Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
A Geek Culture Podcast - Two life-long Geeks explain, critique and poke fun at the major pillars of Geek Culture for your listening pleasure.
Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
Archie Comics is Bonkers Part 1
Archie Comics represents one of the most fascinating paradoxes in American pop culture – a property deeply associated with mid-century nostalgia that has somehow remained culturally relevant for over eight decades. This exploration takes you from Archie's origins in 1939 to its surprising evolution as one of the most experimental publishers in modern comics.
Before Batman dominated box office returns or Marvel built its cinematic universe, Archie Andrews pioneered cross-media expansion. Within two years of his 1941 debut, Archie jumped to radio with a show that ran for a decade.
The genius of Archie Comics lies in its experimental spirit. When traditional comic sales declined in the 1970s, Archie pioneered the digest format, establishing distribution channels in grocery stores and mainstream retail outlets. The company simultaneously licensed its characters for Christian comics while launching horror imprints, showing remarkable versatility. By 1980, spin-offs like Betty and Veronica were outselling the flagship title, demonstrating how the Riverdale ensemble had transcended its main character.
Discover how this seemingly wholesome, time-locked property became one of the most innovative forces in comics – a transformation that would ultimately lead to groundbreaking storytelling in the modern era. The secret to Archie's longevity wasn't just nostalgia, but a willingness to evolve while maintaining its essential character – a lesson many older properties failed to learn.
What are you, peter Gabriel, now? Hmm, I blame it on the large John Collider, I blame it on the rain, I blame it on Archie.
Speaker 2:I blame it on the boss-o-nova.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 2:Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative, all weapons.
Speaker 1:Now Charge the lightning field. Maybe it's Archie.
Speaker 2:You know what? That's actually a very good point Because it's true, somehow they managed to keep their integrity in fact, up their integrity, though it's a completely ubiquitous property that, in most people's minds, is stuck in a specific era, but has reinvented itself and turned out to be quite lucrative and innovative and inclusive and inclusive early on. Today, if you haven't figured it out, we're talking about Archie comics and that weirdness, that inclusivity, innovation is why it's a fascinating thing. If we did an Archie, if we didn't ever read an Archie comics episode, if none of that had happened, it would be like, oh well, here's an old thing we're talking about that has no relevance today, like Prince Valiant or something. But Archie comics is different.
Speaker 1:It has reinvented itself in really interesting ways and is one of the more adventurous publishers taking chances today than most yeah, I mean, if you look at like archie's history, the few things that comic wise were out and came out the same time archie did you're looking dick tracy completely anachronistic and a dead property. Green Hornet dead property. Lone Ranger dead property. The Shadow dead property.
Speaker 2:Conan the.
Speaker 1:Barbarian way past its prime and peak Namor the Submariner still around, but, yeah, absorbed into Marvel. Nothing really other than, like you know, your two big guys, which we'll discuss.
Speaker 2:Yes, but I mean they are.
Speaker 1:there's something that has stood the test of time has changed with the seasons, the decades, the turmoil of society, the way we view comics, the way comics are read, purchased, desired, manipulated, turned into other properties. It's sustained all of that and a lot of times been at the forefront of so much of that.
Speaker 2:And it's weird too, because none of that was incremental. It actually I mean, some of it was. I mean there were a lot of spinoffs in the 50s and 60s. You're just using the Pussycats, you're springing to the Teenage Witch, that kind of thing. But most of its staying power today is because it did a monumental change in the early 21st century, which normally for a property like that would spell its due, like Chuck E Cheese today, certain things that have been around for a long time that suddenly changed the format, because they think they're changing with the times and then they ruin it.
Speaker 2:Archie managed to make it work and not just make it work, succeed in a way more than it did so before. It found an audience that lucrative. But let's go back to the beginning for a second Before we get into that. Let's let's go back all the way back to the beginning. I'd like to frame this with an interesting anecdote here, an excerpt from a Newsweek article from issue 272 in 1998. Quote all American romance and just follow along with me here. In 1938, love Finds Andy Hardy, the wholesome American hero played by 18-year-old Hollywood veteran Mickey Rooney, enjoys the attentions of two new girlfriends, played by lana turner and judy garland. That's a real sophie's choice there, isn't it? The wildly popular series of 15 movies I think it's 16 actually technically was recognized in 1942 with a special oscar to MGM for achievement in representing the American way of life. Okay, they invented an Oscar for that.
