Thread 151151864

Your thoughts, /co/? Includes in-universe spin-offs (Josie & The Pussycats, Sabrina, Lil' Jinx, etc.), excluding Sonic/Mega Man.

>>151151864 (OP)
I find it funny how they had to up the stakes every decade to the point it's cyclical. "Teenagers going through high school life" to "HOLY FUCKING SHIT THEY'RE IN SPACE" and back to "Teenagers going through high school life in space now" pretty much

>>151151864 (OP)
sex with Sabrina

Sex with Veronica on a pile of her dad's money.

>>151152968
Cringe.
>>151152868
Based.

Good Archie content is kino. Bad Archie content is vomit. There is no middle ground.

>>151152868
Yes please

>>151151864 (OP)
Bob Montana > Dan DeCarlo

>>151151864 (OP)
Frank Doyle (the main writer on most of their titles from the late '50s through the early '80s) was one of the greatest writers in the history of the medium and it's too bad he was barely known until after his death, but...
...because he wrote the majority of stories I read in digests as a kid, it's his fault that I spent my youth thinking teenagers all talked like wise-asses from the 1930s when he was young.

>>151151939
How does it compare to Riverdale?

>>151151864 (OP)
They've been shit for 80 years.

>>151155133
Riverdale started out kind of like a parody of Archie comics, where you take the lighthearted escapist humor comic, but with violence and dark secrets and all the other things you'd never find in a normal Archie story.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips did a very good "dark Archie" parody/tribute in a six-issue story from "Criminal" where all the characters are thinly disguised Archie characters, except Archie married Veronica and now wants to kill her so he can be with Betty. (Brubaker clearly likes Archie comics; his series "Deadenders" was post-Apocalyptic Archie.)

As Riverdale went on it started adding in crazier and crazier stuff and oddly, becoming closer to the tone of the comics, because they had some titles where Archie foiled crooks, became a superhero, magic and the supernatural found their way into some stories, etc.

>>151151864 (OP)
I'm not an avid reader by any stretch, so my observations are going to come mostly second hand (though I did read the jay and silent bob crossover which is definitely going to inform my next point.

Archie is weird to me because its heyday was in the 50s, was written from the perspective of someone who grew up in the 30s and has essentially been a pastiche of that era of Americana for the last 3 decades. I like the 90s deconstruction of that sort of thing, I love the brady bunch and Addams Family movies, but Archie has kept doing that schtick for longer than it was even like that sincerely.

There is something there, though, the core dynamics are really fun. I'd like to see a sincere take on the material, maybe not modernized but not a pastiche or whatever you would describe Riverdale as.

>>151155238
So I'd be reading a comic and they're like "Jughead gets Cheryl Blossom away from Archie by putting a magic pin on his hat that brainwashes Cheryl into falling in love with Jughead," and this was perfectly normal to me, so very few Riverdale story concepts seem too out there for Archie.

>>151155238
Which Criminal story was that?

>>151155330
And then there's Bob Bolling's Little Archie (Archie buffs consider him the Carl Barks of the franchise), which is like its own little world; he created Polly Cooper and the South Side Serpents and other concepts/characters that were exclusive to him for decades, and after doing normal kids' stories for a while, Little Archie started going to Mars, capturing foreign spies, and he even got his own arch-enemy, Mad Doctor Doom and his teenage greaser sidekick.

(Mad Doctor Doom and Doctor Doom both first appeared in 1962 and I don't think anyone has ever established who came first.)

>>151151864 (OP)
I am eternally mad that Afterlife With Archie never got a second TPB or even the series finished.

"Life with Archie" was their title for drama stories (adventure mostly, sometimes horror after the Comics Code loosened) and this is, I mean it, one of the greatest splash pages ever made. The ambulance bursting through the classic Dan DeCarlo art is one of the best "we're getting REAL now" moments I know.

(The artist for the comic itself is Bob White, the writer is Sy "Casper the Friendly Ghost" Reit.)

One last one is that because of Archie comics I learned as a kid about the "Big Lie" technique, which may be the only postwar kids' comic story based on "Mein Kampf."

