lotemo

Hi back! It's been a while.

Bill Woggon "borrowed" cover ideas from Fritzi Ritz from time to time.

I suspect it's because the humor and funny animal books were ignored by the collecting community for such a long time that this was just overlooked or at least not documented until more recently. I always used to think that the Ernie Gerber Photo-Journal books included almost every golden age comic book from the major publishers. It wasn't until I started collecting the Timely humor titles like Mille the Model, Tessie, Nellie, Joker etc. that I realized that the Gerber books only included photos of a handful of issues from each of these titles. Many of the humor titles were largely ignored for decades.

Around 1947, there were issues with "A Marvel Magazine" in the upper left corner. I haven't counted them but it appears that there were usually only 1 to 2 issues of a title with this logo. Some examples are:

#83 is another one of my favorite Archie covers. I really like the mid-1950's issues, in particular around 1955-1956. Along with Archie #83, here's Laugh #77 and Pep #118. These would have been on the newsstand about the same time..

It's a shame that there weren't more Bob Montana covers during that time. His covers for issues 41 through 50 produced some classics.

That's Batman #81 with a February 1954 cover date so it's definitely a 1954 episode.

I'm not sure that I have one favorite but since I like Christmas covers, #6 has always been among my favorites.

I bought most of them online. I started searching eBay for Archie's around 2000 to 2001. One of the earliest books I bought was a copy of Archie Annual #1. That really kickstarted my desire to start collecting again. I definitely ended up with an overgraded book from time to time but for the most part, I was pretty lucky. Most of the 1940's and 1950's books I bought were usually about very good to very fine. I'd say about 70 to 75% of my purchases were from eBay and the rest were from dealer websites. I had a really demanding job so going to conventions wasn't really an option. As for the fun, crazy covers, here's my copy of #10. My original was just as faded as the #8 I posted but I don't have a scan of it on hand.

In the 1-10 series, numbers 4 and 5 were the last two that I acquired in acceptable condition. I had a copy of #8 from when I was a kid in the 1970's. The cover was really faded. It took a number of years to find a nice looking copy. I don't display any of them because I'm concerned about fading so they're organized and stored by title in boxes. Here's my original and upgraded #8 and a photo of some of my comic boxes. I keep them safely stored out of the light but I browse through them a lot and read random stories from time to time. The upgrade copy of #8 might still only grade about a 5.0 because of a tape repair at the bottom of the spine but I'm very happy with it.

I restarted collecting Archie a little over 20 years ago so I have been able to complete the run from 1-200. Overall, I preferred fine or better on the early issues but for some, like #3 thtrough #5, I settled for copies with detached covers since that was pretty common on the early issues. My #1 is about fine+ with moderate restoration. The remainder are unrestored and normally range from fine to VF or better. I wasn't as concerned about the technical grade so much as I just wanted copies that were complete and that presented well and weren't brittle. For example, here's my copy of #3. The cover is detached but it has white pages. I have no interest in upgrading it since I just want a nice copy of the book and this one looks pretty nice.

Betty is totally innocent!

I haven't. They seem to be pretty scarce. I think the numbering may be part of the "Archie Series" that was published by Bell Features in Canada. The series started with the U.S. Jughead #1 and continued by alternating issues of Archie's Pal Jughead, Archie's Rival Reggie, Archie's Girls Betty & Veronica, and Katy Keene. This issue doesn't fit the normal pattern since it's not one of those titles but it may be part of the series.

Here's the US source for this Canadian issue and the Katy splash page they used for the cover.

That Canadian #11 is actually an issue of Pep Comics. I'm travelling away from home right now so I can't confirm which issue but my recollection is that the contents are Pep #90. So in answer to the main question about that issue, it's not a reprint of a Katy Keene issue. The Katy Keene cover is the splash page from the Katy story.