My initial reaction was “Oh, Christ what a desperate, market-calculated, pointless decision.” But soon after, I thought, "Well, the art’s not bad for what it is and who it’s for. And they have been “updating” the character through the years anyway, the only thing to remain consistent is the various artists imitating the original artist style. Sort of like if every Spider-Man artist was required to imitate Steve Ditko’s style. So I end up at “Not a bad thing.”
Your thoughts?
It’s ridiculous. No one buys Archie comics for the realism. And then again, maybe that’s the point- no one buys them anymore, so it is an attempt to get them popular again.
They should have left it, because I use Archie Comics as a warning to the young people. The trappings of your youth culture will continue to be made fun of long after nobody even remembers what all those details were referring to. Oh, and the update to the Chrispy version would of course have Jughead protesting a gay funeral.
Are they changing 'Lil Archie?
And if they’re going to start screwing with that, why not Harvey Comics? Richie Rich? Get some real pants on the boy. Have him pro-war, though he’ll never actually have to go fight in it. Caspar? I think modern kids, raised on CSI, wouldn’t mind knowing the gory truth behind his death. And Wendy? Tart her up. What’s the point in being pagan if you aren’t going to dress slutty.
It didn’t bother me when they changed over Sabrina, the Teen Age Witch to manga style – that title could use a pick-me-up. They did the same with Josie and the Pussycats. (MilliCal loves Sabrina, BTW, manga or not)
But Archie and the gang?
I’m at least glad they didn’t go manga with them. I’d hate to have them with wide-open eyes and occasional 2-D mouths. But this new style doesn’t fit the style of humor!! What are they trying to do,turn it into Mary Worth?
[url=http://forum.newsarama.com/showpost.php?p=2901535&postcount=144]An Archie PR guy on Newsarama clarifies the story.[/url’
This is only being done for 2 Digests (The other one is Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals.), for a handful of issues, at first, possibly more in the future, depending how those digests sell. Or based on a poll. I’m not 100% sure what Rik meant by ‘[a]fter that the fans will tells [sic] if they want more’.
The Traditional/DeCarlo style will continue in the other books, and, from the way the stories they’re doing in the new ‘Dynamic’ style stories are described, in the other stories in those digests - they’ll be 4 part stories, across 4 issues of the digest, 25 pages per digest (I think…that’s how the story reads to me, and Rik didn’t clarify that part.)
