The Adventures of Little Archie Vol.1-2

 When I was a kid, I loved those Archie Comics digests, and one of my favorite series in those books was the original "Little Archie" stories by Bob Bolling. These weren't just funny stories, the illustrations were straight out of my storybook dreams, with its tales of kites, clubhouses and best friend Good 'Ol Gangs, adventures with funny aliens, rival gangs and magical mysteries!

Sadly, I wasn't really into the later Dexter Taylor stuff, and as time when on, I forgot all about how much i loved those early stories. But by chance when I was reading up on Dinosaurs, I happened to remember an old Little Archie strip I absolutely loved as a kid, where a friendly witch gives Little Archie the recipe to conjure up a live Pterodactyl into the Riverdale School Classroom!

It occurred to me that while I owned a TON of classic Archie/Jughead/PEP/Betty and Veronica comics, I didn't own even a SINGLE issue of Little Archie! Going onto ebay, I decided to rectify that right away. I didn't know which issues contained the stories I read as a kid in those early Digests, so i just bid at random. In the end, I picked up about 7 of them and waited for them to come in!

In the meantime I was browsing amazon and discovered that Archie Comics had released not one but TWO collections of Little Archie comics! Cursing myself for spending so much money on the original issues when I could have bought the collections for less than 10 bucks apiece, I ordered the two books right away and once again waited for my orders to come in.

In a few weeks, all the original comics from the 60's  came in, and besides them being simply BEAUTIFUL to look at (or, as Bob Bolling would have Little Archie say, Boo'ful), I was delighted to find that no less than SIX stories I remembered from my childhood were in them, INCLUDING the Pterodactyl story! There were, of course, a lot more that wasn't in those issues, and I was crossing fingers they'd be in the trades that were on its way!

Finally my Archie Trade paperbacks came in, and I have to say, it's a good thing I bought those individual comics, because there wasn't a single story inside that I remembered!

Oh, the stories were decent enough (they focused a LOT on the Mad Doctor Doom stories, these I wasn't too interested in even as a kid) but they weren't the ones that I had any sentimental attachment to.

SO! Looks like it's BACK to the ebay auctions because I can now see that by Bolling's art style, all the stories I loved had to be between issue 1 and 22. So far, I've got issues #2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 22 so I'm about halfway there!

Paper Girls Vol.5

First trade Paperback I've gotten of Paper Girls since I dropped the series as a monthly pick-up, and had quite a bit of catching up to do! Even had to go back and re-read some of the issue before to get reacquainted with the series!

Harrow County Vol.6-7

Binging on "The Good Place'

Got the first two seasons of the wonderful NBC comedy drama "The Good Place" on DVD and blasted through BOTH of 'em in a week, just in time to begin watching its Season Three premiere which started last night!

Such a great little show about a self-professed "Arizona Trashbag" named Eleanor Shellstrop (played by the highly delectable Kristen Bell) who dies and is accidentally sent to Heaven instead of Hell and her exploits as she does her very best to keep her true badness a secret as she attempts to become a person worthy of "the Good Place"!

Everyone is great in the show, including William Jackson Harper as Chidi Anagonye, an Ethics Professor determined to help Eleanor find her "nice" self, Manny Jacinto as a rapper-masquerading as a monk named Jianyu, Angelic AI Assistant Janet played by D'Arcy Carden, and Cheers veteran Ted Danson as Michael, the Good Place's cheery overseer.

Ooooh, and special mention MUST be made of Jameela Jamil as the lusciously curvy spoiled and self-centered socialite Tahani Al-Jamil who became my favorite character from the very first episode and has remained my biggest motivation for keeping up with the awesome show!

Just finished watching the first episode of Season Three on the NBC streaming site, and I had to laugh realizing this is the first ACTUAL Television show I've been interested in enough to watch one by one, weekly, as it airs!usually I wait for shows like this to come out on DVD and then jsut binge 'em, but I love the Good Place too much to wait!!!!

So far, this show has kept me on my toes guessing just WHERE each episode is going to lead!!! Such a FUN, innovative series!!!

Monstress, Vol.3: Haven

Femme Magnifique

The Walking Dead Vol. 30: New World Order

Oblivion Song, Vol.One: Chapter One

A few months I picked up the first two issues of Oblivion Song and noted that, while it was intriguing, it would read better in collected form so I decdied to drop the monthlies and wait for the volume trades.

