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Thursday, January 15, 2015

The Ascent Of Archie

Remember this chestnut?
"Frank Miller" does Archie.
I posted it eight years ago, at the end of ’06. At the time, Archie Comics’ attempts at rejuvenating their moribund brand seemed a little desperate and absurd. Archie was clearly at an all-time low; Frank Miller was clearly at an all-time high. Imagine a merger, note the absurdity and cue the derisive laughter.

My, how things have changed.

In 2014, this series was hailed as a comic book highlight of the year:
Now cut to the near-future, where this is being tagged as 2015’s most hotly-anticipated comics release:

Who’s laughing now?

The Ascent of Archie: Peter Derk unveils the persuasive transformation that took place, in “Should You Be Reading Archie Comics?” And Mark Peters talks with Archie CEO Jon Goldwater to find out how it happened.

Further proof that Archie is it right now: Goldwater pretty much nails his Reddit AMA.

So what do I think? Stay tuned.
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4 comments:

  1. Joel Swagman8:29 pm

    I've never been a huge Archie fan. (For no particular reason. I think I just was never exposed to it when I would have been young enough to get hooked.) But I was listening to the BBC World Service about 6 months ago or so, and they did a program on how absolutely huge Archie was in India. Apparently it represented to many people in India an idealized version of what life was like in the United States. Also apparently people in India were absolutely devastated when they found out Archie was going to die in the comics.
    (The BBC program portrayed this as the end of Archie comics. But, correct me if I'm wrong, the death of Archie storyline was set in a separate universe than the regular Archie comic books, right? The regular bread-and-butter Archie comics are still being published I think.)

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  2. dpreimer7:03 am

    Re: Death of Archie: you're asking the wrong guy. The only title I've picked up in the last eight years is Afterlife. My impression is that, since continuity was never an issue with Archie Comics before, they're not making it an issue now. But I could be way off base.

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  3. dpreimer7:05 am

    Hm. From the sounds of it, the death of Archie takes place in one of the "married" timelines, but works in both(?). It's all so confusing.

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  4. dpreimer7:18 am

    Wow -- Archie non-continuity has become a really big deal, it seems.

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