Remember the story that ended with Betty and Veronica killing Archie, so they go bowling with Jughead instead?

>>151155461
>Series sells well
>Use it to finance TV Show
>"Uh when do we get paid?"
>"LMAO"

>>151155598
Remember when Jughead became a professional gigolo?

>>151155041
>it's his fault that I spent my youth thinking teenagers all talked like wise-asses from the 1930s when he was young.
It was comic books man. Literally escapism for the youth wanting to grow up to be Archie.

>>151155622
Remember Dilton's plastic inflatable girlfriend?

>>151155637
You're right, that's something a lot of people don't get about Archie and other teen comics. The target audience was never teenagers, it was small kids who wanted to believe that this was what life would be like when they became teenagers.

Fantasizing about being a teenager is a perfect fantasy because you have more freedom, you can drive a car, you can go almost anywhere, but you're still living at home with your parents and have all the security of being a kid.

>>151155639
Remember when Betty spent the whole story zonked out of her mind on tranquilizers and Archie and Veronica decided to borrow her drugs for themselves?

I thought Robot Chicken was exaggerating when it came down to how retarded Moose was

I like how effective the comics are as a fashion time capsule

>>151151864 (OP)
Got a huge box for $5, lots of 80s and 90s. Even got Archie meets Punisher.

>>151151864 (OP)
Who best girl?

>>151157947
Cheryl. You know she'd be down to try some FREAK shit.

>>151151864 (OP)
Incredibly hot girls and charming art style but most of the actual stories are pretty generic and boring. There's a reason a lot of the stuff that gets posted here and elsewhere online are pin-up pages and other one-page quips instead of full comics.

>>151151864 (OP)
Never took much interest in them growing up, but I saw a video about a few Archie crossovers and now I kinda want to read some. The girls are all hot which is nice

they should've leant more into the sex comedy angle as that stuff became less taboo.

>>151155041
Doyle and DeCarlo were a hell of a team.

>>151151864 (OP)
Shit

>>151151939
I think half the time it's sort of some kind of protest against it. Like some new writer comes along, and having never ever read anything Archie before they just assume it's some sickeningly sweet and innocent G-Rated 50s garbage and wants to shake shit up with
>But what if the Gang were in a HOROR MOVIE!!!
Then the next writer gets to use the property, is in the exact same situation and thinks
>But what if it was the Twilight zone and weird shit kept happening to them!?
>What if we add DARK SHIT and the Archie gang gets maimed and tortured?!?!?!

It's like people who think Disney is nothing but princess fairytales and wants to shit on that because they think it's boring kiddy crap. While having no understanding that the last ten guys before them had the same assumption and made the same weird take.

>>151151864 (OP)
I preferred the 2000s comics for focusing on high school. All New Archie was always too melodramatic.
The only decent child spin-off was Sabrina taking Jughead on magical misadventures.
John Lucas deserved a tripled salary for his phenomenal artwork in the Katy Keene 1980s comics.
>>151157947
Katy Keene >> Melody > Sabrina's aunts >> Sabrina > Betty & Veronica > other Pussycats > side girls
>>151154684
Montana draws sweater breasts perfectly.

>>151155691
Moose had a couple decent episodes in the Weird Mysteries cartoon where he learned to value himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRJ6k2bO4MM&list=PLS_PcgxRWt5NNcE_0_Es_YqKdozFLDakf&index=30

Betty and Veronica, responsible for the sexual awakenings of thousands of kids for 80 years and counting

>>151157947
Josie

>>151155678
Remember when Betty went around Riverdale with a shotgun trying to get Archie to date her?

>>151157947
I like this random side character from nu-Archie, but out of the main girls? Probably Betty

young me liked betty
older me likes veronica

>>151151864 (OP)
They deserve respect for being the only ones who demand experience or at least aptitude in traditional figure drawing.

>>151155678
>>151167786
Oh Betty you scamp

>>151167786
Remember when Betty spent an entire story trying to murder Archie?

