Customer Reviews

Archie Americana Series Volume 5: Best Of The Eighties Book 1

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Archie American Best of the 1980's is the final volume in the Americana series (at least until they to the best of the 1990's!) and contains 17 stories which represent the best and worst of the gaudy, garish decade of the 1980's. Steve Geppi of Diamond Distribution provides the introduction to this volume and relates his own life-long love of Archie Comics. One thing immediately noticeable about this volume is the cleavage on the girls, which was once completely banned back in the earlier days. As with the last couple of volumes the editors selected those stories which documented the many trends and fads from the decade of the 80's.

In "In the Swing" from 1981, Veronica dons the preppie look in a nostalgic look back to the fashions of the 40's.

"Bo Woe" has Vernoica undergoing treatments to give her hair the "Bo Derek" look from the film "10" with braids and beads. Problem is her new hair won't allow her to go out a boat date with a young playboy since she can't get her hair wet.

"The Punk" from 1983 visits the punk music scene as Jughead cuts his hair into a Mohawk and begins calling himself Captain Thrash. Archie does his best to try and save his friend from the punk scene but Jughead has an ulterior motive behind this radical change.

In "Break Dancing Break" from 1984, The Archies are told that the only way that they can get some new gigs is to cut a video. They have a hard time trying to come up with something catchy in their video until they enlist the aid of a group of street breakdancers to help them out.

"Trivia Travesty" finds the gang playing the hottest new board game, Trivial Pursuit but things turn bad for Archie when his answers lead him to getting caught for two-timing Veronica with Betty.

"Wheel of loot" is a spoof on the popular TV gameshow Wheel of Fortune as Betty stands-in for Vanna White as the games letter turner.

In addition to these stories the book features stories on other great and no so great trends of the 1980's including the Urban Cowboy craze, ET the Extraterrestrial, Roller Disco, and Flash Dancing. Even a Michael Jackson-like pop star shows up in the book. As with the other books in this series we also get a couple of cover galleries with sample covers of the 1980's. I've had a chance to review all seven volumes in the Archie Americana series and the set stands as a great testament to the popularity of the Archie character, still going strong after more than 60 years. Throughout all the volumes the editors did a splendid job of choosing stories that were topical and representative of the various time periods. Highly recommended for any Archie fan!

Reviewed By Tim Janson

Ok, I love the whole series and loved reading this one as well. I was born in the 80's afterall. But the drawings don't stand up to the earlier works. The faces don't seem to have as much effort put into them as the earlier works. It is still a must have though so that you can see and compare the differences in the books.