Welp, Volume One just came out and I gotta say this is shaping up to be yet another great Kirkman series, along with Outcast and Walking Dead.

East Of West Vol.8

Starting all over again from Vol.1 before I dig into the 8th volume in the awesome east of west series....

Outcast: Vol.6: Invasion

Things are moving along swimmingly for Kyle and his gang of Demon-exorcising co-horts but I AM worrying that the characters will become just another "Walking Dead" retread as he becomes the de-facto :"head" of his group, complete with headquarters and fences to "keep the bad guys out"....

Hellboy Short Stories Vol.2

Picked this up thinking it was the second book after "Seed Of Destruction", but come to find out I missed  Vol 2 of that AND Volume One of the Short Stories! Doh!

Lazarus: X+66 / Sourcebook Collection, Vol.One

 When Image announced that Lazarus was going on hiatus and was going to be publishing a story called Lazarus X+66 featuring side-characters (and guest artists) in its stead, I wasn't going to pick it up. I was only concerned about the main story and wasn't sure how these side stories would hold up to the greater work.

The  Graphic Novel came out in April (along with the Lazarus Sourcebook), but i didn't pick it up til i happened to be at the comic shop Other Realms with Jas, and seeing both books there on the shelf, I couldn't resist and bought 'em...and MAN am I GLAD I did!

Far from being mere filler stories, these were gripping, emotional and absolutely ESSENTIAL sides to the Lazarus storyline and I enjoyed it so, so much!

Usagi Yojimbo Vol. 32

And it's time for the latest graphic novel collection of Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo!

After reading this month's skull-bustingly complex issue of The Wicked+ The Divine, it's nice to have a low-key "just for fun" series to read, and Usagi fits the bill nicely!

Dropping "Paper Girls" as a Monthly Pull

I've decided to drop Paper Girls as a monthly pull and switching to purchasing the collected editions instead.

So little happens in each issue and it's just not worth the time it takes to trudge all the way down to the comic store and trudge all the way back for a comic that I blow through in 2 minutes.

Much easier to wait til an entire arc is collected (and cheaper, too).

Most of the titles I buy are Collected Editions, anyway, with only Saga and The Wicked+ The Divine as regular monthly pulls. For those keeping score:

The Series I'm Buying in Collected Editions:

East Of West

Outcast

Manifest Destiny

Monstress

Oblivion Song*

The Walking Dead

Paper Girls

Usagi Yojimbo

as well as THESE titles, if they EVER get out of LIMBO status:

They're Not Like Us

Injection

Nowhere Men

Series I Dropped for The Time Being:

These just haven't been grabbing me lately so I'm taking time off of these titles 

(but I may go back later and catch up where I left off)

Sex Criminals

Snotgirl

Harrow County

Violent Love

*I bought floppies of #1 and #2 of Oblivion Song but decided to wait for the collected editions for the rest of the series.

Also going to wait for the collected trade for the Bryan K Vaughn mini-series BARRIER.

Factoid Books Paradox Press

Re-reading the "BIG BOOK OF..." Factoid series from Paradox Press, staring from it's classic BIG BOOK OF URBAN LEGENDS...

Hellboy Omnibus, Volume 1

This was a bit of fortuitous timing!!! I was JUST telling Gerg the other month that I wanted to start reading Hellboy, and wanted to know which books to start from. Going online, I was THRILLED to find that they were gonna release an OMNIBUS of Hellboy's entire run in a few months time!!!

As soon as I saw this baby on the shelves at Gecko's I grabbed it up and blew through it in record time! Now time to wait for the future Omnibuses to follow!!!

Oblivion Song

Checking out the new Robert Kirkman series "Oblivion Song". Was gonna wait until it got collected into a trade, but since Gecko's had the first two issues, I decided, what the hell, I'll check it out. Pretty good so far!!!

EDIT:
Decided to wait until Oblivion Song is collected into Graphic Novel form rather than buying the floppies each month.

Planetary Vol.1-4

Re-reading the Warren Ellis/John Cassaday Wildstorm series for the first time since initially getting them for Christmas from Gerg. Didn't really grab me the first time, hoping this time will do the trick.

