Little Archie Digest Magazine #23

December 14, 2007

Quick Rating: Fair

A classic feast of Archie Christmas tales!

Writer: Dexter Taylor & others
Pencils: Dexter Taylor & others
Colors: Barry Grossman & others
Letters: Bill Yoshida & others
Editor: Victor Gorelick
Cover Art: Dexter Taylor
Publisher: Archie Comics

Dipping back to 1987, here we have Little Archie Digest #23, Dexter Taylor and the rest of the Archie Comics crew gave us a Christmas sampling of comics. Now with a 128-page digest, it’s just not practical to review each and every story… fortunately, Archie made it easy on us. Not every story here is a Christmas yarn, though, so I’m gonna stick to the stories of yuletide cheer.

The Christmas stories actually don’t even start until nearly halfway through the book, with “The Spirit of Christmas.” When Little Archie’s Santa impression lands him in detention, he gets to wondering about what the holidays must be like for Miss Grundy. Despite the fact that she put him in the clink, Little Archie feels sorry for her and attempts to mobilize the gang to spread some Christmas cheer. Rather makes me wish, as a teacher, I had a few Little Archies in my class.

“One of the Family” stars Sabrina and Salem, the latter of whom is upset because he hasn’t been home with his family for years, and misses them around Christmas. Sabrina whips up a magical visit, only to have the cat realize that you can’t go home again. This story was something of a surprise – the twist at the end is actually kinda bleak if you stop and think about it, and not really what one would expect from Archie and the gang.

“Little Archie and the Magic Cap” is actually the second story in the book to use an extra-terrestrial encounter as its hook. (The first, “A Present For You,” is ironically not a Christmas story.) A Christmas Eve snowfall disguises an alien ship that winds up crashing into the Andrews’ roof. The alien befriends Little Archie, who introduces him to the concept of Christmas. To show his gratitude, the alien gives Little Archie a telepathic cap, but Little Archie quickly learns that knowing his friends’ thoughts is more trouble than it’s worth.

And the last Christmas entry here is a simple gag page featuring Archie and the gag not knowing the proper way to hold up a sign. Way to go, kids.

As far as Christmas content goes, this book is kind of light – although considering how much Little Archie material there is to go around, in relation to the Archie library as a whole – I suppose they probably just didn’t have enough to fill an entire 128-page digest. The stuff we have here is adequate, but nothing special, and even the non-holiday stories aren’t anything to write home about. I pulled the book out of a bargain bin, and let’s say I’m glad that’s the route I went.

Rating: 6/10