Speaker 1:I mean, they invent Oscars for things all the time. They do. They're giving Tom Cruise one this coming year for, like I don't know, sustaining and pioneering cinema in the past decade or whatever, so a lifetime achievement without saying we want to get rid of you.
Speaker 2:That's what that is, because whatever, so a lifetime achievement without saying we want to get rid of you. That's what that is, because that's what a lifetime achievement award is it's like thanks for your cooperation on the way out the door you go.
Speaker 1:Well, it's also like hey, you didn't you like a Sidney Poitier. I think that's like the perfect lifetime achievement. It's like, hey, here's a guy who was like a fantastic actor in many great films and roles, meant so much to not only film but society and really like had an effect on humanity as a whole. This is an award for you to recognize you and what you meant, as opposed to like hey, remember when cinema was down and you made top gun and the mission impossible films and you want to make big blockbuster stuff and you're always out there. Hey, here's an award for you. Thanks, buddy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one of those like well, who's somebody popular that hasn't gotten an award in a while? Because we need to keep ratings up or keep happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or that. Hasn't like tried to quote act Act.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, in a long time tried to quote act Act. Oh yeah, in a long time. As much as we talk about the obvious fantasy nostalgia of the 1950s post-war America, which is often in the zeitgeist represented by Leave it to Beaver or the Andy Griffith Show.
Speaker 1:The archetype really has its origins Right off the dome. What? No, those are literally the things I was going to say. Those are like the standard go-tos, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, other than just citing Norman Rockwell. What else is there? You know what I mean. Like those are the big ones right In today's society.
Speaker 2:But this archetype really has its origin in the 16 film series and by film I'm being generous featuring andy hardy, obviously played by mickey rooney, not obvious because like he was in everything, but because I mentioned it before. It was a world that portrayed an idyllic american city called carvel, possibly in idaho I think, which is what they kind of imply in the first one of those, which was wholesome, innocent, heteronormative, chauvinistic and effectively void of people of color, not completely, but of those who do exist, only one black character has any semblance of agency, working as a mechanic at a local garage. It's also shockingly devoid of the effects of the Depression, the Dust Bowl and World War II, and considering when those movies came out, that is bizarre. Also, though, same deal as People of Color, world War II is briefly touched on in the form of sporadic glimpses of Rooney in a military uniform, but the narratives still remain remarkably sanitary of the cultural impacts of that current day's events, of the cultural impacts of that current day's events If you set something in the Great Plains or the Midwest during those years between 38 and basically like what is like 46. When they start coming out, it's like there's a huge, a lot of things changed that defined America in the 20th century and they don't deal with them at all.
Speaker 2:The series also featured Andy Hardy's pursuit of a young woman named Polly, but is often tempted by another interested party in most of these movies, such as Judy Garland as Betsy Booth. That name, I think, should resonate as though, or at least should be, a dog whistle for what's later to come. While I think today we associate Archie more closely with Happy Days, the Andy Hardy series was actually its direct inspiration. As a matter of fact, happy Days character the Fonz, you know, henry Winkler was inspired by a character from American Graffiti, which itself was directly inspired by Archie.
Speaker 2:So, while it's easy for us to like look backward and think it's more like happy days, happy days is only exists really because of archie archie's the definitive precursor as opposed to a side effect right and andy and the andy hardy series was the.
Speaker 2:You know what it is and it's funny because it involves a lot of the same people. The direct precursor to Star Wars was Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. George Lucas, who also did American Graffiti, inspired Happy Days because of a direct influence by Archie Comics. Thankfully we're not going to touch on Howard the Duck. We're not going to. Even that's a horse of a different color.
Speaker 1:No, it shall never be touched upon. No ducks shall be fucked. We do not have the time nor inclination.
Speaker 2:Nope. So Archie Comics began as MLJ Magazines in 1939, ironically publishing mostly superhero stories. It wasn't until Pep Comics number 22 in December 1941 that Archie Andrews made his first appearance. Famously, that was the only important thing that happened in December 1941.
Speaker 1:Wait, was there something I don't know? No, nothing's coming to mind.
Speaker 2:I can't think of anything. Oh, they were supposed to. In Congress, they were supposed to vote on the creation of a new state, the state of Jefferson, december 8th 1941. But there was something else that happened right before that. They kept that from happening.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I'm unaware of this Jefferson thing. Are you being serious?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really don't know. Oh, so, where I used to live in Oregon, a certain part of Northern California and Southern Oregon, I hated all those crazy liberals. Oh, this is the thing we talked about last week.
Speaker 1:Never mind.
Speaker 2:Okay, yes, but something happened. What was it? Was it? It may have been Archie, it was probably Archie.