Checking out the FX Series "The Americans"

My friend Kashi piqued my curiosity with her description of “The Americans”, and on the off chance it might be something I wanted to watch, I checked out a clip on youtube to see if it grabbed me. The clip I saw DID interest me, sadly, it was a clip from season 3 of Mom Elizabeth ordering daughter Paige to spy on some priest, so the surprise of the kids finding out that their parents are Russian Spies was spoiled for me, LOL.

So anyway, I was intrigued enought that when I saw someone on ebay selling a set of Seasons 1-3 on DVD for 25 bucks, I bought it. I have to say that at first, the show did not grab me the way I hoped. By the middle, I was really losing interest and was thinking I was going to pass on the rest of the series. But the last three episodes of season one REALLY blew me away, so much so that I went to Amazon and ordered seasons 4 and 5!

I think I didn’t like the writing of the first half episodes:

For example, when FBI agent Stan Beeman moves in next door, I liked how Elizabeth and Phillip acted, instead of acting guarded, they were very friendly and outgoing. And when Stan wants to borrow jumper cables, instead of hiding the car from him, he invites Stan into the garage and even opens the trunk in front of him.

So I was bugged when Stan tells his wife, “something’s fishy about that couple”, like, What??? They didn’t do anything to warrant suspicion and I hate when he says he has “instinct”. 

And when his FBI boss tells him “the Russians could be anyone”, he thinks “OH DAMN, IT’S MY NEIGHBORS I GOTTA BREAK IN THEY’RE KEEPING THE PRISONER IN THEIR TRUNK”, I’m like who in HELL would come to that conclusion just becasue they have the same kind of car?

I alos noticed that each episode’s writer had a different idea of what kind of personailty Elizabeth should have, so in some episodes, she was romantic and wanted the marriage to work, in others she was a strong soviet agent, nonetheless, it always seemed like they were writing reasons for marital squabbles to fill the show up and after the 5th episode I was getting irritated.

And those episodes where the head of FBI announces that they are going to kidnap and kill any KGB agents they find, I was like WTF! This is like a 4th grader wrote this, this is liek reading comics! If they’re just gonna kill anyone they want, what’s the point of ANY intricate sleuthing, spying, etc? Just go out and shoot everyone.

I was ready to give up watching, but two things kept me interested in the show: 

One: I really love the Russian girl Nina, out of all of the show’s characters, she seems the most complex and multi-layered. Her character was the one that grew the most in the first season, and the season’s finale where she confesses to the Russian Boss that she is the mole and becomes a double agent was AWESOME! 

Two: The fake romance and marriage between Phillip and FBI secretary Martha Hanson. I always liked wherever the story went to this subplot. I really liked the Martha character (am I crazy to think that this lady is sexy???LOL), sadly I once again shot myself in the foot when I went online to look up  “actress that plays Martha in the Americans”, and the first article that came up said “ACTRESS ALISON WRIGHT TALKS ABOUT HER CHARACTER MARTHA HANSEN’S DEATH IN THE AMERICANS”

D’OHHHHHH!

Anyway, So by episode 10 I was pretty much watching on autopilot, and then…the last three episodes of Seasons 1 came on, and DAMN! these were so awesome, it was what I was hoping to see from the beginning: Tense cat-and-mouse games between the KGB and the FBI, awesome spy action and a great car-chase, and even fat old KGB Lady Claudia shows she’s badass by tazing that guy and slitting his throat. And like I mentioned before, the turning of Nina into a double agent was like the coolest turn ever, NOW I’m invested and can’t WAIT to dig into Season two!

Swamp Thing Vol.1: Saga of the Swamp Thing

Re-reading this again for the very first time. I never read the Vertigo Comics Swamp Thing series when it was currently being published, and only picked up a few collections later to see what all the hub-bub about it was. 

Can't say I was overly interested in it, and i've never felt like reading it again in all the 10+ years since.

But I really love Alan Moore's writing, and this weekend without anything to read, decided to finally give this series another go. So far, i have to admit I'm enjoying it a lot more...will update my progress on re-discovering SWAMP THING!

The Walking Dead Vol.29

Continuing on with the Walking Dead....

