issue	cvr date	title	pgs	story	pencils
[LwA #  1]	Sep-58	Rise and Shine	6	Sy Reit	Samm Schwartz
[LwA #  1]	Sep-58	By Hook or Cook	5	Sy Reit	Samm Schwartz
[LwA #16]	Sep-62	Hi-Jinks and Deep Divers!	23	Sy Reit	Bob White
[LwA #23]	Oct-63	A Very Lodge Problem	23	Sy Reit	Bob White
[LwA #26]	Mar-64	The Great Carnival Mystery!	23	Sy Reit	Bob White
[LwA #27]	May-64	The Strange Case of Patient X!	24	George Gladir	Bob White
[LwA #30]	Oct-64	Power Play	6	Frank Doyle	Harry Lucey
[LwA #30]	Oct-64	Oh Poi	6	Frank Doyle	Harry Lucey
[LwA #31]	Nov-64	Rough, Tough - But Fair Enough!	24	George Gladir	Bob White
[LwA #33]	Jan-65	A Christmas Tale	13	Frank Doyle	Bob White
[LwA #33]	Jan-65	Me Tarpan, You Jane!	11	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo
[LwA #34]	Feb-65	The Beatnik Caper!	13	Bob White	Bob White
[LwA #35]	Mar-65	It's A Small World!	13	Frank Doyle	Bob White
[LwA #35]	Mar-65	Plane and Fancy!	10	Frank Doyle	Bob White
[LwA #37]	May-65	Plane Crazy!	13	George Gladir	Bob White
[LwA #39]	Jul-65	Taking Up Space	5	Bob Bolling	Bob Bolling
			218

This is all classic Silver Age ACP material, so if rated by content alone, this collection would get an "A". We can note here that in the earliest stages of LwA, Sy Reit seems to be the default writer, while Bob White was (as indeed he continued to be until the later 1960s) the default artist of this title. I always felt that Bob White never got enough recognition for his contributions to the company, so hopefully this collection will go some ways towards rectifying that.

While not as spotty a collection as ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH VOL 1, this book still falls far short of being ideal (in other words, a lot closer to what BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR VOL 1 was). What I'm seeing here is just a rearranging of stories I recognized as having mostly read in digest reprints prior to this. They're good stories, and some of the wilder plots as far as Archie stories go. In sharp contrast to the ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH VOL 1, while these are also atypical Archie stories for the most part, comedy still remains central despite all the outlandishness, so big points for that. The single story which is probably the highlight of this collection is "Rough, Tough - But Fair Enough!" (the title given on the contents page doesn't actually appear on the story itself, and was taken from the -- here unreproduced -- cover copy). This is the one where Archie and the gang visit the 1964 World's Fair (and a counterpart to a similar JOSIE epic). The most amazing part of this is a 10-page chase sequence motivated by a randomly-introduced incidental character, a taxi driver at the fair. George Gladir had real fun with this one, but I almost think it reads more like a Frank Doyle story... I wonder.

Another thing to note is the first two stories in this collection. Read carefully between the lines of those first two short from LwA #1. In the first story "Rise and Shine", Archie seemingly misses out on an opportunity to attend a class field trip. The next story in this collection "By Hook or Cook", from the same issue, shows the students have just returned from the aforementioned field trip, and Archie is among them -- so in the four stories from LwA #1 NOT reprinted here that came between the two that ARE reprinted ("Please Be Seated," "Mummy Knows Best," "Water Boy," "U.N. Antics" -- story titles courtesy of GCDb), something has occurred which resulted in Archie getting to go on that field trip after all. Too bad the rest of issue #1 is not reprinted so we could see what it was. But what's notable here (as was typically the case with She's JOSIE stories) is that the individual stories in a single issue actually maintain continuity between them.

Overall grade:  B+ (would have rated much higher if they hadn't skipped so many issues, particularly between issues #2 and 15, and between #17 and 22).

