Archie's Activity Digest

I thought that I would use today's blog entry to do a feature on a forgotten title in the Archie universe that might not have lasted too long, but nevertheless had some impact.

Today's featured title?  The short-lived Archie's Activity Digest title.

Now, the 1980s brought us a ton of new digests.  Archie's Double Digest and Betty and Veronica Double Digest, for example, which are still in publication today (under the heading of Jumbo Comics).  But for every successful digest are a bunch of others that didn't last too long.  Katy Keene Digest ran for ten issues.  The New Archies Digest stretched out to fourteen.  And the Betty and Veronica Annual Digest managed to run for sixteen issues over an eight year period.

But the Archie's Activity Digest?  It ran for four issues.  Only four.  At least it lasted longer than some of the one-shot digest issues that were published, but there's the burning question - why did this title only last four issues?

By all accounts, the Archie's Activity issue wasn't a terrible idea for a title.  The vast majority of the covers and interior pages were done by longtime Archie artist Joe Edwards, who also worked on the "Archie and Me" title and various Lil Jinx comics, and he certainly illustrated many stories in the Archie universe.  And much like many of the digest series, the first story of the series was new and original, so at least we were guaranteed one new story to read featuring Archie and his friends.

However, that's where the appeal stops.  Because the Archie Activity Digest only featured ONE story.  The rest of the 128 pages?  Puzzle pages, word searches, connect-the-dot puzzles...and that's it.  It was called Archie Activity Digest because it was more or less an activity book. 

Even the covers sometimes contained puzzles.  Take this example from Archie's Activity Digest #2.  In fact, let's play along!

Okay, let's play this game.  We'll start with the top-left corner and go across ending at the bottom-right.

Professor Flutesnoot, Ms. Grundy, Miss Haggly, Ethel Muggs, Hiram Lodge, Smithers, Betty Cooper, Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Waldo Weatherbee, Pop Tate, Reggie Mantle, Veronica Lodge, Ms. Beazly, Mr. Svenson, Moose Mason, Hot Dog, Fred Andrews, Dilton Doiley, Mary Andrews, and Coach Kleats.

Yeah, I know...that was an easy one.

Now, to be fair, the book by itself wasn't a terrible idea.  At $1.25 in American funds, it wasn't a bad price for what you got inside of it.  And provided that you had some crayons with you to do the colouring pages that happened to be inside the book, it provided kids with lots of fun activities to do during long car rides, or while you were at your grandmother's house.  And some of the activities inside sometimes helped teach you things about geography and history. 

I seem to recall a few of those activities happening in the final issue of the series, which was released right around the time that the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty was taking place.  It was interesting to learn more about one of New York City's most popular landmarks, as well as some history surrounding it.

But for comic book collectors, the book was a bit of a dud.  After all, the book pretty much encourages you to draw and write inside of the comic books which can cause a mess on other pages depending on how potent the pens or markers were.  And admittedly, one can get through a puzzle book that is only 128 pages long fairly quickly.  And there definitely isn't a whole bunch of re-reading value in it.  After all, one can only look at a book of puzzles for so long before their eyes glaze over and their mind starts to wander.

So, I can understand why the title was re-tooled in late 1986 and changed to "Archie's Story and Game Digest".  They reduced the number of puzzles, but increased the number of Archie stories, so that after every story, you'd do three or four puzzles, and then read another story.  It was a much better flow, and that title lasted for thirty-nine issues.  And at least digests today still print the occasional puzzle or activity to do while you read.

But none of that would have been possible had the "Archie's Activity Digest" not come along.