Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Comics Review: An Archie Christmas Part 1

I have sort of a tradition of reading my Archie Christmas comics in December.  I was buying a couple of things online and spontaneously decided to get a few Archie Christmas comics from their website.  Specifically, I was interested in this years’ Christmas floppy comic.  While I was there, I picked up a couple of Christmas digests that were half price and a previous years’ floppy was like a dollar.  I was in a festive mood.  

 

Everything came in good order in the package and was delivered quickly.  The order was only delayed because the new comic in the order hadn’t actually released yet.  I got it on the day it came out.  



There was also a new Sabrina Holiday special.  It has a great cover, but I was questioning the contents.  (It’s closer to an occult horror comic.)  From the preview pages I saw later, I think I made the right call in passing on it.  I did look at some non-Christmas comics and nothing jumped out at me, but after getting that big Sabrina volume, I’m not sure there’s much else I’d really want.     



Archie Christmas Spectacular (2024)

I read everything from the order over last weekend.  This was the only full price item I got and I read it first.  Boy was I disappointed.  What I was interested in was the lead story featuring evil versions of Jingles and Sugar Plum drawn by Holly G.  Those two characters are Archie Christmas staples that I enjoy for reasons I’ll list a little later.   



What I got was a five-page story with fairly crude art that simply trotted out the new characters and that was basically it.  I think the sample page speaks for itself.  Frankly, if I’d seen preview pages of this beforehand, I wouldn’t have thought about ordering anything.

 

Holly G. is a good artist and Tom DeFalco is a good comic book writer.  The story features Grumpus as a villain, a takeoff of Krampus, sort of an evil Santa Claus.  He was introduced in a previous story that I haven’t read that was apparently inspired by Stranger Things.  The evil versions of Jingles and Sugarplum, Jangles and Sourplum, seem a bit unnecessary as both original characters already cause mischief whenever they appear. 

 

Still, this should have been a fun story.  I think the short page count likely hobbled the story severely.  It also may have been rushed.  It was a bad effort and not a good start to my Archie Christmas reading.       


I think the rest of the issue was several short reprints.  Jingles and Sugarplum are in a few of them, along with Noelle, Santa’s daughter.  None of them are all that great, though Veronica is very stylish in one story.     



Archie Christmas Spectacular (2023)

This toss-in issue was about the same in format and quality. 




I did like Dan Parent’s art for this story about Noelle.  Of course, Santa’s daughter looks like Marilyn Monroe. 



The only story I really liked was this Jughead story drawn by the Kennedy Brothers.  These guys (one of them recently passed away) really had a flair for making great large panel action shots.



Betty & Veronica Spectacular #86

This comic was not a recent purchase.  It’s from 2008.  Since that time, it has become my favorite Archie comic.  (The Archie Daily Newspaper Comics 1946-1948 is my favorite Archie book.)  BVS was my favorite Archie title.  It was only quarterly, but I’d pick it up at Hastings whenever I saw it.  It is printed on newsprint, unlike the new comics, which are on slick paper.      

 


Half the issue is a great-looking Dan Parent story featuring Jingles and Sugarplum seducing Betty and Veronica and Archie, but ending up falling in love with each other.  Dan’s art, with the enhanced coloring and shading, really pops.  The story is fun and romantic.  This story really made me like the characters.

 

The rest of the issue features nice pinups and a couple of shorts: Archie gang greeting cards and gift ideas.  They weren’t really stories just quick funny gags.  For an Archie Christmas comic, this is the standard by which I judge the rest.  It nails the season and the characters. 

 

On to Part 2.

No comments:

Post a Comment