Archie's Pal, Kevin Keller

Homosexuality is a hot button issue in the US. Gay marriage laws and initiatives make headlines, celebrities and faux celebrities find themselves needing to make comments, and it seems everyone has an entrenched stance. Archie entered into this arena in the past couple years with the introduction of a gay character, Kevin Keller. Popular folks like Perez Hilton praised the company for including such a character, organizations recognized him as a powerful symbol, and news agencies seized the story. There was much publicity, but I ask, "Are the comics any good?"

My answer after reading this book is "kind of," leaning toward yes. Kevin adds an interesting dynamic to the group, a new friend to all, a person who can rival Jughead for his eating ability, a young man handsome enough to draw Veronica's attention away from Archie, a companion that makes girl-next-door Betty jealous because he monopolizes her best friend, and someone popular enough to run for class president. One big factor that makes me hesitate about Kevin is that he is sort of a Mary Sue, someone who seems good at everything. But he is just so darn likable still.

-1 for Bon Jovi, +1 for texting

The panel above kind of gives a flavor of the book. It instantly dates itself by making a pop culture reference to a 1980s hair metal anthem, but it is also trying to be in the now with the texting. There are also a number of other gags like this one, pointing out the confusing transition from old to new:

Moms are so silly when they try to keep up.

Kevin is kind of an interesting hybrid himself, a progressive social type who is a military brat and from a pretty conservative family (his mother calls herself a "grizzly mom" at one point) who loves and accepts him for who he is. I find that pretty admirable, that the character is introduced in such a way as a matter of fact. But at the same time, this also strikes me as a pretty conservative, maybe even jingoistic slant to the character.

We've come a long way from "Don't ask, don't tell."

Kevin's ambition to join the military is noble, but at the same time the impulse plays out that he will follow a pretty set path: get in town, get established, run for class president and (spoiler) win, have a first kiss, join the military, and then (another spoiler) get married. This all seems pretty quick to me, especially given that Archie has largely been in high school for the better part of seven decades and has only recently chosen between Betty and Veronica and gotten married (in a sort of alternative future story). Kevin is a potential wild card, but he ends up being one of the most conservative and eventually static characters in the Archie universe. Even his coming out stories, which were fascinating for me to see in an Archie book, were a bit pat and easy for my liking.

Still, I really liked the positive social message in this book that Kevin would be so easily accepted by most, even though there were still those who are bigoted and hateful, here embodied by rivals for class president. My only qualm about their portrayal was that they were so two-dimensional and easily dismissed, like cheap movie villains.

His name should be Dick, but it's not.

Maybe I am expecting too much nuance from a company that has trucked in Americana, conservative messages, teenage romance, and an idyllic suburban life for decades now. It is certainly positive that a character like Kevin has not only found a place but seems to thrive in Riverdale. I like the dynamic he adds to the proceedings, and I also like the tales drawn and crafted here by long-time Archie artist Dan Parent. These stories are jaunty, fun, and well balanced in terms of humor, action, and some measure of social awareness.


And thus ends my look at what Archie Comics is publishing currently. There have been some changes to keep current, catching onto trends of books for YA leaders and also expanding the line to include more diverse characters and story types, but the publisher still has an eye to republishing their classic stories and perpetuating an American nostalgia. I hope you have enjoyed my look at these books!

(On a side note, sorry for the lateness of this entry. Remind me never to do this daily blogging thing during a month with final projects, grading, and so much conference travel. What was I thinking?)

Archie Freshman Year, Book 2

Catching Up With Archie Week continues with a book that both looks forward and back, Archie Freshman Year, Book 2. I enjoyed the first volume in the series so much I came back for more.

The set-up by comic vets Batton Lash (of Wolff and Bird fame), Bill Galvan (creator of The Scrapyard Detectives), and Al Milgrom (co-creator of Firestorm and former editor at Marvel and DC) is to tell untold stories from the past about the Archie characters. In this book, we learn about why Jughead got his iconic S t-shirt and some more throw-away stories where Betty and Veronica make a YouTube movie for a radio contest, Reggie tries to hang out with older students, Chuck draws comic books, and new character Pencilneck G gets the gang involved in skateboarding and Jackass-style hi-jinks. Apart from the first story, this volume seemed more slight to me, not to say that the stories were not enjoyable. They just did not seem exceptional from regular Archie stories, only set in an earlier time period with some more contemporary references added.

