Back Issue #107

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From the Groovy ’70s Through the Big ’80s, Archie Comics in the Bronze Age!

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ARCHIE ON TV

THAT WILKIN BOY

CHERYL BLOSSOM

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Volume 1, Number 107 September 2018 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

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DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Dan DeCarlo COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Jack Abramowitz Andy Mangels Lou Manna Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Darrel McNeil John Jackson Miller Mark Arnold Bill Morrison Steve Banes Dan Parent Greg Beda Fernando Ruiz Craig Boldman Glenn Scarpelli Jerry Boyd T. Casey Brennan Steve Skeates Jerry Smith Brian Buniak J. David Spurlock Ron Cacace Roy Thomas Ed Catto Maggie Thompson Gary Cohn Steven Thompson Mark Evanier Stan Timmons Holly G! Mark Wheatley Don Glut Steven Wilber Victor Gorelick Bingo Wilkin Grand Comics Database Barry Grossman Robert Hack Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Heritage Comics Auctions Bruce Jones Christopher Larochelle

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FLASHBACK: Archie Comics in the 1970s and 1980s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 There’s more to Riverdale in the Bronze Age than you might think!

INTERVIEW: Archie’s Pal, Stan Goldberg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The late, great artist, captured in a rare interview INTERVIEW: Archie and George Gladir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 A pair of discussions with the legendary Archie scribe, who passed in 2013 WHAT THE--?!: Everything’s Archie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Meet Millie, Harvey, Binky, Vicki, and the other Archie clones PRINCE STREET NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Archie’s pals and gals over the years, in a new cartoon by Karl Heitmueller, Jr. FLASHBACK: Sabrina the Teenage Witch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 An enchanting look at the Archie-verse’s most bewitching character BACKSTAGE PASS: The Archies on TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Awkward dancing and bubblegum pop, from the comics pages to the TV funhouse FLASHBACK: Who Was That Wilkin Boy?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 The other star in the Bronze Age Archie Universe ROUGH STUFF: Riverdale Rarities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Sketches and curiosities featuring your favorite pals ’n’ gals BEYOND CAPES: Red Circle Sorcery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Gray Morrow’s short-lived—but unforgettable—spooky Archie titles FLASHBACK: Red Circle Superheroes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 A mighty remembrance of Archie’s comeback Crusaders FLASHBACK: The Saga of Cheryl Blossom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 How a crimson-coiffed third wheel became an Archie breakout star PINUP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 A classic ’70s Archie cover in original art form BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 Reader reactions BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com.

Eight-issue subscriptions: $76 Economy US, $125 International, $32 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Dan DeCarlo. The Archies and related characters TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2018 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows, except Prince Street News, © Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1

For the past few years, Archie has been undergoing something of a renaissance. High-profile storylines like the introduction of Kevin Keller (Riverdale’s first openly gay teen), Archie’s alternate-future marriage to Veronica, and even the title character’s death have spawned such innovations as an entire horror line, a primetime television series, and a whole new approach to the core characters. This is unlike the 1970s and 1980s, when everything was predictable and formulaic in Riverdale.

Or was it?

As we shall see, Archie Comics was far more daring in the Bronze Age than most people credit!

TM

THE DECLINE AND FALL?

Circulation Figures Courtesy of John Jackson Miller and Comichron, a chart tracking over four decades of sales for the title Archie.

Covers TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

When the 1970s started, Archie Comic Publications, Inc. was riding high. The real-life pop group the Archies had two Top Ten hits in 1969, “Jingle Jangle” and “Sugar, Sugar,” with the latter spending four weeks at Number One. The Archie animated franchise, which started in 1968, would expand to include Josie and Sabrina series in 1970 and 1971, respectively. One of the greatest demonstrations of Archie’s reach occurred when the company went public in 1973; “A Share of Happening” in Everything’s Archie #29 ran the gamut from merchandising to a chain of Archie’s Restaurants. Unfortunately, many of the promised developments never appeared—no animated series for Li’l Jinx or That Wilkin Boy, and the restaurant chain never expanded beyond its flagship location in Joliet, Illinois.

In the realm of comics, the Archie title was selling about 560,000 copies in 1968. In 1970, that number had dropped to around 490,000. Sales on the title were about 400,000 in 1972 and under 300,000 in 1974; they were below 100,000 before the end of the decade. On paper, Archie appears to have been in a tremendous slump, but was such really the case?

John Jackson Miller, a New York Times bestselling author, also runs the Comichron research website.

According to Miller, “1968 is the peak for the main title [Archie], but 1969 is the important year because john jackson miller in ’69 it ends up beating every other title. Archie becomes number one in 1969, as a direct result of the TV show and the song “Sugar, Sugar.” The drop-off in the early ’70s is actually not that bad compared to [other titles]. Archie is still hanging in there in the early ’70s relative to everybody else.”

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by J a c k

Abramowitz

Miller describes a series of price increases in 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1986, and 1989. The first increase in this series took the cover price from 12 cents to 15 cents; the last took it from 75 cents to $1.00. As Miller explains, “Archie is more price-sensitive than any publisher in comics, and that’s why prices were so low for so long. Because who’s buying the Archie comics and where are they being sold? At least until recently, they were all being sold at the newsstand, and it was parents buying them, so they cared [about the price]. Regular comics fans do not care about price.”

Were sales really so terrible? Context is extremely important. While sales on Archie in 1974 were half what they were in 1968, look at the market.

“Archie with 272,000 in ’74 on the main title, my guess is that would be the #3 or #4 title in the business,” Miller says. “It’s higher than Charlton, it’s higher than everything at DC except for Superman.

Superman was 285,000. Richie Rich was at 210,000; that’s the top Harvey book. Amazing Spider-Man, which was the #1 book in ’74, was 288,000. The only thing that could be close is FF [Fantastic Four], and that’s 218,000.” So Archie, even at a fraction of its sales just six years earlier, was still one of the top-selling books in the industry that year.

In truth, Archie Comics was doing surprisingly well given the state of the industry. “The story of the 1970s is the collapse of the distribution system plus inflation,” Miller explains. “The ’70s were a bloodbath.

Comics nearly died. If it had not been for the direct market, we wouldn’t be around. And the direct market helped Archie less than [it helped] anybody.”

Why should the direct market treat Archie so poorly? Victor Gorelick, editor-in-chief of Archie Comics, explains: “The [retailers] didn’t want to handle [Archie]; they were only taking the Marvel, DC books, the books that came out with #1 issues every two weeks. … A lot of the stores at that time in the direct market, they weren’t interested in kids’ books, which was a big mistake. CBG [Comics Buyer’s Guide] did an article about that years later, that Archie comics—young readers’ books like Harvey, Archie—we bring in young readers who eventually would go on to the other books. A lot of [the retailers] just wanted to take in what they wanted to read themselves. Now we’re pretty solid in the direct market, but it took years to do that.”

Despite the adversity of inflation and a direct market that didn’t want them, Archie not only survived, it thrived. This was largely thanks to the innovation of digests.

Just as the regular digests were a better page-to-price ratio than regular comics, the Double Digests were a still better bargain. According to Miller, the Double Digest format—launched in 1981 or 1982—“was triply outselling the standard 128-page digest” by the end of the decade.

Craig Boldman, an Archie writer since 1992, explains the broader impact of the Archie digests. “It was significant in light of the comics industry in general because, as the distribution system started changing, those digests were comics that were getting into regular people’s hands continuously, as opposed to other comics, which started migrating to

AN EASILY DIGESTIBLE FORMAT

“Archie Digest starts in earnest in 1972 or ’73,” Miller says. “The first numbers appear in ’74. Archie Digest—not Double Digest or anything, just the vanilla Archie book—[sold] 137,000 in ’74, 145,000 in ’75, 153,000 in ’76, 158,000 in ’77—it’s going up while the rest of the business is going down.

Why? Because those first four years, the digest is 128 pages, but it was 60 cents. Compare that with the regular comics of the time, which were 30 cents in ’76, and that was for 32 pages. The digests also took advantage of the fact that, through the Comics Magazine Association of America, Archie had invented the supermarket counter dump. That’s part of the reason Archie survived so long, doing so well on the newsstand.”

Gorelick explains the origin of the digests. “John Goldwater, he was the head of the company—not the Jon who is the head now but his father, John L. Goldwater. They had been talking to our distributor. They came out with one digest to start with. They had discussed it with our distributor at the time and they wanted to do something a little different; they wanted another market. Because the fact is, the digests would have a lot of presence in supermarkets, at the check-out stands, and that was the place they wanted to get into. So they gave it a try and it worked. We came out with quite a few—Jughead with Archie, [Archie’s Girls,] Betty and Veronica, Reggie, too. They were doing so well that one of the people in the accounting department who was keeping track of the sales came in and said, ‘Why don’t you do a Betty and Veronica book?’ We had a couple of these books and the regular Betty and Veronica book was doing very well. I was actually putting all those books together. At that time it was all reprint material. Now we have some new material in the digest books, but at that time it was all reprint and I had to start gathering material. It was a big job.

The Betty and Veronica book took off—it was doing better than any of them.

So we just kept expanding the line. We went to different sizes. The first ones that came out, I think were about 128 pages, then we went to Double Digests at 256 pages. It sold better than any of our other books. We had to pay for that [supermarket] space. It was expensive, but it paid off.”

Check ’Em Out at the Checkout (top) Here’s an Archie rarity from 1970: the Archie: Knack Yak mini-comic, a giveaway distributed with double packs of Fairmont Potato Chips. (bottom) Archie’s beloved digests have long been a staple at grocery store checkouts and other mass markets.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

Funky Faculty (top) Miss Grundy and Mr. Weatherbee boogie down on this original cover art to Laugh Digest #63 (Mar. 1986), by Dan DeCarlo. (bottom) A trio of covers from cartoonist Bill Woggon’s 1983 Katy Keene revival. Note that the first issue bears Archie’s “Red Circle Comics” brand. There’s much more about Red Circle elsewhere in this issue!

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

the comics shops, so you actually had to be a comic fan to discover them. The great thing about the digests was they had that rack space at the checkout counter in grocery stores. While you’re waiting for the checkout line to inch forward, you could grab one and start reading it. You may as well put down 35 cents and take it home instead of putting it back on the rack.”

Looking at the broad and varied output that Archie produces today, many mistakenly think that Archie in the 1970s and 1980s was “all Riverdale all the time,” but such was not the case. Notably, Archie reintroduced the MLJ/Mighty Comics superheroes and launched the Red Circle imprint, as detailed elsewhere in this issue. Archie relaunched another of its classics characters at this time, under its main Archie Comics imprint: fashion icon Katy Keene.

A number of factors converged to reintroduce Katy Keene. A January 9, 1979, New York Times article (“Clothes-Crazy Katy Keene Comes Back” by Ron Alexander) describes how fashion coordinator Marilise Flusser (misspelled “Marilese” in the article), a longtime fan, brought Katy back as the backdrop in the window of Saks Fifth Avenue. Other fans who contributed to the character’s revival include Craig Leavitt, who published Katy Keene Fan Magazine with Archie’s approval; John S. Lucas, a contributor to the fanzine; and Barb Rausch, at the time perhaps best known for her work on Cutey Bunny and Neil the Horse. (These latter two Katy fans would ultimately serve as artists on the revived series and garner additional industry credits.) There were also a number of “Katy-Kons” held in Santa Barbara, California.

Archie revived the fashion queen in 1983. “One of the things that really got their attention about Katy Keene was there was an article where all of these famous fashion designers said that one thing that got them interested in fashion was sending in their drawings to [series creator] Bill Woggon and Katy Keene,” Gorelick recalls, possibly referring to the 1979 Times article. victor gorelick Barry Grossman worked at Archie for decades in a wide range © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. of capacities. “I started when I was 13 years old, in the stock room— opening mail, getting lunches,” he says. From there, he would go on to work as a colorist, as well as writer and editor of the innovative and acclaimed Archie’s Riverdale High. He almost spearheaded the Katy Keene revival.

“I was offered to be editor of Katy Keene and I was so excited because I was going to do all new things with her,” Grossman recounts. “She was going to travel the world, she was going to be a super-sleuth. I was going to really modernize everything. Amanda [Conner, artist] and I were really going to modernize Katy Keene. But Katy Keene was brought back and it was basically the same Katy Keene.

It didn’t have the kick that it needed.”

The revived series would last 33 issues, until 1990, but Katy’s popularity seems directly tied to creator Woggon.

According to Gorelick, “Michael Silberkleit, who was one of owner Lou Silberkleit’s sons, and Richard Goldwater, who was managing editor, wanted to come up with new Katy Keene books. We went through a couple of different stages with different artists, but it never really did that well.”

INNOVATIONS

Archie didn’t only revisit such former successes as the Mighty Crusaders and Katy Keene, they also tested the waters with new ideas, to varying degrees of success.

For example, take a look at the cover of Pep #393 (Mar. 1984). The cover features the typical Riverdalegang gag, but flanking the logo on either side are Thunder Bunny and Marvelous Maureen. Sure enough, each of these heroes has a feature in the book, alongside those stories starring Archie, Jughead, and Katy Keene.

4 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

© Archie Comic Publications, Inc., expect Thunde rbunny © Martin L. Greim and Marvelous Maureen © Lori Walls.

A FASHIONABLE REVIVAL

Meet Marvelous Maureen (left) Cartoonist Lori Walls created the strip “Marvelous Maureen,” which premiered in Pep #383 (Apr. 1982). In the photo, culled from old newspaper files and submitted

by Jack Abramowitz, Lori sketches her sister Maureen, her strip’s inspiration. (right) The first Maureen strip.

Marvelous Maureen © Lori Walls.

“They were an experiment to see what kind of a reaction we’d get to them,” Gorelick explains. “Marvelous Maureen was created by a girl who worked in the art department. She came up with the character, based on her sister, actually. We let her take back the rights to that character if she wanted to try it someplace else. They were all experimenting; we did a lot of that.”

Marvelous Maureen, the story of an Earth girl’s adventures in space, had a longer run than one might expect—she appeared in 23 installments in Pep and Laugh, plus a few puzzle pages and such. Lori Walls, creator of Marvelous Maureen, based the teen hero on her youngest sister. In an interview in the May 10, 1982, edition of the Shrewsbury, New Jersey, Daily Register, Lori explained that she left her native West Virginia in 1975 to pursue a career as an artist. After a while, she was sent a photograph of her sibling, then age 13. “I hadn’t seen Maureen in four years when I got the picture,” she said. “She was just adorable. I had to draw the photo, and then I played around with it,” ultimately adding the spacesuit and goggles.

Despite best efforts, I was unable to contact either creator Lori or the real-life Maureen for this article, but an interesting fact arose: there’s a third Walls sister. Middle-sister novelist Jeannette is perhaps best known for her 2005 memoir The Glass Castle, the tale of growing up in an impoverished, dysfunctional family. This book was adapted as a 2017 motion picture starring Brie Larson [who will star as Carol Danvers in Marvel’s upcoming Captain Marvel movie] playing the author. So Maureen has inspired versions of herself in each of her sisters’ works.

Thunderbunny’s tenure at Archie was far less straightforward (see sidebar on the next page).

ALL IN THE FAMILY

One non-Riverdale feature did launch from a tale of Archie and the gang. “Star Struck” in Archie #330 (July 1984) guest-starred Glenn Scarpelli, a teen idol from the television program One Day at a Time, who also released a self-titled LP in 1983. This led to a recurring feature entitled “Glenn Scarpelli in Hollywood” that appeared 15 times throughout 1984 and 1985. Glenn would again share a cover with the Archies for Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #101 (June 1985), but his comics debut appears to be the only time he interacted with the main cast in a story.

It also bears mentioning that Glenn Scarpelli is the son of classic Archie artist Henry Scarpelli.

“I never thought I’d be in Archie comics!” Glenn recalls. “I had been an actor since I was eight… but it wasn’t until One Day at a Time that I started to get into the teen magazines—Tiger Beat, 16, all those magazines—which, back in the day, were quite powerful, specifically for that demographic, the younger audience. The thing about Archie is,

even though the characters were in a certain era, they didn’t actually age. They were always relatable to whatever generation was reading the comic book that day. I think one of the motivations for them putting me in is, I was also kind of visible in a very young-girl demographic, which was kind of their audience. They wanted to maintain and kept bringing Archie into the present day, though the Archie characters never aged.”

One might think that Henry Scarpelli would provide the art for his son’s four-color escapades—and for the most part you’d be right—but Glenn’s initial outing was actually drawn by the master, Dan DeCarlo, with inks provided by son James DeCarlo. “I was such a big Dan DeCarlo fan,” Scarpelli recounts. “I just thought his work was so incredible, and so did my dad. When I first got in the magazine, I was so excited that Dan drew me. ‘Oh, my God! Dan DeCarlo is drawing me! Are you kidding me?’ ” Some online commentators are cynical about the “Glenn Scarpelli in Hollywood” strips, but if you think about it, the feature actually makes a lot of sense. Archie often does cross-promotion with pop-culture figures, and not all of them as high profile as Glee. Australian pop duo the Veronicas appeared in Veronica #167 (Mar. 2006), as well as Archie and Friends #100–101 (July–Aug. 2006). (This was seen as a mutually beneficial settlement of a trademark infringement suit.) Another pop act, the School Gyrls, appeared in Archie #607 (May 2010) because… well, actually, that is a head-scratcher! So getting Glenn Scarpelli, a bona-fide teen idol of the time, without unnecessary complications from lawyers, agents, and managers, must have been a very desirable thing!

“A lot of people have accused it of being nepotism,” Scarpelli says, “and I’m like, ‘Well, I guess maybe there was a little nepotism there.’

[But] it was one of those natural things that happened. Here I was, very visible to the young American public, and they wanted to keep Archie current. At that point, it was a natural fit. … I certainly did a lot of publicity in the teen magazines. I remember my dad drew these large,

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 5

THUNDERBUNNY AT ARCHIE Thunderbunny (originally “Thunder Bunny”) was a delightful character that had trouble finding a home. The creation of the late Martin Greim, the titular hero was a boy named Bobby Caswell, who was imbued with the powers of a mighty alien champion. Unfortunately, this otherworldly warrior was a giant anthropomorphic rabbit. The character debuted in Charlton Bullseye, where he made two appearances (in issues #6 and 10) before the series’ abrupt cancellation. Readers had been teased that the next installment would guest star Charlton’s resident headliner in “Aliens, Boston, Captain Atom!” Before settling in at WaRP Graphics, the legendary lagomorph enjoyed a brief stay at Archie, where he appeared four times between Red Circle and Archie Series books.

Series artist Brian Buniak recalls the brief but eventful life of Thunderbunny at Archie: “After we finished up at Charlton, where that Captain Atom story was supposed to happen, Marty had this story, it was already written.

We were looking around, where to go from there. [Archie] started up the Red Circle line. I spoke with Rich Buckler, and he was familiar with Thunderbunny and indicated that he liked it. I came in and brought some samples of my work. There was an Archie bigwig who showed up in the room at one point while we were talking. He seemed like he was really unimpressed with me, but Rich liked the whole concept and thought it would be great for the Red Circle line. I attribute it all to him.

