WOADD #16 reviewed

World of Archie Double Digest number 16.
The company now knows enough that featuring a couple of items with sort of cult followings is something to do... sales-wise, I hope it works.  So here we have a series that reprints who issues of 1960s comic book series, Josie, which ...

The Centerpiece here, so far I'm concerned.  A 14 page Josie story from... 1967?  Maybe 1968?  The company has come to the point where (at least for these items) it doesn't wipe out anachronisms and date references arbitrarily while keeping out of date fashions and fad-based story-lines running around.  This 14 page story caught my eye well enough to go ahead and buy this issue:  that "oddball comics" nature of things.  To recap: Melody tries to escape winning a beauty contest by dressing as, in secession, a preteen girl, an old woman, and a dog.  She is thus chased by, in secession, a rabid group of boys, geriatric old men, and a pack of horny dogs.  Words fail me.  Frank Doyle and Dan Decarlo were sometimes flat out insane.
The other two five pagers reprinted... Hm.

The other highlight for this series: reprints from Madhouse Comics.  Craig Yoe did a collection series, so it must be receiving some cache these days.  For this comic, we get two five pagers featuring the duo of Lester Cool / Hipster (it switches in the two stories) and Chester Square.  The names tell their personalities -- the former wears a slicked back hair and sunglasses, the latter has a square (cube) head and crew cut and suit and tie.  I can't say this is "good" per se, but it's interesting pop culture snausage.  If you know writer George Glaider's formulas, you will recognize where this one is going:  Aliens pick up Lester Cool to test and demonstrate the technology they hope to scare Earth with... on... a typical Earthling.
The third story is... Archie's version of an EC Horror, or maybe Archie's version of a Mad parody of an EC Horror.  Make of it what you will.

Beyond these... we've got two Reggie stories... Doyle and Decarlo have Reggie get his comeuppance while trying a simple prank.  Al Hartley has him get his satisfaction with a grand carnival showmanship of pranks.  Then we get a Weatherbee and Stevenson piece and whatever you can say about Glaider, Samm Schwartz -- Tom Hart loves how he draws a suit ... I have to say... he can really draw a lot of rather mundane items in spectacular fashion.  I am stunned by how much I love how he draws a stack of paper.  (No wonder he was my first favorite comic book artist).

This gets you to 62 pages.  About half the comic book.  The other half is crap.

The last time I bought an Archie digest was a few years' back when they reprinted the first issue of Jughead in Jughead's Double Digest, circa 1949. The comic was 192 pages, double 96. When I grew out of Archic comics the company had just down-sized the digests from 128 and 256 pages to 96 and 192 pages. The 128 pages were down from the original size of the digests, 144 pages. You can further track the shrinking size at that point where they started putting in ads in their packages.

I gravitated on over to picking something off the grocery store newstands. Apparently World of Archie Double Digest is reprinting the early Frank Doyle and Dan Decarlo Josie comic books, perhaps issue by issue. Fantastic! Also apparently they're printing other material of interest to some people -- Madhouse Comics (saw some reprinting by Dark Horse comics -- either the comic has real cachet or the comic book industry has shrunk to a size where such a thing now has cachet.)

As of now, the comics covers suggest a somewhat tedious new story. I waver ... until this issue, #5.

Huh.

The story begins with Archie's Mom and Batman's butler at the laundromat, getting each other's mixed up clothes. So Archis is stuck wearing Robin's suit and Robin Archie's sweater.
The story ends, a bit perplexingly but under the natural logic of this series -- with everyone wearing Jughead's hat, the Josie and the Pussycat's costumes, and the Joker's make-up.

The publishing of some roughs are pretty interesting, first as a sign that the cartoonist behind "Tiny Titans" thought this a pretty neat project he wanted to show-case, and second for looking over some changes made in the creative process. "Hey Archie, you want to meet Batman?" was originally "You like Bats?", and the creator of Tiny Titans apparently scuttled "My dad's a demon".

Anyway, this takes up the first 80 pages. The first half of the comic book. The double digests are now 160 pages -- 32 pages more than the original digest propers.

The Josie story reprinted isn't the greatest, and I suspect the evolution wasn't "there yet" for the comic reprinted. But it's as well scripted -- Frank Doyle -- and well drawn -- Dan Decarlo-- as a plot-line that would've been on Scooby Doo can be.
The rest of the comic is basically crap. I will say the identified George Glaider story was not as embarrassing as George Glaider usually was. (Though the last story, I believe unidentified Glaider -- was embarrassing.) I tend to wish the company would completely scuttle their "Archie at Riverdale High" comic for reprinting purpose -- kid with ESP foils diamond thieves -- we'll never see this kid with ESP again -- huh. Looking at the cover for the next issue, and an odd focal point of a kind of awkwardly done "adventure" story, I worry that the only good material it'll have is some Josie material. We'll see.

But buy this comic book. The "Tiny Titans" team up and Josie comic are definitely worth it, even if the remainder is throw-away.

This was a comic book?
I note that the title logo had yet to be changed to accomodate the huge "Comics Code Authority" insignia.
Really exciting adventures.
... about madness.
They finally got the title cleared at issue #56, though had it partially solved a few issues earlier.

a piece from Bernie Krigstein with a good color scheme.

2 panels

A collection of Samm Schwartz "Tippy Teen" comics.

Nobody knows who William Gaines is.

Greatest comic book ever.

Harvey Pekar is dead. I have mixed opinions of the mans' work, but everyone considers him brilliant.

His most infamous Letterman appearance.
I recorded the last appearance on "Late Show", though failed to get his final segment in the interview where Letterman lombasted him for not coming on with anything to talk about.

As I sort of expected, the "Best of Dan Decarlo" collection doubles as a "Best of Frank Doyle", and focuses in on 1958 through the 1960s -- up to, I guess, when "Archies" mania punched out some of the quality of the Archies.

My sense is that this cannot stand as is. There are other stories to republish and call "Best", from different eras.
A run down of stories. Off the top of my mind, I'm familiar with a few of these -- "The Midas Mess", for instance. Of those I don't recognize, I suggest that this is pretty intriguing:

17. “Bully Girl” (Betty and Veronica # 106) – Veronica shows off her new martial arts skills by beating up everyone in sight.

As I've said before, Give me the Best of Samm Schwartz -- which I don't think can be ecapsuled in one era quite as well as Decarlo probably can, and then you'll have me.