Speaker 1:It's probably Archie. I mean, that's what, whenever something happens in history, I say it's probably Archie.
Speaker 2:He was the second shooter on the grassy knoll? Probably Archie. Yeah, he. Probably Archie. Yeah, he faked the moon landing. Obviously it's probably Archie. It's probably Archie is now our new t-shirt Predator. Probably Archie. The popularity of Andy Hardy, specifically having put what would later be known in pop culture as the teenager, which is something we've talked about before. Putting that front and center for young audiences, archie immediately was a hit and was given his own feature series a year later. So the Archie Menagerie, as I like to call it I just made that up right now was originally created by publisher John L Goldwater, artist Bob Montana sounds made up and writer Vic Bloom Fun bit of history Maurice Coyne, louis Silberkleet and John Goldwater. They formed MLJ. John MLK Released the MLJ files. They did recently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:Weapons of Mass Distraction. That's what that is. They started publishing in September 1939. So the company I mean, if you haven't figured it out, was derived from the initials of each of their names. It's based off our names. Now here's the interesting part. Coyne served as MLJ's bookkeeper and CFO. That was his role. Silberkleet had a degree from St John's University, a law degree from New York Law School, and was a licensed and registered pharmacist, and he chose to publish comic books. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, it's the next logical step, right.
Speaker 1:Knowing both lawyers and pharmacists. No, that makes sense. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2:You do know both actually. So his role at the company was the business side, you know, printing the actual logistics, distribution, that kind of thing. John Goldwater was editor in chief, the you know, stanley Bob Harris role, or whatever, jim Shooter Goldwater. And there here's what gets weird and fun comics magazine association of america, also known as, or or best known for their creation of the syndicate, the comics code authority. If you want to know more with the comics code authority, go back to our 50th episode about where we finally addressed the, the, the hearings on un-American activities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you need to be seduced by the innocent. Listen up.
Speaker 2:There's a certain doctor that will oblige your desires in that case, and then he would eventually go on to be the National Commissioner of the Anti-Defamation League. Mlj's first comic book, published inember 1939, though it said november on the on the book was blue ribbon comics, with the first half full color and the last half red and white, I guess to save money. This first issue featured the character Rangatang the Wonder Dog. He's my favorite Wonder Dog. Oh, I think you're sleeping on Krypto bro.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not. I like my super dogs to monkey around, so Not a Rangatang Rangatang.
Speaker 2:It's like Possum Instead of Opossum. Yes, that is true, that is very true. I still think Ace the Bat Hound would beat him in most situations. This is an old fanboy argument. So Pep Comics, where Archie debuted issue 22 in December 1941, debuted originally with the Shield starring Michael Chiklis, a precursor to Joe Simmons and Jack Kirby's Captain America. If you've ever seen it, I mean it's pretty clear they kind of borrowed heavily. But there were like a thousand characters like that.
Speaker 2:Back then, you know, the superhero genre was just burgeoning. Patriotism was a big thing because we were about to enter World War II, so there were a lot of characters like this. In fact, jack Kirby himself came up with multiple characters, like he just threw everything at the wall and saw what stuck. And captain america was for marvel, the shield was for archie archie actually publishing this character over a year before captain america came out. Now, archibald chick, andrews, chick being his, not his middle name, but his nickname, not Archie, yeah, chick. They debuted along with Betty Cooper and Jughead Jones in their initial introduction and they proved so popular that MLJ became Archie Comics Publications in 1946. Interestingly, in the late 50s Archie Publishing had launched its Archie Adventure series line with a new version of the Shield and new superhero characters, and I say that because that is not the last time those characters are going to appear is when they truly continued to draw inspiration from those Andy Hardy films.
Speaker 1:Archie, betty and Veronica became a love triangle, and that same year Archie got his own book and was no longer Justin Pepp. It was in 1943 that Archie was featured for the first time on a comic book cover.
Speaker 2:Was that a Pepp Comics cover? Because I know there's one where, like the shield and another superhero, are lifting archie up on their shoulders and carrying him around.
Speaker 1:Yeah it was in pep, number 36 in 1943, right, and then he become pep's lead story by number 49 and filled the entire comic by volume 51. But this was just the beginning of Archie really branching out and becoming a thing not just in Pep Comics and his own comic, but in outside media. Oh yeah, because it was in 1943 that the radio show Archie Andrews ran on NBC Blue Network, before moving to Mutual in 1944 and then on to NBC Radio in 1945, where it ran until 1953.