Thinking about this book, and looking back at the rest of this week's offerings, it strikes me that as a whole Archie Comics are very much about the passage of time, looking at history, and dealing with change. That is not something I would have expected going into this week, and it might not be the grandest insight ever, but there it is. I might not always greet the conservative tenor of much of their books with open arms, but perhaps the willingness to grapple with issues of time and change are what have sustained the company for so long, as crops of new readers find stories that seem at once timeless but also very much interested in the passage of time and change to engage with.

Maybe I will get more insight into this matter tomorrow when I read about what I think is the most striking addition to the Archie cast: Kevin Keller.

Archie: The Married Life, Book 1

Yesterday, we saw the marriage part, but here we see how everything plays out. This book is a huge chunk of comics, and in its pages we see what happens as these characters get older. The storyline is split in two, alternating between the path where Archie married Veronica and the one where he married Betty. There are some common features between the two: Moose learns to manage his anger and decides to run for mayor.

Reggie and Veronica circle around each other, finding it difficult to break old patterns.

Mr. Lodge becomes more than a parental nuisance and reaches evil supervillain status as he tries to buy up all of Riverdale so he can turn it into a haven of strip malls, chain stores, national franchises, and vast parking lots.

Jughead decides he wants to buy the Choklit Shoppe and run it as his own, if he can afford it.

A standout Little Archie character in the stories by Bob Bolling, Little Ambrose returns to the proceedings, all grown up and running a restaurant/club.

Also, super-smart geek Dilton is curiously missing, but seems to be in the story as a mysterious time traveler who is trying to affect history.

That last element especially seems to color the narrative, as these stories gesture toward a continuity where all the Archie stories and characters of the past (including some very kooky ones) actually happened in part of a multiverse. This is a vast change from past Archie stories that, save for a few examples I can think of such as some of Samm Schwartz's Jughead stories or the 1987 Jughead series, were largely ahistorical comedies or parodies of popular culture. Stand-alone stories are what made it so easy for the editors to package and repackage so much material into various collections and digests, but here we see a series of interconnected comic books more in the narrative vein of typical superhero comics.

This extended narrative was about 100% better than the gimmicky marriage volume I reviewed yesterday. Sure, there are some still cheesy parts, such as the teens' former teachers all pairing up and getting married after all these years, but there are also genuine surprises and emotional moments in this book. The tensions of married life, shifting dynamics between characters who are growing up, and well-plotted narrative make for some very compelling reading.

The credit for a snappy story goes to Michael Uslan and Paul Kupperberg, two veterans of the comics industry. Uslan is a big-time movie producer and former university instructor who taught the first accredited course on comic books. Kupperberg is a writer and former DC Comics editor with a long list of credits. But perhaps the most appealing part of the book for me is the incredible artwork from Norm Breyfogle. Breyfogle is well known for a long run on Batman comics in the 1990s, and his distinction style conveys much action, emotion, and energy into the narratives. I love the dynamism of his layouts, and his style is dramatic and evocative here. He is a master draftsman whose artwork adds so much to the proceedings. There have been some excellent, admirable artists to draw this cast of characters over the years, but I do not think I have ever seen as lively an Archie comic ever before.

The book is available here for purchase, and there are also two consequent volumes already out.

Well, I have looked in at Archie as he is growing up. Tomorrow, I am turning my attention to a favorite minor character in the Archie universe who was given the YA literature treatment. Come on back and catch up with Li'l Jinx!

Archie in "Will You Marry Me?"

First up in Catching Up With Archie Week is marriage. For this book, writer Michael Uslan, probably the first person to teach an accredited college course on comic books and also the producer of the 1989 Batman movie, tells a landmark story. After decades of asking which character Archie would end up with in the end, Betty or Veronica, the answer was finally revealed: Both of them!

Now that is bad timing on Betty's part!

Archie is into PDA apparently. Plus, all his friends are just too psyched. Except Ronnie, of course.

This collection contains a six issue span, with three issues each devoted to two alternate futures, one where Archie asks Veronica to marry him and another where he asks Betty. There are common features to both. The entire teenage cast goes to the same university and stays completely in touch with each other. In each, the woman says yes. The couples get married in what seem to be the happiest of circumstances ever. And in the end, they have two children, a boy and a girl naturally, and both favor their parents and, remarkably, are named Little Archie and Little Veronica/Betty. Creepy.

And now we return to Archie's Very WASPy Christmas...

