The first volumes in IDW’s Best of Archie series are hitting the shelves, with more being solicited. Following up the collection of Dan DeCarol’s JETTA from earlier, I saw the Best of Dan DeCarlo hardcover (http://www.amazon.com/Archie-Best-Dan-Decarlo-1/dp/1600106544) in the comics shop this past week.
Best of Dan DeCarlo
On August 25th, the first volume in IDW’s reprinting of the Bob Montana comic strip also shipped. They also just published a PUREHEART THE POWERFUL TPB of some of that halcyon era (although not all).
Pureheart the Powerful TPB
In this months’ PREVIEWS, I see IDW also has a history overview planned for October, called, “Archie: Seven Decades of America’s Favorite Teenagers… and Beyond!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1600107540/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1600106544&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=02HNXAG2JQ9E5YFQNWQA
It’s also planning a collection of MADHOUSE http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1600107907/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1600106544&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=02HNXAG2JQ9E5YFQNWQA
Archie's Mad House collection
And a Best of Stan Goldberg book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1600107362/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1600106544&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=02HNXAG2JQ9E5YFQNWQA
On top of all that, Dark Horse has announced a collection of Archie Firsts http://www.amazon.com/Archie-Firsts-Various/dp/1595825711/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282740301&sr=1-1, collecting “first issues, first appearances, and other milestones.”
Whew! That’s suddenly a lot of Archie all at once! Not that it’s a bad thing, just that it’s a lot. From famine to feast pretty quick.
But the one that really got me was the three-part mini-series coming from DC in October: Tiny Titans/Little Archie #1, in which it’s revealed that the TT’s Sidekick City is right next to Riverdale, and they use the same school buses and playgrounds! TT has gotten some pretty good reviews, although the few issues I picked up didn’t impress me enough to keep going. But I’ve just gotta check this one out.
Tiny Titans and Little Archie #1
Tiny Titans & Little Archie (with Little Josie) #2
It’s apparently become an Archie world, we’re just living in it.
– MSA
The Magazine
Okay, I’ve got inserting photos down pretty well. Next up: figuring out how to insert a hyperlink. I thought I had it, but it didn’t quite work, so I’ll keep working at it.
I haven’t figured it out at all. Over in the IRON MAN thread, I thought I had successfully uploaded a front cover image, but it never showed up. Is CBGxtra going to offer a tutorial on how to navigate this crazy new Forum and all its bells-and-whistles, or are we on our own to figure it out?
I’m not sure my view is the same as yours, so I don’t know if I can lead you through it and figure out what you did wrong. I did find that the button to insert the photo into the thread is not the one I think it is at the bottom, that’s something else, and it was confusing.
I have that problem with the GCD, too. The Search button is small and unobtrusive, while the Advanced Search button is large and where I expect the Do This button to be. I would’ve set that up differently, and this may be the same.
All I can suggest without knowing what you’re doing is that you go through it step by step and make sure you’re doing what you need to so you insert a photo into the message.
It’s possible that CBG could post a tutorial in one of the sections, but I wouldn’t depend on it.
– MSA
I’ll look into a tutorial, guys. Also, you might want to just mouse over the various buttons and see what the pop-up balloon tells you it is.
On the topic above, it’s very exciting about all the books IDW is producing. I got the Pureheart volume a few weeks ago and it was great fun. However, my cover was blue, not red.
I finally got registered, but it wouldn’t accept my “Hoy Murphy” name and I had to use Hoy R. Murphy, but I’m here. I don’t see any buttons for uploading images, just a window marked “Comment,” which I’m typing in now.
I’ve never been much of an Archie fan, but that “Mad House” collection looks like it might be out of the ordinary Archie humor standards. What makes it different?
–your pal, Hoy
That was the only image I could find online connected to the TPB. But it’s not really a TPB cover, it’s just the cover (complete with the 12-cent price) for Life with Archie #42. They must’ve decided to use that image but change it a little for the TPB.
I was going to add another image I found for the comic strips here, but I don’t see any way someone replying can add in images, and none of the HTML tags below the Reply box seems to relate to that. It’d be nice to have that capability, since we are so image-crazy around here.
– MSA
I must have been a bad boy. I’m on moderation.
Hoy
Ah, a lot more wonderful material, most of which I cannot spare the money for.
But although I’m not currently reading “Tiny Titans”, the team up does sound interesting, so I’ll check that out.
For another Archie point one odd thing about Archie is that they,apparently,continue the original concept of Comic Books,reprinting newspaper strips in the fillers titled “Archie’s Gag Bag” that occasionally appear in their Top-Selling Digests.