Back to Buying Monthly Issues of THE WICKED + THE DIVINE

After three long years I'm finally going back to picking up the monthly issues of The Wicked + The Divine! I'd been thinking about returning to monthlies for awhile now since the storyline is getting so damn good, and when I found that they were going back to "portrait" style covers like the original, that was the deal-sealer!

The portrait style covers was one of the big attractions I initially had for the series, and I even went on ebay to get the variant portrait covers of issue #1 to have the whole set. Strangely they halted the portrait covers right when they changed artists and started a new storyline, and this was the BIG reason I stopped picking up monthlies and went for the trades only.

 But with Jamie McKelvie on as the permanent illustrator for the series and the news by Kieron Gillen that the series is making its way to its conclusion, I've decided to support the strip every month as WELL as picking up the trades when they come out! Should ultimately be a KILLER series!

The WicDiv K-Pop Connection

I'm a huge fan of the Image Comics series THE WICKED + THE DIVINE and have always been impressed not only by its poetic script and dialog but the wonderful, detailed artwork as well. And it was poring over that intricate artwork of the latest trade paperback that I noticed something!

 Goddess Urdr is being shown around the bedroom of a troubled teenage boy by his father, and when I looked behind him, I saw a poster and thought immediately, "That looks like Girls' Generation."

It looked a bit like the cover to their album "Baby Baby", but when I looked over the Google images, there wasn't anything that really matched the comic illustration. But it looked SO familiar, I just knew it had to be them!

I decided to ask the SNSD pros over at Reddit's Girls Generation sub, and queried,

"I was reading an issue of Image Comics' THE WICKED + THE DIVINE and in a panel where they go to visit the room of someone's son, there's this poster behind them....Is it my imagination or is that Girls' Generation?

The very next day, a SONE named ArthurMauk took one look at it and recognized it right away! It was indeed Girls Generation, and he said:

 "Good spot! Yeah it looks exactly the same as THIS photo, cool! :)" 

Look at that poster! It's amazing how well artist Jamie McKelvie captured the likenesses of SNSD, and a redditor named Xian Roberts even commented, "Is it sad that I can recognize and name the girls in the comic without needing to see the original picture?" LOL!

SNSD turns up in the darndest places!

The Wicked + The Divine Vol 1-6

Trade paperback volume 6 just came out for The Wicked + The Divine and in anticipation, I' re-reading the entire series again from Book 1. Kind of cool because the last comic I read (Wicked + The Divine 1923AD) occurs JUST BEFORE the beginning, and it serves a a nice "intro"!

The Wicked + Divine 1923AD

Just finished reading The Wicked + Divine “1923AD" One-Shot and I can’t remember the last time I was so thoroughly SATISFIED! If you‘re like me, you’ve ALWAYS wondered about those four gods who appeared with Annake in the opening of Wicked + Divine’s very first issue (before simultaneously ending their own lives), and for the FIRST time, we are getting to read their TALE!

I have to say I spent many a day poring over those mysterious four characters, trying to guess which Gods they represented…I remember assuming the little blonde girl was the 1920’s Morrigan because she had the same black charcoal looking “mask” around her eyes, but had absolutely NO CLUE who the others were...

Well, come to find out I was wrong The little girl, (whom I guess I should have deduced was the 1930’s Minerva since the one in the present day is also a little girl),but no matter as I soon got to learn about ALL of the 12 Gods, some of whom I knew and some I’d never heard of before!

Since such a grand tale couldn’t be told in one issue if it were drawn like usual, this issue is almost 80% TEXT- yes, this issue is a written story, with only a few illustrated pages spread throughout SO awesome, !it’s like reading a NOVEL on the Pantheon!!!

Damn, it’s issues like this that reassure me that THE WICKED + THE DIVINE is one of the most well-crafted and special storylines out there!

PS: I absolutely ADORE the 1923 Amaterasu and the "Shirley Temple-ish" Minerva (and is that her I see on the upcoming WicDiv Issue #35???)!!

John Byrne's IDW Titles!

Been re-reading John’s awesome IDW titles and wanted to know- which series is YOUR favorite? For me, it HAS to be TRIO…as a long-time fan of Marvel Comics, his satirical re-imagining of the “Marvel Universe” is a JOY to read and re-read over and over, and it’s one title I’m hoping he continues to write and draw someday!