Monday, February 16, 2015

BOOK REVIEW 2015-024 - ARCHIE ROCKIN' THE WORLD

Being a child of the 1950’s comic books had been a mainstay of our existence. While the boys read the Superman, Batman, and Action Comics; the girls had all of the Archie Comics with their wonderful characters of Archie, Betty, Jughead, Reggie and Veronica. This is not to say that the boys never read Archie or the girls never read any of the comics the boys read, they did.

The only thing which has changed is the storylines of the comics themselves. When the series started everything revolved around their town, Riverdale [whose name is taken from a section in the northwest corner of The Bronx in New York City where the one of the founder of MLJ comics predecessor of Archie comics and creator for the character of Archie, John L Goldwater had attended Horace Mann, a private school which is located there.]

I like the fact none of the characters have changed to any real extend in the last 60 years [the Archie Comics started in 1942] and that they’ve not changed in how they related to each other:  Archie being the guy all the girls want. Archie and Valerie are “back together” behind the scenes, Veronica is jealous of course. Once the tour starts in Mumbai, India Amisha, young starlet of Bollywood enters the scene with a “romance” with Archie, soon to be followed by Cheryl who now wants Archie as well as her company acquires the company who’s producing the documentary of “The Archies” world tour. The rivalry of all the girls who love Archie is prevalent through the entire comic.

“The Archies” are not alone in the tour, they’re joined by “Josie and the PussyCats,” “The Bingos” and “The Madds.” For those who’ve never heard of these groups the comic includes a brief bio which includes when the group first appeared in the Archie comic books.

I’m not going to say anything about the rest of the stops on their tour but they’re going to be joined with “guest appearances” by other characters old-time readers have come to know.

There’s a surprise epilogue as well as four short comic stories to round out this collection.

One of the interesting aspects about this particular comic is the international aspect it took, and not only does the action take place in Mumbai in India, Shanghai and Beijing in China,  Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, and three area in Canada; information about each one is given before “The Archies” stop in that country.

This book is a definite must read for any adult who’d like to relive their childhood reading these classic comics, and well as for their children.

For having brought back my childhood in this marvelous manner, how can I resist giving it 5 STARS.

I received a copy of “Archie Rockin’ The World” from a giveaway of GoodReads.com and the preceding has been my honest opinion of it.


UK:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1619889072

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