Our 3 year anniversary, the Richie Rich app, and Richie & Reggie take a trip around the world!

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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I need to read more Richie Rich comics right now! What are my options?

Luckily for you, there are some great options!

1.) If you came straight to this page from a web search, click the home button above to begin reading all the Richie comics posted on this blog.

2.) There are lots of bloggers who have focused on Richie, check them out below:

OMGBEAUPEEP has tons of Richie Rich and Casper posted, you will be very, very happy!

http://www.omgbeaupeep.com/comics/Richie_Rich/674/

Occupy Richie Rich is a famous and funny tumblr blog of Richie stories and covers. But, beware the commentary is NOT SAFE FOR KIDS. It’s currently on hiatus, but there is plenty to read on there:

http://www.occupyrichierich.tumblr.com/

This nice person has uploaded a whole comic you can read.

http://onlineindiancomics.blogspot.com/2007/09/21-richi-rich.html

And if you like Crashman and Rippy, here’s one for you:

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2008/09/sunday-funnies-richie-rich.html

And here’s more:

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2010/11/richie-rich-no-54-february-1967.html

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2011/10/ernie-colons-richie-rich.html

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2010/02/richie-rich-no-45-may-1966.html

http://peur-evol.blogspot.com/2011/02/richie-rich-and-expert.html

http://bloglarry.blogspot.com/2007/10/stinking-rich-and-scared-silly.html?m=1

http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics343.html

http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics399.html

http://skateandannoy.com/blog/2013/08/richie-rich/

https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/5393044.html

Here is a site dedicating a year to commenting on Richie covers:

http://lileks.com/institute/comicsins/covers/rich/1.html

3.) Dark Horse has an entire book of Classic Richie. It’s all in black and white which stinks, but you do get used to it. Unfortunately, they did not publish enough copies and it is selling for quite a high price on ebay, but my local library has a copy and yours might too!

4.) For non-immediate gratification, there are always Richies selling on ebay. And there are some great digests that came out in the early 90’s on better paper stock with better ink that are easy to read and not yellowing and falling apart like the 70’s versions. The only negative is that you often purchase digests you already have because the new covers are different. It is nice to have them on the better paper so it’s not terrible, but it’s annoying when you were salivating for new Richie stories. See below, my old Richie from the closet and the new one I thought I was buying. This is not retouched, the new versions just look so much better!

5.) Ape/Kizoic came out with some new issues of GEMS in 2012. They contain recolored old favorites, new 2012 Richie Rich drawn in the new style, AND some new stories drawn in the old style by Ernie Colòn and Sid Jacobson! You can order them from Amazon or check your local comic book store.

http://ape-entertainment.com/kizoic/about/richie-rich-gems/

6.) Download the Richie Rich App in the App Store for your ipad or iphone.

UPDATE: THIS APP NO LONGER EXISTS. 😦  

I AM KEEPING THE BELOW INFORMATION JUST IN MEMORIAM FOR THE WONDERFUL RICHIE APP. 

CURIOUS ABOUT THE APP THAT ONCE EXISTED? CLICK BELOW:

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/tag/richie-rich-app/

Ape Entertainment has created an app that allows you to download classic Richie and Casper comics that have been digitized for your electronic enjoyment! You can download free previews as well if you’re not quite ready to purchase.

PROS:

• $1 gives you 28 pages of classic Richie to read, with no filler. That means, no ads, no Little Dot, no Little Lotta, just Richie. For comparison’s sake, I just bought some Richie comics (not digests) at Comic Con 2013 for $3 each and when you subtract the filler, I probably had 12 pages of actual Richie to read. So, it’s a great deal!
• If you like/hate Crashman and Rippy, it’s even better because they are grouped C&R and non. You can get a whole comic of just C&R! Or, in my case, I hate C&R so I happily have not bought those four.
• They are so easy to read. If you’ve pulled out your old Richie comics recently, you will see that the yellowed pages and tiny print make them fairly difficult to read. But, getting them on the ipad is great! You can enlarge the frame and read happily with no fear of damaging fragile pages.

CONS:

• Only the first story is in color, the rest are black and white. It is a hard transition after the first story, but you get used to it.
• As of March 2014, they don’t appear to have updated the app to work with IOS 7 or 8 so you can’t download anything. Hopefully, when Ape finishes their restructuring, they will fix the app. If you have an Android device and the app still works, let me know. 🙂

When you’ve found some Richies, please tell us about any great stories you’ve read below!