Speaker 2:Which is a long time for that kind of thing. It really is.
Speaker 1:But this wasn't the only place where you'd see Archie or Archie-related things. Archie was becoming a legitimate character in pop culture, to the point where Katie Keene, a beauty queen that was introduced in 1945, she became a popular pinup girl with the GIs fighting overseas and was put on many of their planes.
Speaker 2:People forget about her now, but she was just as popular as Betty Boop was, who was treated similarly but is no longer remembered. I mean, katie kane's no longer remembered. She was touted by the publisher as, quote, america's queen of pinups and fashions. Yeah, it worked. She was like the what is it millie, the model, the marvel version of that that came out that Tim Gunn later went on to write for Marvel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Millie shows up in the. I'm pretty sure she shows up in the Archie meets Punisher comic.
Speaker 2:Oh, what a great crossover.
Speaker 1:They make distinct references to Millie and what was the other? There's another one that Marvel had around the same time, but I'm pretty sure they both show up in Riverdale. Wasn't Dazzler for a second, a model, or was she just a pop star, one that marvel had around the same time?
Speaker 2:but I'm pretty sure they both show up in riverdale wasn't dazzler for a second a model, or was she just?
Speaker 1:I mean, we're talking like in the 50s uh late 50s early 60s, you know, like those romance-esque comics for girls. Oh, yes, that they put out which kind of millie was a bit of a part of that. So pre-prez the first teenager president, yeah yeah, which is something we should totally do sometimes yeah rez could never sell a single prez comic in my many years slinging the funny books. It was by 1946 that archie was so popular that the company mlj changed their name to Archie Comics Publication Incorporated.
Speaker 2:Yep Goldwater said of Archie to the New York Times in 1973, quote he's basically a square, but in my opinion the squares are the backbone of America.
Speaker 1:This is great. Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 2:Okay. So the Archie Pantheon, which would spawn countless spinoffs and other properties over multiple forms of media, like we just talked about, consisted of the titular Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, the goofy comic relief a la Screech from Saved by the Bell, if that helps you Betty Cooper, veronica Lodge, reggie Mantle, sabrina Spellman, aka the Teenage Witch, and the glamorous pop band Josie and the Pussycats, the teenage witch and the glamorous pop band josie and the pussycats, and also, as we mentioned, katie keen, america's queen of pinups and fashions. Of course, these weren't the only characters. There were many other characters involved as the years go along, because, like, how are you just going to have that certain set of characters, especially when they have their own spinoffs, and and for 80 years? And doesn't really make any sense. A fun, fun tidbit, skipping it just a second, but it doesn't really matter, we'll go back to the actual chronology.
Speaker 2:In February 1962, in an issue of publisher Harvey Kurtzman's Help Magazine featured a parody of Archie characters in its Goodman Beaver story called Goodman Goes to Playboy. It was illustrated by Will Elder. This is all stuff that nobody remembers. This is, you know, 60s sort of random published you know comic zines at the time. The publisher, Jim Warren, received a letter on December 6th 1961.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's so close to the Anyway accusing help of copyright infringement and demanding the removal of the issue from newsstands. Warren was unable to do so. Because how are you going to do that? You just had newsies delivering magazines to newsstands. Were they dancing at the time? Yes, christian Bale was there. I mean, there was no infrastructure to be able to take them off the shelves and besides, what third party seller is going to want to do that? It really couldn't have been enforced. You'd have to hire, like the pinkertons to go do that fucking ridiculous. So warren agreed to settle out of court because the other wasn't feasible. That way he also didn't have to go through a whole lawsuit process like that's kind of something we were hinting at earlier when we were talking about other stuff. So Warren paid Archie Comics $1,000 and then ran an apology notice in the next issue of Help. But then the story was reprinted in the book collection Executive Comic Book, which I'm very curious about that now.
Speaker 1:Can we read that while watching Executive Koala?
Speaker 2:I tried to do so while watching Executive Decision.
Speaker 1:Man that's.
Speaker 2:Funny enough. Stephen King I mean not Stephen King, stephen Seagal dies in both.
Speaker 1:Just like my dreams.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just like if there's justice in the world. Yeah, so they dated the executive comic book Prenny came out and Elder modified the appearance of the character so he didn't look like the Archie characters anymore. But then Archie Comics went back and were like nope, it still looks too much like him and they threatened another lawsuit. So then they settled out of court again by handing over the copyright to the story they had written. And then Archie held on to the copyright of that story and refused to allow it to be published by anybody. A request from a guy named Dennis Kitchen in 1983 asked to get the rights back to publish it in a reprint collection of Goodman Beaver, but he was turned down. It wasn't until the Comics Journal figured out that Archie Comics had allowed the copyright on that specific story to expire that they just went ahead and reprinted it in the Comics Journal number 262 in September 2004, which you can actually get today free as a PDF on the Comics Journal website.