>>151157947
Cheryl or Alexandra

I miss Smughead posting

>>151170079
Alexandra because she'd save me some money on toll booths.

I honestly find it hard to be attracted to Archie girls precisely because they're all the exact same face and body with the only thing differing being hair and skintone. They're basically mannequins.

>>151170247
True, she'd be very useful.

>>151170286
This just shows me you're unimaginative

>>151170286
As long as you stay out of my Julius Zimmerman threads we can still be friends.

>>151170247
I never understood why Josie kept the angry bitch that hated everyone and caused problems around. It's not like she was in the band or even did a single job that helped the band.

>>151170702
That's more from the cartoon. In the comics they're just as likely to be trying to ditch Alexandra and she follows them, especially in the ones where she has magic powers.

>>151170702
Don't bully my rich wife like that

>>151170702
The band is funded by Cabot money in some issues.

>>151151864 (OP)
As a non-burger I was never really familiar with it before /co/ outside of references in other US media. I'm still not really familiar with it beyond surface level, who's the audience for Archie these days anyway?

>>151156404
Damn, nice get Anon.

>>151157947
Melody

>>151168291
>this could’ve been Betty if they locked in

YOU FUCKING IDIOTS

Btw I don’t really get the main 3, like they all just suck and the whole stories do too as a whole. A dumb ginger, a dumb rich bitch, and a dumb bitch next door, then you got Reggie the rival bitch, but then you get Jughead who’s probably the only one I can respect? He eats a lot sure but I like his look so yeah.

Also I guess Archie sonic isn’t that bad to a degree?

Pepper's cute, I like her name

>>151156163

In the original run, Betty would sometimes tailor her own dresses, rather than just buying them off the peg. It used to be quite normal for women to make and alter their own clothes, another interesting time capsule thing.

>>151156163
Archie readers have been majority female since at least the 60s, so it makes sense they'd put emphasis on the girls' fashions.

>>151151864 (OP)
Archie Comics made me realise as a kid just how backwards shit is here in Ausfailia and how good Amerifags have it.

During the summer, Archie's only major decision was whether to goof off and go the beach, or get a summer job so he could afford to fix his jalopy to take Veronica out.

You know what we do here? Run around like idiots getting all our Xmas shit done while there are fags in Santa outfits in 40 degree heat, (104 F), with snow decorations in all the stores to boot - I shit you not. A lot of normal businesses are closed over Xmas so you can't do normal shit anyway, and then we have New Years bullshit right after that, and by the time you've recovered from the hangover it's time to go back to work.

Then when winter comes and we get mid-year time off, the weather sucks outside so you can't do shit, while Betty is making Archie eggnog and snuggling by the fire.

Fuck this hemisphere. Our European root culture is just not geared for the seasons being backwards, and Santa Claus in sunglasses will never make it so.

>>151173459
>>151173334
So Andrew Hussie didn’t just rip off Sabrina

>>151170526
Alvin Henderson has filled the niche now

>>151151864 (OP)
Is therea good archive to read Archie comics online that doesn't exclusively host the globohomo edits? Every site I've found has random background characters recolored brown.

>>151174700
Nah, all the characters are ripped from elsewhere. Bro was Kamina, etc.

>>151173399
>locked in
Fuck off broccoli head

>>151174700
Buddy, you don't know the half of it.

>>151155691
Literally just about every line of dialogue he has starts with "Duhhh..."

>>151157947
Sabrina of course

>>151172309
>who's the audience for Archie these days anyway?
Non existent, they've cancelled most of their monthly publications and now exist mainly for reprints or clearly sponsored crossover material.
I guess what little is still made is geared towards those nostalgic for the old days of the comics.

>>151175859
Is there a jade equivalent? It's funny that homestuck fans have no idea about what inspired homestuck

>>151173399
She's completely different than Betty in numerous ways. Changing any of the main girls too much would be a gigantic mistake.

>>151176070
Jade's kinda just Veronica x Velma from Scooby Doo. Same way Dave is an amalgamation of 80s/90s child actors. It's not all 1:1 or anything, but most of his influences were Gen X Americana.

