Your Monday post of random stuff.
Here’s an ad I found in Reggie and Me #75 (Dec ’74):
Okay, first, “America’s Most Beautiful Doll” is a pretty high standard to live up to. And second, yeah, that’s some tan.
This doll suddenly became more interesting to me when I saw the top part of one of the panels in the ad:
…but once I took in the rest of the panel, disappointment set in:
Hey, I have a new installment of Behind the Counter at the new Comic Book Galaxy, in which I have some tips for the new employees. (“I’ve got wanderin’ hands, and you’re just gonna have to get used to ’em.”)
We recently acquired a sizeable collection of Archie comics, mostly from the last decade or so…”acquired” as in “we just wanted to buy the Archie digests, but the beat-up comic books we didn’t want got dumped on us anyway,” which of course means plenty o’website fodder here.
Anyway, in this collection was a particular cover I’d been wanting to address for a while, but haven’t had access to the issue almost since it originally came out. It’s Betty #8 (Sept. 1993), and while the Archie gals have always been drawn in an attractive fashion, this cover has Betty being drawn in a little more prurient style than usual. Or maybe I just have some kind of “upside down diving bikini girls” fetish I was previously unaware of. But it does feel a lot racier than most modern Archies tend to be.
And I don’t have a larger scan of that, since the original I was scanning from is completely thrashed and that’s about as large an image I can manage and still have it look passable.
I do like the coloring on that cover quite a bit…it’s actually quite pretty, though this Betty cover (#28, Aug ’95):
…is even more attractive, I think. Quite a switch from the flat-colored/cluttered covers Archies usually have nowadays.
Hey, Kid Chris finally posted again, finally, since he was too busy having a life and all to goof around on the internet. I’m disappointed he didn’t mention running into The Nelsons at a record store. That lucky bastard.
So finally I took home my copy of the Comic Book Guy’s Book of Pop Culture, and, as I feared, it’s made my site redundant. That’s okay, though, since the book kicks off with a reference to famed letterhack T.M. Maple, so they start off in my good graces. They cover some of the same ground I’ve covered here over the last couple years, such as the various types of customers, but they’re funnier about it, and they have illustrations, so they’ve pretty much got me beat. (I totally forgot about our own “Stinky Money Boy”-type customers…though it’s more likely to be “Wet Money Boy,” given our proximity to the beach.) There is lots and lots and lots of nerd humor packed into this tiny hardcover…well worth the price.
I should note that every comic shop owner and/or manager secretly envies the Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy. Every one. They might deny it, but they’re lying. If the owner of your local store denies it, badger him day and night until he owns up. Don’t badger me, though, because I freely admit it. Oh, to be that freely superior in my full-on nerdiness….
Oh, and for you interested parties, our store’s Midnight Madness sale is on Saturday, November 19th, from 7 PM until midnight (natch), or even later if demand warrants it. 2379 E. Main Street in Ventura, CA…drive on down. Or up. Or take a plane. Come visit, you.