Speaker 2:But that's how weird and litigious they were. That's how weird and litigious they were. And if you want to talk about how weird it gets in the 1970s and 1980s and we'll come back to more of the chronology of the thing, but I want to point out how weird they got in this era while still being so traditional and buttoned down. In the 1970s and 80s, spire Christian Comics was a line of comics by Fleming H Revel comics was a line of comics by fleming h revel. They obtained a license to feature the archie characters in several of their publications, including oh god, archie's sunshine, s-o-n, s-h-i-n-e, archie's roller coaster, archie's family album and archie's parables, which would be more entertaining if he was actually like archie became like a prophet and was actually doing some sort of scribe who was actually doing parables you know, like asap that would be. I would be interested in that praise be to the archie well, I mean it'd be, I mean it'd be entertaining.
Speaker 2:Archie and his pantheon were used to frame Christian stories. They basically rented out the Archie characters not published by Archie to do Christian stories during that weird Jesus revival thing that came about in the 70s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, according to Mr Goldwater, who was Jewish. That was the next thing I was going to say. It's weird because he's Jewish. Okay, according to Mr Goldwater, who was.
Speaker 2:Jewish. That was the next thing I was going to say. It's weird because he's Jewish.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, no, no, you're right, but you said that the sentiments in those books were in line with the wholesome family message that they wanted to portray with Archie.
Speaker 2:Not only was he Jewish, he was part of the Anti-Defamation League, a defamation league like a jewish activist organization. It makes you wonder if it was just for the money at that point, I mean. I mean it kind of has to be right.
Speaker 1:I mean, let's be honest, there's a reason you lump christianity and judaism so closely, because, I mean, it's it's a lot of like. The core, foundational elements of both are there, and yeah, you're going by. You know especially the, the old testament stuff and the you know your, your foundational judeo-christian ten commandments kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Then it's the problem I mean the sentiments, the similar yeah, I mean, you're not wrong, but the problem the problem have with that sentiment is that in the 1970s and 80s, when appealing to the evangelical crowd, they did not like Jews. So I don't unless they were Christian Zionists I don't know why he thought that was something that he would support, other than they were desperate for the you know exposure and influx of cash. Right, I mean it's possible.
Speaker 1:It's also like not I don't know if I would put that all evangelical movements within the 1970s were necessarily like fully anti-jewish of course not, but at the same time, that's that.
Speaker 2:that is, I mean you're appealing to a very specific crowd that is also very specifically. I mean it's the 70s man. We're talking about, david Duke. We're talking about, you know like we're talking about like an era in which anti-Semitism was cool in the Christian church and the evangelical Christian sphere.
Speaker 1:If you were doing it today, it would make more sense, but in the 70s, I mean they do a lot of things that seem a little you know, reaching out for funds whenever they can grasp at them.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's true In a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:You know, maybe trying to put something good out in the world, even if it's not always going to be used in the best way. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I can read into them. Even more strangely, at the same time they were doing this, archie Comics launched a short-lived fantasy and horror imprint called Red Circle Comics. It didn't last very long, but they brought it back again in the 80s as a label for, once again, the shield and other you know superhero imprints that they had.
Speaker 1:I find that fascinating I don't think they lasted very long because I don't know how bankable it was. The red circle was in the 70s and 80s and then dark circle was was later with like black hood and, yeah, shield and hangman and stuff. Um, it's just like actual horror titles. I don't really think they had a lot, I mean a lot of those characters, what they were doing. They brought them back in the 70s.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah. And then, of course, they brought it back in the 90s. It's Impact Comics.
Speaker 1:Well, we haven't gotten there yet, but yeah, I mean looking here, it's fantasy, horror, imprint, switch over to superheroes in the 80s. This is where you have chilling adventures. In sorcery 1973, sabrina was the was like the cryptkeeper version of, like the person telling the stories in those comics. Then in the third issue was renamed and published under red circle comics red circle red circle actually predates mlj.
