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For reference, Polly first showed up in Bob Bolling's Little Archie stories as a teenager, some time in the 60s, before later making the jump to "regular" Archie stories.
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Dec 12, 2014 05:05
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Jan 9, 2015 03:24
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Gaz-L posted:Weird quirk/question based on the recent Humble Bundle: I'm reading the best-of-Sabrina volume that was included, and a bunch of the stories look like they're done in negative style or drawn in white ink on black paper. Is this a screw-up or was there an artist/period on Sabrina where this was in vogue? I just looked through the HQ PDF of the collection, and I couldn't find anything like you're talking about here. I'd guess it's a mistake?
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Feb 10, 2015 02:06
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Who else could it be besides Josie? Ethel? Cheryl Blossom? Katy Keene? 
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Mar 21, 2015 03:02
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In the Hannah-Barbera Josie show they went around solving mysteries a la Scooby Doo, Jabberjaw etc. That formula with real monsters sounds like a blast, and gives them something to do other than play music in a medium where that doesn't translate well.
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Mar 23, 2015 22:55
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Pepper was replaced with Valerie when the series realigned itself to become "Josie and the Pussycats" instead of just "Josie". She, along with Josie's old boyfriend Albert and her own boyfriend Sock, were cut when Hanna-Barbera acquired the rights to the characters. The idea was to create a cartoon show which would combine musical elements, like The Archie Show (Sugar, Sugar) and mystery-solving like its own successful Scooby Doo, Where Are You? Thus, Pepper was never actually a member of the Pussycats! She disappeared when the comic's cast realigned itself to match the cartoon.
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Sep 1, 2016 17:17
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Valerie didn't exist until the cartoon started coming out, so she had a tambourine from the start in both the cartoon and comic. She was probably given a tambourine simply for the visual variety of instruments. A 3-person band in which 2 of the characters are doing essentially the same thing doesn't look as good as if they have 3 distinct actions. Go pull up the theme song on youtube (or probably any episode, since they reuse the same footage I think every time they play a song!), they have Val crashing 2 tambourines together, hitting them against her hips and shaking them in the air. Much more dynamic than another guitar would be! Similarly, The Archies started out in the comic with the lineup of just Archie, Reggie and Jughead. At the time they played guitar, drums and keyboard respectively - again, you get the variety of 3 different instruments but as it was not animated, they wouldn't really care that the keyboard isn't as dynamic to play. When Betty and Veronica were added to the lineup for the cartoon, the roles reshuffled: Jughead took over on drums, Veronica inherited the keyboard, and Reggie manned the newly-added bass guitar (because with a 5 person lineup you can justify the repetition and besides, what else are they going to give him at that point? Bongos? A saxophone?). But Betty still got the tambourine, and in the opening for The Archie Show you can see her swinging it around, alternating beats between her hip and opposite wrist in a showy, animated fashion. As time passed and tambourines became less ubiquitous in band lineups, Valerie did pick up the bass and I think plays it exclusively now. Betty's still archaically clangin' away but I think they make a bigger deal of her and Archie being lead vocalists now. Bonus: while I was looking stuff up for this I even found a picture of a Sabrina/Archies paper doll set where Sabrina gets saddled with the ol' tambourine! I guess the house style must have settled on it as SOP:  ed: just noticed Reggie seems to have a banjo in that picture! Curious as to whether this showed up in any stories, I went back down the rabbit hole and found a few pages from a story where they lampshade Betty's tambourine playing:  
feetnotes fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Sep 26, 2016 |
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Sep 26, 2016 16:13
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No, I got lucky and found those just googling. I know the feeling though, knowing there's a story you want to cite....SOMEwhere in a giant shelf of digests.
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Sep 26, 2016 17:16
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Gaz-L posted:I'd put money on her also re-appearing in the new Pussycats book that's out later this month, probably as the small town pal who's afraid of being left behind when the band hits it big. Looks like you called it!  Cool that her glasses, her most defining feature, can stay the same and just read as 'retro' now. The style's probably just as popular as when she was created.
