That is all I will say.

That, and a review of the book and an interview (!) with C.K. Kelly Martin are forthcoming.

A reader emailed me a lovely question about Cracked Up to Be and my reply bounced! I’m sorry, person whose name begins with S. If you’re wondering why I didn’t get back to you, I promise that it wasn’t for lack of trying. Also, messages sent via my contact form have been getting eaten by my spam lately as well. I’ve set up filters so this won’t be a problem anymore, but if you’ve tried to get ahold of me this way recently and I haven’t replied, I might’ve accidentally deleted your email forever (I promise I’m looking more closely at my spam now).

Related: I can be a little tardy in my replies, but I do generally get back to everyone who takes the time to contact me. If I get an email of a time sensitive nature, I try to honor that or fire off a quick reply saying I will soon. If you’ve emailed me a question or request and haven’t heard from me, it’s likely it got eaten by spam, never arrived or the reply bounced. So if you’ve emailed me and you haven’t heard back from me within like, ten days, feel free to email again. I’ve amended the contact page to say this, but I thought it was worth putting here too.

Phew.

Now that all that stuff is outta the way, I really don’t want to turn this blog entry into another love letter to Lady Gaga, but oh em gee, you guys, I’M GONNA. Have you seen the leaked music video for Paparazzi? It is epic. It’s better than the however many seconds of New Moon that are floating around the internet.

Just LOOK at this thing I don’t know if I should disclaimer (it’s Lady Gaga, okay, just learn to expect everything in no pants)!:

Sparkly vampires.

Huh.

Anyway, unless you have all been living under a rock, I suppose you have heard the devastating news: Archie Andrews is marrying Veronica Lodge.

So basically it is a six issue COP-OUT.

I was really disappointed when I heard this because I invented this entire fabulous storyline in my head where Archie proposed to Veronica and Betty dies (of a suspected suicide but maybe no one knows for sure!) and then the night before their wedding Archie looks at himself in the mirror and is like, “My God, Veronica. What have we become? WHAT HAVE WE BECOME?” And Veronica is like, “Meh. I was always this way.”

AND THEN, in the last panel, Archie slides the ring onto Veronica’s finger and a little thought bubble above his head says, I made the wrong choice. But he can’t take it back!

And fin.

The entire series comes to a devastating, deliciously tragic close.

WOULDN’T THAT BE AMAZING?*

I don’t know why Archie comics doesn’t hire me to write for them.

In other news, progress continues to go well on possible Book 3. I’m up to 50 pages! Sweet. TKT reminded me that I need to get a working title going for this thing. He is so right. If you all remember, Some Girls Are was called Your Mom for a long time before its title reveal. Maybe I should call Book 3′s working title NO PANTS. You know. In honour of my new hero that saved me from the vampires.

But if you have better suggestions I would love to hear them.




* Yes, I know. I am ~horrible.~

Discuss.

It is over between us.

I always thought Jughead was kinda good looking in a girl-hating, big-nosed kind of way and when he got that pin that made him like girls and gave him a chin cleft?

Maybe I even thought he was sexy when that happened.

But this…

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU, FORSYTHE?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ewwwwwwwwwwww.

And when did GREASERS take over Riverdale High?!

I mean, Archie was always ugly–but REGGIE?! Not Reggie! Reggie puts the R in Riverdale!!!

The line, it is crossed.

But first, a little set-up:

A long time ago, Archie comics released the Riverdale High novels. I never got my hands on ‘em–sigh–but they often ran ads for them which featured an excerpt of one of the books in the regular digests.

Excerpted novel featured in Archie Digest Magazine #116?

Bad News Boyfriend.

In Bad News Boyfriend, Veronica meets Nick. He is, you guessed it, bad news. He’s all interested in Veronica for her money and makes passes at Betty when no one’s looking (the louse!). The excerpt seems to indicate that Betty will sacrifice her friendship with Veronica in order to save her (by stealing Nick away, I’m guessing).

The revamped B&V story is entitled Bad Boy Trouble, wherein Veronica meets Nick St. Clair.
The cover image of Nick from the RH novel looks EXACTLY like a 90′s version of 2007′s Nick St. Clair.
The RH novel was written by Michael J. Pellowski.
The scripts for the revamped B&V was written by Melanie J. Morgan
(Apparently Pellowski has written under the pennames Melanie and Morgan at different times! How about that!)

What a CA-RAZY bunch of coincidences, huh?!

Probably someone else called this ages ago (probably an Archie editor for all I know, hah), but I’m just going to pretend right now that I was the first and bask in that special feeling. Also I am going to pretend this entry makes me seriously cool and not really, really lame for devoting a huge part of my brain to Archie comics factoids.

Go me!

Okay, consider yourselves enriched or something while I go convalesce.

$4.39 Canadian?!

WTF, Archie comics. W.T.F.

That’s like, five dollars for 25 pages of The Saga of Betty & Veronica’s New Look since the rest of the issue consisted of a bunch of stories I’d read as recently as last night in digests that came out about 20 years ago.