Speaker 2:It started as a pulp magazine in the early 30s. It obviously changed over time and changed many names, oh man. So some of its original titles were all-star adventure fiction, complete western book okay, that just sounds like a bad translation mystery tales, real sports, star Star Detective and Marvel Science Stories and K-Zar. K-zar, which would be eventually absorbed into Marvel. And, yes, it was created by Silberkleit, so this was real. It was a separate publishing company that then, when those involved with both, kind of rebooted it, because I guess they fell under the same ip umbrella eventually. This is interesting. Isaac goodman or no? Uh, mark goodman created. Yeah, mark goodman created that. His father was isaac goodman. They did timely comics and hobo camps. Uh, the when they they they were jewish immigrants. They moved from lithuania to new york in brooklyn, and during the great depression they lived in hobo camps uh or or hoovervilles.
Speaker 2:The goodmans, yeah, in 1929 archie comics co-founder lewis silverclight, who worked for the eastern distribution corporation, hired goodman for his department, assigning him clients that included Hugo Gernsback. Yeah, they basically were in cahoots for like a long time and together they did all of those ones we just talked about. Oh, okay, this is the interesting part. In 1937, returning from his honeymoon in Europe, goodman and his wife had tickets on the Hindenburg, hey, but they couldn't get seats together because they had assigned seating. So they made alternate plans. They made the plan to fire it up, fire it up. Well, they didn't. They did the exact opposite of that. Actually Prove it. But interestingly enough, goodman contracted the newly formed comic book packager Funnies Inc to supply material for a test comic book Marvel Comics No.1, october 1939 under Timely Publications, featuring the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner.
Speaker 1:I don't follow. I want to see how that's important or how that's going to be a thing.
Speaker 2:That's relevant. Yeah, that sold 80,000 copies off the top. That would be good today.
Speaker 1:If you want to find out a little bit more about how popular comic books used to be before they got relegated to niche cult status only good for kids and the illiterate then go. Listen to our Seduction of the Innocent episode and also sub-sub-note.
Speaker 2:They produced a second printing of Marvel Comics no 1 in November. That sold 800 hundred thousand issues Sub sub Submariner point to that. But you remember you and I talked about, like X-Men, number one and the absurdity of the overprinting of that. This one legitimately sold these, not on speculation. This one sold about a million copies in the year 1939 alone.
Speaker 1:And it's amazing to think like how few are still extant. So in the in the 60s, clothing and attitude and language and so much was changing, and in the comic books they were trying to reflect some of that. Katie Keene was no longer popular and was discontinued in 1961. And you had other things coming up, like Batman or the man from Uncle. So Archie then tried to capitalize on some of that. They had a Batman-like character called Pureheart the Powerful in 1965, and they also had a man from UNCLE spoof, the man from R-I-V-E-R-D-A-L-E, which also hit the shelves at the same time.
Speaker 1:But during the Silver Age, as Archie was trying to make this switch to their Mighty Comics group imprint, it just didn't ever really kick off and ended up crashing in 67. Yep, but Archie had been running for many years, almost two decades at this point when the 60s began and the title was selling half a million copies at this point, which is crazy. The series reached its peak relative to the rest of the market in the late 60s and early 70s. This is also the time when they made another jump outside of comics to doing their own thing, which was completely inventive and long before the gorillas dominated with their own okay, cartoon musical group. You had the Archies in 68 through 69 in their animated TV series and they had their own pop song, sugar Sugar, which has become a quintessential American song of that era, covered by many groups over the years.
Speaker 2:One of the original writers on that song was Andy Kim, who went on to do pop hits in the 70s. That's just that comes from years of being a karaoke historian, yeah.
Speaker 1:During the 60s they also were again trying to figure out new things to keep Archie fresh. This is when Sabrina the teenage witch came out. She was given her own show and had a new series, archie's TV, laugh Out. They also had Josie of Josie and the Pussycats, who was originally introduced in the 40s, receiving little attention at the time, but then she donned a catsuit and started a girl band called Josie and the Pussycats in 1969.
Speaker 2:The impact of the beatles on on culture. Essentially, the beatles really changed a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:They would both have their own tv shows the sabrina one produced by filmation and the latter one of the josing pussycats done by hannah barbara.
Speaker 2:But each would make bigger splashes decades later but I mean this isn't unprecedented because the first non-comic media representation of archie was in the early 40s as a radio drama. So they had been doing this from day one. They saw the cross-pollination, they saw throughout the decades how to multimedia their properties in ways long before marvel at dc did. Well, I mean dc did it a lot because they had a lot of those early batman and superman movies or whatever serials, but still arguably more successfully than marvel at dc at that point and and marvel had to, the captain america serials as well, and and you had, like you know, the shadow and the phantom and dick tracy.
