While Archie Comics had reached near irrelevance in the comic industry during the lastcouple decades, Archie and the rest of the Riverdale gang have garnered a lot of attention the past four or five years with solid selling titles like Life with Archie, Afterlife with Archie, and the recent relaunch of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch with Chilling Adventures of Sabrina; all aimed at a more mature audience than what one would consider Archie’s mainstays. Not to say the newer, hipper comics aren’t still aimed at teens just 21st century teens.
Last weekend Archie Comic Publications Chief Officer and Publisher, Jon Goldwater, discussed the upcoming anniversary and some of his plans to continue to reinvigorate the Archie brand name with the New York Times. Part of his gameplan includes an hour long drama with a “surrealist” take on Archie for Fox Television, a a rebranding of the Red Circle imprint as Dark Circle which will include classic superheroes such as the Fox and the Shield, bringing in hot Hollywood writer/director Lena Dunham to pen a story arc, and even a line of clothing from designer Marc Ecko.
While I can’t claim to really be much of a traditional Archie fan, I have to say I really enjoy Afterlife with Archie and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. As someone who has a deep love of all things comic related, I’m always happy to see a long standing publisher (Archie first appeared in Pep Comics back in 1941) get back into the game and I’ll be looking forward to the upcoming developments Archie Comics has in store.
