Thursday, December 21, 2006

Riverdale Makeover

Archie Comics has been experimenting with the house style it's used to draw its teen characters for, oh, about the last 50 years. (The Archie comics had a different look in the '40's.) It recently published the adventures of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch in a pseudo-manga style. Now it has recruited Steve Butler, super-hero artist, to draw slightly more realistic versions of the dual goddesses of the Archie pantheon, Betty and Veronica.

Frankly, I don't see much purpose in it. The Archie line is one of the few lines to sell steadily from the "Golden Age" of comics through the present -- even seizing the most valuable real estate for a periodical, the rack by the checkout in supermarkets, where a parent can easily grab an Archie digest to quiet a squalling kid. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

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