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[MarkWarner]

Hmm last week's Key was not a howling success. Let's be charitable and say it has a great cover and leave it at that.

OK, so this is our first comparison read. I thought once a month might be in order, and we start with a light one suggest by a group member. I guess you may well guess who. As I am feeling a tad lazy I'll just copy and paste the message I got:

"Suzie Issue 50 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=58682 either Suzie the Chorus Girl! (p 23) or Little Miss Suzie (p 39)

Suzie Issue 68 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=59105 it's not quite the exact middle of the run but it is a Transition issue, Fagaly still on covers but the interior art is different from the early issues, not 100% sure if all the interior work is by Schwartz  "Suzie the Perfect Shopper" is a pretty typical Suzie story for this time period. By the time the issues #s got into the 70's Schwartz had taken over the book.

Suzie 100 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=58592 1st story, "Reversed Psychology" at three pages long it is the longest piece in the entire issue!"

[SuperScrounge]

Suzie the Chorus Girl! - Hmmm... okay.

Little Miss Suzie - Cute, although I wonder if the book at this time was aimed at kids or adults.

The Perfect Shopper - Cute. More energetic than the earlier stories.

Reversed Psychology - Ehh... the art was fine, the story did a nice job of building on the premise, but Ferdie came off too much like a stalker which worked against the humor for me.

As for my comparison...
The earlier two stories tended to be paced slower, with more good girl art and an underlying sexuality, that might have been missed by younger readers, but almost certainly was picked up on by older readers. The later stories reduced the sexuality and speeded up the pace and focused more on the humor.

[betaraybdw]

I'll chime in at length later, but to clarify this book(and her early appearances in Top Notch Laugh) was aimed at adult readers in the early days, as were most of MLJ's offerings. Once Archie himself got really big they started to Tone down other titles like Suzie.

[crashryan]

I like the idea of watching characters change over time. Suzie certainly changed over the years.

#50 is definitely aimed at adults, though it isn't at all salacious (pity). The artwork isn't all that hot, but once the fireworks begin it's lively enough that I don't mind. "Angela the Angel" moves fast. The jokes are hit and miss. It annoys me how often the artist cops out with silhouettes. What's with that panty shot in page 9 panel 4? "Chorus Girl Ginger" is genuinely funny, especially the extended scene with the dog. Fagaly's loose style works perfectly here. I love pages 28 and 29.

In #68 the GGA is turned way down and Suzie sports a new hairdo. It's funny how the curl over her eye moves from left to right depending on which way her head points. Having a boyfriend permanently limits the range of situations Suzie can get into. Maybe that's why they made her even dumber than she was in issue 50. The boyfriend is both homely and dumb, though not as dumb as Suzie.

By issue #100 we're in full Archie mode. I assume that's because Samm Schwartz is doing the drawing. Suzie is cute but she looks like she's a close relative of Betty and Veronica. And "Daddikins" looks like Archie's father moonlighting. Ferdie isn't quite so homely but he's no smarter. Suzie herself has become downright stupid. The super-short stories don't help and the package as a whole is pretty dull.

Overall, not too bad. I prefer the stories in the earlier issues and the art in the later ones.

[Drahken]

This kind of shift was actually more common than you'd expect. Have you ever wondered why the blondie comic is named blondie when it seems to focus on dagwood? It's because the strip was originally just about blondie, and her life as a flapper (somewhat similar to that first suzie comic). Then she married dagwood & the comic shifted to focus on domestic life humor. Similarly, the comic strip nancy was originally "fritzi ritz", a comic about a woman's flapper style life. Fritzi's niece nancy came to live with her at one point, and then nancy wound up taking over the whole comic, pushing her aunt out of the way, and even getting it renamed.

[paw broon]

Little Miss Suzie shows a calculating, not very nice side to the character, pinching the kid's balloon, cheating on the fare and, fortunately getting her comeuppence at the end.  But there are some nice panels in the story.
By #58, the art has indeed changed and the dopey boy friend is now present .  I've been reading a lot of Archie stuff recently incl. Suzie and Ginger and here, Suzie really does carry on like a dumb blonde. It's all good cartoon fun.
#100 is again a change with shorter, snappier stories and I prefer this format.  No messing about.  The GGA is gone but the humour and fun is good.
I enjoyed all 3 comics but prefer the more Archie style and that could be because I'm a big B&V and Archie fan.
I'm still not sure of the value of this exercise as all I seem to have done is read, or in this case, re-read, 3 comics rather than one. Of course there are changes as you move along.  It would be odd if over 50 issues there wasn't a change/progression/regression in art, storytelling, changes of emphasis, especially as this is a humour title.
I'd be curious to know if any of our members can point to reasonably long running American comics where there is no change of art, point of view, beefing up, toning down, or is aimed at a different audience as we move along. 