“After the initial Red Circle thing, we started work [on the next story]. I finished penciling and they told us, ‘No, it’s all over.’ It was going to be the second issue of Thunderbunny; that was the one where he meets the Mighty Crusaders and aliens come to attack Boston.

Now, all of a sudden, Archie didn’t know whether they wanted to stick with us or not. They wanted Marty to either sell or just give them Thunderbunny outright, which Marty had no interest in, obviously.

They said pretty much, ‘We can find room for you, you can be a regular backup character, but we want the series to go in another direction… a more lighthearted, less-serious version of [the original] Captain Marvel—because Captain Marvel was so gritty and hardcore!

The story they said they wanted was to have Bobby Caswell roaming around and he sees a kid with a lemonade stand. Some other people

are trying to bully him so he turns into Thunderbunny and chases the bullies away and buys some lemonade, and that’s the end of the story. Marty said, ‘If you’re willing to do that, I guess we could.’ I said, ‘I’m not willing to do that! We’ve got a great character here and I do not want to subject him to that kind of garbage.’ He said he was grateful about that because he didn’t want to do that at all. He was thinking maybe I was wanting to continue for whatever reason and I didn’t have the same sort of feeling toward the character, but he was wrong: I had exactly the same kind of feeling. I loved Thunderbunny and neither one of us wanted that to happen to him.

“So we were kind of in a middle zone. We had a whole issue featuring their characters ready to go that we didn’t know what to do with and we didn’t want to do the kind of story they wanted. … They didn’t want us to use the Crusaders and we didn’t know what to do.

It’s there—they’re drawn, they’re inked. These characters, there’s references—you can’t just paste a new face over them! Marty did all the negotiations on that one and they finally relented and put in that one final issue of Blue Ribbon Comics. It had utterly no ads in it. It went out there with no special advertising that I know of. We tried to order extra copies for ourselves and the thing sold out. The distributor said they’d run out of books, the whole thing sold out. It was very popular and the fan press said, ‘Gosh, give Thunderbunny his own book again!

This is terrific stuff!’ It was one of Marty’s best stories. A lot of stuff came together in that. By having the majesty of all of those characters there, it was a great, great showcase. And Thunderbunny essentially being a 14-year-old kid in the midst of all these adult superheroes… he was always just a kid, amazed to be with these people.”

• • • •

THUNDERBUNNY AT ARCHIE CHECKLIST

Thunder Bunny #1 (Jan. 1984) – “Rabbit Trapped!”

“The Greatest Story Ever Sold” Pep #393 (Mar. 1984) – “The Rabbit and the Ray Gun” Mighty Crusaders #7 (May 1984) – “Goodbye, Dali” Blue Ribbon Comics #13 (Oct. 1984) – “A is for Aliens, B is for Boston, C is for Crusaders”

Herculean Hare Thunderbunny and the Mighty Crusaders joined forces in Blue Ribbon Comics #13 (Oct. 1984).

Originally, penciler Brian Buniak’s wraparound cover was inked by Rich Buckler, as shown in this original art from Heritage’s archives.

For publication (inset), however, minor alterations were made to Buniak’s cover (most notably the figure of Darkling, in the lower right corner) and the art was inked anew

by Joe Sinnott.

Mighty Crusaders TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Thunderbunny © Martin L. Greim.

6 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

My Dad, the Cartoonist (left) Teen heartthrob Glenn Scarpelli upstages the Archies on this Dan DeCarlo cover for Archie #330 (July 1984). (right) His dad, Archie and DC humor artist Henry Scarpelli, is seen here in a caricature by Neal Adams from a DC Comics house ad announcing the winners of the 1970 Academy of Comic Book Arts Awards.

Archie TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Scarpelli illo © DC Comics.

life-size version of Archie and myself. I remember doing a picture shoot standing next to them. I also did publicity for the comic strip, TV interviews, and such.

Part of what I was bringing to the table was promoting that Archie is this current thing. I do remember it being a very successful relationship between us—they were happy I was in and I was happy I was in! It was a win-win.”

IN-SPIRE-ATIONAL COMICS

One of the more offbeat innovations of the 1970s and 1980s was the series of Archie magazines licensed by Spire Christian Comics. These issues—with titles like Archie’s Sonshine, Archie’s Clean Slate, and Archie’s One Way—were written and drawn by Al Hartley and published by the Fleming H. Revell Company.

Victor Gorelick recalls how the Spire deal came about: “Al Hartley was a terrific cartoonist. He was also a born-again Christian. He was friendly with the publisher from Spire Books based in Old Tappan, New Jersey. They had approached him to take some of the books they had published and turn al hartley them into comics for young readers. He said he would do it if they would work through Archie ComicVine.

Comics to handle all the production. Those books were 100% sales—we just printed those books and they took them. They did do some Archie books, which I wasn’t too crazy about them doing.”

I interviewed Hartley, who passed away in 2003, about the Spire line of comics for Comics Buyer’s Guide #1454 (Sept. 28, 2001). He explained that he had approached John Goldwater for permission to use the Archie characters in the line of Christian comics. Goldwater approved, Hartley said, on the condition

SPIRE CHRISTIAN COMICS ARCHIE TITLES CHECKLIST • • • • • • • • • •

Archie’s Clean Slate (1973) Archie’s Love Scene (1973) Archie’s One Way (1973) Archie’s Parables (1973) Archie’s Sonshine (1973) Archie’s World (1973) Christmas with Archie (1973) Archie’s Something Else (1975) Archie Gets a Job (1977) Archie’s Family Album (1978)

• • • • • • • • •

Archie’s Car (1979) Jughead’s Soul Food (1979) Archie and Mr. Weatherbee (1980) Archie’s Festival (1980) Archie’s Date Book (1981) Archie’s Roller Coaster (1981) Archie and Big Ethel (1982) Archie’s Sports Scene (1982) Archie’s Circus (1984)

These comics were not actually periodicals; they remained in print for years.

Accordingly, they have no cover dates, issue numbers, or Comics Code seals.

Different printings display different prices, usually ending in a 9 (39 cents, 49 cents, 59 cents), although at least one title—Archie’s Love Scene—came in a 35-cent variant.

Spire Christian Comics were published by the Fleming H. Revell Company (name-checked in “A Share of Happening” in Everything’s Archie #29), but the Spire imprint was owned by Hugh and Bill Barbour. Hugh later founded Barbour Christian Comics. This was the imprint that published Archie’s religious adventures in the mid-1980s. Consequently, many of these comics can be found in both editions with the Spire logo and with the Barbour logo.

The inside and back covers of Spire comics typically carried house ads or a message from creator Al Hartley. These could also vary from printing to printing.

To my knowledge, no comprehensive listing of every possible variation in each title’s price/logo/inside and back cover content has ever been compiled, making completing a collection of all variant Spire editions a challenge, to say the least.

One Way with Archie Throughout the 1970s, Spire Christian Comics, a subsidiary of Spire Books, licensed the Archie characters for a series of inspirationally themed comics that were distributed apart from normal Archie titles, mostly to Christian bookstores and grocery stores. Cartoonist Al Hartley, a born-again Christian, wrote and drew these one-shots.

Characters © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 7

Girls’ Night Out (In, Actually…)

An impressive original cover illo by Dan DeCarlo from the collection of Bill Morrison, submitted via Jerry Boyd: Laugh #263 (Feb. 1973). Sabrina was in Riverdale by then, having a slumber party with Betty, Veronica, Midge, and Chuck Clayton’s girlfriend, Nancy.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

8 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

Riverdale Diversity Archie’s pal Chuck Clayton helped bring multiculturalism to the streets and hangouts of Riverdale. Page from “The Dating Game” in Jughead #95 (Aug. 1971) by an unknown writer and artist Samm Schwartz.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

that these comics only be made available through Christian bookstores so as not to compete or be confused with Archie’s regular output.

It’s unclear exactly how strictly this condition was followed once the comics were published and out for sale. John Jackson Miller recalls that “all those Spire comics—those were grocery-store racked. I got them in supermarkets in 1970s in the South. I am absolutely positive that I saw multiple racking locations that were just Spire comics.”

Perhaps the condition was not to limit sales to Christian bookstores as Hartley recalled, but simply not to sell Spire publications alongside other Archie comics. “It was not on any kind of spinner rack with other comic books,” Miller explains, “these were devoted spinner racks. If you went to the magazine section of these grocery stores, usually alongside the paperback racks, there would be a little rack of six to eight Spire comics.” (Craig Boldman reports that he has one of these Spire racks in his kitchen!) “These are places that did not have regular comics at all, so it could be they dropped their regular comics and just kept the racking, then maybe from a bookstore distributor they got ahold of the Spire comics and put them in there.” Ultimately, however, “Archie can’t control what’s happening down the line. These comics were printed and they were non-returnable. They just got shoved out there forever.”

One way or the other, confusion in the marketplace did occur.

“Somehow they got to other places,” Gorelick says. “A friend of mine who lived out in Long Island was furious, and I couldn’t blame her. They were handing out some of the Christian comic books at the school her kids were going to. Being Jewish, she wasn’t too crazy about it and I wasn’t, either, actually. It was fine if they wanted to do the [comic] books based on other Christian books, but to use Archie? I thought it was a mistake.”

NEW FACES

Archie is always introducing new characters. Many of them prove to be flashes in the pan (remember Betty’s boyfriend Adam? How about Anita and Jeffrey?), but some have real staying power. The most long-lasting characters introduced in this era are Chuck Clayton and Cheryl Blossom.

It might surprise readers to learn that Chuck did not debut in the tumultuous era of the 1960s. Rather, Riverdale’s first resident of color first appeared in Life with Archie #110 (June 1971). “I think it should have been done sooner, but we did introduce him,” Gorelick opines. “I think it was important. The one thing I wanted to do with that character was not have him be the best guy in the school who could play basketball. We had the writers make him interested in cartooning, so he’s always drawing.”

As important a character as Chuck is, he may not always be the most interesting to write. “Chuck has had staying power but at least for the early years of his use, he wasn’t an interesting enough character for me,” says Craig Boldman. “He had his uses, and he was a good character that you could use if you needed another body in the story for some reason or other, but the great thing about the core cast of Archie characters is that each of them is very strongly defined. They have a very specific set of character traits. The great thing about them is when you’re writing a story, any kind of a plot you can come up with, you can take these characters off the rack and choose the characters that will serve your story best. And it’s easy to do because they’re so well defined. Chuck wasn’t that well defined. In the first decade or so, his defining trait was that he was an athlete; he was always seen doing athletic stuff. Chuck was most often used for a baseball team or a football team, stuff like that. Later on, they redefined him and gave him an interest in drawing comics. He became a cartoonist. I guess in some ways he became a stand-in for the reader in a way, or maybe even a stand-in for the comics creators. But even so, I would use him if I needed a character, but there were very few times where I wrote a story that demanded his presence. I would more often use him because I thought, ‘I haven’t used Chuck in a story lately, I’d better put him in a story.’ I can’t say that about the other core characters.”

If Chuck was the Archie character find of the 1970s, Cheryl Blossom, debuting in Betty and Veronica #320 (Oct. 1982), was the new face for the 1980s. Veronica may have been Riverdale’s resident bad girl, but like the song says, “She’s good bad but she’s not evil.” Cheryl upped the ante when introduced. (In her first appearance, a story called “Dare to Be Bare,” the redheaded bombshell tries to go topless at the beach.) Was the character a little too risqué for Archie comics? “At the beginning she was,” Gorelick says. “[Character creator] Dan DeCarlo went crazy with that. After a couple of issues, we toned it down a little bit.”

Cheryl and her twin brother, Jason, were a bit extreme for Riverdale and they disappeared for the better part of a decade before resurfacing in the 1990s. [Editor’s note: There’s more about Cheryl’s history later in this issue.]

From a creative standpoint, Boldman finds Cheryl more compelling than he does Chuck. “Somehow I missed out on Cheryl when she was first introduced,” he says. “I never saw those stories when they were first published; I caught up with them in later reprints, probably after they brought the character back. When they reintroduced her, they would reprint some of the earlier stories, that’s how I became acquainted with her. She seemed like a useful character to me. I think there was a real place for a character like that in the Archie world.”

BEFORE RIVERDALE

One of the things driving Archie’s 21st-Century renaissance is the Riverdale television show. While certainly the most successful live-action adaptation of Archie’s gang, it is far from the first. There were two unsold pilots in the 1960s—the second featuring William Schallert (Patty Duke’s television father) and Jean Vander Pyl (Wilma Flintstone) as Archie’s parents, among other familiar faces. The 1990 TV movie Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again showed us the gang as adults 20 years before the revived Life with Archie magazine. In the 1970s, Archie headlined two TV specials.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 9

In 1976, “Archie” appeared as an episode of ABC Saturday Comedy A DAILY DOSE OF ARCHIE Special. Little information is to be found about this special beyond that it Since its inception in 1947, the Archie newspaper comic strip was an was aired—and sources report that this episode of ABC Saturday Comedy important part of Archie’s visibility. In 1975, the sudden death of one Special aired on Sunday, December 19, so make of that what you will! of Archie’s creators necessitated a speedy course correction.

“Bob Montana died in 1975,” Victor Gorelick recalls. “He had a heart Among the more interesting information out there is that Bill Mumy (Will Robinson from Lost in Space) played a character named Larry and that Li’l attack cross-country skiing. We had to keep (the strip) going. King Features Jinx [the star of Archie Comics’ one-page fillers] was actually a character had a couple of writers and they were supplying gags to us. We had Dan (played by Michelle Stacy, the voice of Penny in Walt Disney’s The Rescuers). DeCarlo doing the dailies and Stan Goldberg doing the Sunday page.

The primetime TV movie The Archie Situation Comedy Musical Variety These guys were so busy doing the other work, but we wanted to put our Show aired on Saturday, August 5, 1978. (Yes, that was the name. This was best artists on it. Eventually Dan DeCarlo did everything, the Sundays also the era that brought us The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. It was a different and the dailies. Al Smith contributed a lot of the gags at the beginning time.) Among the more noteworthy cast members are Gordon and then some of our other writers—George Gladir, even Tom DeFalco—submitted strips under an anonymous name.

Jump (Mr. Carlson on WKRP in Cincinnati) as Mr. Andrews and “When Montana stopped doing the strip, it was never a pre-Dallas Audrey Landers as Betty. Some online sources erroneously list David Caruso (NYPD Blue, CSI: Miami) as the same,” Gorelick continues, “even with DeCarlo drawing playing Archie. In fact, Archie was portrayed by Dennis it because he was the best artist we had. The strips are Bowen, perhaps best known as Todd Ludlow, the not so much [about] the artwork, it’s [about] the gags.” preppy overachiever antagonist on Welcome Back, Kotter.

Henry Scarpelli would later draw the Archie comic strip.

The Caruso rumor, while inaccurate, is not unfounded.

His son Glenn explains some of the creative differences Comics and TV writer Mark Evanier was a story between working on the comics versus on the newspaper editor on Welcome Back, Kotter; the Komack Company strip. “The Sundays were in color but the dailies weren’t, so he used a different approach,” the younger Scarpelli produced both Welcome Back, Kotter and the Archie specials for ABC. According to Evanier, “David Caruso recalls. “That’s why he used more solid black backgrounds was to have played Archie. His name was in the TV at times. When he did things that weren’t in color, Guide listing and there was at least one book on the he did approach it differently. He knew the daily strips bob montana were going to be in black and white… that did help history of Archie that gave his name instead of the him decide how he was going to lay it out and how he actor who actually played the role, Dennis Bowen.”

In an interesting discrepancy, Victor Gorelick recalls that The Archie was going to tell the story. So much of [the comic strip] is visual. They gave Situation Comedy Musical Variety Show had been preempted, but your my dad a lot of visual jokes because they knew he could handle it.”

A daily comic strip has a much smaller “canvas” than a comic-book story, humble author remembers watching it! “There were a couple of attempts at an Archie show,” Gorelick says. “There was a variety show they came but Scarpelli did not find that to be a creative constraint. “He actually up with. The pilots came out. One of them, we were sitting around the preferred it,” Glenn continues. “He liked less panels. He always said, TV waiting for it to come out and there was a playoff game—the Oakland ‘less is more,’ that was definitely his philosophy. He would put his two Raiders. The game went into overtime and they never put the show on.” cents in, too. If he found a joke and he thought something else was Once again, Evanier was able to provide clarification. “The 1978 special funnier, he would certainly call them up and say, ‘Hey, I’m feeling like we should go in this direction with this joke.’ But he definitely liked was pre-empted once but it was rescheduled and it did air,” he reports.

One noteworthy plot twist is that Midge admits to having had a less panels. Sometimes they would write it in four panels, and by the crush on Jughead—another TV first that would be revisited by the Life time it was done, they’d get it back in three.” with Archie magazine decades later!

Gorelick explains how the Archie strip could have been very different [Editor’s note: Andy Mangels explores these specials and other from what we actually ended up seeing in the funny pages: “I used to go over the strips with John Goldwater every week. I’d get them Archie TV outings in this issue’s “Backstage Pass” column.]

An Archie a Day… (top) Once gagmaster Bob Montana died in 1975, his presence was sorely missed on the daily Archie syndicated strip.

Here’s an undated example of his genius, produced during the year he passed. (bottom) A beautifully drawn Betty-starring daily from December 30, 1978, illo’ed by Dan DeCarlo. Both courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

10 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

Archie’s Greatest Hitmakers (some of them, at least) (top) Four Archie stalwarts share some of their Riverdale raves at San Diego Comic-Con 2002.

Left to right: Craig Boldman, Victor Gorelick, George Gladir, and Stan Goldberg. Photo from the collection of George Gladir. (bottom) Smiling Dan DeCarlo, snapped by Archie super-fan Greg Beda at SDCC 2001.

Both courtesy of Jerry Boyd.

together from different writers and we’d go over them. He tried to take the strip in different directions than Montana did. He wanted to get a little more political with them in some ways because some of the strips at that time were very political. Forget about Pogo—some of the other ones, like Doonesbury, that’s what he loved. He wanted to try something like that, but that really didn’t work that well.”

WALKING WITH GIANTS

As noted, Barry Grossman was with Archie for decades, working his way from the mailroom to the bullpen to an editor. As a colorist, he had the opportunity to work with all of the most famous Archie artists of the era.

He was kind enough to share reflections on many of the greats.

“Bill Vigoda was an all-around artist because, not only did he pencil, he did oil paintings, he did sculptures,” Grossman says. “He was a character in himself, but he was one of the most lovable people. One day he said to me, ‘My brother’s going to be in a movie with Marlon Brando,’ and I said, ‘Get the hell out of here!’ He said, ‘No, really. He’s going to play Tessio in The Godfather.’ I said, ‘Are you serious?’ and sure enough [he was].” [Bill Vigoda’s brother was actor Abe Vigoda, best remembered as Detective Fish on the television show Barney Miller and its spin-off, Fish.]

“DeCarlo was basically the architect,” Grossman continues. “He was the one who built the look of Archie. He was just unbelievable. A heart of gold. He would just come in and talk and talk, and it was always jokes.”

Victor Gorelick agrees with Grossman’s assessment of DeCarlo’s influence. “[Dan] was the best artist we ever had on Archie. Bob Montana thought that [Dan] was the closest to his style,” he recalls.

