Comics Review: She’s Josie

 

I was ordering something online and decided to check out the Archie website to see if there was anything interesting.  I tempted by their “Mystery Box” bundle offer, which was 10 classic trades for $20.  It’s a great deal, but I was concerned I was going to get a couple books I already had.  There was only one trade I was really interested in, She’s Josie, I which I settled on getting.  If this title had been in the bundle, I would have gotten that instead, but there was no way of knowing.  (I wish their offer would show what’s in the bundle or would allow you to pick the titles.)

 

A major selling point of this book is definitely the cover.  It is an all-time Archie Comics classic.  I’d buy and frame a poster of it, if there were one available.  Unfortunately, it’s a smaller, trimmed version of the comic book cover on the cover of the book.  Also, the issue it comes from, isn’t in the book.  (It’s issue #34.  The trade only goes up to issue #9.)          

 

This brings up another omission—none of the covers for the issues are reproduced.  There are a couple of pinup pages, but no covers.  The back cover blurb calls this “the first of a chronological collection,” which didn’t happen.  If it’s “for the record,” you’d think they’d include the covers. 

 

The introduction to the volume seems a little ambivalent about the material, as well.  These are the Josie stories before she became famous with the Pussycats and with her previous friends that she subsequently got rid of.  That kind of sounds bad, doesn’t it?  There was also a disclaimer about culturally inappropriate material in the stories.  I think this is referring to a story where some guys are dressed as island cannibals at a beach party. 

 

The disclaimer also says that the stories reprinted “without alteration for historical reference.”  This is probably incorrect.  There are several background characters colored “black,” who don’t otherwise seem to be black.  There is a classic Archie style for drawing black characters, who appear more regularly going into the 70’s.  I’ve noticed this “re-coloring” in other current reprints of older material.        

   

I was aware that there had been Josie stories before the Pussycats, but I’d only ever read a couple of them.  They’re pretty rare reprints.  In this volume, I found out why.  Of the nine issues reprinted here, eight are full issue stories, which don’t get reprinted a lot in the digests.  The other issue was a more standard Archie comic with several short stories. 

 

Admittedly, for the most part, classic Archie stories usually work best in short form.  The story premises often don’t have enough depth to carry a full issue.  This volume bears that out.  The best issue reprinted here was the one with the shorts, which was issue #4.  It feels like this title was an editorial experiment in longer stories, as well as introducing a new set of characters.

 

Annoyingly, this volume doesn’t include Josie’s first appearance in an Archie Pals ‘n’ Pals issue, which came out a year before the first issue, as per the introduction.  In a later issue in the series, the Archie gang does a guest appearance to firmly seat Josie in their universe, but that story isn’t here either.  The intro also doesn’t mention that Josie was modeled after Dan DeCarlo’s wife, he being the artist.  There’s also confusion over Josie’s last name.  Here at the beginning, it’s Jones.  Currently, it’s McCoy, which was more-or-less canonized in the Pussycats movie (which I liked).             

I wrote a couple of Archie fan fictions with the Pussycats.  Melody was the beautiful, ditzy one, but I wasn’t sure how to write Josie and Valerie.  Their personalities hadn’t seemed established to me.  In the origin here, Josie’s other friend is the brainy, uptight Pepper.  Josie is still a bit undefined.  She’s kind of sweet and kind of emotional.  I guess she’s your “every-girl” character.

Alexander and Alexandra Cabot make their first appearance early in the series.  You’re looking at the above picture and saying, “Where are they?”  They’re there, you just don’t recognize them in their original form.  They are still rich.

 

The Cabots arrival does bring in some romantic tension.  Alexander is after Josie and Alexandra is after Albert, Josie’s maybe boyfriend.  I don’t know why Albert is wearing cowboy boots at the beach in the above picture.  This has never been the fashion to my knowledge.  Pepper has an admirer in Sock, a big, brawny guy.  Melody . . . Melody is mine!  All mine!  Stay away from her!  Actually in the comics, she seems to be completely unobtainable. 

 

So am I about to give this a bad review?  No!  I got this for the DeCarlo artwork.  I don’t know if this is him at his best, but it’s likely close to it.  This is tremendously appealing to just look at.  I’m loving the mid-60’s fashions as well.  I hope to use this for some drawing practice.  The figure work is excellent.

 

While I see plenty of potential in the characters, the stories could have been better.  It seems more a format problem of the full-issue stories, since the shorter stories worked better.  Longer stories could still work here, but I think you’d want to define the characters more and lean more on drama and romance and some continuity, rather than comedy.  It’d be a real departure from the usual Archie comic.

 

I was going to link this review to my review of the Best of Josie and the Pussycats trade.  Except I never wrote one.  I thought I had, but I keep being surprised by the comics that I have that I didn’t review.  I bought a few more comics the other day (after I’d sworn off buying anymore comics for the hundredth time) that I plan on reviewing first, but I’ll get back to Josie later.  The Best of is over 400 pages, so it’ll require some work.                         