[narfstar]

What the heck is Suzie setting on in the splash to Chorus Girl. I did not care for Chorus Girl. Not really very funny and mostly predictable. Little Miss Suzie on the other had was a lot more fun. I enjoyed the mischievious Suzie. I never heard the expression Dandle on his lap before. The look on his face would indicate he either knew Suzie was older or liked little kids. PERFECT SHOPPER was just too stupid. Reversed Psychology was a quick little ARchie style not bad.

BTW: I thought comparison was to be something like comparing a Suzie story by MLJ to a Freddy story by Charlton or some such.

[crashryan]

Narf, I'd say Suzie is sitting on a perspectivally-challenged armchair! That's what happens when you draw the figure first then tack on the background.

This time through I notice that the theatrical producer is John Goldwater, co-founder/publisher of Archie Comics (and later Guru-in-Chief of the Comics Code).

[narfstar]

I did not catch Goldwater shame on me

[crashryan]

Paw Broon's observation about comics changing over time got me thinking. The closest I can think of to American comic books that stayed the same year after year would be the Disney Duck books. After the character designs were finalized in the 40s the comics remained remarkably consistent for decades. Of course topical references would pop up, but the universe was unchanged. In contrast many American comic strips have been frozen in time forever. Two examples would be Blondie, locked down in the early 1950s, and especially Bringing Up Father--eternally stuck in 1929 (visually anyway--the characters are more like 1919).

[Morgus]

Saw some evolution between the first and the second Suzie stories...(you could really really tell the 2nd was from the ARCHIE stable..) but not so much by number 3...they found their groove and stuck with it, I guess...not bad not great and the art looked nice...not much background on the first one...a lot of walking in space and on air...

[MarkWarner]

So this week we do our first reading group comparison, I am not sure how this is going to work out, but "nothing ventured nothing gained".

#1 on the list is Suzie #50 and "Suzie the Chorus Girl". I live in a "dog friendly" house. Well, so I have been told by the missus and the three free-loading mutts who live with us. So, I guess it was really rather wrong of me to laugh at the dog (or "flea factory" as the director calls Cuddles) in the sausage machine. I also read the other suggested story in this issue "Little Miss Suzie"

So after reading these two, the early Suzie is done. She is standard dizzie blonde fare, but rather well done. They were both light fun reads.

After reading the transitional Suzie in "The Perfect Shopper", I am not quite sure what I "should" be thinking, but I preferred both the the art and humor of the earlier incarnation. This one really is standard filler fare.

Now for the last one on our three. Suzie now appears to be a comic strip gag. I thought this was better than the middle one. But as is pretty usual for me I preferred the original one.

PS: Jim... we have no stinking badges or rules here!! So comparison can be a development of a single character or comparing one character against another ... or whatever. If anyone has any ideas for an Xmas comparison please message me!

[betaraybdw]

Suzie is an odd "like" for me. I stumbled across one here several months back and like a fungus it grew on me. I went to find out more about the character and discovered that very little indexing and scanning had been done, so I gave myself the "Suzie mission" and now we have well over half the issues scanned (Narf, I'll catch up on GCD indexing eventually). I'll be adding 5 more books soon.

Now to it.

I like the early stories better in this selection (which I chose based on "typicalness" and their place in the publication history), though there are many stories in the Schwartz body of work that I like as much or better.

I'm a big fan of GGA, so the early issues fill that nitch.

by the time you get to issue 70 Schwartz has taken over whole book from Fagaly and it is all classic Archie mode from there.

As the series progresses Ferdie actually becomes the focal point of seemingly at least half the stories with Suzie often playing the "straight-man" to his idiotic antics. Many a story ends with Suzie getting exasperated and clobbering him over the head with something, and justifiably so. 

Of these 3 books I like 50 best and 100 the least. To me they really just "phoned it in" on that final issue. A lot of the material seems like reject stuff they had laying around that did not get used in other issues. I'm thinking Archie comics just slapped it all together because Schwartz was busy getting his epic run on Jughead going.

50 -  7.5/10

68 -   6/10

100- 4/10