Aside from the cookie cutter heteronormativity and over-the-top ecstasy about the weddings from everyone in Riverdale, I found a couple parts interesting, mostly the interactions between ancillary characters. Seeing how Archie finally stood up to Mr. Lodge was novel, and seeing who Jughead ended up marrying was interesting, but the only real bits of substance came from exploring how Betty and Veronica dealt with each other after Archie had popped the question. Apart from those bright spots, I found this book to be incredibly treacly and self-serving.

Everybody is just SO HAPPY.

Another aspect that struck me about the book was how sketchy and loose the artwork seemed in places. For a book that is rather monumental, I thought that long-tenured artists Stan Goldberg and Bob Smith's figures look a bit wonky and off-model in places.

This book is available here for purchase.

Tomorrow, I will be talking about the series that follows this cheesefest, The Married Life, and I hope things get better...

Catching up with Archie Week!

Growing up, my sister and I had hundreds of issues of Archie comics around the house and in various rooms. Stacks of floppy pamphlets as well as single and double digests were easily within arms' reach if we needed some quick entertainment or just felt like passing the time with some light reading.

The company that would become Archie began in 1939 as MLJ Comics, named for the first initials of magazine publishers Morris Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John Goldwater. Their initial offerings were of the popular genre of the day superheroes. The comics were largely derivative of more popular characters, though they were groundbreaking in introducing the first patriotic American superhero The Shield.

Eventually, a red headed teenager debuted in a back-up story in Pep #22 drawn by Bob Montana, and soon enough he proved so popular he not only got his own title but they named the company after him.

Archie Comics has long prided itself on its family values and strong editorial leadership. MLJ/Archie was one of the prime movers behind the creation and work of The Comics Code Authority, which for decades promised a level of quality of comic books according to some or perpetrated willful and retaliatory censorship according to others.

Also, because of the strong role of editors the company has a reputation (perhaps unearned) of not always being so generous with their creators. For instance, John Goldwater is credited with creating Archie sometimes, though other accounts give complete credit to artist Bob Montana and writer Vic Bloom. After Montana's death the main artistic duties fell to Dan DeCarlo, who created the very familiar Archie house style still used today and was the first artist to draw popular characters like Josie and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Eventually, DeCarlo brought a lawsuit against the publisher over the characters of Josie and the Pussycats specifically, as DeCarlo claimed to have created them (he named Josie after his wife) and been shut out of licensing deals over the years.

The cast of Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Reggie, Moose, and Dilton have been around for decades, providing sitcom style humor and dating situations for younger readers. Their stories have been long associated with safe, homogenous entertainment that will offend none but amuse all.

As I have documented before, they have made overtures to update their characters some, by using YA authors to write stories or providing some more historical context and backstories, but lately they have made even bolder moves. For the next week, I will be looking at what the company has been up to in the recent past. I will be looking at various updates they have been doing to their characters, from introducing a more diverse cast, to venturing into producing more YA comics, to them even marrying Archie off and letting him be a grown-up. They even now have a series that is a straight-up horror book called Afterlife with Archie where zombies are slowly picking off the Riverdale cast, but I will get at that one perhaps at a later date once it's been collected.

It will be an interesting ride, so make sure you check in!

Archie: Freshman Year, Book 1

Archie and the gang seem to have been in high school forever, but this book tells the tales of their early days in that institution. It explains how Mr. Weatherbee managed to be their elementary and high school principal, and it also introduces us to the the teachers and students of Riverdale High. We see the start of many conventions, including Moose and Midge's relationship and the Betty-Archie-Veronica triangle. There is even some drama after Jughead is forced to move when his father takes a new job, and the older students make life unpleasant for the newcomers.

The comics in this book originally were published serially as five issues. The story was written by Batton Lash, famous for his long-running series Wolff and Byrd: Counselors of the Macabre. He also wrote the unlikely yet extremely satisfying team-up Archie Meets the Punisher as well as a number of Radioactive Man adventures from Bongo Comics. Bill Galvan, known for his work on The Scrapyard Detectives, provides art in his variation on the classic Archie style. He explains his work on this book in this interview, and this interview with Mark Haney also touches on the future of this series.

Archie: Freshman Year has been a success as a comic book and an Apple app. A number of positive reviews of it can be found at Goodreads.

A preview of this volume can be found at Comixology. A preview for the upcoming sequel can be seen here at the School Library Journal blog.

Bad Boy Trouble

The first in the Archie "New Look" series, Bad Boy Trouble was originally published in Betty & Veronica's Double Digest as a serial. The story was taken from a 1991 Michael Pellowski YA novel Bad News Boyfriend. The plot follows the Riverdale gang as they encounter a new arrival in town, Nick St. Clair.

