Jughead Comics: A Night At Geppi's Entertainment Museum: Free Comic Book Day Edition #1

From the random stack of unread comics, by way of Free Comic Book Day 2008.

Title: Jughead Comics: A Night At Geppi's Entertainment Museum: Free Comic Book Day Edition
Issue: 1
Date: 2008
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Craig Boldman
Penciler: Stan Goldberg
Inker: Bob Smith, Rich Koslowski
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Colorist: Barry Grossman
Editor: Victor Gorelick

Published in conjunction with Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Baltimore MD.

Archie and Jughead get jobs as museum guards at Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, but Jughead is more interested in chowing down on chocolate than in guarding the museum's pop culture treasures. And when an evil genius who's been quietly stealing those treasures replaces Jughead with a robot, there is some serious doubt as to whether anyone will even notice.

Fortunately, the Archie Gang get to do their own Scooby Gang impression and save the day.

This was a nice promo for the museum, which I wasn't familiar with, but am now interested in checking out if I get to Baltimore this summer.

The story was basic harmless Archie fun that veered a bit more into comedic science fiction than the typical Riverdale story.

Rating: 6.5/10

Archie #666

From the unread comics stack. I got this issue at a comic shop in the US last summer, just on the notoriety of it being the final issue of such a long run.

Title: Archie
Issue: 666
Date: July, 2015
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Tom Defalco
Penciler: Dan Parent, Fernando Ruiz, Tim Kennedy
Inker: Rich Koslowski
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Colorist: Glenn Whitmore
Editor: Victor Gorelick

An epic run comes to an end with the 666th (with a few offhand references to "the end" as the only acknowledgement of the infamy of that number) installment to Archie. This is an ending, but only for the purpose of rebooting the series.

The story here is that Archie has racked up 666 detentions, and it's finally about to get him expelled from Riverdale High. As the news spread, Archie's friends reminisce on the well-intentioned mayhem that has accompanied Archie, and they make plans to try to save him from having to finish high school across town.

There were a couple of sly references to some of the alternate-timeline Archie books that Archie Comics has put out lately, but otherwise, this story was bland nostalgia with a few sentimental moments.

The format of the book leans heavily on short flashbacks and light on new plot. That being said, the simple story was well executed and did a nice job of capturing the essentials of what makes Archie and his friends such enduring characters.

Rating: 6.5/10