One minor item I noticed on “Barney Bear Family Tree” 1C - looks like when this was added, the release year was left at 1983 - it should be 1977 as this is the original Spire version.
I’ve corrected this, all good now?
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Growing up, I had a friend who had nothing but Spire Archie’s and I thought ALL Archie Comics were religion based. Later, I found out the difference but there were a few years where I didn’t get why some comics preached about God while others were more goofy, teen stories.
I have a soft spot for Archie’s Sonshine because it was the first Spire I read.
Thank you @CLZ_AJ ! It says 1988 now which is when the Barbour editions (1A/1B) came out. I actually looked up the date to be sure, and it turns out the original Spire edition (which CLZ has as 1C) came out in 1982 actually, not 1977 like I’d thought. So it should actually be 1982 (CLOSE to what it was before!)
@Valeyard that is a cool story! Archie’s Sonshine is definitely one of the great Spire books. My first Archie one was Archie’s One Way, and I remember being shocked that an Archie Christian comic existed! Also really loved “Cross and the Switchblade”, “Through Gates of Splendor”, and others - to this day I’ve never read the books but I know the stories because of these comics!
The following changes have been made:
There are now 2 series titled: “Barney Bear Family Tree (Fleming)” and “Barney Bear Family Tree (Barbour)“. What was previously #1C is now #1A in the Fleming series. #1A & B have been moved to the Barbour series and another edition has been added. Release dates have been corrected as well.
Thank you @CLZ_Justin ! However … :). This is actually one out of 58 Spire Christian Comics, ALL of which have Barbour variants. The Spire books came first, from 1973 to the early 80s. Then Barbour bought rights to reprint each one which happened in the late 80s.
The only reason a handful of these titles [like this Barney Bear one] have the Spire books AFTER the Barbour ones in CLZ [i.e. variant C vs. A], is that I requested in this thread that a few missing Spire variants get added, and they were added at the end [as “C” for example] instead of relabeling the existing Barbour variants as “B” and “C” and making the Spire variant “A”.
In my opinion they should stay as variants as the contents are identical, minus trade dress, prices, and ad pages reflecting Barbour vs. Spire.
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Hi @CLZ_Justin , I just realized my response may not have included a pertinent detail. Of the 58 Spire Christian Comics, all have Barbour variants, but now only this one title I was asking about [Barney Bear Family Tree] has the Barbour variants separated out as a separate title. The other 57 show the Barbour variants as variants within the same title. I would assume the intent is to treat them the same. My personal opinion is that I like them as variants because the contents are virtually identical, but that’s just my 2 cents worth.
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