Archie Comics Update

Macon.com | 04/12/2007 | New art, serialized plot startle fans of Archie Comics

You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind -- and apparently you don't mess with Archie Andrews and the gang.

In December, Archie Comics announced that a new "dynamic art style" was coming for its classic characters.

Fans were not pleased, managing editor Victor Gorelick says. "Most of the readers were `How can you give them this new look?'" Gorelick said. "'I've read Archie all my life and now you're changing him.'"

But the largely negative reaction stemmed from a misunderstanding, Gorelick said in a phone interview from Archie Comics' offices in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

"People thought we were going to change the entire line, which wasn't so," he said. The change, coming in May's "Betty & Veronica Double Digest" No. 151, applies only to a four-part story running in that title.

While Gorelick doesn't rule out the new look eventually showing up elsewhere, there is no plan for sweeping changes in the classic Archie look set by artist Dan DeCarlo more than 40 years ago.

The story in "Betty & Veronica Double Digest" finds Veronica smitten with a new guy in town. "He's kind of a tough guy, rides a motorcycle, a bit of a rebel," Gorelick said.

The serialized story -- a change from Archie's usual short reads -- and the accompanying new art style are meant to attract a slightly older readership, Gorelick said.

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