Friday Fun TALES CALCULATED TO DRIVE YOU BATS "Hip Van Wrinkle"

There is nothing more frightening to a beatnik, hippie, or hipster...

...than to be considered "establishment" or "uncool"!

This tale from Archies's Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats #5 (1962) demonstrates that "kool" is all a matter of perspective!

Best-known as the creator of Li'l Jinx, writer-artist Joe Edwards masterfully-adapted to the Dan DeCarlo-esque "house" style of Archie Comics to become one of their (almost-always anonymous) mainstays for decades, from the Golden Age (1940s) through the Modern Age (1980s).
Consider that when he wrote and illustrated this tale, he was already in his 40s (as were almot all comic creatives at that time), not a young adult and "with it", as they said back then!
Does it still read as "legit"?
Think about it...

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Best of Archie's Mad House!

Friday Fun ARCHIE'S MAD HOUSE "Why Is It?"

Archie Comics tried twice to do a kinder, gentler (Comics Code-approved) MAD-style comic!

This series, Archie's Mad House, using the Archie cast as "hosts" to introduce the features, was the first attempt!

Joe Edwards, the writer/artist behind this never-reprinted story from Archie's Mad House #16 (1962) was one of the most prolific creators of the Archie Comics creative crew, producing several thousand (yes, you read that correctly) stories including standalones like this one, one and two-page shorts, tales of the Archie gang, and an ongoing strip featuring his own creation, L'il Jinx!
The book went through numerous reboots/reincarnations as Archie's MadHouse / Archie's Mad House / Mad House / Mad House Ma-ad Jokes / Ma-ad House Freak-Out / Mad House Glads / Mad House an anthology horror comic for three issues...then reverted to humor as Mad House Comics for a total run of 130 issues between 1961 and 1982, a pretty good run by any standard!
The book was revived as a Halloween reprint annual from 2017 to 2019, and will doubtless rise again at some point!

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Best of Archie's Mad House!

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

Reading Room TALES CALCULATED TO DRIVE YOU BATS "Ghost Town"

Every few years, Archie Comics attempts to expand their audience...

...by taking stabs at other genres besides teen humor.

In the case of the 1961-62 title, Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats, it was doing comedy versions of monsters and aliens.

But after six issues, the sales indicated that wasn't what the audience wanted.

So, #7 (1962) took a different approach, presenting four tales like the sci-fi/fantasy stories currently running in comic competitors' anthologies like Tales to Astonish and Strange Adventures...but using the same "house style" art as the rest of the Archie Comics line!

Did it work?

Well, there was no issue #8 of Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats...

(Note: there was a one-shot giant-sized reprint issue published during the "camp" craze in 1966.

It didn't sell any better...)

Archie tried the idea of serious stories with Archie-style art one more time with Chilling Adventures in Sorcery as Told by Sabrina in 1972.

After two issues, the title dropped Sabrina as narrator-host and became Chilling Adventures in Sorcery, then Sorcery and switched over to using artists like Gray Morrow and Alex Toth for the remainder of its' 11-issue run.

BTW, the artist of this tale, Joe Edwards, was one of the most prolific of all the Archie Comics illustrators, with several thousand (yes, you read that right, thousand) covers, single/two-page strips, and stories to his credit, including almost all the ones featuring his creation, L'il Jinx!