Thursday, October 25, 2007

Archie Comics Digest #23 - April 1977

sgHow could I wrap up this first era(or "Season One", if I want to be horribly trendy) of Digest Comics without talking about Archie Comics, the single largest publisher of digest comics ever, and the only one still going at it? Go into any supermarket and head for the registers and odds are you'll find some Archie digests.

In fact, I remember last year, a friend's mother had passed away, and Trace and I were heading out to get a basket of flowers sent. I wanted to include something for their young daughter, who was a huge Archie fan(like her father), so as we drove I said I wanted to stop somewhere and pick some up. We came across an Acme, I went in, and about three minutes later, I walked out with three or four Archie digests in hand. That's how comics should be--you know where they are, you know what you're getting, and then you get them. Period. Thanks, Archie.

Anwyay, I wanted to profile one Archie look on our last day, and I got this one from ebay because A)the price was right, and B)I just love this cover--pretty inventive and dynamic, no? I love that even the Comics Code stamp is in on the action.

The stories included star Archie, Betty and Veronica, Little Archie, Li'l Jinx, Jughead, Pureheart the Powerful, plus the usual puzzle and game pages. Some of this stuff is clearly from 40s and 50s Archie comics, which are really beautiful too look at. Plus we get to see a story set in Ancient Egypt, and features Veronica dressed in a skimpy belly-dancer outfit. Hubba. Hubba.


...and that's it! We've exhausted every single digest I own, and then some. I thank all you digest fans for reading what I was doing, and letting me know how much you enjoyed it. As much as I want this digest to just stand as valuable resource for information on the format, knowing people were reading it every day and enjoying means a lot to me.

And this blog isn't going away or anything--it'll stay here in perpetuity for anyone who wants to refer to it. Plus, like I said earlier, if anyone wants to send a guest review or two(or three, or four...)I'd be thrilled to post 'em. And if I ever add any new ones to my collection I will most certainly put them up here(I'll mention it on my other blogs when I do).

See you at the newsstand!

11 comments:

Plaidstallions said...

Bravo Rob, it was a fun ride, I have a few digests you don't if you're into guest reviews.

As for Archie, I had at one point, close to 100 of these as a kid, they used to be thick as a dictionary.

They also would remove dated references from older stories and add new ones with a big, thick black marker it seems:

ie "Hey Archie, wanna go see a Bruce Lee movie it's only $2.50"

rob! said...

Brian-

if you have some digests you wanna review, by all means write 'em up and email them to me!

thanks!

Anonymous said...

Rob-

Salut!

Please DON'T lock the door...

Happy Halloween,
-Craig W.

P.S.- What about those weird Charlton quasi-digests?

rob! said...

i was never able to find any info on them other than those cover scans you sent me--not for lack of trying!

and like i said, the blog will remain open and if i or someone else comes across something "new", then i'll post it here. i would love to find any of those Charltons!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the long, strange journey Rob! My love for digests mostly comes from the DC line, which you wrapped up long ago, but it was good to see others covered here as well.

Do you conisder the varioius paperback b&w comic reprints digests? LIke Tor's "Untold Legend of the Batman" and such? Just curious.

Again, thanks for giving us plenty of comic goodness to digest! Sorry, I had to at some point!

Chris

rob! said...

i considered the paperbacks, and i even have one or two of them(somewhere).

but running so many blogs, it got where i was spending a lot of money to have stuff to talk about, so i had to start drawing the line somewhere. and since i felt like if i started the DC paperbacks, I should do the Marvel ones, and on and on...

so i drew the line. :)

but like i said, i may change my mind at some point. the thing i love about the web is that its not like a magazine--it doesnt go anywhere just because you dont have new stuff to add.

remember; anyone with a digest they wanna talk about please feel free to write it up!

Damian said...

Oh man, I used to love Archie. Had a wicked cool Jughead action figure (it was a doll) that used to read with me.
I tried something straight out of Archie this past summer. At one point Arch unknowingly suntans a "V" on his head, and Veronica goes all crazy over it.

Mind didn't work out so well. How come things always look better in comics?

rob! said...

everything looks better when drawn by Dan DeCarlo.

Anonymous said...

Rob,

I've been collecting the Charlton Digests. I think I have a sampling of most all of them and the related ones published by other companies. I believe there may be multiple printings with & without cover price on some. I've been settling for low grade just to have a copy. These appeared to be sold through schools and all are Xerox "Book Club" editions. The oldest Charlton related publication in the series is the "Dr. Grave Magic Book" which takes the Dr. Graves character from the comics. It is mostly text offering magic trick for kids but it has illustrations also. The later ones are all comic content. These appear to be pretty rare in the comic collecting circles but I think a lot are falling under the radar... possibly getting classified as children's books.

Defiant1

rob! said...

defiant-

thanks for the info. i have been totally unable to find copies of these on ebay, partly because (i'm betting) most sellers don't know what to list them as!

if you would ever like to scan some pages (or even just the cover) from the ones you'd have, i'd love to post them here for others to see!

Anonymous said...

I will be creating a web page dedicated to them and some related publications. Charlton had about 3 text publication with illustrations in the same digest format. My messageboard is down right now but I post scans there as I get them. Overstreet adviser Doug Sulipa has confirmed that there are two versions (multiple printings) of some. That is, early printings had no price shown on the cover, later printings did.

These are doctored images to remove defects.

Dino
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/Quato2/Charlton/Digests/nn_Dino_cpg.jpg

Barney & Betty
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/Quato2/Charlton/Digests/nn_Barney_and_Betty_cpg.jpg

Dr. Graves Magic Book (Text with Illustrations)
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/Quato2/Charlton/Digests/nn_Dr_Graves_Magic_Book.png

Pebbles and Bamm Bamm
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/Quato2/Charlton/Digests/nn_Pebbles_and_Bamm_Bamm_cpg.jpg

This one below is not a Charlton Digest, but it's in the same series. It was published by another publisher

Road Runner (w/Number & price)
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/Quato2/63-2970_Road_Runner_cpg.jpg

Road Runner (w/o Number or price)
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/Quato2/nn_Road_Runner_cpg.jpg

Defiant1