Archie and his mates reborn as hip millennials
IF IT weren’t for the flaming red hair and toothy grin, you might not recognise the new Archie Andrews.
The 75-year-old comic book character has undergone a major makeover, and his new hipster look debuted at the recent Comic Con event in San Diego, California.
Archie Comics is launching a new line of comics featuring a modernised Archie after it experimented for six years on how to bring the character into the 21st century.
“It was clear to me that Archie was moving down the path of irrelevancy,” says Jon Goldwater, chief executive officer of Archie Comics and son of the man who created the first Archie in 1941. “I really wanted to aim for the comic book shops and the real comic book reader and do a complete relaunch of Archie.”
With his chiselled jawbone, skinny jeans, and Justin Bieber haircut, the new, hipster Archie is a far cry from the bucktoothed bumpkin of earlier days.
The rest of his pals at Riverdale High have also been transformed.
In her low-slung, ripped jeans, Betty is a thoroughly modern teenager; unlike her slightly two-dimensional 1950s incarnation, she is endowed with a full range of facial expressions.
Archie’s best friend, Jughead, still wears a crown, but in every other respect he looks more like a stoner than a jester. In a slow-reveal strategy, the publisher has left Veronica out of the first comic in the new series.
The redesign has been effected by Canadian artist Fiona Staples and writer Mark Waid, known for his work on such titles as Superman.
The comic makeover is a big gamble for the 30-person publisher, which relies on its namesake comic as a major source of revenue. – Washington Post