Do you know what five dollars bought me when I was young, walkin’ to school uphill both ways, Archie comics? Several new digests with a balanced amount of new and recycled stories to keep me entertained plus some penny candies.

Maybe Betty and Veronica don’t need a new look to entice new and old readers into the fold so much as they need a content overhaul with a fair price smacked on the cover.

$4.39.

I’m just sayin’.

And when did the covers get so flimsy?! When I was young, I could use Archie comics as a shield against the rain, a coaster for my beverages and a baseball in the neighbourhood ball games if we happened not to have an actual baseball on hand and they came out of it looking and feeling better than they did when I bought them.

Anyway.

So. The new Betty and Veronica.

After reading Jughead utter the words, “YO, WASSUP DAWG,” in a relatively new digest, I suggested in a previous entry the quality of Archie comics had been so compromised, this makeover business wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to Riverdale.

As is often the case in my life, I was right.

But I have to say if the new look does stick, I’d really love if some minor adjustments were made to Betty and Veronica’s over-exaggerated assets. Like, let all the air out of their chests and maybe put it in their waists, for starters. When I’m settling down to read an Archie story, I don’t need to be reminded of those booklets the Body Shop released back in the day informing me if Barbie was an actual person, she wouldn’t have her periods because she was so damn malnourished and ill-proportioned and yet this was the first thing I thought of when I saw Betty on page 3.

Or perhaps Archie comics have gone this route to remind me to campaign against unrealistic beauty standards in some kind of reverse psychological activism approach or something?

Betty and Veronica certainly look the five dollars they cost, if you get what I’m saying.

And I think you do.

That said, the art is certainly as dynamic and interesting as advertised, but, unfortunately it isn’t supported by dynamic and interesting writing. But it’s still a step-up from “YO WASSUP DOG.” So I’m conflicted about how to give my opinion on it.

It’s better but it’s also been better.

The story opens with Betty info-dumping about her friendship with Veronica and how they both love Archie Andrews crymoancomplain, just before the pair plus Midge head off for the movies. It’s there they meet Nick St. Clair, a silver-tongued bad boy with a goatee who catches Veronica’s eye immediately, despite Betty’s repeated warnings (“I think he’s trouble. He looks like a hood.”).

Besides being the cleanest-cut hood I’ve ever seen, it’s revealed that not only did Nick sneak into the movies–Betty’s reaction to this is so vehemently disapproving even for her that I feel like I missed the part where he said he snuck into the movies while simultaneously doing drugs and robbing a kindly old lady–he got shipped to Riverdale to live with his Aunt and Uncle because he was running with a bad crowd back home. Also, he owns a bad-ass motorcycle. Betty suspects he is a murderer.

Which makes him all the more attractive to Veronica.

True to the Veronica we know and love, she ditches her friends and goes for a spin on the bad-ass bike. Betty and Midge do The Right Thing by going home to Mr. Lodge and tattling. Mr. Lodge develops a newfound appreciation for Archie and forbids Veronica to ever see Nick the Clean-Cut Hood again.

… Which makes him all the more attractive to Veronica.

Alone with Betty and Midge, Veronica gushes about how hot Nick is and if she had to choose between him and New Archie, she’d totally choose Nick. Judging by the look of New Archie, who doesn’t make an appearance in this issue, I can’t say I blame her. Midge helpfully points out the perks of Veronica giving up on Archie to Betty, as if Betty hadn’t figured them out five seconds earlier.

Betty is then left in a prickly TO BE CONTINUED position.

In the face of “YO WASSUP DAWG” there is something admittedly fresh about the writing. And yet, it can be altogether lame. At times it seems like Melanie Morgan felt like she was upholding the integrity of the comics and characters by having New Betty spew things like, “In Riverdale, we don’t ditch our friends just to take a joy ride with a smooth-talking stranger,” but even Old Betty never said anything so stale.

No, seriously.

And that’s where the new format fails. There is a clear understanding of the functions the girls serve in the Archie Universe, but it’s almost been pared down to the point that they’re parodies of themselves and have no choice but to act autonomously of each other. Betty and Veronica (and Archie, Jughead, et al) are way more entertaining when they’re acting, reacting and interacting. I didn’t see that here. When Betty spends 99% of the story telling Veronica how freaked out she is about Nick the Hood and later Veronica’s all, “Why didn’t you tell me you were worried?” There’s a problem. Sure, Veronica’s self-absorbed… but I didn’t get the impression she was self-absorbed so much as I did that she was deaf and needed a hearing aid. Talk to each other, dangnabit! It’s more interesting that way!

So basically, it was kinda flat.

Of course, how much can I reasonably expect in the first of a four-part story? There’s a lot of establishing going on here and that’s fair, and as I said, it’s better than the usual but it’s not better than it’s been. People might get swept away with the new format at present as it distracts from weak writing–not only here but in all of the recent comics–but as soon as the sparkle is gone, there’s nothing to fall back on.

So I hope the next three issues get better. If they do, there’s the seed of something good here and I can totally see myself enjoying New Betty and Veronica and even wanting them to pop up regularly.

