Robb, the numbering continues from Laugh Comix, which it self continued from Top Notch Laugh Comics, which continued from Top Notch Comics. The Suzie title clearly lasted the longest.
Thanks. I always thought, based on logic, that the original "Top-Notch Comics", slowly changing genres to comedy, first moving to "Top-Notch Laugh Comics", and then "Laugh Comix", yet through all the changes, keeping the same number series, they also must have kept that same number series at the start of "Laugh Comics", so that Laugh Comics started at 49. I guess that "Laugh Comics started over at #1. So, "Suzie" was in the MLJ/Archie Comics Group from its start, as well. And "Close-Up" was started up by MLJ as a subsidiary company for economic bookkeeping reasons. But, I still don't understand why the Close-Up published Dover Boys one-shot didn't have the Archie Series logo on its cover like all the rest of the Archie Group books, including Close-Up's "Suzie". And the fact that it only got one issue published when the deadline for finishing the artwork and printing on the 2nd issue was BEFORE final sales totals could possibly come in for the 1st book. Almost always there were a minimum of 2 printed books per quickly cancelled series (like Fox's "Animal Crackers" and O.W.'s "Mad Hatter"). I think "Adventures Of The Dover Boys" was stopped because of a fight over the copyrights. And I still think that "The Black Swan" was an I.W.-style "Pirated" bootleg issue, NOT published and issued by MLJ/Archie, but printed up and sold illegaly because the publisher got hold of the printing plates. I think that was also true for The Liberty Comics printing Archie material. MLJ wasn't likely to farm out some of their 2 and 3-year old stories to tiny publishers to reprint so soon after they had appeared on newstands and in shops under their own banner.
