Drunken Scotsman swears a lot, no surprise. Personally I’d just watch the Rankin Bass movie but nobody asked me and I’m not a Tolkien diehard.
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It’s Archie’s world…and he’s barely in it.
World Of Archie FCBD Edition
Archie Comics Publications (May, 2026)
LETTERER: Jack Morelli
EDITORS: Jamie Lee Rotante, Vincent Lovallo, & Stephen Oswald
There was a time when setting a whole Free Comic Book Day anthology comic around the girls of Riverdale instead of the main character wouldn’t matter so much given that this is WORLD Of Archie and not Archie directly. It still seems odd that they’re focusing on minor characters while trying to promote the main book, but what’s really odd is that only three of the characters are main characters. Two are from the main cast and a third comes from a spinoff. No Josie and the Pussycats and yet music plays a role in more than one story. Let me get into the reviews and I’ll explain.
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Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
We’re almost out of states and out of pages. We’re finishing the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest before going to Alaska in this chapter.
The last chapter showed the stress getting to both of them. They aren’t getting the best sleep a lot of the time plus all the time on the road is clearly taking it out of them. They might succeed but you have to wonder what the cost will be? At least they were relying on each other the whole time, which is good for a couple as well as a performance duo.
We’re on chapter 9 of 11. This is shorter than the last chapter at only 39 pages, but that’s still pretty long even by graphic novel chapter numbers. I’m still wondering how they decided to break up the story, but I’ve been wondering that about chapters for a while now. At any rate we’re starting in Wyoming, and Mother Nature has decided to pile on their problems. Let’s check in with Pocket Vinyl.
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It looks cool but it does a number on Sonic’s knees.
Sonic The Hedgehog #1 Comics Giveaway Day 2026
IDW Publishing (May, 2026)
WRITER: Ian Flynn
PENCILER: Tracy Yardley
INKERS: Jim Amash & Bob Smith
COLORIST: Matt Herms
LETTERER: Corey Breen
EDITORS: Joe Hughes & David Mariotte
This is a reprint of the first issue, minus the Skylanders ashcan section. Yes, I looked it up.
BW Vs. Comic Drake> DC’s Manga Lessons
Back in January, and yes it’s relevant, Jim Lee was interviewed by a Japanese website about what DC could learn from the successes of manga in the US. This prompted a further response from me as to what DC could and couldn’t learn from manga. Manga’s success came in part from continuing to do some things we don’t or stopped doing while also being uniquely Japanese, which many Japanese media fans in the West find interesting. At the time they were also losing to Marvel Comics, as it tends to go back and forth between the two.
Today DC is doing much better against Marvel in the comics, but still losing to manga last I heard. They made some changes, but they’re also still making many of the same mistakes I pointed out in my article, relying more on gimmicks and trades than doing what comics do best. They’ve also been getting a boost from the Absolute line, reaching readers who somehow thought current Batman wasn’t dark enough and thought Snyder’s Superman wasn’t Supermanless enough. I don’t follow the Absolute line so I don’t know what if anything has changed with the tone, but everything I did hear says it’s not for me and doesn’t feature what I loved about the DC Universe…more so than the regular DC titles currently. They’re also reprinting older comics and doing smaller, more affordable versions of some of their biggest storylines in trade form. So some good moves are being made.
It isn’t enough for YouTuber Comic Drake, often a good source of daily videos and recommended viewing, who recently posted a video about what he thinks is behind DC’s current success increase and what they could do still. While I agree with a couple of his points, this is a VS article so you know there’s enough disagreement to make this interesting. Like I said back in January, US and Japanese comics operate from different perspectives and that’s a good thing for both industries. Yes, there are things DC could learn or even relearn, but not everything Japan is doing is going to work for us because it still abandons what made comics so big in the first place. Watch the video and I’ll explain. Just dodge the occasional “S” bombs.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on May 19, 2026 in DC Spotlight and tagged BW versus, Comic Drake, comics vs manga, commentary, DC Comics.
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