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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2022 13:37:33 GMT -5
I could never get into Archie Comics when I was a kid. I have gained an appreciation of them over the years, but when I was a kid and we'd visit relatives or friends of the family and someone would ask if you wanted to read some comics while visiting, and then hand me a stack of Archies, it was the same experience as when they would ask if I wanted some candy and then hand me that bowl of miscellaneous hard candies that had all melted together and broken into shards in the bottom of the bowl. A promise of wonder and delight but what was delivered was a bowl of sorrow and broken dreams. But again, that was 8 year old me with 8 year old biases and expectations. Archies held no sense of wonder and discovery for me, which is what I wanted out of comics at that age.
-M
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Post by majestic on May 26, 2022 14:39:44 GMT -5
I had no interest in Archie Comics as a kid. I liked them as I got older in junior high. Then lost interest in them again until I was an adult. They have become a favorite of mine as I got older.
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Post by badwolf on May 26, 2022 15:17:59 GMT -5
I had a small number of Archies as a kid (and I'd like to get them again) but they were never my main thing.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2022 15:25:21 GMT -5
I always loved grabbing an Archie digest here and there as a kid to mix things up even though I was largely a superhero kid. I probably read a fair share overall.
My wife is a HUGE Archie fan, she just picked up several old digests this week along with a couple of newer trades to add to an already pretty good size collection. We just have one joint want list with Lonestar and you can always tell who picked what pretty easily!
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Post by majestic on May 26, 2022 15:44:29 GMT -5
I've been picking up some of the MASSIVE 1000 page digests....love them....
Probably my favorite way to read Archie Comics!
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Post by tonebone on May 26, 2022 15:58:01 GMT -5
I was an Archie boy. I was a master at begging my parents for Archie digests in the supermarket line, and would pick up Archies at yard sales and flea markets. They were always cheap and plentiful, back then. My grandma would buy me the "Archie Spire" Christian comics when she went to the fabric store. They were weird, but hey, it's still Archie! As a matter of fact, it's one of the few interests I had in common with my 4-years-younger sister. We would read them and swap them, and I would read them to her, when she was too young. We both loved the Filmation cartoons, and loved the music. When she was older, and I was really into superhero comics, I got her interested in Teen Titans, because I told her it was like Archie with superpowers. When I had kids, I COULDN'T WAIT to buy them Archie digests! I loved the fact that (at least then) they were the exact same as they were when I was a kid.
I've been picking up some of the MASSIVE 1000 page digests....love them....
Yeah those are great. What's NOT great, is some of their more "deluxe" hardcovers and TPBs, where the first 2/3 of the book is on topic with classic material, and the last 1/3 is just a bunch of "samplers" of collections or series they currently have for sale. Each time, there's a "To read more, buy Archie's Crossover Classics", etc.
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Post by MDG on May 26, 2022 16:26:09 GMT -5
I picked up Archies once in a while as a kid, and started again recently. In the 60s, it was around the time they were superheroes, with a year on each side of that. My favorite period is when they'd have a vignette from an interior panel above the title.
In general, my initial interests were DC superheroes, Warrens, and Gold Key "horror." In the mid-70s, undergrounds, Warrens and fanzines + some 4-color horror books. Got way into DC in college due to my roommates.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2022 17:02:45 GMT -5
The only "comic" I bought with any regularity was Mad magazine. Other than that, I was more Marvel than DC. DC was lame. Although now my collection is as much DC as Marvel, virtually all of the DC is post-Crisis, while a good chunk of my Marvel collection is silver and bronze age.
I am the opposite of the intended audience for Archie comics, so no Archies for me. When I first came to this board, I was amazed at all of the love for Archie. Not that I think they're horrible, but my brain ain't wired for those stories, so I don't get it.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,051
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Post by Confessor on May 26, 2022 19:40:45 GMT -5
Archie comics really weren't a thing here in the UK at all when I was a kid. In fact, I was completely unaware of them until I found this community back in the mid-2000s. I picked up one of those 1000 page digests maybe 10 years ago, and it collects stories from the '50s up to the present.
I do like the Americanness of Archie and the wholesome art style, but I've never read one that actually made me chuckle. I mean, are they really that funny? Also, the stories soon get repetitive. Once you've read one Archie, you've read 'em all.
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Post by majestic on May 26, 2022 20:09:50 GMT -5
I do like the Americanness of Archie and the wholesome art style, but I've never read one that actually made me chuckle. I mean, are they really that funny? Also, the stories soon get repetitive. Once you've read one Archie, you've read 'em all. No they aren't that funny as making you laugh out loud. More like they put a smile on your face. Feel good comics. Sometimes that is all you need. As far as repetition. Sure that is part of that comfort factor. And yes they are uniquely American. They give you a glimpse into what was happening in pop culture at the time they were published. If I were a history teacher I would use Archie Comics to teach American history from WWII on...
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2022 20:17:38 GMT -5
I do like the Americanness of Archie and the wholesome art style, but I've never read one that actually made me chuckle. I mean, are they really that funny? Also, the stories soon get repetitive. Once you've read one Archie, you've read 'em all. No they aren't that funny as making you laugh out loud. More like they put a smile on your face. Feel good comics. Sometimes that is all you need. As far as repetition. Sure that is part of that comfort factor. And yes they are uniquely American. They give you a glimpse into what was happening in pop culture at the time they were published. If I were a history teacher I would use Archie Comics to teach American history from WWII on... Nicely said!
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 26, 2022 20:31:31 GMT -5
I'd say I probably have more long runs of Marvel things than DC, and definitely more Marvel over all (I'm thinking 50-60% Marvel, then the rest 1/2 DC and 1/2 everyone else). I'd say I had more DC on my pull in the mid 90s than Marvel, but when I left comics for a while, Flashpoint happened, and I lost most of my interest in the DCU.
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Post by berkley on May 26, 2022 21:28:21 GMT -5
I should add that even during my most Marvel-centric days, it was never a matter of disliking DC just because they were DC: whenever I saw something I thought I might like, I'd give it a try, whatever company it came from. So I read DC things like Swamp Thing, Shade the Changing Man, Beowulf in the 1970s; and when most my favourite creators left Marvel in the early 80s, I tried their DC comics, like Wolfman's Teen Titans and Night Force or Giffen's Legion. So it was never an ideological thing with me, it just happened that for a long time Marvel produced many more comics that appealed to me than DC did, combined with the fact that the Marvel superhero Universe had characters I liked on the whole more than the DC superheroes.
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Post by howardm416 on May 30, 2022 11:19:38 GMT -5
As a kid in the 1970s I was mostly a DC guy, firstly because of the Superfriends, but also because too often Marvel heroes would be fighting each other over the most petty of misunderstandings. It was what Roger Ebert used to call idiot plots. If the characters stopped acting like idiots for five minutes, the entire plot would fall apart. These were supposed to be more realistic characters, but here we had super-smart guys like Tony Stark and Peter Parker always assuming the worst in others like themselves instead of giving those others a chance to explain themselves. It made more sense for Superman or the Flash showing new guys like Firestorm the ropes instead of fighting them.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2022 13:41:40 GMT -5
It made more sense for Superman or the Flash showing new guys like Firestorm the ropes instead of fighting them. I agree, this is one of the attractions of DC historically for me (even though I mentioned I'm probably more 50/50 overall). I think maybe the angsty attitudes just tended to sell better, and heroes jumping to conclusions and being hot-headed somehow seemed "cooler" at times. Whereas it might feel a little square and old-fashioned to have a "hero club" where people are friendly and supportive.
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