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Animation:
Tales From Riverdale
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success, for these titles would not be published if they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?
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