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Sep 28, 2016 17:17
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Speaking of the company's financial issues, where does that issue end? There's been a pretty steady stream of new projects for a while now - the TV show and the reboot titles, before that Afterlife, and before that stuff like Will You Marry Me and Kevin's introduction - that have all been pretty well received. I'm pretty ignorant of the business side of stuff, but it seems like the company is doing what it needs to do in seeking out new endeavors, and furthermore that their attempts have been successful. Are they still falling that far short of turning profits? Or is it a question of waiting to make returns on all this stuff? I just want Archie to be around for 100 more years 
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Feb 1, 2017 20:51
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Yes and no. I was legitimately shocked reading through Afterlife the first time, it was the 1-2 punch of seeing the characters treated more "realistically" AND involved in such violent actions both for the first time. But in the end they're zombies, there's still that science-fiction element to the violence. Life with Archie's deaths were more true-to-life and less fantastical, but they were also more PG. Miss Grundy dies of...cancer?...off-screen and though it's clear Archie gets shot it's not gory at all, especially in comparison to what Afterlife did. Archie and the Predator has straight up gore kills, but it's also Fernando Ruiz on artwork, so it comes off almost slapstick, like a b-movie where the tone of the killing is more "crazy action" than psychological terror. They've been willing to play with how lax they are with violence in certain titles. Even if there's always caveats and Jughead is never just like straight up merkin' dudes with shotguns or whatever. I think it's one of the ways the company wants to signal it's making more "modern" comics, or at least use it to grab headlines. I have no problems with them trying stuff like this! But I have to admit I prefer the classic stuff any time. Sex is a whole different matter. There's always been making out and suggestive "being alone together"  talk but they've always laid off saying "these teenagers are banging!"Maybe they think it will seem less controversial if it's Archie and a teacher? Or more, but in a way that doesn't mess up the "love triangle but betty and veronica are best friends" thing. I dunno the sexual politics of the Archieverse get real weird as soon as you take it out of being a sanitized gag strip, but Archie Comics is, creatively, getting a lot of mileage out of contrasting contemporary values with the traditional, archetypal characters. I actually haven't watched the show yet cause I think I might hate it. If it's JUST "This ain't your daddy's Archie  I prolly won't dig it but I have to give it a shot before I decide!
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Feb 7, 2017 01:04
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Ok so that's Wendy and Hot Stuff, but  on the F4 homage, they could've added wereduck Baby Huey or something.
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Aug 9, 2017 15:25
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So hey am I allowed to post, say, old Wilbur or Katy Keene comics that are in the public domain? Would anyone be interested in seeing stuff like that in this thread? I thought it might liven up discussion or at least be fun to look at for a little bit. Not sure if that breaks rules.
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Aug 9, 2017 22:14
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Cool, so I'm gonna start in with some selections from Laugh Comix, Summer 1944. There's a variety of stuff in here, kinda showcasing the different teenager- and gag-oriented comics that were popular at the time. As you can see from the cover, comics were still being published under the MLJ name; although Archie had joined their cast of characters starting in Pep in 1941, the company wouldn't change its name for a couple of more years in 1946. The cover and first story feature Suzie, who was becoming so popular she'd take over the Laugh title about 5 issues after this one.        Obviously, the plotline hews pretty closely to the familiar "Archie fucks everything up" formula, but the female hero probably appealed to girls more. Of course there are plenty of opportunities for very scandalous 40s bathing suits.
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Aug 10, 2017 18:31
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And now: Hillbillies!      I know nothing about Pokey Oakey. It seems his stories ran in a few different compilation titles, but never caught on. I'm more used to seeing this kind of humor from daily comic strips like Li'l Abner, Barney Google or Pogo, but this is roughly the same era. "Pistol Packin' Mama" was the title of a 1943 movie, that seems not to bear much resemblance to this story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b39ALX4neIk
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Aug 14, 2017 16:42
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