>>151176062
>I guess what little is still made is geared towards those nostalgic for the old days of the comics.
Yeah, except
>>151174963
>Is therea good archive to read Archie comics online that doesn't exclusively host the globohomo edits? Every site I've found has random background characters recolored brown.

>>151176136
I had a list of everything I assumed inspired him, mostly what you say and the weirder and/or more sardonic side of gen x nerd culture

>>151176329
Can we agree John is Fred Savage?

>>151176408
Fuck, I never even noticed that one, it makes sense with the little monsters stuff, there's another character that's on the tip of my tongue though, I can't full recall

>>151156404
you should scan them and storytime it on /co/

>>151151864 (OP)
I think it being basically one of the only romance comics that have survived, is pretty fascinating.

>>151176766
It's a shame how myopic american comics are, this really isn't the case elsewhere, especially in japan, Archie more or less invented the rom-com manga,

Jughead gives me life, as do digests in general (double digests to be more specific)

Found a copy of the Adam Huges' Betty & Veronica mini and man is funny as hell

>>151176795
American boys just didn't buy into it. as soon as super heroes came long, they blasted off into orbit leaving romance and comedy (and detective and war and western) comics all in the dust.
the real issue is the stranglehold Marvel and DC had on the comic industry. If I could I'd start my own publisher house focused exclusively on PG-13 sex comedy stuff, to fill that niche that currently only the Japanese seem to want to fill.

>>151177010
>as soon as super heroes came long, they blasted off into orbit leaving romance and comedy (and detective and war and western) comics all in the dust.
That's actually not true. Cape comics had fallen off before the comics code, and was being overtaken by romance, horror, and westerns.
But the comics code extremely limited what horror and westerns could get away with, and to some extend the same for romance comics, while capes could thrive under it by going the fun boy scout route in the silver age.

>>151177083
I'm not surprised american comics ended up like they are because of the consequences of america's unfortunate moralizing element,

I know it was a pretty basic Scooby-Doo/X-Files ripoff but this was always my favorite iteration of Archie. I watched this show a lot as a kid when it came on every Halloween and I was honestly interested in Riverdale before it actually came out because I thought it would be like this.

Yeah yeah, big mistake there, but I do think this franchise works well with mystery/soft horror elements on top of the comfy vibe.

>>151177345
Forgot image.

>>151173334
>lust provoking foot

>>151177353
I didn't like Veronica's va in this, too old and jewish sounding.
>>151177345
I still can't believe Gregg Araki of all people worked on Riverdale, I would have like to see him make a straight Archie movie in his style

Unedited panel from actual Archie comic
it's a crossover with Jay & Silent Bob, this is the only dialogue where anyone from Riverdale swears

>>151176967
What did Pop Tate have in his dark past

>>151177814
>this is the only dialogue where anyone from Riverdale swears
There are dozens of issues where someone says #@$?!, newfag.

>>151175859
Pepper was godly and then those fucks abandoned her

>>151175859
The black lipstick is an inspired choice

>>151177814
HOLY BASED

>>151177894
Alexandra effectively took her spot lmao
>>151178921
These comics were really on it with fashion in their heyday.

>>151179688
>These comics were really on it with fashion in their heyday.
It's like at least half of the reason why they appeal to me

>>151176967
I'd argue the last 15ish years of shit like this is exactly why Archie is in the sorry state it's in. It's basically long strayed away from just doing its (milquetoast) thing and instead it turned into self-aware slop made by and for insincere nerds where the joke is basically "heh, yeah, Archie is lame isn't it" in one way or another. Afterlife with Archie's entire selling point is that "wowie, it's horror and spooks and edginess... WITH ARCHIE!" because that's supposed to be ironic and thus interesting. Too intent on chasing the late Gen X and early millennial crowd who were raised entirely on '90s and 2000s internet irony and sarcasm to the point that it turned everyone else off. The whole appeal, such as it was, of Archie was that you could buy it and know what you were going to get. Comic comfort food equivalent to some shit like Cracker Barrel.

