The only Archie comic book to which I ever subscribed was Archie’s Mad House when I was about 10 or 12.
Unlike the more upscale Mad Magazine, the comic wasn’t really satire. Just silliness.
Inside, you might expect to find the likable superhero parody Captain Sprocket, or Samantha Stevens’ predecessor Sabrina the Teenage Witch, or that teenage kid with a cube head, whatever his name was.
“The early Sabrina is my favorite version of the character,” recalled comics writer Tony Isabella. “She is not evil, just selfish and thoughtless in the manner of many young people then and now. She was originally drawn with a devilish manner about her, a dangerously sexy look.”
And always you’d find lighthearted takes on the old Universal movie monsters, all newly familiar to America’s kids because of endless reruns on the various local TV Early Shows and Late Shows. The actual Archie characters appeared at first, but less and less later.
Published from 1959 to 1982, Archie’s Mad House was the exact opposite of math problems, which is what I was looking for at the time.
Bob Doncaster said: Only read a handful of Mad House but Mad magazine was a constant in my house.
ReplyDeleteBob Hughes said: Loved Mad House. Have the best of reprint collection, plus scans of most issues. I would buy a Captain Sprocket Omnibus.
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