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on August 31, 2018, 06:16:23 AM

issue	cvr date	title	pgs	story	pencils
[LwA #  1]	Sep-58	Rise and Shine	6	Sy Reit	Samm Schwartz
[LwA #  1]	Sep-58	By Hook or Cook	5	Sy Reit	Samm Schwartz
[LwA #16]	Sep-62	Hi-Jinks and Deep Divers!	23	Sy Reit	Bob White
[LwA #23]	Oct-63	A Very Lodge Problem	23	Sy Reit	Bob White
[LwA #26]	Mar-64	The Great Carnival Mystery!	23	Sy Reit	Bob White
[LwA #27]	May-64	The Strange Case of Patient X!	24	George Gladir	Bob White
[LwA #30]	Oct-64	Power Play	6	Frank Doyle	Harry Lucey
[LwA #30]	Oct-64	Oh Poi	6	Frank Doyle	Harry Lucey
[LwA #31]	Nov-64	Rough, Tough - But Fair Enough!	24	George Gladir	Bob White
[LwA #33]	Jan-65	A Christmas Tale	13	Frank Doyle	Bob White
[LwA #33]	Jan-65	Me Tarpan, You Jane!	11	Frank Doyle	Dan DeCarlo
[LwA #34]	Feb-65	The Beatnik Caper!	13	Bob White	Bob White
[LwA #35]	Mar-65	It's A Small World!	13	Frank Doyle	Bob White
[LwA #35]	Mar-65	Plane and Fancy!	10	Frank Doyle	Bob White
[LwA #37]	May-65	Plane Crazy!	13	George Gladir	Bob White
[LwA #39]	Jul-65	Taking Up Space	5	Bob Bolling	Bob Bolling
			218

This is all classic Silver Age ACP material, so if rated by content alone, this collection would get an "A". We can note here that in the earliest stages of LwA, Sy Reit seems to be the default writer, while Bob White was (as indeed he continued to be until the later 1960s) the default artist of this title. I always felt that Bob White never got enough recognition for his contributions to the company, so hopefully this collection will go some ways towards rectifying that.

While not as spotty a collection as ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH VOL 1, this book still falls far short of being ideal (in other words, a lot closer to what BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR VOL 1 was). What I'm seeing here is just a rearranging of stories I recognized as having mostly read in digest reprints prior to this. They're good stories, and some of the wilder plots as far as Archie stories go. In sharp contrast to the ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH VOL 1, while these are also atypical Archie stories for the most part, comedy still remains central despite all the outlandishness, so big points for that. The single story which is probably the highlight of this collection is "Rough, Tough - But Fair Enough!" (the title given on the contents page doesn't actually appear on the story itself, and was taken from the -- here unreproduced -- cover copy). This is the one where Archie and the gang visit the 1964 World's Fair (and a counterpart to a similar JOSIE epic). The most amazing part of this is a 10-page chase sequence motivated by a randomly-introduced incidental character, a taxi driver at the fair. George Gladir had real fun with this one, but I almost think it reads more like a Frank Doyle story... I wonder.

Another thing to note is the first two stories in this collection. Read carefully between the lines of those first two short from LwA #1. In the first story "Rise and Shine", Archie seemingly misses out on an opportunity to attend a class field trip. The next story in this collection "By Hook or Cook", from the same issue, shows the students have just returned from the aforementioned field trip, and Archie is among them -- so in the four stories from LwA #1 NOT reprinted here that came between the two that ARE reprinted ("Please Be Seated," "Mummy Knows Best," "Water Boy," "U.N. Antics" -- story titles courtesy of GCDb), something has occurred which resulted in Archie getting to go on that field trip after all. Too bad the rest of issue #1 is not reprinted so we could see what it was. But what's notable here (as was typically the case with She's JOSIE stories) is that the individual stories in a single issue actually maintain continuity between them.

Overall grade:  B+ (would have rated much higher if they hadn't skipped so many issues, particularly between issues #2 and 15, and between #17 and 22).

Thanks for the review DCR.  I'm getting this.  I love this new format. Of course it could be better but it's a step in the right direction. I also agree on Bob White. I believe he was the artist on The Man From R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E stories from the 60s and I loved those. 

..As far as LWA material goes, I have aways wanted the early, pre-TV series, Archies stories reprinted!

Of course there's no rule saying that if there were to be a Vol. 2 collection of LwA, it couldn't contain some of the stories from the issues that were skipped over by Vol. 1 -- BUT... it seems apparent that they don't want to invest in any real work of scanning and/or recoloring older stories which have not as yet been digitized. I'm sure that decision is based strictly on economics. They clearly don't want to incur the cost of employing people to do that work, and the mandate here with the "Archie Comics Presents..." series of trade collections seems to be to try to generate income while using only the reprint material they already have on hand.

Which is a crying shame.