROCK BAND...
(https://www.archiefans.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Freenied.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F08%2Fjosie045-012panel1.jpg&hash=1d9eee7a5389c31463ff924386dccf492e95802d)
AND HE CLAIMED HE WAS "ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY" (AND TO PISS OFF HIS SISTER)

Thanks for posting all this info, DeCarlo.  :)

I was bummed-out about not being able to get the new collection, but it looks like most of those stories are reprints from other collections or stuff I have already so now I know I can hold off on it for awhile.  :P

Quote from: CAPalace on September 08, 2017, 11:15:43 AM
Thanks for posting all this info, DeCarlo.  :)

I was bummed-out about not being able to get the new collection, but it looks like most of those stories are reprints from other collections or stuff I have already so now I know I can hold off on it for awhile.  :P

You're welcome. I meant to get these all posted a week or so ago (I already had the tables in Excel) but it turned out to be a bear formatting the text in tables for posting on the SimpleMachines forum board, because I had to format the text in each cell with HTML tags nested within tags... a very time-consuming process, especially for the larger collections. I could have left out some of the details (I was forced to omit a short synopsis of each story, because it just took up way too much space, even after trying to pare the synopses down to as basic as possible), but it's really hard to compare if you're just looking at text that isn't separated into columns.

Now in summary, I'd say my recommendations for anyone would be:

If you prefer digital, you DEFINITELY should get --
(CapPalace, I'm pretty sure you must already have all, or at least most, of these):

BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (2001) - the digital version is on Comixology/Amazon for $6!
SHE'S JOSIE: BEFORE THE PUSSCATS! (2013)
BEST OF JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS: GREATEST HITS! (2014)
JOSIE AND THE SCAREDY CATS (2015)

There's a little duplication between those, but not that much. [Believe me, it's nowhere near as bad as the redundancy on the FIVE different digital exclusive SABRINA collections.] If you have those four above in digital, you can easily skip the ARCHIE 75 SERIES: JOSIE collection, unless you really,really have to have that one 8-page story "Rebellion" from JOSIE #20 (and I admit, it's a great story, where the women in town revolt and take charge, in the most physical way possible)... but it is just ONE story.

You could also add the digital version of ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK, if so inclined. That would largely be an individual choice, depending on how you felt about the Little Archie and Sabrina (all DeCarlo, but one) stories, but the main reason for Josie fans to have it would just be for the complete 4-part stories in JOSIE #2 and 3 -- worth buying just for that, IMO, but your call.

Then you'll have most of the stuff you need. I don't know, look at the list of titles in red from the new BEST OF trade paperback, and make up your mind if you can't live without those for the digital version (but it might be cheaper to just find copies of the original comics or digests in some cases).


And for those people who don't do digital, it's even simpler - just get THE BEST OF JOSIE (2001), ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK, and the new 2017 BEST OF JOSIE trade paperback.

Yes, thanks, DeCarlo, for putting this together! :)
It looks like the only book I need is Archie's Big Book of Mischief..., since I don't do digital.
I already have all the Josie comic books, but its nice to have the reprints so I don't have to handle the originals since they are so old and valuable.

Quote from: Ronny G on September 08, 2017, 01:53:24 PM
Yes, thanks, DeCarlo, for putting this together! :)

Seconded. It's really useful information

I'm very much in the 'non-digital' camp. Perhaps it's that I work at a computer all day, so I don't want to be spending all my leisure time at one, but I enjoy the experience of reading a physical comic book rather than messing about with one on a screen

Quote from: Purgatori on September 11, 2017, 01:59:57 AM

Quote from: Ronny G on September 08, 2017, 01:53:24 PM
Yes, thanks, DeCarlo, for putting this together! :)

Seconded. It's really useful information

I'm very much in the 'non-digital' camp. Perhaps it's that I work at a computer all day, so I don't want to be spending all my leisure time at one, but I enjoy the experience of reading a physical comic book rather than messing about with one on a screen

I can identity with that, spending most of my working day in front of a computer. It's only with the greatest of reluctance that I'll give in to the temptation to purchase a digital comic, and only where there's no equivalent print versions available. The digital Josie and Sabrina collections are really the only exceptions that I've made to that rule, apart from Kickstarter initiatives and a few webcomics I've saved.