Speaker 1:They had their own radio shows I'm sure is what kind of Archie was jumping on, but those were all you know crime stories, supernatural sci fi stories. The Lone Ranger, you know, was like Western stories and and you had superhero stories. But this was Archie had none of that. Archie was, just like you know, a wholesome kind of family drama, but focused on teenagers, so to think that they had their own shows.
Speaker 2:Teenagers weren't even an idea yet. It wasn't until post-war America in the 50s where teenagers were really a concept. This was like oh, it appealed to young people Because Archie was never even referred to as a teenager until later. And we've talked about that before, we talked about it in a lot of our horror series and things like that. Teenagers are always the center of early horror and well, still today, horror.
Speaker 1:So they they remained a top-selling comic for many years into the into the 70s, even beating the sales of superman and batman and other superheroes in 1973. But by 1974 amazing spider, spider-man and Superman both surpassed Archie Comics. During the distribution tumult of the 1970s, archie began focusing more on a new format, that of digests. This is an important part of comics history. Yeah man, I can't even reference like a TV guide because those things don't exist anymore.
Speaker 1:Or Reader's Digest or Reader's Digest, yeah, but imagine like a smaller version, maybe half the size of a normal comic book, bound multiple issues into a thicker paperback, kind of novella of comics.
Speaker 2:They're back.
Speaker 1:DC just published All-Star Superman as a digest again. Well, their digest versions aren't-Star Superman as a digest again. Marvel did some digest comics, but that didn't last long. Dc did have, and still does do, a smaller digest sized issues that are designed only for kids, which is where Archie led the way here to work with Comics Magazine's Association of America to establish grocery store counter dumps and magazine rack stands so they could be sold both in grocery stores, in convenience stores, in bookstores. And in 1977, the same year that Archie fell out of the top 10, its sales were surpassed by Archie Comics Digest.
Speaker 1:That's insane, that they were still in the conversation in top 10, even in the 70s. I mean again Archie's. For all the times that Archie has felt possibly irrelevant or anachronistic, dated, archie has sustained and I mean that's what the overarching idea of this podcast yes, part one and part two will be if we do part two, but Archie lasts. Archie fucks Been around. Archie gets the F down. Okay.
Speaker 1:And Archie boy will survive. It was in 1980 that Betty and Veronica finally surpassed Archie sales, and in 1982, where the title's frequency was reduced from monthly to bimonthly.
Speaker 2:See, that's how crazy it is. Think about that in context. During the 1970s, you had DC putting out comics like Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane and Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen as side comics. Right, there is no way in hell those would ever have outsold Superman, which was a relatively well-selling comic at that point. Archie and its spinoffs are outselling all of those.
Speaker 1:It also speaks to the thing we call it Archie comics, but really this is like Archie is part of a group. Archie really isn't anything without Jughead. Archie is anything without Betty and Veronica. True, and these are characters that are big enough and fleshed out enough to lead their own lines that have become more popular than Archie himself. It's really the Riverdale gang is what sells and moves these books and has sustained over its 80 plus years these books and has sustained over its 80 plus years.
Speaker 2:I mean, it is the classic sort of ensemble. It's popular in the same way that the Star Trek Bridge Crew is popular or the cast of 90210, or like the cast of Buffy, which is I think it's probably its closest equivalent. You know, it's this ensemble group that makes up more than the sum of its parts and somehow endures for so long, even though when you and I were kids, archie was a joke. It was an afterthought to the extent in which, like we existed during the death of Saturday morning comic strips or Sunday morning comic strips, and those are super ubiquitous and those are things that everybody knew. But they died, archie never did.
Speaker 2:Archie planned to publish superheroes again in the 80s with the Spectrum Comics imprint, which had, apparently they had hired a bunch of high status artists who were, I'm sure, were really upset with Marvel and DC and the way they were treated. But that whole thing collapsed before it ever published a single issue. It didn't get as far as like Jim Shooter's Defiant Comics, but probably would have been better. So, even though Archie and his gang inhabited the seemingly time-locked town of Riverdale and an atmosphere of the American fantasy of the 1950s. Archie will go on to be one of the most experimental publishers in comics. That's why we wanted to talk about it. Be one of the most experimental publishers in comics, that's why we wanted to talk about it.
Speaker 2:Artist Dan DiCarlo in the late 1950s defined, you know, the ubiquitous aesthetic of Archie, and that look would stick around for about 50 years plus. But that wasn't the only constant about Archie. The art style was so defining and so intrinsically tied to Archie's identity that it kind of limited the story. Archie was always in a love triangle with Benny and Veronica. None of the stories had any real stakes. Writers seem to struggle with, let's say, a ceiling on the kinds of stories they could credibly write because of the wholesome nature of the whole thing.