 

Comics Review: Wonder Woman, X-Men, and Conan Part 2

Part 1

Conan the Barbarian Epic Collection Vol. 3, The Curse of the Golden Skull

I saw this at Zia Comics the last time I was there and balked at the $40 price tag.  After my last disappointing trip for comics, I decided I wouldn’t screw around next time and I’d just buy what I really wanted.  So, I basically went into the store for this.

 

I have some relationship with Conan.  I had a couple of random issues that I liked as a kid, before getting a subscription in the 80’s, which I enjoyed.  I later got a couple of large black and white reprint volumes of the Savage Sword of Conan magazine.  Thrillingly, two issues featured spectacular bare-breasted women.  (Apparently, somebody caught on after that and told them to stop.  Curses!)  I’ve also read some of the REH stories (which are in public domain) and seen the movies (even the most recent one).   

This volume features 16 issues in full color, mostly written by Roy Thomas and drawn by John Buscema.  There is continuity between the stories.  Conan is nominally working for a Turanian king, though mostly really for himself.  Late in the book, Conan wearies of the courtly intrigues and leaves.  (Would that we could all do that at our jobs.)  Some of the stories are REH adaptions, there’s a couple of fantasy stories repurposed as Conan stories, and the rest are originals.  

 

 

The steely-eyed New Mexican keyboard warrior took up his favored instrument of literary criticism.  The writer and the words were one as he swung into battle.  He knew that one misstep on the Internet could be his last, but he only heard the song of trolling in his heart.

 

I hope you like breathless descriptive captions in your comics, because you’re GD gonna get them in this volume.  Unlike a modern comic, which takes five minutes to read, you will have to chew through each page of these text-heavy comics—the way God intended.  The stories all kind of ring familiar, though.  You can freely mix the elements of women, treasure, wizards, lost cities, monsters, rivals, random warriors, sidekicks, and bandits and come up with a plot.        

  

Sometimes the women are victims and Conan’s protecting them.  Other times, they’re bad, or goddesses in disguise, or man-eating aliens.  Doesn’t matter, he doesn’t get any of them in the end, even the ones he rides off with at the end of some of the stories.  I must complain here.  Most of the covers feature a fainting damsel.  #35 does, but there were no women in that issue.  That was false advertising.   

He also doesn’t get rich here, even when confronted with a multitude of treasures.  This is a more experienced Conan.  He’s learned better than to try and make off with cursed jewels.  So, he doesn’t get rich or the girl in these stories, but things turn around for him later in life.

 

The centerpiece story was a four-part trip to Khitai.  It was a fantasy story adapted for Conan.  In this, he’s tasked to scout a city for future invasion.  It goes poorly and he’s even badly cheated in the end.  However, my favorite story was by guest artist, Neal Adams (pictured above), issue #37.  It’s a lively mad wizard/monster/rescue the princess tale.   

 

Overall, it was a bit too much of the same thing for each issue.  It might have been the desert setting for most of the stories that made it feel a bit less exotic.  There wasn’t quite enough variety in the types of stories.  I’d like to think Conan is a bit more than a one-dimensional character, though he is mostly shirtless and wearing kind of a loincloth wherever he is, no matter how out-of-place or inappropriate the wardrobe.  I recommend the character of Conan, but not so much this volume.          

 

I don’t understand where I went wrong on this trip to buy comics.  The other times, I knew I was taking a risk with some new weird comic or even a new mainstream comic (and I’ve done this over-and-over again and keep getting disappointed), but I thought surely the older comics I was getting this time would work out.  At least the Conan would have to be entertaining, right? 

 

I’d swear off buying more comics at this point, except I actually have an Archie trade coming in the mail.  (It should look good with some classic material.)  I keep considering getting those $100 Kull and Conan hardbacks at Zia Comics, but this trade really makes me rethink that.  (Kull is a somewhat more interesting character than Conan, frankly.)  It’s almost not the money spent on the comics; it’s being disappointed by them that’s hurts more.  I will have to be more circumspect about what I buy in the future.  I’m tired of writing bad reviews.

Comics Review: Wonder Woman, X-Men, and Conan Part 1

I took a trip with dad to the Downtown Mall on Saturday morning.  I’m not sure how I talked him into it, since he just wanted to get lunch at KFC, which is not nearby.  The weekly Farmer’s Market was going on.  The street was packed with vendor stalls and throngs of people browsing.  Apart from Aggie Football and Men’s Basketball, this is likely the main community event in Las Cruces.

 

Mostly, dad was going to look for a couple of books at Coas used bookstore.  I was looking to see what they had and took too long.  I ended up grabbing three comics from their pile in a rush to meet him at the register.  The comics seemed promising.  I sort of dragged him into Zia Comics.  I took a quick look around before getting what I meant to get.

