Sonic Adventures, which can be a real hoot, is even written in the style of an old Marvel comic with footnotes from the editor and continuing sub-plots.

As for Sabrina, it’s everything I wish the current Supergirl title would be. Tania Del Rio is putting out one of the best books around right now!

I’ve long suspected that those who belong to groups considered uncool are fanatical about whatever gradiations of coolness there may be within their particular group.

Well, I write for a living, and if there’s one thing I don’t write about enough, it’s me!

I kid. Probably.

But, yeah. My first comics were Amazing Spidey 316 and 317 (1988? 1989?), so I basically got into the industry a few years before Image hit and before speculation made comics hilariously profitable and then hilariously worthless. I guess that does make me a fresh young turk in the blah-blah-blogosphere!

Issue #78 was very good, but I thought the first “Four Blades Day” story (#69 I think) was outstanding. In the first story, the two versions were shown visually– a “history” flashback intertwined with the true flashback. It was an exceptional use of the medium.

I got the impression that Sabrina doesn’t know the extent of her abilities. She seems to be even more powerful than she herself realizes.

Very interesting hearing your background. Thanks for sharing it.

This is purely personal experience and anecdotal evidence, but I disagree. There’s been a vein of “Hurrr, comics nerds are fat!” for years, yeah, but I don’t think that comics themselves were ever uncool.

Case in point– I grew up (am growing up?) lower middle class, black, and in the south. I loved comics as a kid and I loved rap, and thought it awesome that so many rap artists made comic references. Not even nerd rap artists, mind. Something like 5 or 6 out of the 9 original members of the Wu-Tang Clan adopted comic nicknames, and ones based entirely out of Marvel at that. Ghostface and Method Man, two stars who are definitely big name, still use “Tony Starks” and “Johnny Blaze” (respectively) as aliases, and Ghostface used clips from an Iron Man toon as interludes on a (classic) album.

Moving in to more recent times, Minnesota’s rap group “Atmosphere” mentioned in a song that “growing up, hip-hop and comic books were my genesis.”

So, at least in my experience, comics have never been uncool. Certain comics have been uncool, such as Archie (though I realize now that you may be using Archie as an umbrella term for the entire company, not just the adventures of Betty, Veronica, & co), but never comics as a whole.

All that aside, though, I honestly believe that they’re singled out because of their… datedness, if I can invent a word? They’re probably about as cool to kids as Showcase Superman or Essential Spectacular Spidey.

It presents this other world where everyone acts nice, or acts mean once and feels really bad about it. A lot of people today (me, I guess?) can’t really connect with that, so Archie feels like fluff comics, granddad comics, uncool comics.

Like I say, though, this is all anecdotal. I don’t think that Archie books, save for the obvious ones, are seen as girly. It’s just a combination of characters holding a certain naivete and the Leave It to Beaver/Brady Bunch atmosphere turning off kids/adults.

I’m curious, has Archie ever had a fully multicultural/modern day series (or even revamping, Crisis-style), where they dress like people do these days? I’m wondering how successfully that goes over. In fact, I’m also wondering how The Punisher Kills Archie crossover went over some years back.

Lyle, seems true enough. I applaud Archie experimenting with the manga style with this title, because it’s such a good match (especially since Tania is so good at it) — but it does set this title apart from the interchangeable nature of the rest of their books.

I have a hard time following Sabrina myself, if only because it still seems to be a title that falls under the radar at many comic shops. I think a bigger problem for the series isn’t that it’s percieved as a girls’ comic but that it’s percieved as a kids’ comic. I usually see it shelved with titles like Teen Titans Go, Sonic Adventures or other Archie comics. While that’s apt from a customer standpoint, those other titles aren’t as serialized as Sabrina (it’s not a big deal if you find TTG #16, 17, and 20 on the shelf) and, from what I’ve seen, that shelf doesn’t get the kind of attention a superhero title that sells out on the shelf copies gets.

(This also comes at a time when I’m not as active a comics buyer, so I’m much more likely to miss out on comics that sell out on the shelf because I only go in once a month or so.)

I don’t think I’ve read #79 yet — I’m a little behind. I’ll have to look for it, thanks.