Archie's Madhouse!

 Archie's Madhouse is my favorite Archie title hands down. This ultra-weird little comic hit the racks in 1959 when it was a commonplace to do satire in comics and magazines. MAD had shown the way and an cascade of imitators followed in its wake. Archie's Madhouse is one of those but with a singular twist that it made use of the existing Archie cast to do the spoofing. 

I'm not certain, but aside from Lil' Archie this may be the first time the denizens of Riverdale were taken out of their characters fit for a new fashion. The 60's would see a bunch of this type of thing with Captain Pureheart and the Man from RIVERDALE and such like. The comic was typically divided into sections and Craig Yoe's reprint tome follows suit as will I in this brief review. 

First up is the "Teen-Age Section". This features of course the Riverdale gang doing things they probably wouldn't or couldn't do in "real" Archie stories. Along with them there are Chester and Lester, the latter a literally block-headed dope and the former a hipster man of the ladies. My favorite gag might have been Ronald the Rubber Boy who eats too much bubble gum and like Ralph Dibney starts to stretch all over the place until fate rubs him out. 

The second category is the "Monster Section" in which we are treated to the debut story starring the teen-age witch herself Sabrina. I prefer this earliest Sabrina design. Nifty story called "Dr. Syklops" which takes a shot at yarns in which mad scientists shrinks people -- a blend of Dr.Cyclops and The Puppet People with a dash of The Incredible Shrinking Man. There's a visit to M.I.T., the Monster Institute of Transylvania. And a great little yarn about Frankenstein's Monster as a hippie. 

With over half the book done we get the "Way-Out Section". My favorite story in this part is "The History of the Comic Book", and it might well be the biggest laugh I had reading the book. There's a strange story about a mermaid looking for love, but mostly it's some nifty if sometimes outdated gags. 

The "Outer-Space Section" checks in at the fourth spot. Here we have some twists on the classic space-age stories which filled comics of the time, some of them exceedingly well crafted in a style less comedic than the general style for an Archie Comic. On the other side we meet "The Blips", aliens who live among us even as we speak. 

The fifth and final category is the "Good-Guy Section" starring Captain Sprocket.  We have two Sprocket stories here, one in which we gets some cameos from Fly-Man, The Shield, and The Comet of MLJ Comics fame. Another hero named Blue Beam gets a nifty fun story. 

All in all a fun package. There was some hint that Yoe might be doing subsequent volumes, but this one has been out a while and I've seen nothing to indicate more are coming. I'll try not to be too blue though with what I have. 

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