The Best of Josie and the Pussycats

by Archie Superstars

This is Archie's new sister volume to our all-time fastest-selling graphic novel series, featuring the lovable girl band JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS. Archie expects this to do very well, with mass-market potential as a full-color 416-page $9.99 volume. We expect it to become the first of many off-shoot "Best Of" titles, and have plans to continue releasing further volumes in this series as well.

This fun full-color collection of Josie and the Pussycats's all-time favorite stories, hand-picked by Archie creators, editors and historians from thousands of pages of material. It is a must-have for any Archie fan, Pussycats fan and fans of the comics medium.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics

400 pages, Paperback

Published September 12, 2017

About the author

THE ARCHIE SUPERSTARS are the impressive line-up of talented writers and artists who have brought Archie, his friends and his world to life for more than 70 years, from legends such as Dan DeCarlo, Frank Doyle, Harry Lucey, and Bob Montana to recent greats like Dan Parent and Fernando Ruiz, and many more!

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Best of Josie and the Pussycats is a collection of Josie and the Pussycats stories spanning sixty(!) years.

There were a couple years in junior high that I was hugely into the Archie books, chiefly the digests that were at the checkout in a lot of grocery stores. A few of them contained stories featuring Josie and the Pussycats. This was on sale for $4 at the Archie store a short while before the quarantine began so I snapped it up.

I don't know that this is really a 'Best Of' collection since Archie comics weren't known for their ground-breaking, sophisticated stories for most of their existence. It's more of a sampling of Josie and the Pussycats throughout the years.

All but the last two stories are drawn in the classic Archie/Dan DeCarlo style. It's a minimalist style that's harder than it looks to pull off. I know because I taught myself to draw the characters over a weekend in college. Anyway, I have great affection for the art style. I caught myself ignoring the stories on more than one occasion to look at the background or figure placement or what have you.

The stories are fun in a wholesome way. Josie, Valerie, and Melody, the titular Pussycats, frequently find themselves in a tight spot, usually at the hands of their manager Alexander or his sister Alexandra, and resolve it within their allotted 8-12 pages.

It's fun watching the characters change with the times with little to no character development. Alexandra has some occult powers in the first couple decades then she's gradually phased out for fifteen years, only to return around the turn of the century. There are a couple crossovers with Archie, complete with an alternate timeline where Archie marries Valerie. I have to admit I skipped the last two stories since they were a departure from the classic style. I haven't been brave enough to read modern Archie books outside of their superb horror line.

For nostalgia reasons, I enjoyed this quite a bit. It made me want to take another stab at drawing characters in the Archie style. It's no Alan Moore's Swamp Thing but it was never meant to be.

The Best of Josie and the Pussycats is a good for a few hours of unsophisticated wholesome fun. Three out of five stars.

[Mark Stratton · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun read. Great stuff

[BespectacledBookGirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

IMHO, story lines and dialogue 1-2 stars, artwork 4 stars. Thus, 3 stars overall. I think that I'm just accepting that for me, Archie is like the Jane Austen of comics. I know it's an important cultural artifact of its time, I know the language and gender roles weren't a problem for their contemporary readers...I know cerebral that I should be really into it but I'm finding it really really boring. Sorry!

[Viviana · Rating 2 out of 5]

1-2 stars. The later stuff a lil less misog-y

[Nicolas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess my biggest takeaway here is that, canonically, Melody is a the rightful ruler of a lost musical kingdom and no one really cares.

[Jean-Pierre Vidrine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful retrospective that gives us fun tales of Josie and the band from the earlier stories down to current incarnations. Along the way, as comic book properties tend to do, they give us reflections of trends of the times.
I wish I could stop right there with this review, but there were two stories that stood out for reasons that I have to nitpick a little.
"Off to a Good Start . . " is listed in the collection as first being printed in 1969. However, in this printing, Alexandra speaks of learning something from a website. Clearly this is not the untouched original story and was likely lifted from one of Archie's digest reprints, where such anachronistic editing is common (I read one such story where the term "CD" had been edited in to replace "record" though the reader could clearly see a record player on Archie's dresser). I can almost understand why the editorial staff does such a thing, but I don't think they're giving their younger readers credit. They, the young readers, must know that certain technologies and terms common to themselves were not always around, and that other such things that were once common are so no longer. Whatever was in that word balloon before "website" was edited in just might have gone over the head of young fans, but I'm sure they would be smart enough to look it up.
The second story that had me scratching my head happens right at the end of a series of weird tales involving haunted houses and the like, obviously inspired by Scooby-Doo cartoons. The stories are a lot of fun, and aren't too big of a stretch for these characters. "Vengeance from the Crypt," however, is a great departure that involves spiritual possession and overt use of the Bible as a tool for exorcism, with not a comedic moment in sight. To say that the story felt out of place among a collection of soap opera/comedy comics is to make a great understatement. I would guess that this script was originally slated for one of Archie's horror titles of the day like Chilling Adventures in Sorcery or the brief horror phase of Madhouse, and that it somehow was recast as a Josie story. Whatever the explanation, it's just plain odd.
As I said, though, these are nitpicks. They did not detract at all from my enjoyment of these fun comics.

