Archie: More Titles than Wolverine

Review by Michael Vance

Tales from Riverdale Digest  #s20-23/$2.49 and 80 pages each from Archie Comics/various
artists and writers/sold at lots of locations and at www.archiecomics.com.

Some hardcore comics fans complain that some publishers hurt the market by saturating it with multiple titles featuring the X-Men, Superman, Spider-man, and Batman, therefore making it difficult for other titles to find a niche and flourish.

They don't know saturation.

A quick count reveals that there are at least sixteen regularly published titles featuring the Archie ensemble of Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, and Reggie. That's not counting anthologies and graphic novels featuring the Fabulous Five as well.  But one's man's saturation is just another man's success, for these titles would not be published if they didn't sell.

Hey! Here's another one!

Tales from Riverdale differs only slightly from other Archie titles because of the 'minor' features inside. These include stories of Sabrina, when she was younger than the teenage witch, Madhouse sections (Madhouse was an old Mad Magazine imitation published years ago), and stories on very minor characters in the Archie pantheon of 'second bananas'.

Does that mean that Riverdale is not worth the price of admission?

Nope. Overall, the quality of art and story in all of the Archie titles is excellent. The only real surprise is how the team of Archie creators can consistently come up with new ideas, which they do in every issue.

It has been a long, long time since Archie has been the character that sells the titles.  These books all feature an ensemble cast that is unexcelled in the field of comic books.

True, they are for younger readers (hurrah!  Titles for young readers are desperately needed; without them, there are few older ones), and not everyone's cup of tea, but how many cups of dark and violent X-Men or Batman can one drink?

Recommended.

Michael Vance