Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ADVENTURES OF THE DOVER BOYS "Peril of the Inca Treasure"

Remember when "high adventure" meant "politically incorrect"?

Whether they meant to or not, Archie Comics dove headfirst into the concept with this one-shot.

Incas don't wear turbans.

Indians (residents of the Indian subcontinent, not Native Americans) do...

The unknown writer was apparently conflating colonial India with Peru.

Artist Harry Lucey, who was also doing Archie's entry into crime comics, Sam Hill: Private Eye, presents the action in clear, concise terms.

Be here

Next Wednesday

for the continuation of this never-reprinted saga!

Who Knows What Reboots Lurk in the Minds of Writers?

With the most extensive revamp/reboot to the legendary character since the 1960s Radio Comics version...

...by James Patterson and Brian Sitts (now in bookstores and at Amazon)...

...we hereby present the updated (as of the Silver Age), but never-reprinted reboot origin of He Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men from Radio Comics The Shadow, as the "Grande Finale" to our annual Summer RetroBlogs Blogathon, beginning tomorrow at Hero Histories!
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HERE
Monday to enjoy!

Friday Fun TALES CALCULATED TO DRIVE YOU BATS "Rocky the Stone Man"

It's summertime, so let's go to the beach...

...and see how it's not best to change to please others!

While the artist of this tale from Archie's Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats #6 (1962) is unknown, the writer is George Gladir.

Archie Comics kept at least one MAD-style humor anthology going from the late 1950s (after MAD switched from four-color comic to black-and-white magazine) through the 1960s.

Though Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats! expired after only seven issues, it's sister title, Archie's Mad House (which initially-featured various Archie characters as hosts of the stories), survived to 1981!

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Best of Archie's Mad House!

Trump Reading Room ARCHIE'S JOKE BOOK MAGAZINE "Profiles in Courage"

Every family has its' "black sheep"...

...even the incredibly-wealthy Lodges!

(From Archie's Joke Book Magazine #73 [1963])

This never-reprinted strip was created during the 100th Anniversary of the Civil War, when Southerners were determined, in fact almost desperate, to rehabilitate their image.

Numerous movies and TV series portrayed the Confederates as noble, but misguided, and in some cases,  objects of humor.

(Hey, if they could make the Nazis funny in Hogan's Heroes...)

The irony is that this was also the era of the creation and implementation of the Civil Rights Act, which brought out the worst in many White Southerners who were terrified at the concept of Black people being on a totally-equal level (socially and politically) with them!
It's also worth noting that, in this era, Republicans...the Party of Abe Lincoln...are the ones defending memorials to the "glory" of the Confederacy!
Truth is stranger than fiction!

Friday Fun TALES CALCULATED TO DRIVE YOU BATS "Tin Pan Folly"

"Tin Pan Alley" was the name for a group of influential music publishers/licensors...

...mostly located on West 28th Street between 5th and 7th Avenues in NYC due to the cheap rents at the time.

This Joe Edwards-written and illustrated story from Archie's Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats #5 (1962) points out many in the music industry thought rock-and-roll was just a fad.

Yet here we are in 2020 and rock-and-roll, though altered and enhanced, is still the predominant form of popular music!

It also shows that music companies thought (and still think) performers are interchangeable!

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Friday Fun / CoronaVirus Comics CHILLING ADVENTURES IN SORCERY TOLD BY SABRINA "Ultimate Cure"

Archie Comics doing a horror comic isn't unusual...

....but AfterLife with Archie, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina or even Jughead: the Hunger this ain't!

Not exactly the usual wholesome Archie fare, eh?

Written by Frank Doyle, penciled by Stan Goldberg, and inked by Jon D'Agastino, this lead story from Archie's Chilling Adventures in Sorcery Told by Sabrina #2 (1972) was their contribution to the industry-wide "monsterization" bright on by the loosening of restraints by the Comics Code Authority in 1971.

Why it was deliberately-done in the Archie "house style" remains a mystery to this day!

(To be fair, when Archie jumped on the Batman/James Bond fad of the mid-1960s, their comics featuring the Riverdale crew as either super-heroes or spies were also illustrated in the humorous "house style"!)

After two issues, the book was reformatted as a realistically-illustrated traditional horror comic, running nine more issues.

Sabrina didn't appear in them...

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Chilling Adventures in Sorcery

(reprinting the two Archie-style issues as well as the best of the retooled 1970s series)

Friday Fun / CoronaVirus Comics JUGHEAD "The Patient"

What happens when the best friend of America's Most Famous Comic Book TeenAger is taken ill?

Well, it seems the gang's true feelings about him come out...

Written by Dick Malmgren and illustrated by Saam Schwartz, this tale from Archie's Jughead #250 (1976) seems to show how little respect Forsythe Pendleton Jones III engenders in his associates...except for Archie!

I hope the current version of the characters has revised this concept...

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Archie

A Celebration of America's Favorite Teenagers

Friday Fun / CoronaVirus Comics JUGHEAD ANNUAL Reggie in "Plague Take It!"

What's more painful?

A real disease...or a deception involving a non-existent disease?

Ouch!

The running gag of Reggie trying to date Midge behind Big Moose's back (always with disastrous consequences) has continued to this day (although somewhat less violently)!

BTW, the page sequence shown here is as printed, though you'd think Page 3 and 4 should be reversed!

This tale from Archie Comics' Jughead Annual #7 (1959) was not the first Archie story with this title!

A shorter, unrelated, and never-reprinted feature starring Betty & Veronica appeared in Archie Giant (Christmas Stocking) #1 (1954)!

Plus: this Reggie tale was only reprinted once...in a 1982 digest, so I think 38 years is long enough for it to remain hidden from fans' eyes!

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Archie
A Celebration of America's Favorite Teenagers

Trump Reading Room TALES CALCULATED TO DRIVE YOU BATS "Monster Crisis"

It's fascinating how this story from 1962 can relate to present-day America...

...as the Idiot in the White House creates similar economic problems in real-life!

George Gladir wrote and Orlando Busino illustrated this tale from Archie's Tales Calculated to Drive You BATS V1N2 (1962) in an era when excessive tariffs and other such protectionist claptrap had been minimized after learning the hard way they didn't work!
Unfortunately, it seems we're destined to learn that lesson again...the hard way!

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Unquotable Trump

Sh*t My President Says:

Illustrated Tweets of Donald J Trump

MAD About Trump

A Brilliant Look at Our Brainless President