>>151176795
The comics code really fucked over other genres.
Before it was implemented in the 50s, the Superhero genre was on a low ebb, romance, crime, & horror comics outsold them. The only individual superheroes who were popular enough to keep their monthly titles were Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman (though in her case, it was also just trying to keep the rights to her license, those Kanigher-led years were rough on ol' Wondie)

But the American public were in a very conservative and censorious mood.
A book was published 'The Seduction of the Innocent' which said comic books were degenerating children. Falsely saying Batman and Robin were gay, and correctly saying that Wonder Woman books were trying to get children into BDSM (though by the time of that book's publication they weren't anymore)

Fearing legislative censorship the comics code was put into place. Which was specifically constructed by DC to gimp the shit out of all other types of comics but child-friendly superhero ones.
So, in America, comics became all about superheroes.

And even though now anything could be in a comic, the only ones which sell are either superheroes or ones based on other pre-established IP.
Which is a bummer.

>>151180515
I honestly think they completely missed their best shot at restoring relevance among younger audiences by trying to do shit like this targeted jaded young adults. What they really should have done is reboot Weird Mysteries and try to target the 2010s-early 2020s kid's horror boom and try to capture a younger audience and get them interested in the characters and greater franchise.

I never understood why mainstream media barely tried to capitalize on this. There was an entire decade where between creepypasta, horror games, stranger things, and shit like the backrooms, horror and the paranormal were at their highest peak of popularity since the 90s and 2000s and absolutely NOTHING was done with any of it even with franchises with a history of doing this kind of thing in spinoffs. A group of teenagers investigating paranormal occurrences in their weird half-50s half-modern town between the usual comfy shenanigans would have probably done very well or at least garnered a niche fanbase - which is more than they have now. It's not like mainline Archie isn't also full of borderline paranormal and sci-fi concepts at times, it wouldn't even be a stretch.

>>151180872
>A group of teenagers investigating paranormal occurrences in their weird half-50s half-modern town between the usual comfy shenanigans
Is Twin Peaks the best archie show then?

>>151177345
>>151177353
>>151180872
weird mysteries had some fucking terrible voice acting but i firmly believe that it was a good direction for the series to take to modernize it and make it still appealing to "modern" kids while maintaining the Archie charm. If they would have kept going with weird mysteries comics I bet we'd have a lot more genuine fans nowadays instead of all this irony poisoned bs

>>151180515
I kind of agree. I'm no prude, but stuff like >>151177814 and those ultra-gory comics like "Archie meets the Predator" or whatever it was called makes me wonder who exactly they're trying to appeal to now. In the end, it seems like they didn't get any audience at all and now Archie Comics just exists as a factory to pump out endless digests of stories from when they were actually good.

>>151181080
Eh. Yes and no. Maybe if half the pagecount of a digest was paranormal mystery stuff and the other half was slice of life stuff. The weird mysteries cartoon was paced like shit and you barely got any of the actual classic Archie content in there.

>>151177083
comics code is the reason romance comics exist. the golden age of romance was in the 50s and 60s.

>>151181217
they're essentially a shitpost at this point

>>151180515
Archie ran horror stuff back in the 70s and 80s, too.

>>151155041
Yeah, I think Frank Doyle was the best Archie writer for sure. The stories seemed to weaken when we went into semi-retirement in the mid-80s and a bunch of other writers came in, some better than others.

George Gladir was also pretty prominent and did some fun stories too. He was also a bit of a weeaboo and actually collaborated on a gag manga in the mid-90s.

>>151181504
There's a big difference between modern horror Archie and classic horror Archie. Modern horror Archie is about just flinging the characters into these ridiculous situations that don't remotely fit the feel of the series. The entire point of the modern horror stuff is to be ironically funny and say "whoa look how wacky and weird and subversive it is! haha, Archie is cringe guys isn't it funny that people are dying and the predator is here?" rather than actually tell any kind of supernatural story with them.

The older horror themed stuff, whether part of Weird Mysteries like other anons are discussing or not, were largely earnest attempts to fit these characters into these scenarios and tell some kind of story with it. It's like watching Scream vs. watching Scary Movie. Similar things might happen at points but it's obvious that one is taking it somewhat seriously and the other is taking the piss.

