50th Anniversary of Archie Comic Digest #1

[caj]

Was anyone else reading Archie Comics in 1973? I missed the first issue because I only looked at the comics rack. My local Jiffy Market kept the comic digests in the magazine sections (of course).

I know there was Archie digest, then Laugh and also Jughead With Archie. I had dozens of those digests before moving on to DC Comics and Justice League of America.

[caj]

This was the first one I bought - Laugh Comic Digest #2

[Jim Kelly]

How is this even possible? That would mean I'm over fifty years old and I refuse to accept that. Your math must be wrong.

I'll have to look in my box of digests to see which one of my Archies is the oldest--I don't think I got any that far back. However, I do have the first D.C. (Digest Comic) from National Periodical Publications, which is the TARZAN DIGEST (1972). It reprints lots of Russing Manning pages and has a glossary of Ape English, with a cover by Joe Kubert. I also have a Conan the Barbarian digest, but it's in French--I bought it in 1981 at a newsstand near the Seine in Paris and it reprints the first Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor Smith stories.

[caj]

How is this even possible? That would mean I'm over fifty years old and I refuse to accept that. Your math must be wrong.

I'll have to look in my box of digests to see which one of my Archies is the oldest--I don't think I got any that far back. However, I do have the first D.C. (Digest Comic) from National Periodical Publications, which is the TARZAN DIGEST (1972). It reprints lots of Russing Manning pages and has a glossary of Ape English, with a cover by Joe Kubert. I also have a Conan the Barbarian digest, but it's in French--I bought it in 1981 at a newsstand near the Seine in Paris and it reprints the first Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor Smith stories.

Time does fly.

Those early digests reprinted stories from the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. And yet, the stories were all new to me. Archie and the gang were an important part of my childhood.

I suppose everyone feels this way, but I truly believe that I grew up at the best time. I was born in 1965 and grew up during the 1970s, went to high school in the early 80s, and went to college during the mid to late 1980s. I was there at the beginning of color television, VHS and movie rentals, and early tech toys.