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I agree completely Seems crazy to me that a 1942 first issue of a long running title and first of its genre can Guide for $500 in VG Plus the cover's pretty cool, too And this is the only copy on the census (it's actually not even on the census yet!) It's not really a title I collect, it just seemed to be such a neat book for not much money that I had to get it

A recent pick up. This is the 3rd nicest copy of this book I've ever seen

Just picked this one up on ebay

Here's a great "Good news/Bad news" cover

Very nice I have to say, the Pep issues with the bar down the left side of the cover feature the most amazing group of Harry Lucey covers. Thanks for posting!

And the final issue. An even cooler robot cover

This is the penultimate issue of Katy Keene. I've never cared very much for this title, but the covers on the last several issues are just great

My copy of Uncle Scrooge #1. Signed by Carl Barks, too

Nice sketches

The only MLJ titles that I've seriously collected have been Pep, Jackpot, Hangman and Shield-Wizard. Never been a big Top-Notch, Blue Ribbon or Zip fan. At this point though, It's pretty much just the Archie titles for me.

To me that cover says it all! That's why I love golden age so much! Yeah, I liked it so much I comissioned a recreation. It's by Dan Parent (a current Archie artist) and is twice up size. Sorry about the flash, I haven't really figured out how to take good pictures of original art

Very nice Jeanie! I really like the picture box covers of that era

My assumption is that the Archie titles were more popular than the Timely titles. This is based mostly on the fact that the Archie titles expanded and flourished and the TImely titles (with the Patsy/Millie exceptions) went in the dumper. I think the great advantage that Archie had was that all of the titles were essentially the same book with the same characters. Yes, Betty & Veronica was a slightly different title than Jughead, but you could expect to see the same characters pass through each title. With the Timely books, each was more or less a separate entity. So, you had to hope that someone who liked Patsy would also like Rusty and Willie and Millie and Tessie, and... Whereas with Archie, you knew that someone who liked Pep would like Archie and Laugh and... There is some excellent work in all of the early TImely teen titles and clearly at least a few were popular enough to last until the '60s and '70s. But I think most were just too generic to stand on their own in a sea of similar titles.

And Dennis the Menace hasn't changed a bit...

All three of those have covers by Bob White BTW Here's a very interesting item (at least for the Brits in the crowd). This is the British version of Christmas Stocking #1. It has cardboard covers and is in black and white.

Archie's Christmas Stocking #3

Archie's Christmas Stocking #2

Archie's Christmas Stocking #1

Christmas Stocking #4--Also Harry Lucey Will do

Absolutely one of my all time favorite covers. Harry Lucey did some of his very best work on those Christmas issues

That cover just cracked my wife up the first time she saw it

Rather than start that new thread, I'll just lazily post in this one. Archie kept the gap in his front teeth after becoming cute; and since I literally had nothing better to do, I found that in Archie #92 (May/June 1958), he has no gap, but in Archie's Christmas Stocking #5 (1958, no month), he has the gap on the cover headshot, and in some but not all of the interior panels. Conclusion: er, sometime in 1958. Looking at the title Archie Comics, the tooth gap is coming to an end in the 1955/56 period. The last issue that has the gap on the cover is Archie #75 July 1955): The first issue that clearly does not have the gap is Archie #78 (Jan 1956): Archie #81 (July 1956) shows the classic Archie title (with the Archie head) that would become standard for Archie books into the early '70s: I would assume that the change to the non-gapped tooth Archie on the "mast head" of the flagship title showed a definite editorial decision to eliminate the earlier version. As kakapo points out, however, there were scattered appearances of the "old" Archie for at least a few years. I don't know if that was stockpiled art or if some artists were just slow to adopt the new look

When exactly did this change in age take place in terms of issue number. Which age category did Archie belong to in his first Jackpot Comics appearance in issue #4? Actually, Pep 22 was the only issue where Archie and Betty appeared to be in the pre to early teen stage. Even by Pep 23, they were considerably older. Jackpot 4 would also fall into the older catagory. If you sign up to Shield's site www.goldcomics.com, you can view all the early Archie appearances (not to mention all the other MLJ characters). OK, here are some representative pictures from the very early Pep issues: Archie in Pep 22: Betty in Pep 22: Both are clearly not the 16/17 year olds we expect of the Archie group. Here's Betty in Pep 25 (I would have shown a pic from Pep 23, but I'm not brave enough to scan it ). Clearly, Betty is significantly older than she was 3 months ago! And, finally, the first appearance of Veronica one month later: Note Archie's tongue