>>151182562
you're aware Scream was a stealth parody of 80s slasher movies, right? the creator made the movie because he hated characters like Krueger and Vorhees, and wanted to make a slasher movie so over the top and absurd that it would kill the genre for good. It just so happened that the satire went over the heads of most of the audience.

>>151182677
>the creator made the movie because he hated characters like Krueger and Vorhees, and wanted to make a slasher movie so over the top and absurd that it would kill the genre for good.
This is literally not true. The writer and creator of Scream enjoyed slasher movies and wanted to make a slasher movie where both the killer and the other characters knew about slasher tropes from film and played around with and exploited them. His inspiration for making Scream was that he loved classic slasher movies when he was younger and didn't think they made movies like that anymore.

It is in many ways a spoof, but Scream was made with earnest intent as a love letter to the genre more than anything made with derision. It's not even that absurd a movie, so I don't know where that take would even come from. It is infinitely more grounded with its kills, it's twist, and the fact that the killer is a regular dude and can actually be fought off sometimes than nearly every other slasher that came before.

>>151182822
Kevin Williamson has discussed multiple times how he thinks the Nightmare and Halloween franchises went down the toilet through the 80s and into the 90s.

>>151182677
>the creator made the movie because he hated characters like Krueger

He hated them so much that he got Wes Craven to direct.

>>151180515
>chasing the late Gen X
Hey I didn't want irony
I wanted Veronica going down on Betty in house style and Jughead fucking Ethel stupid, by DeCarlo

>>151179688
Alexandra makes me wonder what was going on with Josie. It's like DeCarlo was ordered to clone Veronica and file off the serial numbers. Gisele has no idea either where she came from.

>>151183370
But he's Pureheart

>>151183743
It would appear in this Betty uses Pureheart as opposed to Super-Teen

>>151182966
That doesn't contradict anything I said, it actually reinforces it. He made the movie because he did like the franchises and they went to shit. He wanted to make the kind of movie they used to be, in the context of a landscape filled with dogshit slasher films that the characters are aware of.

It is absolutely retarded to say that he wanted to make a movie "so over the top and absurd that it would kill the genre for good" when he made a movie that is neither absurd or over the top at all compared to dog shit like later Friday movies or Jason Goes to Hell.

Screw this dumb Scream argument.

Which Archie spinoff is the best one? Sabrina? Josie? Lil Jinx? That Wilkin Boy?

>>151181217
It's not even being prudish. Archie was basically comic comfort food, It wasn't particularly good but a mom could buy a digest at the checkout line for her kid and knew what it was going to be and its blandness meant it was basically timeless because the situations were so banal and interchangeable that someone could read an old one and still get most of it. Like Garfield or lots of other long running comic strips. I'm being kind of backhanded but that banality was its main strength. Boys could read them and ogle the pretty (but tamely so) girls and yuk it up at Jughead or Reggie, girls could ooh and aah over the girls' fashio and, I don't know, fantasize about being Reggie's girlfriend or something (because he was a safe bad boy).

But Archie's spent so long trying to chase after other audiences that all it's done is alienate its core (parents buying it for their kids at the supermarket) because all the shlocky and vulgar stuff's turned them away which in turn means they don't buy the digests (because now Archie is associated with shit like Riverdale in their eyes) which means the digests die which means chasing an increasingly shrinking market with stunts that are less and less effective. It's basically the story of the comic industry in general in miniature.

>>151184528
There is a reason Sabrina got a sitcom with over 150 episodes and 3 TV movies, an animated series with over 60 episodes, a (admittedly terrible) reboot, and is practically a household name almost more well-known than Archie himself and absolutely nobody gives a single fuck about any of the other ones outside of Josie and the Pussycats.

>>151184590
I won't accept That Wilkin Boy slander.

>>151184528
Don't pretend. You even said her name first.

she josie on my pussy til i cat

SUGAR
AW, HONEY HONEY