[J.B. Mathias · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started out as a good collection of stories, the art was great and I enjoyed seeing the comic across the decades. The problem is by ending with the modern comics the collection really went out on a sour note because they were absolutely awful.

The 2016 and 2017 comics were some of the worst comics I've ever read, the art looked dark and offputting if one thing doesn't work with a gritty modern reboot it's Josie and The Pussycats. The only reason it's interesting at all is it's anachronistic, it's bright it's colourful, optimistic and wholesome. in the 2017 comic they raceswapped all the characters so I had no idea who anyone was supposed to even be. The dialogue was so ridiculous and so out of character it read like a terrible fan fiction from the internet that didn't get edited at all. They had the band getting into bar fights where they somehow take out a room full of people...and the fight came out of nowhere they just walk into a room and the next panel there's a fist fight...the story is all over the place I have a hard time believing a human being sat down and wrote it. These comics are exactly why the older comics are so good and so nostalgic because they represent a much worse modern reality that nobody likes and everyone wants to escape from. Wasn't a fan of the crossover where Archie marries Val because it seemed contrived and kind of ruined both Archie and The Pussycats storylines...but it at least still had the tone of the comics correct.

3.5 stars for the comics from the 60's to the 2000's
0 stars for the 2010's comics

[T.J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Josie & the Pussycats collection is more like a mixtape than a Greatest Hits album. It includes a few tales from each decade of the Pussycats' long-running career. Some stories are groovy, some are spooky, some are truly outrageous, but mostly you get a feel for each time period and then move on to the next, all on the smaller digest-sized newsprint paper.

There's a meta-tale from the 60s/70s where Josie and her pals actually visit the Hanna-Barbera studio during production of the cartoon series that made them famous. That was a highlight! But my favorite stories are the ones from the 80s and 90s, the era of MTV and music video fashion, with the Pussycats trying out everything from a punk rock makeover to a jetset video shoot around the world. I would love for Archie Comics to release a more robust collection of 1980s Josie.

The modern tales here are more like samplers for other books. The much-hyped Archie/Valerie romance is... to be continued in a different graphic novel. The modernized Josie reboot is... to be continued in a different graphic novel. And I passed on the story set in the Riverdale tv show world.

All in all, lots of Pussycats adventurin' for a rockin' low price tag, but a true fan might wish for a slicker presentation, liner notes, a boxed set, rarities, b-sides, backstage passes, a pair of those ears...

[Coryn MacPherson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is great, a wonderful compilation of these beloved characters. Would have given 5 stars were it not for the last twenty or so pages. This is supposed to be “the best of,” and Riverdale has no place calling itself as such. If anything, it’s a stain on the characters’ legacies, and this book would have been much better without it.

[Jeff Lewonczyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gotta admit I'm an Archie traditionalist, so I liked the older stories much better, but it was fun to dip into this over the past few weeks.

[Melea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was enjoying my nostalgic reading until I got to the last 2 stories. Updated, grown-up characters who drink alcohol and drive recklessly. Blech! Not for me, thank you.

[Ruth Patel · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing

This book is so goood five stars definitely recommend it for eight to twelve year olds they are a so funny

[Vera]

The Best of Josie and the Pussycats by: Archie Superstars is a long and catching book. It makes you want to read it all in one day. The characters are the Pussycats Valerie,Melody, and Josie, their manger is Alex. He has a sister named Alexandra and she left the group because she did not get to be the leader. Valerie took her place. And now they are becoming famous little by little they go through a lot of scary things, also some people pretended to say they stole something when in reality it was not true. I liked the and would recommend this book for all ages.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting look at the history of Josie and the Pussycats in comic form. Separated into various decades, you could see how the characters have changed over time, starting in the 60s. I have to say the Riverdale era comic at the end was my least favorite, but maybe if I'd seen the show, I'd be more interested, but they're basically unrecognizable to me there.

[Matt Matt Tobin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like others said. The updates weren't necessary - it took away why we like vintage cartoons. The spooky ones were great. But yeah the end was meh