 

I was actually in a pretty jovial mood.  I picked up a jar of honey, some cinnamon roasted almonds, and tossed a couple of bucks to a couple of street musicians.  I kept seeing people carrying bags of popcorn.  I finally gave in and went looking for the vendor.  There was a line for the kettle corn.  I ended up behind a guy buying ten bags and had to wait a little while.  When I got mine home and tasted it, OMG!  It was the best popcorn I’d ever had!  I need to figure out an excuse to get back there for more.        

     

Wonder Woman Day Special Edition #1

I think this comic was originally a Free Comic Book Day giveaway.  This only reminds me that I missed out on FCBD last weekend.  I hadn’t been keeping track of it, but I suddenly remembered it last Sunday and wondered when it was.  That’s probably okay.  Mostly, it’s a complete waste of time.  A couple of times, Zia Comics outright stiffed me on the free comics.

 

This comic was basically a promo for the first Wonder Woman movie, though the comic has basically nothing to do with the movie other than the name of the main character.  (That’s always been an issue between the comics and the movies.)  There’s lots of Wonder Woman ads in the comic, especially for statues.  This one pictured was the best of the bunch.

I got this for the artwork, which is good.  As for the story, there is none.  Zero.  It’s a bunch of pretty pictures.  It’s some kind of prologue to a story.  Wonder Woman is searching for Cheetah in jungle to talk to her to some reason.  Also, Steve Trevor now appears to be a Navy SEAL, instead of an Air Force pilot.  This sort of irritates me for some reason, however practical this change might be for the story.  It’d be okay for free, but nothing you’d want to pay for. 

  

Uncanny X-Men #396

This is from 2001, long after I stopped reading the comic.  I think it was ironically right after Chris Claremont left at the end of the 80’s.   In the 90’s, the X-Men achieved their peak popularity.  I did read the restarted New Mutants for a while during that time and enjoyed it.  In other words, I have no idea what the context of this comic is.  I didn’t recognize Iceman.  He wasn’t using his iced-over form in this.  They seemed to be trying to make him look cool (before destroying his character later in the current day).            

 

This issue features a team of X-Men team, Iceman, Angel, and Nightcrawler, chasing down former student, Chamber, who must be one of the worst designed mutant characters ever.  He’s got some kind of bio-chemical reaction going on in his mouth and chest all of the time.  There have been plenty of weird mutants, but for ones that are main characters, they have to not be absurd. 

 

Chamber’s in a relationship with a pop star and this is somehow embarrassing all mutants.  The guys are trying to convince him that he’s part of their world, not the normal world, and he should be out and proud as a mutant, but not on display as a mutant.  You got all of that?  It didn’t make sense to me either.  Their analogy was lost on me, so that’s why they had to make it blatant, by flipping Iceman later.        

  

They boys are also searching for a mutant mass murderer.  They find him and then get their butts kicked by some normal-ish guy, Mr. Clean, wielding a flamethrower.  It’s kind of embarrassing.  These guys have been X-Men for a long time and are superpowered.  (And they should be acting as a team, not fighting one at a time.)  One guy just using regular weapons should not be a threat.  Admittedly, this guy did wipe out a bunch of mutants living in the sewers of London at the beginning of the story.  He must be more exceptional than he looks. 

 

Wolverine shows up at the end.  Presumably, he’ll straighten all this out in the next issue.  And if he doesn’t, the attorneys for the actual Mr. Clean will scrub this imposter from existence.  Again, the artwork is really good, which sort of makes the comic even worse.  It’s such pretty wasted effort.   

Uncanny X-Men #22 (vol. 2?)

This is the newer comic (2019).  I guess they restarted the numbering.  I’ve seen variations on this cover with the guns and laser spotting on a couple of other X-Men covers.  What is Cyclops doing with Wolverine here?  I more I look at this picture, the more I’m questioning it.

 

Well, here we have a comic from 2019.  Here’s Doctor Nemesis wearing a facemask (which will not protect him against a cold) and he’s talking to Emma Frost about a vaccine.  Would this be that “predictive programming” thing?  Were the makers of this comic told to include this? 

 

I got this mostly based on the artwork and from seeing Danielle Moonstar up front, who is one of my favorite characters.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t have much to do with this.  This was the end of a storyline that I have no clue about.  Sentinels show up.  A couple of X-Men maybe died, but probably not really.  A bunch of X-Men, who were thought dead, come back to help.    

Cyclops looks pretty pathetic and mopey in this, but redeems himself by the end and gets the girl.  Meanwhile, Emma’s head keeps going from shaved to glamorous.  I kept thinking there were two different characters in this when I first flipped through it.  Kitty Pride is also in this, another one of my favorite characters, she looks terrible.  Much like Iceman, it was a bad change.  Like the other two comics, at least I can use this for art practice. 

Part 2