“Henry Scarpelli, when he came in, he kept you laughing all day long,” Grossman says. “When he would come in, everyone would gather around him. He had a terrific laugh that I still can hear in my mind.”

Glenn Scarpelli also recalls his father’s work on Archie. “The one thing I was always most impressed with was how he drew hands,” Scarpelli says. “He was always able to capture such motion and even emotion in hand gestures. The expressions on the face and the hands were always so amazing to me, and he would just visualize it. As soon as he’d get the script he knew exactly, in his head, how he wanted to lay it out.

“My dad literally was drawing until about three days before he died,” Scarpelli adds. “He didn’t actually die with a pen in his hand per se, but up until a few days prior to his passing, he was drawing Archie comics.”

“Harry Lucey was one of the most unbelievable artists ever,” Grossman opines. “Harry was a prankster. At home, when he would do his penciling, he would figure out ways to set up something that people might not notice, something really off-color. A lot of times he’d send in artwork where people weren’t wearing clothes. Bob Thompson was his inker—he was a wonderful inker—and his job was to dress them. Harry kept us laughing all the time.

He did cause some trouble because some things slipped by. He changed some of the dialogue and it got printed. If you saw John Goldwater walking through the halls with a comic open, you wouldn’t know what desk to hide under. You knew he wasn’t coming in to congratulate somebody.”

Al Hartley, according to Grossman, was a “terrific artist, the quickest penciler, writer, [and] inker I’ve ever seen in my life. His characters were funny. He knew how to start off a splash panel. You look at the splash panel, you’re already laughing. [But] he would tell a really good story and sometimes he would fall flat at the end.” Grossman did a lot of writing for Archie, so he knows that “the two most important things are the splash and the finish. The last page has got to be the twist.” Nevertheless, Hartley “was unbelievable. The characters were funny. He always made Mr. Lodge funny, and Archie, of course, was funny, and he got into all these predicaments.

“Samm Schwartz was one of the best artists ever when it came to anatomy,” Grossman contends. “There was nobody who could draw hands and facial expressions like Samm Schwartz. He didn’t even need dialogue. He would just pencil a whole story and you would laugh.

One time I was watching him ink—he liked to do penciling and inking— and I see the characters but I don’t really see the backgrounds. I said, ‘Where’s most of the art?’ and he starts inking in the backgrounds— the foliage, the buildings. And that’s why he wanted to do his own inking. Because if you had to ink somebody else’s, you’d have to go over all the pencils. His pencils were in his mind!”

Regarding Schwartz, Grossman adds that “his art was very simple and, as a colorist, I loved to color his stuff because, back in the day, the [coloring] rate wasn’t always that great. With Samm, you could do three, four pages an hour, so you could catch up with other people later on. Rex Lindsey would throw the kitchen sink in there, [so] it was impossible to make any money on his stuff.”

Grossman was also close with artist Stan Goldberg. He appreciated their work together on Mendy and the Golem, a 2003 adventure series published by the Golem Factory. (This was actually the second incarnation of Mendy and the Golem, the first being the Jewish equivalent of a Spire comic, first published in 1981 by Mendy Enterprises.)

Grossman also singles out one writer: “George Gladir, of course, was one of the top writers. George knew how to tell the same story a hundred different ways and still make ’em funny.” He also adds, “Bill Yoshida, the most wonderful guy, did our lettering.”

IT’S TWILIGHT TIME?

The 1970s–’80s have been referred to as the “twilight of the great Archie artists” because of the many creative changes that occurred at this time. While these changes were certainly sweeping, Victor Gorelick explains that they were also very gradual.

“I was always looking for new talent because the other artists were getting on in years,” he says. “Harry Lucey had cut back and he moved to Arizona—he had Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was working a little bit; we’d get a story every once in a while from him, but he really slowed

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 11

down. Dan DeCarlo never really slowed down that much. He had two sons—they were fraternal twins—and they were working for Archie as well. They were a big part of the future of the company, those two kids. Unfortunately, they both passed away.”

Gorelick explains how, as new talent entered the company, the veterans would mentor them: “We had the young artists coming in, we had them working with the older guys. Like Dan DeCarlo would look at their artwork and go over it. Samm Schwartz would, the inkers would.

“Certainly, [then-newcomer] Rex Lindsey’s style was very different from Dan DeCarlo’s; the faces were very busy. Then we had Pat and Tim Kennedy, Fernando Ruiz, Dan Parent, and Bill Golliher. Those were all new guys who came in gradually, over a number of years. But you have to start bringing in new talent because not everybody is going to be around forever. Which is true now—they’re all gone. The only one who’s still left is Bob Bolling [of Little Archie fame], and he doesn’t do much for us [anymore].

“Most of these [newer] artists came to work for us… right out of the Joe Kubert School. Everybody told them to [draw] like Dan DeCarlo and they did the best they could, but it really took a while before they

Playing Favorites A certain Miss Cooper picks her fave artist in Betty and Veronica vol. 2 #7 (Dec. 1987). Script by Rod Ollerenshaw, art by Dan and Jim DeCarlo. Courtesy of Anthony Snyder (www.anthonyscomicbookart.com).

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

could really come into their own. [For example,] Pat and Tim Kennedy are now working on this book, Jughead: The Hunger. If I showed you the artwork that they first drew, it wouldn’t be the same. They’ve really come a long way.”

FURTHER EXPERIMENTATION

As the 1980s drew to a close, Archie Comics was once again experimenting. 1987 saw the launch of The New Archies. Featuring Archie’s gang in junior high school, midway between Little Archie and the regular Riverdale adventures, this was a relatively short-lived series, lasting 22 issues until 1990 and 14 digests from 1988 through 1991. Nevertheless, the comic far outstripped the animated series on which it was based; the cartoon lasted a mere 14 episodes, from September through December 1987.

In 1989, four brand-new takes on the classic characters were launched: Archie 3000, Archie’s R/C Racers, Dilton’s Strange Science, and Faculty Funnies. The premises of these series were, respectively: Archie and the gang set 1,000 years in the future; Archie and Reggie racing radio-controlled cars across the country; Dilton and new love interest Danni confronting weirdness in strange times and places; and Mr. Weatherbee, Miss Grundy, Coach Clayton, and Professor Flutesnoot as superheroes. If you think these are eclectic takes on the characters to have been launched more or less simultaneously—well, you’d be right!

“At that time we had a licensing department set up in the office,” Victor Gorelick explains. They were trying to come up with a lot of things to create more licensing for the company, for toys and apparel and things like that. The problem with those books was that there were just so many Archie books out there, it was killing the sales. It was just too many books out there, taking away from the sales of all the other books. Those books—R/C Racers, etc.—I don’t think they sold all that well. Archie 3000 was good but as a book at that time, it didn’t do that well.”

Archie 3000 was, in fact, the most successful of the bunch, lasting 16 issues, until mid-1991. R/C Racers lasted ten issues; Strange Science and Faculty Funnies lasted five issues each.

END OF AN ERA

When asked to encapsulate the Archie comics of the 1970s and 1980s, Barry Grossman says, “They were the kind of material that children looked forward to. They enjoyed it. Kids would call in and they would want to talk with Archie. A lot of times, the calls would go into the art department. I would be Archie’s dad and say, ‘He’s in school now.’

Archie was like Santa Claus to little kids. To kids, these characters were really alive and that was because of the artwork that we had and the storytelling that was the backbone of Archie.

“I miss the Archies of the ’70s and ’80s,” he continues. “I feel the stuff coming out today is different characters with the same names. And it’s hard for me because I always loved Archie because he was so naive. He always got a kiss here and there, which made him happy. That’s all he really wanted. But today, in order to sell Archie, I guess you have to do some different things that modernize it, but that’s not my Archie.”

Regarding his father’s work, Glenn Scarpelli says, “One of the things that brings me the most joy is that the work that he did with Archie will live forever. I’m just so proud of his legacy.” That’s true not just of Henry Scarpelli but also of Dan DeCarlo, Harry Lucey, Stan Goldberg, Al Hartley, George Gladir, and so many others. Their work lives on not just in back issues but in those wonderful Archie digests. Those pocket-sized comics, the best bang-per-buck ratio in the industry, once helped the company to thrive against all odds.

Now, almost every week, they introduce new readers to Archie’s rich and truly varied history.

Special thanks to Steven Thompson and Maggie Thompson (no relation) for their assistance with this article.

JACK ABRAMOWITZ is a writer, author, and educator living in New York City who coined the term “Archieverse” in CBG #1169 (April 12, 1996). His bucket list, in its entirety, is to get his name in an Archie comic, either as a writer or a character.

12 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

by J e r r y

I bumped into Stan Goldberg (1932–2014), whom I had long admired, at a San Diego Comic-Con sometime in the ’00s. He was seated near Larry Lieber and Sal Buscema on the main floor, and being near three of my Mighty Marvel heroes paralyzed me for a time. I wanted to get into the lines and get set up for some commissions, but a more urgent matter prevailed, and I decided to walk on and meet up with them later. The next time I went to that area, the three men were gone. However, I did make their guest panel and got comics signed by all three—a real delight.

I stayed in touch with all three men, and in August of 2011, I decided to do a phone interview with Mr. Goldberg about his Marvel Comics work, specifically Millie the Model.

I came across Mad About Millie #2 in 1969 and became an instant fan-for-life then. Mr. Goldberg and I shifted the conversation to his work at Archie Comics (and I’m glad we did!), and here’s that never-before-published interview….

– Jerry Boyd JERRY BOYD: Mr. Goldberg, I first saw your exquisite coloring for Marvel, but I didn’t know it was you! [laughter] STAN GOLDBERG: No one did! [more laughter] Stan [Lee] was very good about giving credit to everyone involved with the comics, but somehow, the colorist didn’t make the credits box until the 1970s!

BOYD: You colored a lot of the titles…

GOLDBERG: I colored them all, early on! Marie Severin came in at some point and we overlapped for a while.

She worked at EC Comics in the 1950s and did superb coloring work, so all I had to teach her was the Marvel system of doing things.

BOYD: I don’t know if any little boys ever told you anything like this, but growing up in my Washington, D.C., neighborhood from 1966–’68 meant reading Marvel superheroes was too cool, but reading Patsy Walker and Millie the Model titles were not cool! [laughter] But after that unwritten but rigid restraint, I moved into a new neighborhood a few years later, and actually made a few new friends at my school, guys and girls, who loved Millie. It was around that time I saw Mad About Millie #2 on a spinner rack and fell in love with your great cartooning style!

GOLDBERG: Did you want to read Millie or Patsy comics while you were living in D.C.?

BOYD: Actually, no. [laughter] I was in 7th Heaven with the superhero titles! But I did read Archie… Archie was fine and dandy with all concerned. We knew we’d all be heading to high school one day, and Archie was kind of a blueprint about how to handle yourself when you hit 16… at least that’s what we thought! [laughter] GOLDBERG: I was working on Archie material in 1967, along with coloring chores at Marvel. A lot of my stuff amounted to one-page gags in Archie’s Mad House. I had a very fast style, which is what we all wanted. The more pages you produced, the bigger the check. So, like Jack Kirby, Mike Sekowsky, Jack Davis, and others, I developed a fast cartooning style that would give the impressions I wanted to convey.

In the late 1960s, this was a good deal for me—Stan Lee as editor, my Millie and Archie writers, and so on. It allowed me to get a lot done.

BOYD: Stan was writing the three Millie the Model titles around 1969, when I got there. Millie must’ve been

Boyd

The Other Stan the Man Artist Stan Goldberg in a 2008 photograph

by Luigi Novi, plus a sampling of the many, many, many covers he did for Marvel and Archie Comics.

Photo © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. Millie, the Punisher, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Sabrina, Archie, and related characters TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 13

Bronze Age and Bathing Suits In the early 1970s, Stan was still producing Millie comics for Marvel. Shown here are Goldberg’s original cover art to Mad About Millie Annual #1 and his cover color guide to MAM #15, both courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

doing nicely, sales-wise. Mad About Millie and Chili (her red-headed rival) came out, and you penciled them all!

GOLDBERG: Millie did do well. I wasn’t one to regularly keep up with sales figures, but when more titles came out of Millie the Model or Patsy Walker, you instinctively knew sales were up.

BOYD: And Archie was really about to blow up in an unprecedented way for that company!

New titles were coming out and by 1970 or so, all of the books there were 25-centers and the first cartoon show hit the air in 1969.

I was really enjoying Saturday morning at that time. My brother and I would get up, get some breakfast cereal, and DC, Archie, and Marvel’s Spider-Man were represented on the small screen.

GOLDBERG: I envy you for that. [laughter] BOYD: Before we jump into the world of Archie, let’s scan the wonderful world of teen comics. Too many of your contemporaries don’t or didn’t get the credit they deserve because they weren’t doing comics with masked or caped people.

GOLDBERG: I must agree….

BOYD: Hy Rosen was doing Bunny for Harvey Comics in the late 1960s. Did you know him?

GOLDBERG: I think he was a member of the NCS [National Cartoonists Society]. I met him long ago but I don’t remember much about him. We weren’t very friendly, but he was a nice guy.

BOYD: In the early 1970s, you did Debbi’s Dates, Binky’s Buddies, and Swing with Scooter for DC. Henry Scarpelli worked on DC’s teen humor books as well as Samm Schwartz. What do you remember about them?

GOLDBERG: Henry was an inker on my stuff for about 12 years. Socially, we were very close. He was a real sweet guy. It was a tragedy when he passed. Samm worked for Archie on the Jughead books. I got to know him quite well—not socially, but we got along on projects.

BOYD: Again, Archie was exploding in the early ’70s. All of their titles became doublesized 25-cent books, and a number of new titles were added. You did Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, among others for them. Who wrote stories for you at that company?

GOLDBERG: George Gladir! He’s been at Archie even longer than I! [laughter] Another writer—Barbara Slate—has worked in comics for many years. She’s a good writer and she’s got a book about how to write a graphic novel. Frank Doyle was another favorite.

BOYD: Do you enjoy the attention you’re getting at conventions? I’ve seen Dan DeCarlo get long lines of fans. It’s good that teen humor titles are getting more notice…

GOLDBERG: Yes, the attention is good, and somewhat overdue. We’ve been somewhat marginalized, but that’s part of it. What’s popular is what’s popular, right? I had to put my foot down sometimes when the superhero artists would take over the panel at cons. I felt it was necessary to remind the audience that the industry has survived on

14 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

funny animals, teen humor, science fiction, Western, and all the genres. They’re all needed and they’re all important.

BOYD: You’re absolutely correct. I looked for your Millie the Model, Chili, and Josie books just as hard as I spun the racks looking for Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Daredevil, etc. It’s “apples and oranges.” Everyone likes different foods from time to time—same thing with comics. You want to read horror, and superhero material doesn’t suffice. If you want crime comics, then romance won’t do it for you…

Were there any particular favorites of yours that you did for any of those companies?

Why were they standouts?

GOLDBERG: Archie was good sometimes in getting the social problems to the young boys and girls. I did three stories in one comic—“drugs,” “drinking,” and “sudden death in the family”—that was nationally distributed. These were free issues. We did it with all the experts in the field. These were for public-service organizations that the government and Archie decided to do.

They were very well received.

These days, the most popular book was the 600th issue of Archie. They moved them up to 23 years of age and they had to go out and get jobs—Archie marries Veronica after graduating college. In another comic, he marries Betty. They broke the top ten top sellers in comics and got written up in major papers, and so on.

BOYD: I’ve read them. You might find this funny. I have a coworker, a pretty blonde, who looks like Betty Cooper. We found out one day that we both grew up reading Archie comics. She got out of them long ago but I never did, of course. I told her that there was a new miniseries going on where Archie married Veronica and they had kids… and she shrieked! [laughter] She said, most passionately, “No way! He can’t marry Veronica! It has to be Betty!!!” I asked her to calm down and explained that the series would continue with Archie marrying Betty and having kids, etc. It was what was called “an imaginary storyline”—just a “What if this happened?” scenario. That she could accept and I told her about a nearby store that would carry it. She was happy and said she’d only buy the ones where Archie was with Betty. [more laughter] GOLDBERG: [still laughing] That figures!

Well, people love these kids—their parents, educators, etc.

BOYD: Yes, I do, too. After a while, they become sacred. You just love them and want the best for them.

GOLDBERG: Right.

BOYD: Speaking of standouts, I really liked the somewhat more adventurous yarns you did with Josie and Sabrina and so on when they faced some kind of danger or mystery.

These were done in the 1970s.

GOLDBERG: I was going to add those into our conversation! [laughs] By that time, Dan DeCarlo was doing most of the covers for the Archie lineup, but I got to do the covers and stories for Josie, Archie’s Mad House, and Sabrina, where there were lots of

wild menaces and so on. Those became kind of a trademark of mine and I was proud of them.

The kids had been on adventures before, of course, but this was a new wave and regularly done.

BOYD: I had a favorite writer/artist at Archie—his name was G. LeMoine. I know this because he went on to do a black Archie-type title called Fast Willie Jackson in the late 1970s at Fitzgerald Publications.

There, he signed his work. He specialized in one-page gags, often hilarious. And most of his Archie work was in Jughead’s Jokes, Archie’s Joke Book, and Reggie’s Jokes. The latter was my favorite. He really took the super ego Reggie had and played it to the max! Do you recall anything about him?

GOLDBERG: No… sorry, he doesn’t ring a bell. We brought in a black model named Jill Gerard in the Millie book during the soap-opera period. [Interviewer’s note: Jill showed up in the mid-to-late 1960s.]

BOYD: Back to Marvel—Millie’s books became reprint titles in the early 1970s.

And then the last of the titles folded around 1975 or so. Have you and Stan Lee ever talked about re-teaming and doing another new Millie issue just for fun?

GOLDBERG: No, he’s concentrating on superheroes. It’d be fun, though. [laughter] BOYD: What were your favorite titles or characters to work on at Archie, if any?

Did you get to pick any of the stories in Archie: The Best of Stan Goldberg hardback?

GOLDBERG: I liked all the books. Archie’s Mad House in the late 1960s and early ’70s was like Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In on TV—completely wild! The gags and stories went all over the place! That was fun!

My story picks for the hardback book… I had no picks. That was done in the office. The one thing I did pick were the 20 pages of fashion pages and I picked them because I penciled and inked all of those.

Oh, yeah, I also chose the covers for Archie #600–605. I wanted those in—they’re just my penciling and that was a new era, so to speak, for Archie. I was glad that those got in.

BOYD: How would you sum up your time as a teen humor artist?

GOLDBERG: I got it from a congratulatory standpoint from Marvel and DC. You know, people would pat me on the back and tell me I’d done a great job. Archie was a different kind of a company. The people wouldn’t throw you praise. Good, bad, or indifferent, it was all the same to them. But I’m not really knocking them. I liked them.

In Living Color (top) Color commissioned illustrations of Betty, Veronica, Archie, and Reggie done by Stan Goldberg in 2007.

Courtesy of Heritage via Jerry Boyd. (bottom) Della and Sabrina in conflict again in this page, written by George Gladir and drawn by Stan G., from Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #94 (Apr. 1984).

Courtesy of Jerry Boyd.

