Archie Comics

Archie Comics is a series of comic books featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Forsythe "Jughead" Jones. Archie was conceived by John L. Goldwater who was influenced by the Andy Hardy movie series that starred Mickey Rooney. The strip was originally drawn by Bob Montana (who continued until his death in 1975), and written by Vic Bloom. Archie made his first appearance in issue 22 of Pep Comics in December 1941 to replace Madam Satan. In 60 years he still has not graduated from high school.

[Top]

History

Archie Comics started out as MLJ comics, one of the many comic book publishers that emerged in the 1940s. For the most part, its titles featured superheroes. While most of them were fairly generic, some made a mark in comic book history. There was Shield, the first flag-themed superhero (he preceded Captain America by a year). Comet was the first superhero who was killed in the line of duty. Hangman (ironically enough, Comet's younger brother) was, quite arguably, the most brutal superhero to emerge during the 40s. On a more curious note, MLJ was responsible for Roy the Superboy (who was called that over a decade before Superboy debuted) and Steel Sterning, the first superhero to ever bear the title "Man of Steel". But none of that made nearly as much impact as the introduction of Archie. Ironically enough, he started out as a back-up feature. Within a year, Archie became a hit hit. By 1945, Archie and his supporting cast became so popular that the company changed its name to Archie Comics.

Since then, the company published the adventures of Archie and the related spin-offs. This also extended to superhero versions of the characters and a parody series of Man from U.N.C.L.E.. In addition, the character have appeared in numerous straight adventure and dramatic stories were published as well, especially the series, Life with Archie and Archie at Riverdale High.

It tried several times to revive its pervious superhero line, but none of the attempts have been successful. Today, Archie Comics would rather forget its superheroes (though some of them still make an occasional appearance in the comics, mostly for the sake of maintaining a trademark).

[Top]

Archie Universe characters

Archie Andrews
Betty Cooper
Veronica Lodge
Jughead Jones
Reggie Mantle -
Dilton Doiley - the nerd
Moose Mason - an athlete who is not so good in his studies and possessive about his girlfriend
Midge Klump - Moose's girlfriend
Chuck Clayton - an athlete
Ethel Muggs - an unattractive looking teenager who always tries to win over Jughead, albeit unsuccessfully
Aquarius - Student, a hippie
Ms. Beazley - the cook in the school cafetaria
Mr. Waldo Weatherbee - the principal, popularly referred to as 'The Bee'
Ms. Grundy - a teacher
Mrs. Hagley - a teacher
Mr. Hiram Lodge
Professor Flutesnoot - teacher
Nancy Harris
Pop Tate- owner of the Choklit Shoppe
Cheryl Blossom
Coach Kleats
Coach Clayton
and all of the teenagers' parents.