Archie Comics's "The New Riverdale" (2015-)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So today I'm going to talk about the revamp that Archie Comics did of its Riverdale titles in 2015. It's not a review, it's simply a discussion on the series overall. I plan on doing reviews of the comics themselves at some point. So let's get into it.

In 2015, Archie Comics had stagnated with Archie and the gang having been in publication for 74 years. While the artwork had changed and in story clothing, language, and technology had changed over the decades, the stories and characters had not. New characters, like Kevin Keller, Toni Topaz, Raj Patel had been introduced in the 2000s, but Archie still hadn't chosen between Betty and Veronica, Jughead was still eating burgers, Pop was still selling food at the Choklit Shoppe, Reggie was still after Midge despite getting his ass handed to him by Moose, Veronica was still playing referee between Archie and her father, Hiram, and Betty was still the girl next door.

The company had attempted to update the look of the characters and do slightly more dramatic storylines with the "Dynamic New Look" line in 2007, though that update was confined to the Double Digest books and didn't last beyond 2008 as the company had discontinued the series after six story arcs had been published.

Finally, four years after DC Comics launched The New 52 reboots, Archie Comics published a new #1 issue for the company's flagship title, Archie (formerly known as Archie Comics), written by Mark Waid, who is well known for his long runs on iconic comic book series such as The Flash, with art by Fiona Staples, known for being the artist on Brian K. Vaughn's Sci-Fi opera, Saga, published by Image Comics. One of the major differences is that Waid introduced serialized storytelling to the Archie Universe, something that had been mostly absent from the comics, outside of a few major story arcs like "Archie Meets Glee", and "Love Showdown", as well as out of continuity stories.

While Jughead, Betty & Veronica, Reggie, and Josie & the Pussycats all got new series based on the revamp between 2015 and 2016, none of them had any impact on the main Archie title, and vice versa. And because Archie has always been the company's flagship/main title, anything that happens in that series is pretty much canon, with the side books often being one offs or simply get ignored. Which is fine because, if you've been reading my blogs long enough, you know that I find it much easier to keep up with a comic book character if I only have one book to deal with. So while I enjoyed the first couple of issues of all of these spin-off books, the fact that I just had to buy the six trade paperbacks that made up Mark Waid's run on Archie to get the whole story made me, and my wallet, very happy.

After this revamp had been announced, I'd planned on keeping up with the series, as by that point Brad and I were still going to the comic book store on a pretty regular basis, and with the series starting with a brand new #1 issue, I figured I could keep going with it monthly for as long as I felt I was able to do. Sadly, after only three issues, I ended up dropping off the book due to life circumstances that changed things in December, 2015. Luckily, the trades came out fairly quickly AND were consistently available at Chapters, so I bought them as they were released, keeping up with the story that way. I think I was only late on the last two trades, because, again, life stuff was happening. 

Honestly, I think this revamp needed to happen. Don't get me wrong, I love classic Archie comic stories, which are still being published in the Digests, but other comic book companies had moved on to the serialized format in the late '80s with stories like Batman: Year One and A Death in the Family. Well, DC had. Marvel had basically been serialized since the Fantastic Four was first created in the early '60s in that while you could read an issue on its own, every issue mattered within the story of that particular character. So like every issue of The Amazing Spider-Man mattered within the life of Peter Parker. Every issue of Daredevil mattered in the life of Matt Murdock. But issues of Archie's various comic book series had always been either several short stories published in a single issue, or a single longer, one and done story in every issue, dating all the way back to the '40s when the characters were first created, without very much real continuity. In fact the only real touchstones for the classic Archie series is when a brand new character is introduced. So I was, and am, all for the Archie books having this revamp.

Granted Mark Waid's series is definitely more late '90s/early 2000s teen drama than '50s-2000s teen sitcom, and that continues in Nick Spencer's run. I don't mind that as much though, just because the drama isn't WB/CW level stupid the way it ended up becoming on Riverdale, which is actually on The CW. Yet, the comic is refreshing, and unlike Riverdale, keeps the essence of who these characters are. Even though there's more drama, the comedy is still there, and Archie is still Archie, Betty is still Betty, Veronica is still Veronica, Jughead is still Jughead and so on. Which is why I enjoy this series so much.

I'm planning to eventually review all 32 issues of Mark Waid's run on Archie because I want to talk about the characters and stories more indepth than I've been able to do here. I want to do it in a way that I've never been able to do with any DC title, even during the New 52 era. Because while Archie's history is still there, none of it matters for this series. Even going into Nick Spencer's run on the book, when the title resumed its legacy numbering for each issue, it's a new starting point and it's great. I love Archie Comics, and I don't think it gets talked about enough. I certainly don't talk about it enough on here. Archie Comics is slice of life, as Anime fans refer to it as, and fits right in the mold of what I was talking about with TV shows the other day and how, sometimes you just need a series about average people without the high concept conceits that genre fiction gives us. That goes for comic books as well as TV shows.

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I might be back to tomorrow for another post, but I'm honestly not sure at this point. I won't be back on Friday because I'm going to a friend's place for the weekend after lunch and won't be back until sometime on Sunday. So if I'm not back for a blog post tomorrow, I hope you all have a great weekend and I will talk to you all next week. Until then take care.