Characters TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

They kept me for 40+ years, so they must’ve liked what I did! [laughter] Everybody in the industry always said it was me and Dan DeCarlo up there and things like, “You will be the best at Archie one day.”

Well, Dan passed, and now people tell me, “You’re the best penciler at Archie.”

That means something.

As a working artist or colorist since 1949, I’ve been much in demand, so I can’t complain about that. I’m proud to have brought teen humor into the 21st Century. You’ve got to keep up. Kids will go to something else if you don’t progress, so I’m proud that I’ve been able to keep their interest over the years. [laughter] BOYD: You sure have, Mr. Goldberg!

GOLDBERG: Thanks. Yes, I haven’t become a has-been and the work’s been rewarding and a lot of fun. I’ve met and worked with wonderful talents. And I take some pride in being one of the best in the field.

JERRY BOYD has written numerous articles for The Jack Kirby Collector, BACK ISSUE, Alter Ego, The Harveyville Fun Times!, Scary Monsters, Monster Memories, and the Spooky Fearbook.

He’s proud to have interviewed numerous professionals in the industries pertaining to those publications.

Jerry is a professional schoolteacher and an aspiring screenwriter living in Northern California.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 15

TM

conducted by J e r r y

Archie’s Mad House Man Archie Comics writer/cartoonist George Gladir in an undated photograph courtesy of Jerry Boyd, plus a sampling of covers from comics containing his stories.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

One of the wonderful things about fanzines is that fans take it upon themselves to find out where their favorite creators live and sometimes bring them out to meet new audiences at conventions, or interview them, or get commissioned artwork from them. Because of their efforts and the graciousness of their creator friends, rarely seen or never-published interviews and artwork survive.

I had the good luck to run into George Gladir (1925–2013) at San Diego Comic-Con and after hitting it off, I asked him if I could someday interview him and he consented. Mr. Gladir (rhymes with “bladder”) had been one of the Archie gang’s chief writers for more than half a century.

While in his mid-teens, Gladir got off to an early start in the comics industry by submitting what became a winning entry in the Buffalo Bob cartoon contest. This was a part of Tip Top Comics, a Golden Age favorite.

Later, he worked briefly for the comics packaging shop of Eisner and Iger. When WWII came, he served as a combat infantryman in Europe.

After the war he enrolled in the Cartoonist and Illustrator’s School in New York City. For a number of years, he submitted gag cartoons to a variety of magazines.

In George’s words, “I picked up invaluable experience in being able to tell a story in just one panel and understanding visual humor.”

In 1959, he heard Archie Comics was hiring writers.

He began doing one-page gags for Archie’s Joke Book, and then branched out to the other titles with complete stories.

Simultaneously, he scripted humor stories for Cracked Magazine, often working with the great John Severin.

Boyd

Mark Arnold, one of BACK ISSUE’s frequent contributors, used to publish The Harveyville Fun Times!, largely dedicated to the wonderful Harvey Comics lineup. After I interviewed George Gladir on the subject of one of his finest creations, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, for THFT #71, I felt I needed to do a follow-up chat with him to discuss the Archie comics he worked so well on in general terms and stretching over the years.

Luckily, he was happy to answer more questions, and here they are. The queries were submitted by email on Oct. 19, 2009 and answered on Jan. 17, 2010. Mr. Gladir, who passed away on April 3, 2013, also provided most of the art that follows, along with Archie fan supreme Greg Beda.

– Jerry Boyd [Disclaimer: Since this was done long ago for another fanzine, there is an emphasis on Mr. Gladir’s time at Archie that precedes the Bronze Age.] JERRY BOYD: How did you initially come to write for comic books, Mr. Gladir?

GEORGE GLADIR: I finished two years of a gag cartoonist course at the School of Visual Arts (then called the Cartoonist and Illustrator’s School) and started submitting gag cartoons to various magazines as a freelancer. Some two years later, in 1959, a friend and fellow cartoonist, Orlando Busino, informed me that Archie was looking for writers.

Because of my experience as a gag cartoonist, I had no problem connecting with Archie, doing one-page

16 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

Archie’s Real-Life Pals ’n’ Gals (top) A San Diego Comic-Con photo (presumably late 1980s) featuring (front, left to right) Jughead and Tippy Teen cartoonist Samm Schwartz and Archie editor Victor Gorelick, and (back, left to right) an unidentified figure and George Gladir. (bottom) Dan DeCarlo’s with his wife Josie on the left and George Gladir is with his wife on the right side. They’re having a good time outside of a restaurant in the San Diego area following a day at SDCC in ’02. Mr. Gladir provided both photos, shared with BACK ISSUE by Jerry Boyd. gags and cover ideas. Soon, I expanded into writing cartoon articles for Archie’s Mad House and doing occasional Archie stories. Within a couple of years, I branched out by writing simultaneously for Cracked Magazine, a MAD-type publication.

I credit my gag cartoonist experience for giving me the ability to do all of the above. As a gag cartoonist one learns how to convey as much as possible in just one panel. Also, by doing my writing in a rough storyboard format, I learned how to anticipate all the visual and verbal problems that a cartoonist might face.

BOYD: Shortly after you got to Archie, they started up two way-out titles, [Tales Calculated to Drive You] Bats and Archie’s Mad House.

There were funny and semi-serious monsters stories, and ongoing characters like Lester Cool and Chester Square, Captain Sprocket, and so on. What do you recall about writing for those books and artists like Mr. Busino, who drew for both?

GLADIR: Almost immediately after starting at Archie, I took to writing for Archie’s Mad House and was writing much of it, creating all of the characters you mentioned as well as others. I introduced my friend Orlando Busino to Archie and Archie’s Mad House, and together we created Bats. Orlando was one gifted artist and his amazing artwork was responsible for what success Bats enjoyed in its short run.

Unfortunately, there were great demands on his time. He simultaneously had to do gag cartoons for many of the major magazines (at a much more lucrative rate than comic books could afford to pay).

Also, the Comics Code Authority put some very inane restrictions on what we could do with monsters, even though all of our stories were humorous in nature.

BOYD: Did you have a favorite Archie character to write? Was Jughead “easier” since he disliked girls, loved to eat, was lazy, etc., or were Betty and Veronica, Archie, or Reggie stories easier or more fun to concoct? Was it easier for you, being a man, to write material for the boys, than it was to write for Josie, B&V, and Sabrina?

GLADIR: Initially, I preferred writing the Jughead stories because his stories tended to be wilder and more imaginative in nature.

Also, I had no problem with Archie stories. While I had a somewhat more limited range with Betty and Veronica, I did like coming up with stories that fit their personalities. And since I created Sabrina, I had no difficulties in writing her stories.

BOYD: There was a produced but unsold Archie TV pilot done in the early 1960s. The team that produced Leave It to Beaver put it out.

I’ve seen it once. Did you ever see it, and if so, any recollections?

GLADIR: No, I never saw it.

BOYD: Archie titles followed the seasons very well. In summer, the beach and surfboard stories showed up, snowball fights and Christmas shopping in the winter followed suit, and spring meant prom dances and school sporting events like baseball and soccer. Did you have a preference when it came to seasonal stories?

GLADIR: No preference.

BOYD: When Samm Schwartz (who concentrated his art on the Jughead titles) went over to edit, write, and draw for Tower Comics’ Tippy Teen titles in ’65, did he ask you to join him?

GLADIR: Yes, he did, and I did go to his office, but somehow we did not connect. Writing for both Archie and Cracked at the time, my schedule was pretty much filled up.

BOYD: By the mid-’60s, superheroes were making noticeable inroads in American pop culture. The Archie gang became costumed crimefighters (except for Veronica). Did you like that transition?

GLADIR: I had nothing to do with the Archie superheroes. I was already involved with Captain Sprocket, a Mad House superhero I had created back in 1963.

BOYD: Archie followed the wildly popular spy craze, as well. Did you write the “Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E.: stories, and were they enjoyable?

GLADIR: No, I did not write any of the R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E. stories that I can recall. [Editor’s note: Frank Doyle was the chief Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E. writer during the 1960s.]

BOYD: G. (I believe his first name was “Gerald”) LeMoine became an Archie writer-artist in 1967 or so [his first name, or at least his nickname, was Gus—ed.]. He was an African-American, I believe, because in the late ’70s he went to Fitzgerald Publications and did a “black Archie” knock-off (which I loved, by the way) called Fast Willie Jackson. At Archie he specialized in one-page jokes and did wonderful work on Reggie’s Jokes, Archie’s Joke Book, and Jughead’s Jokes. Do you remember him at all?

GLADIR: No, I regret to say I do not. Usually, the Archie writers and artists met only once a year at the Archie Christmas party, and by 1969 I had moved to California.

BOYD: Suddenly, by ’68–’69, the Riverdale kids were rockers. Even Little Archie (then done by Dexter Taylor) got morphed into the Little Archies! Did you get a kick out of hearing the Archies’ hit singles on the radio? Did you ever get up on Saturday mornings and watch the cartoons?

GLADIR: Yes, I did. Also, working at Filmation in 1969, the California studio where the Archie cartoon show was produced, gave me the opportunity to hear the Archies perform.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 17

Familiar Faces George Gladir (bottom panel), along with editor Victor Gorelick, cameo in the story “Flower Power,” from Archie’s Double Digest #150 (May 2004).

Page signed by penciler Fernando Ruiz, Gorelick, and Gladir. Original art from the collection of Greg Beda; photocopy courtesy of Jerry Boyd.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

BOYD: Archie went to the 25-cent format for all their books in the early 1970s. The cartoons were doing well.

Was that a particularly good time to be at the company?

GLADIR: As far as I was concerned, it was always a good time to write for Archie.

BOYD: Did Harry Lucey, Samm Schwartz, Al Hartley, and/or Dan DeCarlo ever write their own tales as well as illustrate them? Who were some of the other writer-artists?

GLADIR: I was aware that Al Hartley was both writing and drawing for Archie. I came to regard his artwork as almost being on a par with Dan DeCarlo and Stan Goldberg, the two whose artwork I admired the most.

BOYD: I really liked the digest format that kicked off in the mid-’70s (and continues to this day). Who came up with that great idea and why?

GLADIR: I have no idea.

BOYD: Archie at Riverdale High began in the early 1970s.

It seemed to feature more serious looks at the world we all live in. There were stories that dealt with industrial pollution, poverty, crime, protests, and so on. How did you feel about your assignments for that title and why did Vietnam never creep into any of those stories?

GLADIR: I always tried to put a humorous spin on serious problems, especially at Cracked. Why Vietnam did not creep into any of the stories I do not know.

Even MAD magazine, to my knowledge, did not touch it. Although I once wrote a story for Cracked about a superhero called Super Hawk, who was frustrated about the war in Vietnam.

BOYD: Cheryl Blossom (going into the ’80s–’90s now) was the “bad girl” Veronica Lodge could never be or even want to be! She seemed promiscuous and undisciplined. There was parental criticism of her, I read. Do you remember the controversies and how the editors handled it?

GLADIR: If there were controversies surrounding Cheryl, I was not made aware of them.

BOYD: Which Archie titles sold the best over the years? Were sales records ever discussed with you or the other talents?

GLADIR: Sales figures were never discussed with me.

However, I do believe Betty and Veronica was the bestselling Archie book, mainly because of Dan DeCarlo’s superb artwork.

BOYD: Nowadays, Archie’s reached major milestones and anniversaries, gone past 600 issues, and gone into the miniseries arena (‘‘Freshman Year’’ and “Archie Marries Veronica/and Betty”; see below), and more realistic art and stories. How do you like these changes?

GLADIR: As long as the Archie stories were drawn in the traditional humorous style I enjoyed them. The Archie stories that were both serious in art style and content were a turnoff for me.

BOYD: How would you sum up your 50 years as a creator and writer at Archie Comics?

GLADIR: Where did the last 50 years go? It seems when you’re doing something you enjoy, time goes by incredibly fast. For my sake, I hope time slows down a tad in the next decade or two.

18 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

TM

by J e r r y

Boyd

[This interview preceded what you just read and was modified for BI.] JERRY BOYD: Mr. Gladir, when did you begin working for Archie Comics? What were your regular assignments?

GEORGE GLADIR: I started working for Archie in September 1959. Since my background before then had been doing gag cartoons for various magazines, I at first did one-page and half-page gags, and then the MAD-type cartoon articles in Mad House. Soon I was submitting cover ideas for the many Archie books, as well as an occasional five- or six-page story.

BOYD: Was it difficult for you to write about teenagers for teenagers? Were there younger people in your family or neighborhood who informed you about the lifestyles, slang, and idiosyncrasies of teens?

GLADIR: There was no problem at all. Even though I was in my 30s, I felt like an overgrown teenager at heart. As a teen, back in the ’40s, I was into rhythm and blues, so that when rock made the scene in the mid-’50s I was very much in tune with the times.

BOYD: How did Sabrina the Teenage Witch come about? Did you pick Dan DeCarlo to draw the strip, or was that an editorial decision?

If so, who made it?

GLADIR: The choice of using Dan DeCarlo as Sabrina’s artist was strictly an editorial decision, and a smart one. Sabrina owes much of her success to Dan’s brilliant artwork. I do not know who made the decision.

BOYD: Still, can you pinpoint it? Did an editor come up and say, “Let’s do a teenage witch?”

GLADIR: The origin of Sabrina I can pinpoint back to Bats #2 earlier in 1962. This was the January issue. I still have that one. I had a narrator named Hilda, who was a typical elderly, ugly witch and she told a story about how “soft” young witches have it today. That story morphed into Sabrina’s introductory story in the October 1962 Mad House issue. A nameless young witch in her 20s was in the original Bats story in a cartoon-type article called “Witchcraft Then and Now.” [Editor’s note: BACK ISSUE stirs our comics-history cauldron to reveal the full story Sabrina in an article elsewhere in this issue.]

BOYD: Sabrina’s timing was appropriate for Halloween! Archie titles didn’t have regular letters columns where the readers expressed approval/ disapproval over the stories, art, and concepts.

How did your company discover that Sabrina was a success and therefore worth continuing?

GLADIR: After Sabrina appeared in her first Mad House story, the then-editor Richard Goldwater told me they had received some favorable mail regarding the character and that I should do an occasional Sabrina story. At the time I was writing most of the Mad House book.

BOYD: Were you aware that American youngsters were caught up in the monster craze of that time? There were monster magazines, toys, games, TV shows, movies, etc.…

GLADIR: I think the monster craze really started back in the ’40s with famed New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams. He had a tremendous influence on my work and inspired me to introduce monsters in Archie’s Mad House in 1961, and in Bats, another Archie publication.

The latter book was created by me and famed gag cartoonist Orlando Busino.

BOYD: At the end of her first story, Sabrina explained that as a witch, she couldn’t fall in love or she’d lose her powers/status in the witches’ community. This was changed later. She got a steady boyfriend named Harvey by the late ’60s and early ’70s. Why was this switch made?

GLADIR: In the first story I had no idea Sabrina was going to be a regular feature in Archie’s Mad House, so I gave her a slightly malevolent streak that later disappeared.

BOYD: In the earliest stories, Sabrina lived in a modest, typical suburban house with one ugly, (sometimes) green-skinned aunt/witch mentor, Hilda. Later on, a plump aunt, Zelda, was added, as was Uncle Ambrose, a warlock. Were these great character additions your ideas?

GLADIR: Hilda and Zelda as well as Salem [the cat] were all my creations. Uncle Ambrose was not.

BOYD: The Archie Show premiered in the fall of 1968 on Saturday morning on CBS-TV. It was a big hit! Was that a good time to be at the company? How did it impact the comics’ creators?

GLADIR: 1968 was a nice year to be working at Archie… as were previous and subsequent years. I don’t think the Archie TV show had much to do with it.

BOYD: Archie’s Funhouse followed two seasons later. It was in the style on NBC-TV’s wildly successful Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Sabrina’s “family” moved to Riverdale and she became an extended member of the Archie gang.

Did the decision to move her to Riverdale originate with the Filmation group or the Archie editors?

GLADIR: The decision to at first move Sabrina to Riverdale was probably made by Fred Silverman, the head of CBS children’s programming. He was probably the first who recognized Sabrina could be adapted to other media.

From the Boyd Archives (top) Here’s the first page from Sabrina’s introduction story in Archie’s Mad House #22, reprinted in Mad House Annual #3, and signed by Mr. Gladir, who was pleased with this interview. From the collection of Jerry Boyd. (bottom) It all came together on this page from Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #5 (Nov. 1970): the Archies celebrated their gold record for “Sugar, Sugar,” Sabrina and family had moved to Riverdale, and Aunt Hilda was about to Bang-Shang-a-Lang those singing teens! Written by George Gladir, penciled by Bill Vigoda, inked by Chic Stone.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 19

Never a Gladder Moment… …than when a creator meets his “creation.” (left) George Gladir and original TV Sabrina Melissa Joan Hart at one of the UCLA Book Fairs in the ’00s! Photo from the collection of George Gladir, via Jerry Boyd. (right) Sabrina mixed all of the end-of-the-year holidays onto this cover by Rex W. Lindsey for Sabrina’s Holiday Spectacular #2 in late 1994!

George Gladir wrote several gag strips for this issue.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

BOYD: What was it like to work with the great Dan DeCarlo?

GLADIR: It was a pure delight working with Dan DeCarlo. As a one-time gag cartoonist myself, I recognized the genius of this artist to render ideas so brilliantly. We eventually became very good friends. In 1991, I was flattered to win the San Diego Comic-Con Award simultaneously with Dan. [Editor’s note: That was Comic-Con International’s Inkpot Award.] We both presented each other with the award.

I didn’t visit Dan much [during the ’60s to the ’80s]. Occasionally, we’d go to Mamaroneck [New York] and get together, but rarely. We had some great times catching up at San Diego in the ’90s, when Dan started attending.

Other cartoonists? Stan Goldberg—can’t lavish too much praise on him! He and Dan DeCarlo never stopped improving, getting better.

In the ’80s, Archie cut down on their titles a good deal, and Stan went to Captain Carrot, I believe, but when he got back [to Archie], he made a quantum leap in his artwork.

Harry Lucey [below]—I didn’t get to know him very well. We’d meet once a year at the office Christmas parties. He’s one of the old-timers and I didn’t get to socialize with them very often. When we did chat at the parties, I found he was a very nice guy.

I’m just proud to have had them… as my artists.

BOYD: In the fall of 1970, Sabrina’s extended “family” got a cartoon show worthy of the Halloween spirit! Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies

We Love Lucey Rarely did the great Harry Lucey draw a Sabrina story, but here’s a page by the artist from Archie’s TV LaughOut #24 (Feb. 1974).

Writer unknown (but it might’ve been George Gladir). Scanned from a photocopy of the original art, provided by Jerry Boyd. (inset) A rare photo of Harry Lucey, circa late 1960s.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

was a lot of fun. The Archie brass never did a Groovie Goolies comic.

Why not?

GLADIR: I have no idea. By this time I had moved to California and was out of touch with the inner workings of Archie.

BOYD: Did you have time to watch the cartoons? If so, what was your impression?

GLADIR: I enjoyed the ones I watched, but as a late sleeper I did not get to see many of them.

BOYD: Was your writing workload expanded to keep up with the larger 25-cent comics the Archie titles had morphed into in the early ’70s?