Speaker 2:And as that kind of nostalgia began to fall out of favor as years went by, archie became kind of a joke in the mainstream and then kind of a parody of itself. I mean, how many times can Archie smooth over tensions between rival high schools, stealing each other's mascots or whatever? I mean you know what I mean Like you can't tell that story for 80 years. So one of the big starting points in the history of Archie Comics is that Goldwater and Cerberklyte's oldest sons, richard and Michael, had taken over the company as co-CEOs when their fathers retired in 1983. They were dead set on preserving the aesthetic and the gestalt of Archie. That, however, would not be sustainable, and that's where we will pick up next time. Yes, yes, have some. That's what we will do. And you know what, guys? This is where it gets weird.
Speaker 1:They start really experimenting. Oh, do they Around this period of time?
Speaker 2:And for the most part, successfully. Yes and no.
Speaker 1:We shall get into some of that, I think, but until we do, gentle listeners, we hope that you have enjoyed, learned something a bit about Archie and yourselves while listening to this episode. And friendship and sharing and friendship and the bomb. You always gotta learn about the bomb.
Speaker 2:Look, I stopped worrying about that. Have you learned to love it, though I did?
Speaker 1:Love, eat, pray the bomb. Terrific, there's Florida in the water. You know that's how they're controlling us.
Speaker 2:Well, that's how they turn the frogs, gay.
Speaker 1:The friggin' frogs. Mm-hmm, was it the upside-down frog maneuver?
Speaker 2:Is that what?
Speaker 1:uh, the reverse frogman, the reverse frogman.
Speaker 1:Well, until you all do a reverse frogman while listening to this. We hope that you like share, subscribe If you wouldn't mind passing along to any close confidants who might be interested in archie or the other topics that we discuss. I will give a shout out to a close friend of mine who's like the biggest archie fan I've ever known. Maddie, if you ever listen to this, I hope that you are proud. I have read a bunch of archie in preparation for this and I've thought of you the whole time. She got archie, all the time loved archie. I reached out to her to like get some thoughts. She didn't get back to me in time. This episode's for you, but I hope that you guys go out of your way to rate us five jughead jones on the favorite podcast app of your choice Ideally Apple Podcasts. It's the best way. Staple, staples, jugheads, I think, works.
Speaker 2:There's a joke to be made with a Jughead, but there are so many Could have said Veronica's, backstage, betty's, you know.
Speaker 1:Backstage, but a too short, might even say a blowjob, Betty.
Speaker 2:but you know that's where that comes from, though right. Say, a blowjob, betty, but um. You know that's where that comes from, though right that all of those are based on the archetype of Betty from Betty and Veronica. That's where all of those come from, the great circle of life between Archie and too short, as it were you mean the circle of life, like live action, lion King. And then, because we talked about that earlier, indeed, this podcast is Mobius strip.
Speaker 1:It's like poetry, it rhymes, it's an Ouroboros. Yes, please do help us get seen and heard. That it would be great for us. But you know what else would be great for us? That you guys come back next time and that you've enjoyed yourselves, because that's really what this is all about. We enjoy you, enjoying us, enjoying you.
Speaker 2:That sounds real dirty, but in a sweet and progressive understanding way.
Speaker 1:I respect that yeah, think of it like.
Speaker 2:This is the aspire comics version of this podcast, you know okay well, that changed that completely, because now I want to know what that spire means, wouldn't you?
Speaker 1:yeah, but keep keep thinking about it, keep contemplating, but until you come up with a firm and erected answer for us. Skip. What should they do?
Speaker 2:They should definitely make sure their spires are erect. They should then clean up after themselves to some sort of reasonable degree, make sure they have tipped their waitstaff, their KJs, their DJs, their podcasters, their jismoppers, their jismoppers, their fluffers. That's a tip the fluffer. They're crisis doulas, they're midwives, they're psychic dolphins. They're talking dolphins from sequest and johnny mnemonic. They're molested dolphins from well, we know what that's from that's that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we know what. We know what that's from We've covered that as well.
Speaker 2:We have talked about that. They're suicide dolphins from World War II and make sure that they have support of the local comic shops and retailers.
Speaker 1:And all that being said, we would like to say Godspeed for wizards.
Speaker 2:Silence it's golden. The silence is golden. The silence is deafening please go away.