By various Archie Superstars (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-67-9
Your Last-Minute Christmas Dilemmas Solved: the ideal keep-’em-quiet stocking stuffer.
As you probably know by now Archie Andrews has been around for more than seventy years: chasing both the gloriously attainable Betty Cooper and wildly out-of-his-league Veronica Lodge whilst best friend Jughead Jones alternately mocks and abets his romantic endeavours.
As crafted by the legion of writers and artists who’ve crafted the stories of teenage antics in and around the idyllic, utopian small town of Riverdale over the decades, these are timeless tales of the most wholesome Kids in America which have captivated successive generations of readers and entertained millions worldwide.
To keep all that accumulated attention riveted, the Company has often supplanted and expanded upon their storytelling brief with short gags, pin-ups and cartoons, jokes and puzzles and Archie’s Even Funnier Kid’s Joke Book has bundled scads of the very best of these brief diversions – starring the full capacious coterie of companions and hangers-on as well as few guest-stars – into a captivating compilation guaranteed to engross and amuse young and old alike.
Duty and sincere respect compel me to tell you that all the vignettes, cartoons, appalling puns, “guess the gag†games, crazy comebacks, silly riddles, visual extracts and “write your own caption†material re-presented in the 192 big, big pages here are the result of sheer hard work and inspiration from Bob Montana, Frank Doyle, Bill Vigoda, George Gladir, Al Hartley, Bill Golliher, Hy Eisman, Dick Malmgren, Bob Bolling, Samm Schwartz, Stan Goldberg, Dan Parent, Fernando Ruiz, Harry Lucey, Dan DeCarlo (Senior and Junior), Jeff Shultz, Joe Edwards, Rudy Lapick, Rich Koslowski, Bob Smith, Terry Austin, Barry Grossman, Tito Pena, Joe Morciglio, Jon D’Agostino, Bill Yoshida & Jack Morelli.
Common sense then informs me that you’ll have immeasurable fun inwardly digesting all the superbly silly stuff culled from more than seven masterful decades of madcap mirth…
Spoiled Sports gets us underway by providing 26 pages of iconic and hilarious gags and strips celebrating football, baseball, golf, skiing, hockey and all those other strenuous pastimes kids enjoy, after which What’s So Funny? abstracts 50 panels so amusing that they don’t need any context – or the rest of their stories they originally came from – and all liberally augmented with marginal riddles and brainteasers…
Ever-hungry Jughead plays a big part in chapter 3 as Food For Thought gathers 22 pages worth of nosh-themed material, whilst the accumulated and unsavoury staff of Riverdale High looms large in the 24 page Faculty Funnies chapter which uproariously follows, before Mixed Nuts offers 28 sides of crazy situations and mad laughter starring just about everybody and their friends…
Archie always played well at and pulled out all the stops for Christmas issues and here Holiday Hijinks repeats some the best festive moments in a bumper section which too soon swiftly segues into an appreciation of the eternal struggle for romantic bliss in Rabid Rivals or Love and War…
This stunning collection of gags and good times then ends with a tumult of audience participation as Say What? offers 23 pages of classic strips and pin-ups with all the word balloons emptied for you to fill in with your own brilliant bon mots and sassy comebacks…
Hilarious, absorbing and way more fun than a Christmas cracker, Archie’s Even Funnier Kid’s Joke Book is an addictively enticing treat no family should be without…
© 2013 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.