GLADIR: Long before the ’70s arrived I was already working to the max.

In 1962, in addition to Archie, I started to write for Cracked, MAD’s only serious competitor, turning out some 2,000 pages over the next 30 years.

BOYD: Sabrina got her own comic in 1971. Were you still the chief Sabrina writer at that time? Harry Lucey, G. LeMoine, Stan Goldberg, and Dan DeCarlo drew her adventures. Who else wrote her stories?

And from a writer’s standpoint, were you glad she moved to Riverdale in the comics, or did it complicate matters?

GLADIR: At first I thought I was done with Sabrina stories at the end of the ’60s. I found some Sabrinas in my home as I was answering your questions, and yes, I did do a few of her stories in the ’70s. I don’t recall other writers on the strip and I never gave it much thought. [Editor’s note: Frank Doyle and Dick Malmgren were the main Sabrina writers during this era.]

I was writing more Archie stories at this time and I was concerned with improving my ability to do more involved plots. I must add that my wife Mary, an avid reader, was invaluable in helping me in this regard.

BOYD: There wasn’t much growth for the character after the early ’70s.

She became a horror-story hostess for a hot minute in Sabrina’s Chilling Tales of Sorcery, but it didn’t catch on. Were there any new avenues for the young lady to travel? And when did you stop writing Sabrina stories?

GLADIR: Not many avenues though [to travel], but I don’t remember that horror title of hers you mentioned at all! [laughs] I never really stopped writing her stories, though. In the ’80s and ’90s, when they discontinued some of the Archie titles, I got assignments for Laugh Comics (not the digests—they were all reprints) and I did some Sabrina stories! The [Archie’s] Joke Book was being discontinued, so I had to concentrate some more on plots and stories.

BOYD: The Sabrina live-action show was a hit. You created an enduring success story. Any impressions of the show?

GLADIR: I loved the TV show, especially Melissa Joan Hart’s superb portrayal of Sabrina.

BOYD: How do you feel about Sabrina overall and your time at Archie Comics?

GLADIR: Naturally I’m extremely proud of Sabrina’s success.

Before I hang it up, I hope to someday to even top it with other characters of mine.

20 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

ARCHIE COMICS

T H E I N S P I R AT I O N F O R T H E H I T T V S E R I E S

ESSENTIAL READING FOR FANS OF THE SHOW LOVE THE SHOW, LOVE THE COMICS

Riverdale Vol. 2

ARCHIE GOES HORROR

Afterlife with Archie Vol. 1

ArchieComics.com

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Vol. 1

ArchieComicsOfficial

STORIES THAT LED TO THE HIT SHOW

Archie Vol. 1

Jughead Vol. 1

Reggie and Me

Josie and the Pussycats Vol. 1

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

The Best of Archie The Best of Josie Comics Deluxe Edition and the Pussycats

@ArchieComics

ComicShopLocator.com

TM

(Cue music) Everything’s Archie!

Harvey’s here, Vicki’s here, And Chili is, too, Debbi’s here, And here comes Binky, And Scooter, too!

So, Everything’s Arch— Hey… wait a minute, gang! Those folks aren’t the Archies! What’s going on here?

Well, there’s a reason Archie Andrews was once known as the world’s most popular teenager. Everyone wanted to be just like him. Even other comic-book teenagers and a few four-color 20-somethings!

Created as a humorous backup feature for MLJ’s Pep Comics in late 1941, Archie Andrews became so popular so quickly in the World War II era that before long, the entire company had changed its name to Archie Comics and, with rare exception, stopped regularly publishing anything that wasn’t at least in some way Archie-related.

This is, of course, similar to what had happened on a larger scale with DC’s Superman just a few years earlier. After that character’s unexpected mega-success in Action Comics, superhumans and mystery men were suddenly omnipresent in comic books. In a bizarre sort of immaculate conception, Superman begat everyone from Batman, Wonder Man, Wonder Woman, Captain America, and Bob Phantom to Kangaroo Man, Stardust, Phantom Lady, and Captain Flash.

After Archie hit big, the so-called “Mirth of the Nation” quickly began a long tradition of begetting clones of both sexes including Ginger, Suzie, Ezra, Howie, Chuck, Henry Brewster, Frankie, Dexter, Willie, Patsy Walker, Hap Hazard, Jeanie, Cindy, Georgie, Kathy, Rusty, Margie, Mitzi, Buzzy, Cookie, Jetta, Freddy, and Tippy Teen! Whew! And I’m serious when I say that’s only a few of the Archiesque characters leading up to the Bronze Age! There’s no question that Stan Lee’s Timely, a company that never saw a bandwagon it couldn’t jump on, led the way in early Archie rip-offs. A lot of that company’s teen titles of the 1940s and ’50s were very well done, though, with likable characters, clever stories, and great art from the likes of Al Hartley, Stan Goldberg, and Dan DeCarlo, all of whom would later end up at Archie!

by S t e v e n

Thompson

MEET MILLIE

Perhaps it was this early success with teenage comics that led Stan to hang onto a handful of the characters such as Kathy (“The Teenage Tornado”), Millie the Model, Chili, Patsy Walker, and Hedy Wolfe well into Timely’s Marvel era. Kathy, which Stan Goldberg told me in 2010 was his favorite comic to have worked on, stuck around until 1964.

The others had transformed into something more akin to romance comics with some soap opera mixed in. Patsy Walker (“The Girl Who Could Be You!”) lost her own long-running title in ’65, with Patsy and Hedy hanging on ’til the end of ’66. Patsy and Hedy had even turned up at Reed and Sue’s wedding in Fantastic Four Annual #3 (Oct. 1965), placing them squarely in the Marvel Universe, where Patsy would later be revived as Hellcat. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #40 for Hellcat’s story.]

Logically, it would seem there was no room for Millie the Model, herself perhaps inspired by Archie’s fashion queen, Katy Keene, to keep hanging on at Marvel as things got increasingly cosmic… but then, in 1967, an odd thing happened. Millie and her friends got RE-Archiefied!

“Here’s an announcement we never thought we’d make!” said an item in Marvel’s Bullpen Bulletins. “We’re gonna recommend that you take a peek at—of all things—the latest ish of Millie the Model!

We’ve changed the mag around completely—new type of artwork and stories—and Honest to Aunt May, it’s really kinda funny.”

According to Roy Thomas, still relatively new at Marvel at that time, “Stan’s idea... he wanted to see if he could make them sell.

(And Millie had had a bit more of an Archie look years before.) They did sell for a while.”

Crisis on Earth-Riverdale From the late Silver Age, a groovy quartet of DC’s Archie doppelgangers: (top) Binky #63 (cover by Bob Oksner and Tex Blaisdell) and Binky’s Buddies #1 (cover by Oksner), plus (bottom) Date with Debbi #1 (cover by Samm Schwartz), featuring its Archie-looking star, and Swing with Scooter #19 (cover by Henry Scarpelli).

TM & © DC Comics.

22 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

Marvel’s Model Citizens The House of Ideas’ longtime fashionista’s Archie makeover! (top, left to right) The spinoff Mad About Millie #1 (Apr. 1969). The revamped Millie the Model, issue #180 (Mar. 1970). Millie Annual #12 (1975). (Note that the “Queen-Size” logo’s font replicates Marvel’s “Giant-Size” brand of the day.) The other Millie spinoff, Chili. Issue #13 (May 1970). All covers by Archie legend Stan Goldberg. (bottom) Familiar gags, albeit wonderfully drawn by Stan Goldberg, on the covers of Marvel’s Harvey #1 (Oct. 1970) and 2 (Dec. 1970).

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

As if there remained any doubt that this was all an attempt to tap The other Stan, Stan G. (as he was called at Marvel), had stuck with Millie and friends through the years of more serious art and stories but into Archie’s lucrative teenage market, there were also a number of stories showing Millie’s adventures as a teenager, where her freckles told me that he was thrilled to go back to the cartoonier style.

As far as sales on the Millieverse titles, they sold well enough, in fact, made her look like a combination of Betty and Archie himself! for a second regular mag, Mad About Millie #1 (Apr. 1969), to come along, followed shortly thereafter by Millie’s longtime redheaded rival HERE’S HARVEY finally getting her own title just a month later with Chili #1 (May 1969). While Millie and her pals and gals were still cavorting around, along came Harvey. Harvey was one of the most Archie-like books of the Bronze There were also Queen-Size Specials!

Age non-Archies. It was also, in its time, an almost completely Millie and her friends and beaus weren’t teenagers, but they ignored title, and now an almost completely forgotten one. might as well have been. The new stories hit on the teenage tropes of jealousy, dates, dances, and cars. The new colorful When asked if he remembered anything about Harvey, fashions of the ’60s and ’70s were highlights of every issue.

Roy Thomas recalls, “Nope, don’t know anything about You could also find lots of long hair and references to Harvey, except that it was Stan’s idea and concept. rock music, protests, and the Generation Gap. I doubt if even he’d recall much about Harvey in The new/old art style by Goldberg was close particular now.” Harvey came and went in a mere six issues enough to Archie art that a casual reader would spread out over slightly more than a two-year period.

The first two issues of Harvey arrived in late 1970 probably assume them to be put out by the same with no fanfare whatsoever and presumably no sales, company. (According to Mark Evanier, writing on so the series was almost immediately abandoned. Just his blog, later stories signed by Sol Brodsky were still actually drawn by Goldberg who, at that point, two years later, though, during the period when didn’t want his new regular employer—Archie—to corporate Marvel was seemingly doing everything it know he was still moonlighting at Marvel.) could to drive the competition out of business by roy thomas Most important of all, the stories and one-page flooding the newsstand with product, Harvey made © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. gags, generally signed by Stan Lee himself, tended his unlikely comeback. Amidst the dozens of pointless to be actually funny! No longer just “comics for your sister,” boys were reprints of mostly subpar 1950s strips, the returned Harvey stood out now reading Millie and Chili issues as well, myself included! from the crowd with all-new material. After all, he hadn’t been around Millie Collins and Chili Storm work for a modeling agency, long enough to have anything to reprint yet!

Harvey Hooper—but for his red hair looking more like Archie’s own which gives them a valid excuse to wear outrageous fashions all the time. Millie’s boyfriend is photographer Clicker and their boss is Mr. in-house double, “That Wilkin Boy”—debuted in Harvey # 1 (Oct. 1970) Hanover. Her other friends include Toni, Daisy, and Marvin (who as the hip, handsome new student at Midvale High in another story signed only by Stan Lee the way he used to do it back in the 1950s. vaguely resembles a slightly hipper Jughead).

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 23

Grand Comic Book Database credits as artists Goldberg and John Verpoorten, but with a question mark. Despite the blatant attempt at the Archie art style, some of the details on the characters look very un-Goldberg-like to my eyes, so take that question mark seriously.

Harvey’s cast of characters also includes a narcissistic bully named Duke (Reggie); Principal Snorkel (Mr. Weatherbee); the beret-wearing hippie, Goober (Jughead); dark-haired Raven (Veronica); blonde Raquel (a gap-toothed version of Betty combined with Big Ethel); and soda shop owner Cheerful Charlie (Pop Tate). There’s also nice girl Wendy, who has Archie-style orange hair, and Dog, who is a dog… named Dog. As at Archie, Harvey’s supporting characters get their own stories right from the get-go, although Harvey himself usually appears in a supporting role in those. Harvey’s own stories are often headlined “Here’s Harvey,” leading to the possibility that “Here’s Harvey” may have been the series’ original intended title. Atop one story, the banner says, “Here’s Harvey,” and a floating head of our hero counters with, “You were expecting maybe Millie the Model?”

It’s a Laugh-In, Baby! (left) Harvey’s giant-sized entry in the Archie sweepstakes, Bunny, with art by Hy Eisman. (inset) It’s a happenin’ holiday on the cover of Fitzgerald Publications’ Fast Willie Jackson #3 (Feb. 1977). Cover by Gus LeMoine.

Bunny © DreamWorks Classics.

Fast Willie Jackson TM & © Fitzgerald Publications, Inc.

When the book returned with Harvey #3 (June 1972) after its yearand-a-half hiatus, there was no question that we had a new artist… but who? Stu Schwartzberg, perhaps? Kevin Banks? Whomever it is, he or she is a very talented cartoonist, although the characters never looked quite like this before or afterwards. By that point, Stan Lee was spread pretty thin and no longer writing the series, but no writer is credited, either.

The remaining issues are more obviously by Stu Schwartzberg, as they are signed, in fact, in conjunction with Henry Scarpelli, who was stopping here briefly on his way from DC to a long career at—you guessed it—Archie!

The last story in the final issue of Harvey, #6 (Dec. 1972), is a Goober one-pager that finds that lovable loser attempting to sell beer at a baseball game, perhaps a sign that the characters were growing up and moving on.

BUNNY’S HOPPING

Businesswise, Marvel’s Harvey comics may or may not have fallen victim to the fact that there was, of course, already a Harvey Comics! The Harvey Comics—home of Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, and Little Dot! Like MLJ, Harvey Comics had also started out doing superheroes but later followed the trends to horror comics and Westerns. After the Comics Code hit in 1954, though, Harvey found its niche by sewing up the preteen market the same way MLJ/Archie had taken over the teenage market. But that didn’t mean Harvey wouldn’t have liked some of that babysitting and lawn-mowing money as well. Thus, was born… Bunny!

First published at the end of 1966 in her own selftitled, double-sized, 25¢-priced comic, Bunny had begun as a simple Millie the Model imitation—a young blonde woman determined to make it as a fashion model in the big city. The character had actually been based on a Barbie-style doll that had ended up never making it to market. Harvey had licensed the aborted toy line but decided to proceed with the comic book anyway, in yet another attempt at eating into Archie’s sales.

Bunny appeared on the newsstands quarterly, and with youthful fads and fashions changing so rapidly as the Age of Aquarius dawned, it was hard for Bunny’s creators to keep up!

Bunny’s increasingly “zoovey” (sic) writing came from Warren Harvey, one of the younger members in the family business. The book’s pop-art, pseudo-psychedelic penciling was almost always, throughout its entire run, courtesy of Hy Eisman. Eisman had worked steadily as a ghost artist for years, often drawing comic-book versions of classic newspaper comic strips. In time, he would go on to a prolific newspaper strip career of his own, taking over such classics as Little Iodine, Popeye, and The Katzenjammer Kids.

More so than any of the other teen comics of the period, Bunny inhabited a surreal world where even the lettering was mod! Her adventures revolved around love-ins and protests and other hippie tropes, but underneath it all was her rivalry with Esmeralda over her boyfriends. Also frequently featured were the Soular System, an African-American soul-singing group (unusual for the time in comics) similar to the real-life Fifth Dimension. The members were Marcy, Bomby, Randy, and Gideon.

Backup characters in the book included Sooper Hippie and Fruitman, the latter of which actually got his own one-shot, Fruitman Special (Dec. 1969)!

Bunny even had her own Archie-like fan club, the Bunny Ball “In” Club, which was revived in recent years as a Facebook group! All total, Bunny’s comic ran six years—along with appearing in the one-shot Rock Happening issue of Harvey Pop Comics (#2, Nov. 1969) and one final full-length issue burned off five years later as issue #21 (Nov. 1976).

THE JACKSON JIVE

Just as Bunny was breathing her last four-color breath, 1976 saw the beginning of the short but memorable seven-issue run of Fitzgerald Publications’ Fast Willie Jackson, an all-African-American Archie-style series with art by Gus Lemoine, covered previously in depth in BACK ISSUE #49 (June 2011) by Mark Arnold, through his interview with series creator/writer Bertram Fitzgerald.

24 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

From Swinger to Dead-Ringer (top left) DC’s Swing with Scooter started as a Paul McCartney knockoff but eventually morphed into (top right) an Archie clone.

Issue #1’s cover by Joe Orlando, issue #35’s cover

by Stan Goldberg and Henry Scarpelli. (below) House ads for DC’s teen titles, including a Date with Debbi ad with the title star as a blonde instead of a redhead!

SAY HEY TO SCOOTER

Not to be outdone by all these Johnnycome-lately companies, National Periodical Publications, a.k.a. DC Comics, the company that had started the superhero craze way back when, decided to get back in on the teenage fad in the mid-’60s.

First out of the gate was Joe Orlando’s Scooter, an all-new, Vespa-riding, young English chap who resembled, at least initially, Beatle Paul McCartney. Although first advertised as a Showcase tryout, a last-minute decision greenlit a solo title, Swing with Scooter #1 (June–July 1966).

A well-remembered ad for that first issue— which, oddly enough, actually appears in that first issue—answers the musical question, “Scooter? Who he?” in mock iambic pentameter: “Forsooth, from Will the Shakespeare’s pad, Alack, there came this swingin’ cat, Egad, he digged us so, this lad, ‘S’blood, we’re now his habitat.

Gadzooks, those kooks at DC boast, Odds Bodkins, Scooter’s strictly boss, I’faith his new mag is the most, How now, our gain is England’s loss!”

Strangely enough, Scooter’s very Britishness would be all but forgotten in his later issues.

He did get to keep his bike and guitar, though.

Right there on the first-issue cover, Swing with Scooter introduced its eclectic supporting cast—Cynthia, Cookie, Penny, Sylvester, Kenny, and Malibu. The latter was unique amongst the teen humor series in that he was… well… Imagine Man from U.N.C.L.E. star and 1966 pinup boy David McCallum combined with TV’s Eddie Munster as a teenager and you’d be close. Malibu even got a number of Munsters-like solo stories in later issues.

Swing with Scooter’s early scripts are credited to editor Jack Miller and co-writer Barbara Friedlander. According to various websites, the latter’s participation gets her the distinction

of being the first woman on the DC Comics editorial staff to work on comics outside of the romance genre in two decades.

At first, Swing with Scooter came across as more akin to DC’s other goofy humor titles such as Stanley and His Monster or The Adventures of Bob Hope. After a couple of years, however, the book’s overall style—and art style in particular— had slowly shifted toward the direction of Riverdale with less adventures and more beach scenes, mod fashions, and dating dilemmas.

There was a trend at DC in the late 1960s to make artists into editors. Thus, it was that Scooter’s original artist, Joe Orlando, became Scooter’s editor beginning with issue #12 (Apr.–May 1968). While Orlando still dipped his pen in the ink on occasion, the bulk of the stories from then on were drawn by the likes of Bob Oksner, Tex Blaisdell, Win Mortimer, and actual Archie artists like Doug Crane, Stan Goldberg, and Henry Scarpelli. The uncredited writer in later issues was often John Albano— better known for co-creating Jonah Hex. Swing with Scooter seemed to end with issue #31 (Nov. 1970), only to pop up again just a few months later with issue #32 (Feb.–Mar. 1971), now as a double-sized quarter comic.

With more pages to fill, there were new features such as an advice column from Scooter’s Aunt Hetta (said to have been written by Barbara Friedlander), joke pages, craft pages, celebrity gossip pages, more single-page gags in the style of Archie’s Joke Book, and even new strips like Penny and Her Cross-Eyed Pussycat and Henry Boltinoff’s pioneering but forgotten black teen character, Big Sonny. Surrounding all this new content were, of course, more tales of Scooter and his gang, now done up cartoonier than ever!

