THREE YEARS!! WOOT WOOT!
And, on this momentous occasion, let’s take a little trip back in time to the magical year, 2012, when Ape/Kidzoic reprinted Richies and Richie Rich made his short-lived grand comeback.
I fell back in love with Richie Rich in early 2012 while visiting my parents’ house and discovering my old comic stash in the closet. I had no idea that 2012 was a Richie Rich zeitgeist that hadn’t existed in 20 years and that would end quickly due to Ape’s financial problems.
I started my love fest by heading to the comic book store where they directed me to the new Ape/Kidzoic GEMS and the giant Richie Rich Dark Horse collection (only $20 back then). Did I appreciate how lucky I was to walk in and buy Richie Rich comics? No! I had no idea they hadn’t been in production since the early 90’s! Try to find Richie in a comic book store today and they look at you like you have three heads.
But, I still wanted a portable version of Richie because as a child, I always brought Richie Rich comics to read in the doctor’s waiting room. Even today, as I walk into any appointment, I start craving a RR comic.
This is what led me to think, “Hey, it’s 2012, surely every single Richie Rich comic has been scanned into the internet and I can read them all on an app on my phone!” I went to the app store and sure enough, there was a Richie Rich app! Again, I had no idea how lucky I was to download it then nor that the app would be defunct by the end of 2013.
The app featured the new 2012 version of Richie and Dollar and looked like this:
Once you clicked on the app, it showed all the Richie comics you had downloaded. I downloaded 12 of them, there were 4 others, but one was Crashman & Rippy which I hated, and the other three I believe were the new 2012 Richie. Each issue was 29 pages long, plus the cover and had NO ADS and no Lotta or Dot. Just Richie. The negative was that only the first story (a five pager) was in color, the others were all in black and white.
The app does still work on my very ancient ipad, I can’t download anything new as the app isn’t supported, but I can read what I already downloaded when it doesn’t crash. This is what it looks like:
For more information on the greatness that was the Richie Rich app, click below:
http://www.animationmagazine.net/vfx/richie-rich-comics-go-digital/
The reason for my trip down memory lane is that I found today’s story on the app, but I didn’t feel posting a black and white story would be very exciting. Then, a few weeks ago, I pulled out a 2012 Gems and there it was in color! So, enjoy this awesome story of Richie and Reggie traveling across the world in beautiful digitized Technicolor! And stay tuned for a 3rd anniversary present at the end..
Richie’s in a baby carriage with a parachute!! And the rules seem odd, you can’t be on a train, yet you can be pulled by a train. I love Reggie’s French! And I’m curious to know what the farmer will do with motorized skates. How will that help on a farm? Perhaps he is building a roller disco next to the farm.
And now to your present! You may not have noticed, but adult coloring books have become all the rage in the past year. It is a great stress reducer. So, I am adding some black and white pages of this story from the app which you can print out and whenever you’re feeling stressed, just color a panel in! It’s like a free massage!
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/06/health/adult-coloring-books-popularity-mental-health/
And if there is a page you really want to color that I didn’t post, just let me know. I’d love to see your finished work if you do color a page in. Have a great day, happy anniversary, and thanks for being a fan club member!
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