These are,pretty clearly,colorized reprints of old installments of the Archie newspaper strip,I assume dating from the time immediately following Bob Montana’s death,in the late 70s and early 80s,when the strip carried no credits and was still drawn in his style-and was always in a rigid four-panel grid The strip is now about three panels long,just as Blondie is.
First Hoy said: that “Mad House” collection looks like it might be out of the ordinary Archie humor standards. What makes it different?
The earliest MADHOUSE issues were essentially their version of MAD magazine, with Archie characters playing the parts in cultural and domestic commentaries. Then it started to get into more teen-agery interests and focused on monsters and aliens.
It then dropped the Archie characters and started different themes within the mag, each “hosted” by a different character. Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch became the star of the Monster section, and Captain Sprocket starred in the Super-Hero section.
It had some different humor but mostly covered humor in a different way than the Archie comics. The image in the book image, for instance, is part of the cover for #3, in which those two weird-looking characters look at themselves in fun-house mirrors, and they look like a perfectly normal Archie and Veronica.
I did a column on the history of MADHOUSE back in CBG #1605 (Jun 05), as I was always a fan. It wasn’t always funny, especially later on, but it was a kind of humor that wasn’t out there anywhere else, especially from Archie.
Then Emerson said: The strip is now about three panels long,just as Blondie is.
Some of those strips are pretty funny, as the humor is drier than the comic books often are. Although even there, there used to be much more wordplay in the stories regularly than there is any more, at least as far as my limited reading of today’s Archie shows. They probably have enough four-panel comic strips to keep them going for the joke pages–I wouldn’t be surprised if many of those are reprints from earlier digests by this point.
The original Archie strips are being reprinted by IDW, with the first set already available. I can’t post the cover image, of course, but I’m hoping that I can link to the Amazon page. We’ll see.
Hey hey! That was easy. And since I can do that, here’s a link to the cover of Madhouse #3. Not as good as being able to post the picture here, for sure, but at least we’re not left high and dry.
– MSA
Brent, “I’ll look into a tutorial, guys. Also, you might want to just mouse over the various buttons and see what the pop-up balloon tells you it is.”
Am I missing something? What buttons?
Andy
Sorry about the confusion, Andy, I was going with what I have for an editing window when posting, which does have a number of “buttons” at the top of the editing window for formatting text, inserting pictures, etc.
I’ll ask our WordPress expert more about it today and try to have an answer in place shortly.
After looking at the forum posting area, I see that there is a small menu bar at the top of the editing window offering users boldface, italics, underline, and other formatting options for their post. By moving your screen pointer over each and waiting a moment, a small balloon will pop out explaining what it is. Sorry for the confusion.
Honestly I can’t see anything that looks like what you’re talking about. Where??
Andy
Are you referring to this line at the bottom of the comment box that says “You may use these HTML tags and attributes:
Now I see why you’re having trouble. Commenting on these threads is not the same as a forum post. You’re much more limited on what you can do here. Even I am.
In the forums area, you do have a small editing taskbar with various button picks, which is not available for these replies/comments.
LOL! Listing all those HTML codes probably didn’t give you the result you wanted. I ran into that problem when I tried to explain how I italicized words and created hyperlinks).
I think Brent either has more editing capabilities in his view than we do, or he’s thinking of the Forums, where there are more editing functions available (including graphics, although they have to be tiny to work, and where basic Word commands seem to be favored over HTML here, which is confusing.)
As a Moderator, I have a link called (Edit) after the time/date stamp on each Reply. I know you don’t have that, but you SHOULD have (but apparently don’t) such a link for your own posts. That’s pretty critical. I don’t know if there is a way to let us add graphics to these replies, but it would be nice to have that added. If not, that’s a major loss for this version.
To date, I’ve found no advantages and a few drawbacks to the new, improved version, but we’ll see how things shake out.
It would be nice if Brent could give us a rundown of what all those “HTML tags” listed below the Reply box mean and why they’re important enough to list. Some of them are apparent from what happened when you listed them and from what they say, but most of them are inscrutable.
Seeing the “i” one made me realize it meant italic, but the purpose of others is hard to figure. And some seem pretty unnecessary. I mean, do I really need code for striking out a line of copy? I can see there might be uses as we deal with this
stupidchallenging system, but it’s kind of unlikely. Are those the only HTML codes available?– MSA
Good points, Craig (as if you could make any bad points). I’ll see what I can learn about them as well. In my own editing of such items as the weekly shipping lists and convention reports, I’m learning what HTML codes work and which ones no longer apply.
I’ve learned that there are thousands of HTML codes and, rather than take up space here explaining them, try this link.
And, you can learn how to post images in these comments at this link.