The oversized format gave the reader a lot for his/her two bits but still lasted only to issue #35 (Aug.–Sept. 1971), where this time the title really was canceled… at least until 14 months later when once again a stray issue, #36 (Oct.–Nov. 1972), popped up on newsstands, presumably to burn off already-paid-for material.

TM & © DC Comics.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 25

BINKY’S BACK

That final issue of Swing with Scooter has a text story featuring Binky, DC’s other teen character at the time. Bertram “Binky” Biggs—created by Sheldon Mayer, future animator Hal Seeger, and Bob Oksner—had actually debuted way back in the first wave of Archie clones, with Leave it to Binky #1 (Feb.–Mar. 1948) hitting the stands at the end of 1947. He lived and presumably died with an impressive 60-issue run, ending in 1958. After the early success of Swing with Scooter, though, Binky was dusted off and some slightly retouched reprints thrown into an issue of DC’s catchall Showcase title, #70 (Sept.–Oct. 1967). It sold enough to justify yet another attempt at cutting into Archie’s sales and the following spring, Leave it to Binky picked up where it left off beginning with issue #61 (June–July 1968).

But for the new Oksner covers (all of which feature our hero cuddling up to his girlfriend, Peggy, and many of which were gags reused from the original run), the revived series consisted at first of just more retrofitted reprints, giving Binky slightly longer hair and updating the occasional anachronistic outfit.

Finally, with Leave it to Binky #67 (June–July 1969), a couple of new stories were slipped in, possibly by Oksner and Scarpelli. From that point on, there was only one spruced-up reprint per issue and Scarpelli began cranking out new tales of teenage hijinks drawn in the classic Archie style.

While all of this was going on, DC had also come out with a companion comic book, Binky’s Buddies #1 (Jan.–Feb. 1969), its title allowing for similarly modernized reprints from their much-earlier Buzzy and Here’s Howie series. Binky’s Buddies, also edited by Joe Orlando, would last a dozen issues over the next two years.

The regular title became just plain Binky beginning with issue #72 (Apr.–May 1970), and by then it was presenting all-new material for the most part. It was around this time that young Mr. Biggs began looking more and more like young Mr. Andrews. Scarpelli’s Cross-Eyed Pussycat (remember him from Scooter’s mag?) got his own series of one-pagers, and even Buzzy was brought back and into the Binkyverse.

The similarity to Archie was accented even further when Stan Goldberg’s wild art hit the covers and lead stories just a few issues later. With issue #77 (Feb.–Mar. 1971), Binky, like Swing with Scooter that same month, became a larger, 25¢ comic book, necessitating more filler. Along with more stories, that meant another advice column, makeup tips, and the text piece “The Secret Side of Bobby Sherman” in this issue. Over the next few issues, Henry Boltinoff’s Big Sonny would show up again, along with the artist’s Li’l Leroy, about a young African-American boy.

Perhaps inevitably, reprints popped up again in the continuing need to fill 64 pages. In fact, while Binky #79 (June–July 1971) was still proudly crowing on its cover “All-New! 64 pages!,” two months later the following issue had quietly lost 12 pages! Money must have been tight all around because rather than spend money to retouch the reprint art, the reprinted stories in one issue are from Binky’s Buddies, published just a couple of years earlier!

The last issue of Binky was another random release, showing up a full six years later! Binky #82 (Summer 1977) featured the youngest-looking Binky yet, nearly unrecognizable from just a decade earlier.

That was the last US issue at that time but, for some reason, Binky’s popularity in parts of Europe led to him getting his own reprint title in several countries in the mid-1970s. Some even featured new Scarpelli covers—possibly unpublished leftovers from the US version. The Swedish Binky comic featured a black-haired Binky retouched to look more like Scooter—apparently so they could use Scooter stories as Binky stories, too. It ran on into the 1980s!

In the US, Binky resurfaced in DC’s digest line of the ’80s as well, beginning with Binky’s Summer Fun (Sept. 1982). After that came annual issues (skipping 1985) of Binky and his Buddies, all with new Goldberg covers reflecting more modern fads than any of the older stories inside—punk rock, video games, etc.

Binky Bookends (top left) DC’s original Leave It to Binky #1 (Feb.–Mar. 1948), with cover art by a young Bob Oksner. (top right) The series’ final issue, Binky #82 (Summer 1977), a Bronze Age mop-up of inventory material with a Stan Goldberg cover. (middle) Original Henry Scarpelli cover art to Binky #73 (June–July 1970). (bottom) An undated Scarpelli toon depicting a bad casting call by the Guardians of the Universe. All courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

26 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

DIG THAT DEBBI!

Amongst Binky’s buddies in the aforementioned digests were, of course, Scooter, but also Debbi!

Who? Ms. Debbi Anderson (not Andrews, despite the resemblance) had been one of the most Archie-like of all the Silver and Bronze Age Archie clones. As depicted in a DC house ad, an early version of the cover of Date with Debbi #1 (Jan.–Feb. 1969) shows Debbi as a blonde.

Apparently, though, someone decided to just go all out and give her Archie-style “red” (orange) hair. All that’s missing is Archie’s trademark tic-tac-toe game on the side of her head.

Edited by Dick Giordano, newly arrived at DC from running Charlton’s comics line for years, Date with Debbi was initially staffed by some of the folks let loose from Tower Comics when that company went out of business. This included artist Samm Schwartz, beloved for his Jughead work in earlier years. Schwartz had joined fellow Archie expatriate Harry Shorten to create Tower Comics in the mid-1960s. While comics fans remember Tower mainly for Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, it was Schwartz’s Tippy Teen series and its spinoffs that lasted longest. Eventually, he would be welcomed back to Archie Comics, but first, he stopped over here at DC for his date with Debbi!

In the early 1960s at DC Comics, most teenage dialogue was written by middle-aged men who didn’t have a clue. (Writer Bob Haney’s Teen Titans, although a fun book, could get especially grating when it came to dialogue.) With Debbi, though, the mostly anonymous writers seemed to hit the mark more often than not. We know one of those writers was Steve Skeates, another ex-Tower writer who would soon be recognized for his work with Jim Aparo on Aquaman.

Skeates tells BACK ISSUE, “Right on!

By which I mean that I wrote some Tippy Teen stuff, but none of that stuff got published, whereas I was all over the place when I asked to do some of Debbi’s Dates!

Even created a couple of the dudes that were involved! Truth be told, I had this steve skeates urge to write every sort of comics there Comic Vine. were! Superheroes, Westerns, war stuff, horror stuff, teen stuff, and whatever else there was!”

Date with Debbi #1 was on the stands in late 1968, but Debbi rolled on through the early Bronze period with enough success to generate a companion comic with the seemingly unimaginative title Debbi’s Dates. In actuality, the title fits, as this particular mag deals not so much with Debbi herself but with her various male friends and sometime dates.

Although boy-crazy, Ms. Anderson’s main squeeze is Buddy Baxter, who, for all intents and purposes, might as well be Binky. He’s likable but pretty generic. Buddy is a nut for wheels, surfboards, and Debbi.

Debbi’s annoying little brother is Rockwell “Rocky” Anderson. Her best frenemy is one Desdimona De Wolfe. In this dimension, the Reggie character is named Benedict, and just so there’s no possible question about his being the snake in Debbi’s garden, our oddly white-haired prankster is given rather satanic-looking eyebrows.

Along with Skeates, some of Debbi’s stories are written by Henry Boltinoff, and the always enjoyable art comes from Schwartz as well as John Rosenberger, Win Mortimer, Doug Crane, and Henry Scarpelli.

In 1970, Scarpelli won the Shazam Award for Best Inker (Humor Division) for his work on the DC teen titles.

One thing that’s different about Debbi’s titles is that there is at least a vague sense of continuity between stories, at least within the same issues. If Buddy sprains his arm in one story, Debbi might ask how it’s doing in the next.

Another thing that’s really different about Debbi’s series is an irregular backup feature called Flowers by Phil Mendez. This short-lived hippie strip was genuinely hip, groovy, and turned on. In fact, it might have seemed more at home in the pages of early Zap comix had it been a little more explicit! As is, it had some of the more outrageous artwork for a mainstream comic-book company at that time… especially conservative DC! Normally an animator, Mendez went on to create Kissyfur and Foofur, but let’s try not to hold that against him.

Revolutionary Comic (top) A full-page gag page featuring Big Sonny, one of DC’s early African-American stars, by Henry Boltinoff.

From Date with Debbi #16 (July–Aug. 1971). Courtesy of Heritage. (bottom) DC’s early-1960s TV tie-in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis got a 1969 retrofitting as Windy and Willy. Cover art on both by Bob Oksner.

Dobie Gillis © 20th Century Fox Television. Big Sonny and Windy and Willy TM & © DC Comics.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 27

A Tippy of the Hat Tower Comics’ ’60s teen queen Tippy Teen (#1 cover by Samm Schwartz) got a makeover a decade later into Atlas/ Seaboard’s teen queen Vicki (issue #1 and 2’s cover by Stan Goldberg). © the respective copyright holder.

Other than those featuring Debbi’s boyfriends, a rock group called the Ding-a-Lings also rated a backup strip, as did Scarpelli’s ubiquitous Cross-Eyed Pussycat!

With Date with Debbi #13 (Jan.–Feb. 1971), Joe Orlando, already editing Leave it to Binky and Swing with Scooter, replaced Giordano as editor. “Carmine preferred Joe Orlando’s approach to comics over mine,” said Giordano to BACK ISSUE editor Michael Eury. “He liked what Joey did. (He called Joe ‘Joey’ and called me ‘Richie.’) I thought Joe’s approach to comics was perfectly valid and it worked for him.

Mine was valid, too, and it worked for me.” Debbi’s Dates, also edited

by Giordano, was simply ended with issue #11 (Dec. 1970–Jan. 1971), necessitating no new editor.

As with the boys’ titles from that same month, Date with Debbi went giant-size and continued thus for a few months before losing pages, then dropping back down for a final issue a year later, #18 (Oct.–Nov. 1972).

Debbi would also return in the Binky digests (although with her name misspelled as “Debbie” on the cover of one). Strangely enough, nearly 20 years later, Debbi reappeared in a sorta-kinda way, at Archie Comics, where one January McAndrews, Archie Andrews’ descendant and co-star of a fun series entitled Jughead’s Time Police, was pretty much an exact doppelganger—hair, freckles, and all!

WHO ARE WINDY AND WILLY?

Oh, there was one more DC teen title from that period… although not really. The Way-Out World of Windy and Willy debuted in Showcase #81 (Mar. 1969). Without even enough time to receive sale figures on that issue, Windy and Willy #1 (May–June 1969) hit the stands. With fun stories by Arnold Drake and lovely art from Bob Oksner, the series was gone by the end of the year, after only four issues.

The catch was that Windy and Willy didn’t technically exist! All five appearances were complete reprints from DC’s licensed TV comic book, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which had enjoyed a healthy 26-issue run between 1960 and 1964. By 1969 the TV series was not only long gone but DC no longer had the rights. Since they already had had some success in updating Binky’s fashions and hairstyles, it was decided to go all out and give Dobie and his beatnik pal Maynard G. Krebs a full makeover into Willy and his hippie pal, Windy. Glasses were added to the latter, and long hair and groovier clothes to everyone. Dobie’s parents were disguised and, of course, everyone’s name was changed.

Along with scores of other alumni, including Binky Biggs, Windy and Willy made a final cameo appearance in Showcase #100 (May 1978), strangely enough now drawn by Joe Staton to look exactly like Dobie and Maynard!

THAT VEXING VICKI

Nor was Windy and Willy the last time a ruse was used for reprints.

In 1974, Martin Goodman, founder and ex-owner of Marvel Comics, decided to go back into the comics business with Atlas Comics.

Rather than embrace the opportunity to create anything radically new, Goodman fell back into his old habits of jumping on just about every bandwagon he could find, even ripping off his own old company. One of those bandwagons was the Archie one, naturally, and Vicki was the result.

Vicki, though, was not just another Archie clone. She was a previous Archie clone! Vicki was in actuality, Tower Comics’ Tippy Teen.

Atlas editor Jeff Rovin later wrote in The Comics Journal that he had begged the Goodmans to purchase the defunct Tower’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, but that they came back with the less-expensive rights to Tippy instead. Each of Vicki’s four bimonthly issues (surprisingly one issue longer than most other Atlas titles!) in early 1975 presented new Stan Goldberg teen covers over the reprints and renamed Tippy’s adventures with her friends Tommy, Go-Go, and Animal. Hairstyles and fashions were tweaked throughout.

And that was pretty much it. Oh, there were other not-so-Archie-like teen-oriented comics in the years since, and Millie and Chili still get brought back from time to time at old never-say-die Marvel. In fact, after all those years of chasing Millie’s boyfriends, Chili was revealed to be a lesbian in one of her relatively recent appearances!

But here we are, 77 years after Archie appeared. One by one, all the other comic-book teens came and went, but Archie is still here, meeting up in recent years with everyone from Predator and the Ramones to the Monkees and the cast of the musical Fox TV series, Glee!

And speaking of TV, then, of course, came Riverdale, mysterious and grim but nonetheless introducing Archie, Jughead, Reggie, Veronica, and Betty to a whole new audience… and that audience is in the millions!

Say… Amazon, Netflix, or Hulu! You guys are missing a bet!

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (and cashing in, a time-honored show-business tradition), have I got a Riverdale-style show for you!

You see, there’s this typical redheaded, suburban, teenage girl, Debbi, and she’s going steady with her high school sweetheart, the klutzy Binky, but falls head over heels for the dark, cycle-riding stranger with the foreign accent, Scooter! That’s gold, I tell ya! Or… wait! How about Vicki/Tippy—the girl with two distinct personalities! Or… or… maybe you could get Dwayne Hickman to voice an Adult Swim-type Windy and Willy cartoon made by Seth MacFarlane??? Call my people!

We’ll set up a lunch thing, okay? Okay?

Hello? He-he… The call must have dropped.

Guess they’ll call back.

STEVEN THOMPSON is Booksteve of Booksteve’s Library (booksteveslibrary.blogspot.com) and a dozen other blogs. He has written for Fantagraphics, TwoMorrows, Yoe Books, Bear Manor Media, and Time Capsule Productions.

28 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

NEW FOR 2018!

JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST: CENTENNIAL EDITION

This final, fully-updated, definitive edition clocks in at DOUBLE the length of the 2008 “Gold Edition”, in a new 256-page LTD. EDITION HARDCOVER (only 1000 copies) listing every release up to Jack’s 100th birthday! Detailed listings of all of Kirby’s published work, reprints, magazines, books, foreign editions, newspaper strips, fine art and collages, fanzines, essays, interviews, portfolios, posters, radio and TV appearances, and even Jack’s unpublished work!

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KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID! (JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #75)

This first-of-its-kind examination of the creators of the Marvel Universe looks back at their own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and television interviews, to paint a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s relationship—why it succeeded, where it deteriorated, and when it eventually failed.

Also here are recollections from STEVE DITKO, WALLACE WOOD, JOHN ROMITA SR., and more Marvel Bullpen stalwarts who worked with both Kirby and Lee. Rounding out this book is a study of the duo’s careers after they parted ways as collaborators, including Kirby’s difficulties at Marvel Comics in the 1970s, his last hurrah with Lee on the Silver Surfer Graphic Novel, and his exhausting battle to get back his original art—and creator credit—from Marvel. STUF’ SAID gives both men their say, compares their recollections, and tackles the question, “Who really created the Marvel Comics Universe?”.

(160-page trade paperback) $24.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-086-1 • SHIPS FALL 2018!

COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION

AN ORAL HISTORY OF DC COMICS CIRCA 1978

Things looked bleak for comic books throughout the 1970s because of plummeting sell-through rates. With each passing year, the newsstand became less and less interested in selling comic books. The industry seemed locked in a death spiral, but the Powers That Be at DC Comics had an idea to reverse their fortunes.

In 1978, they implemented a bold initiative: Provide readers with more story pages by increasing the pricepoint of a regular comic book to make it comparable to other magazines sold on newsstands. Billed as “THE DC EXPLOSION,” this expansion saw the introduction of numerous creative new titles. But mere weeks after its launch, DC’s parent company pulled the plug, demanding a drastic decrease in the number of comic books they published, and leaving stacks of completed comic book stories unpublished. The series of massive cutbacks and cancellations quickly became known as “THE DC IMPLOSION.” TwoMorrows Publishing marks the 40th Anniversary of one of the most notorious events in comics with an exhaustive oral history from the creators and executives involved (JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, and AL MILGROM, among many others), as well as detailed analysis and commentary by other top professionals, who were “just fans” in 1978 (MARK WAID, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, TOM BREVOORT, and more)—examining how it changed the landscape of comics forever! By KEITH DALLAS and JOHN WELLS. (136-page trade paperback with COLOR) $21.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.95 • NOW SHIPPING! ISBN: 978-1-60549-085-4

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: The 1990s

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: THE 1990s is a year-by-year account of the comic book industry during the Bill Clinton years. This full-color hardcover documents the comic book industry’s most significant publications, most notable creators, and most impactful trends from that decade. Written by KEITH DALLAS and JASON SACKS. (288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $44.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.95 • SHIPS FALL 2018!

ISBN: 978-1-60549-084-7

TwoMorrows.

The Future of Comics History.

Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

THE 1990s was the decade when Marvel Comics sold 8.1 million copies of an issue of the X-MEN, saw its superstar creators form their own company, cloned SPIDER-MAN, and went bankrupt. The 1990s was when SUPERMAN died, BATMAN had his back broken, and the runaway success of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN led to DC Comics’ VERTIGO line of adult comic books. It was the decade of gimmicky covers, skimpy costumes, and mega-crossovers. But most of all, the 1990s was the decade when companies like IMAGE, VALIANT and MALIBU published million-selling comic books before the industry experienced a shocking and rapid collapse.

30 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 31

TM

One teenage girl, powers beyond that of mortals, high school hijinks… nothing could ever go wrong with that combination, right? Sabrina the Teenage Witch has been a consistently entertaining character since her debut on the comics page well over 50 years ago. When considering her longevity, though, it’s apparent that Sabrina isn’t just a comic-book character. For most of her history, Sabrina has enjoyed plenty of success in various incarnations on the “small screen.” With a new Netflix original TV series (show creator Robert Aguirre-Sacasa’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, starring Kiernan Shipka) around the corner at this writing, what better time than now to see where Sabrina has been so far both on the page and screen?

by C

hristopher Larochelle

BEWITCHING BOW

In 1962, Archie Comics introduced a new character that brought an entirely different dimension to the publisher’s lineup. Taking up a mere five pages in Archie’s Mad House #22 (Oct. 1962), writer George Gladir and artist Dan DeCarlo brought readers up to speed on what life is like as a “modern witch.” It’s not all about “living on some dreary mountain top… wearing some grubby old rags, and making some nasty old brew.” Rather than any of that imagery, Sabrina purports that “we modern witches believe life should be a ball!” In this short story, readers are also treated to brief introductions of two important supporting characters in the Sabrina mythos: Salem, Sabrina’s cat familiar; and Della, her “head witch.” [Editor’s note: According to the Grand Comics Database (comics.org), this prototypical Sabrina tale drew inspiration from the 1958 film adaptation of the play Bell, Book and Candle, starring Kim Novak, and Gladir named the teenage witch after a woman he knew during his adolescence, later recalling that her name was actually Sabra, not Sabrina. Incidentally, pop culture’s other popular spellcaster, Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha Stephens on the long-running ABC-TV sitcom Bewitched, first rode her broom in the fall of 1964, some two years after Sabrina’s debut.]