Nick is a stereotypical bad seed. He wears a soul patch, rides a motorcycle, and has a thing for blondes. Even though he repeatedly tries to woo Betty, he switches gears when Veronica shows interest in him and he finds out she is loaded. Veronica turns her back on her friends and family even when confronted with Nick's bad behavior. They get together and hatch a plot to get her to see just how much of a mistake she is making.

This tale attempts to make the Archie characters more realistic. They have more extreme reactions to each other, and perhaps there is more strain to their relationships than in stories past. Nevertheless, there is still a sitcom-type feel to the story, and no one will be surprised to find the status quo returns in the end.

This attempt to update the Archie characters is scripted by Melanie Morgan and drawn by Steven Butler and Al Milgrom. Morgan scripts the New Look stories and does not appear to have other comics credits. Butler has drawn a number of comics over the past three decades and was the designer behind this new look. An interview here tells more about his work on the redesign. Milgrom has a huge list of credits as a comics creator, available here.

The "New Look" Archie stories have been received in a mixed manner. Some fans, such as John Brownlee, simply do not like the "horrible" new look. Others, such as Penny Kenny, think that the story is well done. These stories have drawn more attention to the Archie comics than any time in the past couple decades. Perhaps this new direction will lead to a perpetuation of the characters for future readers.

Moose & Midge: "Breakup Blues"

The third volume in the Archie "New Look" series of stories, Breakup Blues shows what happens when Midge decides to go on a date with Reggie Mantle for a change of pace from her domineering boyfriend Moose. The result is a lot of teenage drama. Moose is jealous and angry, and so the couple goes "on a break." During this break, Midge has fun doing things she normally does not get a chance to do. But Moose makes her jealous when he starts dating a new girl, Judy Johnson.

The story is part of a continued effort to show Archie and the gang in more realistic situations. For example, when he and Betty try to bring the old couple back together, their scheme does not work and Midge and Moose get very angry at them. Their friendships get strained (at least for a little while). There is an attempt to break out of the sitcom feel of many Archie tales, but in the end (spoiler warning!) the status quo wins out and Midge and Moose reunite.

The tale is scripted by Melanie J. Morgan, who has worked on all the New Look stories. The story, as before, comes from a 1992 novel written by Michael Pellowski and John Goldwater. The art is by established comic veterans Tod Smith and Al Milgrom, both of whom have drawn a wide array of different comics over the past three decades.

For some preview pages from this volume, scroll down a little on this page.

The bottom of this page has preview pages from the end of the story. Check out the what looks like a theatrical hard rock band (!?!) pounding out the dance tunes at the big dance contest where the teens are dancing either disco or hip hop. It's difficult to tell which...

The Matchmakers

Adapted from It's First Love, Jughead Jones, a YA novel written by Michael Pellowski and John Goldwater and published in 1991, The Matchmakers is the second entry in Archie Comics' New Look Series. These books update the perennially teenage characters for today. The plot of the story involves a scheme to pair Jughead (the "fifth wheel") with Sandy Sanchez, a smart, athletic, and goal-oriented classmate. Betty and Veronica do this by getting them to compete as partners in a coed school competition. Hi-jinks ensue as the whole gang is engaged in the games and the coupling they set up seems to have worked too well.

Melanie J. Morgan provided the script for this volume, and she has scripted all of the New Look books thus far. Joe Staton and Al Milgrom provided the art. They are both comic book artists who have been in the industry for decades. Staton is probably best known for drawing superhero comics like Green Lantern and his creation E-Man as well as his current work on Scooby-Doo comic books. Milgrom is best known for his work on Firestorm, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-man, and West Coast Avengers. Their artwork portrays a more realistic version of the characters instead of the classic cartoon version originated by Bob Montana and Dan DeCarlo.

The Archie New Look books have grabbed a fair share of news attention for the make-overs of classic characters, but the reviews on the books themselves are mixed. Some are positive, such as this one by Penny Kenny. Others comment on the cluelessness of the story-telling especially in regards to the unrealistic portrayals of teenagers' actions, as described here by Johanna Draper Carlson, and on the dramatic character changes and clunky plot, as described by Brian Cronin. The news coverage or new art style may have given a boost to sales though, as more New Look stories continue to appear.

Archie Comics has multiple previews of the story here (scroll down to see them).