Just so long as it’s not at the expense of Old Betty and Veronica. If that’s the case, forget it, bitches. I’m out.

What I really miss are the stories from the 40′s to the 60′s. The 70′s were okay, the 80′s to the mid-90′s had some incredible high points and I enjoyed those too, but the older comics were Total Wow. The writing back then was on–witty, biting, wholesome (but not always!), sarcastic and the group dynamic was F’n A. We’re talkin’ three dimensional characters who played off of one another, spit out fantastic one-liners and had interesting plots. The stories often featured a wicked sense of humour and fun that would make you LOL.

Dorky Archie fans like myself know what I’m talking about but for those who are not, let me put it this way: you could take the script of a story from the time Veronica had the bob and Betty had the poof of curls trailing behind her head, not change a damn word of it, give it to New Betty and Veronica and you’d probably think they were REALLY onto something and this makeover business marked the beginning of a Golden Age because that is how strong the comic was back then.

Seriously. If you read an Archie story from that period, I guarantee you’ll be surprised at how timeless and sharp the writing is.

And then you will be sad about how dated and dull it is now.

And then you will look at how much those awesome old Archie books cost and you will probably CRY.

Condensed review:
Has promise. Too expensive. Cry.

Needless to say, I am a fan.

And, like most fans, I was appalled at the news of Betty and Veronica’s makeover. Appalled! What would happen to Jughead? That nose wouldn’t translate well for the new realistic art direction! Where were Archie’s crazy thick black eyebrows and checked red hair? And Reggie–okay, I bet Reggie got pretty hot, but still. My overall frame of mind was makeover, bad! Bad! No!! I felt certain that this move would kill the integrity of the series.

And then I got my hands on a new(ish) digest and discovered that you can’t kill what’s ALREADY DEAD.

Yeah, that’s right.

With so many Archie books at my disposal, I haven’t bought a new digest in oh, about a 100 years (I suppose you could argue how much of a fan I am with that knowledge, but oh well). It’s not because I don’t want to, but because, as the digests got skinnier and more expensive, I couldn’t justify spending the money I needed for uh, Jason Vorhees boxsets, just to find out what the gang was up to in the noughties.

But now, thanks to the recent digest I got my hands on, I know.

What has happened to Archie?! The trademark look remains but the quality of the new stories SUCK. As much as it pains me to say it–and it really does–the drawings seem rushed and uninspired and the writing even more so. When Jughead said, basically, “WASSUP DAWG, YO”–no, seriously–in the first new story of that newish digest, I wanted to gouge my eyeballs out with a pen. Wry, witty Jughead? What happened to you? Wassup dawg, yo? Nothing against it or anything, but… coming out of Jughead’s mouth?

It got more alarming. There were no vestiges of the sometimes surprisingly clever teens I enjoyed reading about in my youth. None! Even Cheryl Blossom, evil, manipulative, Satan incarnate, wish they’d skipped the whole Love Showdown CHERYL BLOSSOM has downgraded! She wore a strangely not indecent outfit and now owns a dog she can fit inside of her handbag! And she and her handbag dog challenged Jughead and Hot Dog in a dogsled competition! And when she bested Jughead and Hot Dog in said competition, she did it without half the haughtiness and overconfidence she had when besting Townies for stuff in the past. Sadly, it didn’t get any better from there. I got to a point where I started asking myself, who are these people?!

Man, remember the good old days? Remember when Jughead found that pin that made him incredibly desireable to the opposite sex, gave him a chin-cleft and… he liked it? Remember when Betty and Reggie used to team up using underhanded sneaky tactics to win Archie and Veronica’s love respectively? Remember when Archie put his old noggin’ to good use in times of peril and saved Riverdale about… 6,000 times? Or when Jason Blossom nearly killed Veronica in a high-speed chase from the Riverdale Police (“Just look for a snob on a skateboard?”)? Remember when Archie and Ethel went on a fantastic date together and… he liked it? Remember when Jughead told Betty if “the time should come” that he ever “willingly kiss a girl” it would be her?

Or remember when Chuck and Archie happened upon a Mysterious Stranger who reversed Riverdale, which then became the town of ELADREVIR and Veronica and Reggie became do-gooders, Archie, Chuck and Betty were evil and Jughead became a food-hating sex fiend (I would say “womanizer” but to me that implies a certain amount of charisma and in one panel he’s grabbing some girl by the waist going “GROWF!”) and the spell is broken when Chuck and Archie figure out that Eladrevir spelled backwards is–gasp–Riverdale?!

Me too! And guess what.

Those days are gone.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that this makeover business isn’t the worst thing that could happen to Archie’s world because… I think the worst has already happened.

And it’s WASSUP. DAWG. YO.

Dear Archie comics,
I only say these things because I heart you.

;)

I am never ever investing in a real time comic again after this one ends. It’s too traumatic.

Edit
He’s not dead yet. Phew! It would be very un-Lynn Johnston like to kill off a major character without some kind of goodbye. Still, this does not bode well. I have a feeling it will either turn into a Pull the Plug story or a week or so long send-off. I don’t think Grandpa Jim’s coming out of this one.