The early Sabrina comics of the ’60s were not exactly numerous. Sabrina appeared in just a scattered few short stories per year. Bits and pieces of Sabrina’s character came together in tales relegated to Archie’s Mad House, and while there might not have been a lot, it’s obvious that Gladir and DeCarlo were dedicated to letting the spotlight shine on their latest character. It’s quickly established that the teenage witch has a hard time staying “undercover,” living with her Aunt Hilda (a witch much more in keeping with the stereotypes that Sabrina railed against in her debut story). Sabrina just can’t help herself and constantly gets into trouble when magic spells go wrong.

Some huge things happened to change Sabrina’s course as a character as the decade of the ’70s drew closer. The character’s footprint on the comics page became magnified when a new series called Archie’s TV Laugh-Out was launched. In the first issue of the series (cover-dated Dec. 1969), a major character was added to Sabrina’s cast in Harvey Kinkle (the teenage witch’s most prominent paramour). By the second issue of TV Laugh-Out, Sabrina had been fully integrated into the Archie microcosm, even joining the Archies on stage for a performance! What prompted the publication of a new Archie series entitled Archie’s TV Laugh-Out? The behindthe-scenes reality is that Archie and the gang had all turned into Saturday morning cartoon characters, and Sabrina was along for the ride!

Magical Multi-Tasker Miss Spellman’s a jill-of-all-trades on this Dan DeCarlo/Rudy Lapickdrawn cover to the first issue of her own series, Sabrina the Teenage (Teen-Age) Witch #1 (Apr. 1971).

TM & © Archie Comics Publications, Inc.

32 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

AS SEEN ON TV

As detailed in Andy Mangels’ “Backstage Pass” article following, in 1968 animation house Filmation Studios had gotten to work on a new Saturday morning cartoon for CBS entitled The Archie Show.

The ball was rolling, and the animation studio would keep reformatting, reusing, and rerunning Archie cartoons for the next decade.

The second incarnation, The Archie Comedy Hour, began airing in 1969 and brought Sabrina the Teenage Witch directly to the forefront. Sabrina was a new student at Riverdale High, and her adventures bookended those of Archie and company in each hour.

With the beginning of The Archie Comedy Hour, Sabrina became not only a character that readers of comic books could enjoy—it brought her to an even bigger audience of fans who were sitting in front of their television sets.

This bigger audience of TV viewers enjoyed both rebroadcasts and new episodes of the Sabrina cartoon as Filmation and CBS tried different formats. Following The Archie Comedy Hour, 1970 saw the debut of Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies, a show that brought new characters to the mix. Aired alongside Sabrina reruns from the previous show, The Groovie Goolies regaled audiences with the adventures of several of Sabrina’s friends. Drac (a Dracula stand-in, of course), Frankie (as in Frankenstein’s monster), and Wolfie (a wolfman) were joined by plenty of other monsters. The Groovie Goolies show featured plenty of jokes, riddles, and musical numbers, but never seemed to garner the success that would be required to push the series past its initial run of 16 episodes (though in 1971 CBS did rebroadcast the episodes without the “backing support” of Sabrina’s name on the title).

Returning to the Filmation Sabrina cartoons, 1971–1974 saw Sabrina the Teenage Witch broadcast on a regular schedule. Not surprisingly, this version of the Filmation cartoons included both reruns and new episodes to keep things fresh.

By this time, Sabrina had been on TV for five straight years. It was time for a break—one that would last for a few years. In 1977, The New Archie and Sabrina Hour debuted (notice the co-headlining credit there!), and while the Archie segments were reruns, Sabrina segments were all-new episodes. Filmation had experimented with formats and lengths in many ways throughout their years of producing Archie cartoons, and the hour-long format didn’t seem to work as well as the studio might have hoped. After 12 episodes were broadcast, The New Archie and Sabrina Hour folded before 1978 arrived.

intercepts… and proceeds to chew out Archie for his diverted attention! Things just aren’t going well for Sabrina, and the situation gets worse when Harvey comes by to explain himself. It turns out that Sabrina never had a thing to worry about, since the “new girl” is actually Harvey’s cousin. This first story in the Teenage Witch’s first solo title would provide a thematic blueprint for many Sabrina tales that followed over the course of 77 issues. With 77 issues full of short comics stories, it would be impossible to discuss them all.

Within these many stories, the wide-ranging cast of characters took turns in the spotlight.

SABRINA THE SOLO STAR

The editors at Archie Comics realized that Sabrina’s success on the small screen meant that they had another tentpole character in their lineup. Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch #1 arrived with a cover date of April 1971 and served as Sabrina’s home on the comics page throughout the ’70s, ending in 1983 after 77 issues. The cover art for Sabrina #1 really does say a lot: Sabrina has now taken center stage as she lounges on a couch. Archie Andrews himself is performing a song on a hovering TV screen as the witch uses her magic powers to do several different things simultaneously.

Algebra homework is getting finished, a history report is spitting out of a typewriter, and Sabrina is drinking from a straw (all hands-free!). “You know, Salem,” Sabrina says to her puzzled cat familiar, “there are times I really dig being a teen-age witch!”

With this Dan DeCarlo masterpiece, the tone for the entire series was set. While paying homage to his first illustration of Sabrina from Archie’s Mad House, the cover of Sabrina #1 more clearly asserts the young witch as the star of her own show… she’s a plucky kid who will push the limits of her powers and have to deal with the consequences thereof.

Sabrina #1 wastes no time in making it perfectly clear that there is a new person in town to interact with Archie and the gang.

Sabrina talks to Ethel and notices Harvey, now officially known as her boyfriend, walking into the Chok’lit Shoppe with another girl.

Naturally, this peeves Sabrina and she decides to make Harvey jealous by casting a love hex on none other than Archie Andrews.

Archie is suddenly magnetized to her. Archie fawning over Sabrina at the Chok’lit Shoppe doesn’t immediately have the intended effect, however. Before Harvey notices a thing, Veronica Lodge

Winsome Witches, Before and After Sabrina (top) Kim Novak enchanted moviegoers in the 1958 film comedy Bell, Book and Candle. Autographed lobby card courtesy of Heritage (www.ha.com). (bottom left) Elizabeth Montgomery starred in the long-running TV sitcom Bewitched—as well as this comic-book adaptation published by Dell Comics. (bottom right) Sabrina’s first cover appearance: Archie’s Mad House #27 (Aug. 1963)—but curiously, the teenage witch doesn’t appear inside this issue!

Bell, Book and Candle © 1958 Columbia Pictures. Bewitched © Sony Pictures.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 33

TV’s Newest Star!

From the Heritage Archives, (top) the model sheet and (bottom left) a publicity cel from the Saturday morning Sabrina cartoon show from Filmation Studios. (bottom right) Archie Comics’ Sabrina never had her TV cousins, the Groovie Goolies, in her magazines, but she got close to it on this DeCarlo/Lapick cover for Sabrina #9 (Oct. 1972). Courtesy of Jerry Boyd.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

HARVEY KINKLE

Harvey takes center stage in Sabrina #12’s (June 1973) opening story.

As much of a good boyfriend as he is, one thing about Harvey really bothers Sabrina. “Harvey! You’ve got to get over that negative attitude!” Sabrina says. “You just don’t have any confidence in yourself! You’ve got to learn to be more sure—more positive!

“I’m a bundle of fears, indecision, and anxieties! I guess I’m just scared of life! That’s all! Just scared of life!” Harvey says, admitting that he does have a lot to work on.

Despite this, Harvey takes up the challenge to improve. Unsurprisingly, for a man who has already developed some bad habits, it’s far from easy for him. “I’m just a born apologizer, Sabrina! I always blame myself before I blame anyone else!”

Harvey and Sabrina just so happen to have found themselves in a rather rough looking part of town, and a moment of bravery has perhaps never been more ill-timed as Harvey bumps the shoulder of a burly man walking by. There is a moment in which Harvey realizes he is suddenly likely to be in very deep trouble, and Sabrina decides that the time has come for her to intervene. She casts a spell that sends a gang of tough guys running away like “scared chickens” (completing the effect of the spell: they are literally clucking). Suddenly, Harvey is free of any timidity left within him: “They all turned chicken, Sabrina! They all ran from me! I’m cured!

I feel ten feet tall! I’m a tiger!”

Sabrina seems to be pleased with her boyfriend’s newfound inner strength. She returns home and leaves Harvey to himself. Readers are left to wonder exactly how long Harvey’s confidence will last, though, as he accosts two more rough-looking gentlemen. The story ends without showing Harvey’s return to status quo, but it can only be assumed that he gets cut right back down to size!

AUNT HILDA

In Sabrina #56 (Oct. 1979), Aunt Hilda’s cranky tendencies get the spotlight. In the issue’s final story, Harvey and Sabrina have a particularly bad idea in which they invite Aunt Hilda to go on a camping trip with them. Right away, Hilda is playing the role of naysayer: “It seems silly to me to sleep on the hard ground when you have a nice comfortable bed at home!” Trying to appeal to Hilda’s sense of adventure and her appreciation of beauty are of no help… she’s just convinced that this will be a terrible time. Hilda actually winds up being very helpful, using magic to assist a helpless Harvey with setting up a tent, starting a fire, and cooking food. From Hilda’s perspective, the kids would just be lost without her, so she remains sour. She demands to return home, but Harvey makes a last-ditch effort to try and salvage the trip: “Why would anyone want to leave the great outdoors?” Harvey asks. “Camping is communicating with nature! Everything about it is exciting!” This is the final straw for Aunt Hilda, who, with a couple of “zaps,” brings about a dangerous kind of communion with nature as a rhinoceros, a lion, a moose, and a bear squeeze in on Harvey from all sides.

The trip ends with the three blasting away on the road and Hilda going on about the “survival of the fittest.”

COUSIN AMBROSE

A character that debuted alongside Harvey Kinkle in TV Laugh-Out is Cousin Ambrose. Ambrose’s inclusion allowed Sabrina to interact with another adult who wasn’t a) a directly parental figure like an aunt or b) one of her teachers. Ambrose features in many stories in the Sabrina (1971) series, but tends to disappear for long stretches. While George Gladir is credited with creating many of Sabrina’s supporting characters, Ambrose was not among them, as he comments in Jerry Boyd’s interview that is also presented in this issue of BACK ISSUE (Ambrose really just

34 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

“came along” with Archie’s revived interest in producing Sabrina comics). [Editor’s note: The Sabrina tale that leads off 1969’s Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #1 and features Ambrose was written and penciled by Dick Malmgren, with inks by Jon D’Agostino.]

Ambrose storms across the cover story of Sabrina the Teenage Witch #10 (Feb. 1973), a humorous tale about gender equality and how when it comes to the realm of magic wielders, males are always second-class citizens. Ambrose is full of gusto promoting how warlocks such as himself never really get more than a fraction of the attention that his female counterparts do. Catching Archie Andrews and Jughead Jones walking home, Ambrose stops to ask them something: “What is a witch?” When the boys become convinced that Ambrose isn’t trying to tell a joke, they are able to quickly supply plenty of information.

“It’s a female in a black dress and a pointed hat!” Jughead declares.

“She rides on a broomstick, makes magic and appears on Halloween!” says Archie.

Ambrose seems satisfied and asks his next question: “Now, what is a warlock?”

The boys are clueless, and Sabrina laughs in the background as Ambrose blows his top after Archie suggests that a warlock is “…something on a boat! It helps you row!” (a.k.a. an oarlock!).

Because of this injustice, Ambrose organizes as many warlocks as he can find into a protest group. He delivers a speech promoting warlocks and demeaning “female chauvinist witches,” and seems to have quite a lot of support. The only female in sight at this rally happens to be Sabrina, who listens and mentally takes notes throughout. Finally, Sabrina can’t hold it in any longer and just has to speak her mind: “I’m convinced! You should take your rightful places! Why, it’s shameful! Do you know, when they had the Salem witch trials, I don’t believe that one man had the honor of burning for our cause! Next time it will be different! Equality!

Right on!” At this precise moment, Ambrose’s cause is completely lost and the warlocks pour out of the hall in which they have assembled. The battle of the sexes is shelved for the day.

DELLA

Della, the head witch, makes quite a few guest appearances throughout the Sabrina series, but issue #60 (June 1980) serves as a strong example of her role. In order to truly “make it” as a witch, Sabrina should try to uphold Della’s values (or perhaps, from the perspective of “mortal” readers, a lack thereof!). “I’ve been getting reports that Sabrina has been neglecting her mischief-making so she could perform good deeds!” she says, poofing into existence just inside the door to Aunt Hilda’s house. Hilda is shaken and assures Della that this just isn’t true. Her niece is, after all, a dedicated young witch and knows what is expected of her.

It’s basketball night for Harvey, so Sabrina is there to cheer him on. Of course, she’ll also try to help her boyfriend out a bit with some magic. Coach tells Harvey to “give our center a lot of passes,” and Sabrina’s intentions predictably go a little off course. Rather than passes of the ball, Harvey offers the player some movie passes and concert passes that just appeared out of thin air. The flustered coach gives some new advice to “feed the ball” to the forward, which he attempts to do rather literally with fork and knife in hand. Sabrina isn’t close enough to hear the coach venting his frustrations (and, by the way, proximity is very important when getting magic spells to go well). She does hear the coach say that Harvey should “freeze the ball,” and soon Harvey is holding onto a gigantic ice cube with a basketball suspended within. “I get such a warm glow when I can help my friends,” says a truly clueless Sabrina, who misinterpreted the coach’s chasing Harvey off the court as being a sign of praise.

Outside the gym, Della reveals herself. Sabrina is never happy to see (as she puts it here) “the nasty head witch.” Sabrina gulps as she awaits the feedback she’ll be getting from her supervisor. It’s at this moment that Sabrina receives quite the surprise. “Congratulations!

Your mischief-making has earned you this honor!” Della says, holding a giant placard that declares Sabrina to be the “Teen Witch of the Year.” It turns out that Sabrina’s attempts at helpfulness are actually mischievous enough for her head witch after all!

Della Drops In (top) Original art (courtesy of Heritage) by Frank Doyle, Stan Goldberg, and Jon D’Agostino.

From Sabrina #42 (Oct. 1977). (bottom) Inspired by the live-action sitcom starring Melissa Joan Hart, Archie published this incarnation of Sabrina from 1997 to 1999.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 35

In issue #77 (Jan. 1983, which brought Sabrina’s first headlining comic-book to a close), an all-Christmas issue, Sabrina celebrates with those she is closest to. Aunt Zelda (always the rarely seen aunt) appears in one story, but the last story boils everything down to basics: just Sabrina and Aunt Hilda. It turns out that Hilda has a hard time in the chilly winter months and magically zaps Sabrina and herself to a much warmer place. While the older witch is really hoping to convince her niece that it’s so much better this way, Sabrina can’t do without everything that she expects to see every year. Sabrina mentions the things she misses, plus adds that she “can’t find anything Christmasy about suntan lotion!” Hilda figures it out, and it’s soon back to the previous setting: a warm, cozy home with a gigantic and authentic Christmas tree, a fireplace, and snow piling up outside.

SABRINA THE SUPERSTAR

One major part of the Sabrina story debuted on television in the fall of 1996. Without a doubt, the character’s jump into a live-action TV show reached a bigger audience than any other incarnation up until that point. Melissa Joan Hart, a young actress who had already proven herself as a series lead with the Nickelodeon show Clarissa Explains It All, landed the title role in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The series lasted for seven years (coming to a close in 2003) and brought much of the spirit of Sabrina’s previous on-screen and off-screen adventures into the realm of live-action television. From Aunt Hilda and Aunt Zelda (portrayed by Caroline Rhea and Beth Broderick, respectively), Harvey Kinkle (Nate Richert), and Salem the cat ( brought to life partly by puppetry and voiced by Nick Bakay), Sabrina’s core supporting cast were present throughout much of the series. The show never delved into any connections with Archie Andrews or Riverdale at all, but definitely showcased the inherent dangers of a teenager wielding magical powers in vivid ways. After a few years, Sabrina wasn’t really a teen anymore, however, and for the first time Sabrina fans got to see what would happen next with the character’s story as she attended college.

robert hack

Sabrina Today Miss Spellman and Salem as rendered

by Robert Hack on the cover of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #6 (Sept. 2016).

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

One of the only things that remained constant in Sabrina the Teenage Witch was change. Many performers came and went as the show progressed. Some characters were written out (such as Jenny, Sabrina’s best friend from the first season), and some performers moved on to other things (such as the rather abrupt disappearances of both Aunts Hilda and Zelda). Perhaps because of all of this change, the show was never able to really get stale, and the show’s run lasted for well over 150 episodes.

Sabrina also made a return to the realm of animation not long after the success of the Melissa Joan Hart series. In fact, while Sabrina: The Animated Series featured a younger 12-year-old version of the witch voiced by Hart’s younger sister Emily, the live-action star took on the roles of Aunt Hilda and Aunt Zelda for this version.

SABRINA TODAY

In recent years, Archie Comics has made some bold moves to push characters in new directions, attracting many talented comic-book creators who might not have necessarily been interested in being associated with the company in the past.

Sabrina is no exception when it comes to playing a part in the company’s new efforts.

A straight-up horror comic called Afterlife with Archie began publication just in time for Halloween of 2013, and the series paved the way for another series starring Sabrina. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is definitely not a version of the character that the whole family can sit down to enjoy, but its genuinely haunting pages have been painstakingly crafted by writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Robert Hack since 2014. Hack expresses how Chilling Adventures plays into what drew him to Archie Comics in the first place: “One of the things I loved so much about Archie while growing up was all of the ‘niche’ universes: Caveman Archie, Archie 3000, Jughead’s Time Police, Little Archie, Pureheart the Powerful, Mad House—all of these out-there takes on the characters.

The Archie gang is flexible enough to take these little jaunts into other genres and have fun (or in our case, abject horror) and bend back into shape.

We’ve built our own little quirky niche neighborhood of suspense—and it worked! It certainly helps that we all absolutely love the characters… I don’t think the books would be successful if we didn’t.

It’s horror wrapped in the world of Sabrina, but the characters and the heart are still there.”

When it comes to Sabrina’s staying power over the last 56 years, it’s not too difficult to think of reasons why new incarnations keep coming up. “Humor and heart and a great character design by the brilliant Dan DeCarlo certainly help,” according to Robert Hack.

Sabrina has already been featured in so many different ways: as a comic-book character with all of the “Archie style” goodness (plus magic!), as a plucky cartoon character, the star of a family-friendly seven-seasonlong weeknight comedy, and her more modern revision focusing on the dark side of being a teenage witch. It’s clear that there are many more Sabrina stories to be told!

At a young age CHRISTOPHER LAROCHELLE discovered superheroes on the small screen in cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men. He got his first comics a short time after that and still adds to the collection today.

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WRAPPING IT UP

TM

by A n d y

Mangels

He was America’s favorite teenager. Created in Pep Comics #22 (Dec. 1941) by publisher John Goldwater, artist Bob Montana, and writer Vic Bloom, redheaded Archie Andrews was the high schooler who could never choose between two gorgeous girls: blonde Betty Cooper or brunette Veronica Lodge. Along with best friend Jughead Jones and rival Reggie Mantle, the teens attended Riverdale High in a tremendously popular line of comic books that sold millions of copies.

Today, Archie is again a star in the CW’s hit series Riverdale, a strange mixture of Dawson’s Creek and Twin Peaks, with murders, incest, mob bosses, biker gangs, drugs, and beheaded statues, all with a sprinkling of pop music thrown in at the top. But even with all of its televised success, Riverdale has not yet achieved the kind of pop-culture prominence that Archie Andrews’ first musically inclined incarnation did 50 years prior…

On September 14, 1968, the Archie Comics empire was given a seismic jolt into the contemporary scene when Filmation Studios’ The Archie Show debuted on Saturday morning television. The CBS animated series soon became one of the highest-rated TV shows on the air, with its combination of comedy, teenage characters, music, and dancing. Music producer Don Kirshner created the musical sound of the Archies, utilizing singer Ron Dante, backed by Toni Wine. The Archie Show and its fictional band the Archies were soon everywhere—in magazines, comic books, toys, and even on cereal boxes!

The Archie Show would eventually lead to eight different animated series, as well as spin-offs such as Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Groovie Goolies, and gold records by the score! But how did an animated series based on a teen comic book become one of the highest-rated TV shows on the planet? How did the Archies sell millions of records? And what was the deal with groovy dances like “The Weatherbee” and “The Hamburger”? Let’s find out as we return to the adventures of Hot Dog, the Chok’Lit Shoppe, bubblegum pop music, and all the fun at Riverdale High!

STRIKING A CHORD

From the beginning, the Archie line embraced all the tropes of teenagers, but teenagers in the 1940s and 1950s were changing faster than culture could imagine. As technology rocketed forward, cars, fashion, entertainment, and music evolved to embrace youth and their ever-more rebellious attitude. Teens joined the workforce earlier, bought cars earlier, and chose their own styles of music and dance… no matter what the “square” adults thought.

Although the Archie comics attempted some diversity in storytelling tone—including a kid’s version with Little Archie, a superhero version with Captain Pureheart, and a spy version with “The Man From R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E.”—as popular music became more and more a part of the teenage experience, the Archie crew tried to find a way to incorporate it, even if the static elements of the comic page made it difficult to convey the actual sound of music. The teens listened

Rockin’ from Riverdale Under the direction of Hot Dog, Filmation’s Archies, Saturday morning superstars.

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semi-regular stars of Life with Archie, welcoming Betty and Veronica into the group as dancers with #64 (Aug. 1967), and debuting a top-of-cover graphic of the quintet as a group with Life with Archie #73 (May 1968).

Archie and his “Pals ’n’ Gals” had transcended the comics page since shortly after their debut, having been the stars of the Archie Andrews radio series from May 31, 1943 to September 5, 1953 (on the NBC Blue Network, Mutual Radio, and NBC Radio). The show ran 15 minutes long from 1942 to June 2, 1944, then became a half-hour show from June 1945–September 1953. Archie himself was portrayed on the weekly series by Charles Mullen (1943–1944), Jack Grimes (1944) and Burt Boyar (1945), while Bob Hastings had the longest run (1945– 1953) as the teen’s voice. [Editor’s note: Bob Hastings, also the voice of Commissioner Gordon on Batman: The Animated Series, was profiled in BACK ISSUE #99.]

Post-radio, with the comics still selling millions of copies to teen boys and girls, two live-action Archie television pilots were produced. In 1962, a Desilu pilot was shot starring Leave It to Beaver’s Frank Bank in the title role. Two years later, Screen Gems/Columbia crafted another pilot for ABC in 1964, produced by Harry Ackerman and directed by Gene Nelson. Newcomer John Simpson played the teen lead. Neither pilot was picked up for series, but a few years later, a new animation studio in Hollywood threw their lot in with the kids from Riverdale. An animation union newsletter noted that “an all-new animation series, Archie, is all but in the bag” at Filmation Associates!

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, Inc.

(left) Betty and Veronica dig the folk music scene in issue #101 of their shared title, from 1964. By Frank Doyle, Dan DeCarlo, and Rudy Lapick. (right) The Archies make their debut in Life with Archie #60 (Apr. 1967).

Cover by Bob White and Jon D’Agostino.

to music on radio and records, attended concerts, danced, and eventually began creating music on their own.

One of the earliest attempts was in Betty and Veronica #101 (May 1964), in which Archie, Betty, and Veronica formed a proto-group called “The Folk Singers.”

Shortly after, in Archie’s Pals ’n’ Gals #29 (Summer 1964), the boys of Riverdale (Archie, Reggie, Jughead, and Moose) form a band called the Beetles to sing “I Want to Hold Your Finger” at a school dance. The group turned out to be a dream sequence, much to Archie’s relief.

Less than three years later, though, a “real” comic-book band was born with “The Archies,” featuring Archie and Reggie on guitar and Jughead on drums. Debuting on newsstands the same week in February 1967 were Life with Archie #60 (Apr. 1967), featuring the debut of the Archies in a story called “Once Upon a Tune!” and Laugh #193 (Apr. 1967), with the group cover-featured but not included in the interiors. Betty and Veronica struck back with their own group—though it was only coverfeatured— “The Gallant Gals” in Archie’s Joke Book Magazine #112 (May 1967), and an earlier “The Little Archies” band was revealed in The Adventures of Little Archie #42 (Spring 1967). The Archies became the

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Tryouts

FILMATION ORIGINS

Founded in the early 1960s by Lou Scheimer, Norm Prescott, and Hal Sutherland, Filmation Associates was a scrappy young company that was changing the face of the nascent Saturday morning culture only a few years after they had broken out of studio animation jobs and formed their own company. Scheimer and Sutherland were both animators who had put in a few years in the trenches at Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, and Paramount. It was there that Scheimer met Prescott, who was looking to put together an animation crew for a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, for which he had assembled a star voice cast (a plan unheard of in animation at the time). Prescott had no animation background; he had been a popular syndicated radio disc jockey before moving onto music, merchandising, and post-production with Embassy Pictures.

In 1965, Filmation had bluffed their way into getting the job to animate and produce The New Adventures of Superman for National Periodical Publications— now known as DC Comics—for a CBS Saturday morning series. That show featured two Superman segments and a Superboy adventure; Filmation hired mostly radio actors to voice the characters, including previous Archie actor Bob Hastings, who played Superboy. When Superman was a massive success, Filmation began to expand into other animated fare for the new Saturday morning market.

Scheimer understood the value of “known” properties, and he and Prescott approached movie studios looking for properties that could be turned into new cartoon shows. A second National/DC series, Aquaman, expanded and was paired with the Kryptonian hero for The Superman/ Aquaman Hour of Adventure in 1967, and Journey to the Center of the Earth debuted as well. Then, another comic-book inspiration struck.

“The concept was brought to us by Irv Wilson, who was our agent at the time,” said Scheimer in my interviews with him for the 2012 TwoMorrows book, Lou Scheimer: Creating The Filmation Generation.

“Irv had approached John Goldwater, who was one of the guys running Archie Comics, about licensing his books out for a TV show. Irv called me and said, ‘Do you want the rights to Archie?’ And I said, ‘What the hell is Archie? Is it something kids know?’ I had never seen the comic book, even though it had been around since 1942. I didn’t read comic books that kids were reading then, which was a mistake, and I didn’t know how successful a book it really was.

He said, ‘Oh, God, Lou, every kid in the country knows what it is.’

“I think I flew out to meet with John Goldwater, who was a very nice man. We made a deal, and it was a very legit deal. We both owned 50 percent of whatever shows we produced. We actually owned the negatives for the film as I recall. And it was an easy show to sell.

The show existed in a way already; the comic book was there, the characters were there. So we presented it to [CBS programming executive] Freddie Silverman with a stack of comic books. It was the cheapest presentation we ever made and probably one of the most successful shows we ever produced. The reason I knew it was going to be successful was that Silverman started laughing and clapping, and he never did that at anything. This really hit him right where he understood it; he knew what would happen with those characters, and how they could be used.”

The Saturday morning scene, as Scheimer recalled, was “polluted with adventure shows, and there was nothing like Archie on the air. And then we got the idea to make music an integral part of the show.

That was not being done for children’s shows; it became the first time that a children’s show had a group created for them! The Beatles had been adapted, but it wasn’t something new; it was just taking their already existing music and using it.”

At about the same time in Spring 1967 that the Archies were introduced as a singing group in the comics—about six months before Filmation was offered the franchise to develop—music producer Don Kirshner was breaking up with the recording group he had been instrumental in turning into a hit: the Monkees. Filmation’s Norm Prescott saw an opportunity, and called Kirshner. If he wanted to create the musical success of the Monkees again, he could do it, free of them, Columbia Records… or even real people!

The new CBS series was titled The Archie Show.

The series was developed to have two eight-minute stories, a three-minute musical segment, and other “how to dance” or short joke segments. The musical segment would feature the Archies as a band, singing a pop song. Because that music wasn’t specific to any of the plots, Kirshner and his team could work on their own, independent of the animation or storytelling process. And they wouldn’t have to deal with visibly recognizable singers whose success might go to their heads.

Filmation’s Founders (top) (left to right) Norm Prescott, Hal Sutherland, and Lou Scheimer in the 1960s. (bottom) The company’s logo, inside its office.

Both courtesy of Andy Mangels, whose Scheimer bio [above] is now in its second printing.

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Archie’s Here From animation cels culled from the archives of Heritage, some of Archie’s pals ’n’ gals, as seen in Filmation cartoons.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

hot dog © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

COME ON LET’S GO WITH THE ARCHIE SHOW!

Unlike the National/DC shows, Filmation didn’t use any of the writers who actually worked on the Archie comics.

Scheimer instead hired comedy writers for the series, many of whom had worked for radio or television comedy or variety shows. “For the most part, we took everything directly from the comics,” recalled Scheimer.

“The characters were warm, soft, and friendly, and kids could relate to them. We had Archie Andrews, his buddy Jughead Jones, his rival Reggie Mantle, and the two lovely girls that Archie and Reggie were after, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge. And then there were their various parents and teachers at Riverdale High.”

One significant change for the series was the creation of Hot Dog, a sheepdog who was Archie and Jughead’s pet. “He literally became the voice of the characters upon occasion because you could hear him speaking through what he was thinking,” said Scheimer. “It gave us a vehicle to talk about the kids and the show. He would talk to the audience, straight into the camera, breaking the ‘fourth wall’ with the viewers. And also it gave us an animal, which was sort of a nice thing to animate.”

Unlike other companies, Filmation hadn’t done a lot of animals in their cartoons, but Hot Dog was a fun exception. Archie comics, in turn, introduced the character in Pep Comics #224 (Dec. 1968).

For the series’ voice cast, Filmation tried to find the radio voices from the series, but was unable to find them; for some reason, even Bob Hastings, who had worked with Filmation, was unavailable. Scheimer and Prescott instead cast character actors from television.

Archie and Hot Dog were played by Dallas McKennon, a scruffy, wild-bearded 49-year-old who had previously been the voice of Gumby. Hanna-Barbera regular Howard “Howie” Morris was Jughead, whom Scheimer considered to be the real star of the show. “Archie was always the good soul, doing things right, keeping people happy, and falling in love with two girls at the same time. But Jughead provided all the fun. He did everything wrong, and somehow he came out right all the time.”

Filmation veteran Jane Webb handled both Betty and Veronica. Having started in radio as a teenager, Webb had done voices for the radio show Tom Mix,

which Scheimer had listened to growing up! John Erwin, who would later voice Filmation’s biggest hit character He-Man, took his first job for the company with Reggie.

Scheimer noted that Erwin was “very, very bashful.

John was extraordinary, and he created a character for Reggie Mantle that you couldn’t create just by drawing.”

Filmation made a decision to add one more element to its show that was unusual: a laugh track. “It was the first Saturday morning show to use a laugh track,” said Scheimer. “Why did we use a laugh track? Because it made the audience want to laugh with all the other people who were watching, and they felt like part of the show, more than just observers.”

As for the tone of the show, Scheimer said that “we had a show that was really unlike anything else airing for kids. Most shows were really aimed at 12 and under, and there was nothing for young teenagers. Nobody was doing shows about dancing and singing and dating and high school and problems that youth have, and it was about time to do a show that could be appreciated by an older group of young people. The Archie cast were teenagers and wanted to do the things teenagers wanted to do, and they cared about love and money and food and fun. And they all liked music….”

PUTTING THE BAND TOGETHER

While Scheimer worried about producing the animation, Norm Prescott worked with Don Kirshner on the songs.

“When it came to the songs, we’d tell Kirshner what we wanted to do, what the attitude should be, and what kind of stories we were doing, and then he would produce the songs and deliver them to us whole,” Scheimer said.

As noted, the show needed three-minute catchy pop songs, as well as brief segments that would teach kids to dance. Scheimer recalled that the music scenes were “kind of like early music videos. We’d show the Archies playing their guitars and drums and singing, and there would be groovy effects behind them. We also taught a ‘Dance of the Week’ which were some very weird dances put together by a bunch of animators who were not teenagers… and probably not dancers either.”

Kirshner worked with several songwriters—some of whom had worked with the Monkees—including Jeff

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Barry, Richie Adams, and Mark Barkan. Prescott then hired a group of it would be for a preteen or young teen audience. So I wanted it to be singers and musicians to “be” the Archies. The lead male voice was mostly innocent and very accessible to that crowd. And that’s the kind of voice done by singer Ron Dante, and the lead female voices were initially sung I used. I never met the guy who did the actual speaking voice in Los

by Toni Wine. Producer Jeff Barry did the singing voice of Jughead for Angeles. All the music was done in New York City, and we did it before some songs. Other background voices included songwriter Andy Kim, they even drew the cartoons. They would do the songs, send them as well as Ellie Greenwich, Susan Morse, Joey Levine, Maeretha out to Los Angeles, then they would do the animation to our Stewart, Bobby Bloom, Lesley Miller, and Jimmy Rooney. song. So, it was a wonderful process because every Saturday “When I was asked to be an Archie by Don Kirshner morning I got to see what they had done with my song in 1968,” Ron Dante told me in a 2007 interview, “I had and my voice the previous week.”

Although it had never been done before, the Archies’ a feeling the Archies would be a big hit. He was a wonderful producer and entrepreneur. He took in a lot music was planned for public release. Filmation contractof great writers and singers and when I recorded for ed for two years with Kirshner Entertainment Corporation the Archies as the lead singer, I was very happy to know Music Company for eight singles and two albums. Don Kirshner’s label was called “Calendar,” to be distributed that someday it might be a hit years later. And it has through RCA Records. Filmation’s own ASCAP publishing been for the last 39, 40 years; it’s been a big hit!” music division was named Shermley Music; the name was Dante had read Archie comics growing up, and was primarily a commercial jingle singer in the 1960s. a combination of the two streets the studio was on, “I remember my audition for the Archies was a phone Sherman Way and Lindley. The first release for record and 8-track cartridge tapes was simply to be called The call from Jeff Barry, the producer. He said, ‘Come up ron dante Archies, and ads for the debut album appeared in TV to the RCA studio in New York, and, I want you to Guide the same week as the show started. sing a few songs. This is for a TV show.’ So I rushed up, and I remember the first audition that Don Kirshner was there, Jeff Barry, The Archie Show debuted on September 14, 1968, at 10:00 a.m. on and they asked me to sing different types of songs. And especially one CBS. It was a huge hit, eventually getting a massive 47 rating regularsong that Jeff had written called ‘Truck Driver.’ And I used a soft voice, ly in the 2–11 age bracket, and eventually sold to a whopping 71 I used a heavy voice, I sang like Elvis, I sang like the Beach Boys. foreign countries to air! The Archies album was also a monster hit. “I Finally, they settled in a Donovan type of voice that was very popular remember that the radio deejays were very resistant to playing the at the time, so, that was the first audition. I remember after about an Archies,” said Scheimer. “But we kept getting radio play, despite… hour I got the job and I was thrilled.” there being no live-action ‘face’ for Archie.”

Dante recalls that the Archies recording sessions were done in layers.

In a television first, the Archies became the first animated band “First of all, they’d lay the rhythm section down, bass, drums, guitar, to be featured on a nighttime variety show. On November 17th, 1968, piano. Then we would do lead vocal, cause everybody followed the lead vocal. We’d hear the track but the writers would sing us the songs and, and I’d learn the lead vocal. And then, I’d just go out and just make up the Archie voice and I’d just sing whatever song we had to do and I’d double and multi-track it so it sounded like three people sometimes.

Then we’d put the backgrounds on, we’d multi-track them, meaning we’d record them two or three times with a bunch of people. And then we would put hand-claps on and tambourines, and shakers. It was a rhythm session. It was the most fun. And then we would listen back and our producer would play the whole track back. I remember they would do, like, mixes in 20 minutes for the songs. Some days we would do five or six songs, and we’d do a few dances… with the Betty, the Veronica, the Jughead, you know, the different dances they would make up. So, that is basically what the sessions were. It was great being in the RCA studio, because that’s where Elvis had recorded, and a lot of famous people who had recorded for RCA were there. It had a kind of magic to it.”

Dante and the others loved working with producer Don Kirshner.

“The man behind the Archies, Don Kirshner, was a true genius. He had had a huge publishing firm in the ’60s, published thousands of hit songs, then he went on to discover and develop the Monkees… I knew, working with Don Kirshner, we would have hits and there’s no question about it. His instinct—he knew the public, he knew his market, and he knew great songwriters and producers and singers. So everybody who ever worked with Don definitely succeeded.”

Dante is also positive about the work of producer/writer Jeff Barry.

“The Archie sound would never have existed without Jeff Barry. He was a consummate songwriter and producer, and he really knew how to craft a pop song.”

As for how he crafted the Archie vocal sound, Dante says that “putting the voice of Archie together was very easy. I had seen the comic, I knew exactly what he looked like, I knew the kind of feel the songs were coming up with, so when I put the voice together, I knew

“I hope we passed the audition…”

Thanks to Mr. Lodge, the Archies audition for record producer Don Kirschner in Archie #189 (Mar. 1969).

Story by Frank Doyle, art by Harry Lucey.

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Everything’s Archie This new title, which premiered in 1969, originally embraced the Archies’ TV and music success, even including Filmation Studios’ Scheimer, Prescott, and Sutherland in a story in the first issue!

Covers by Dan DeCarlo/Rudy Lapick and Stan Goldberg/ Jon D’Agostino, respectively.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

The Ed Sullivan Show featured two animated clips of the group from the series: the song “Bang-Shang-A-Lang” and the dance “The Bubble Gum,” both from the pilot episode. By November 20th, the first single, “Bang-Shang-A-Lang/Truck Driver,” had sold over 500,000 copies!

It eventually reached #22 on the Hot 100 charts, although a second single, “Feelin’ So Good (S.k.o.o.b.y.-D.o.o.)/Love Light,” didn’t fare quite as well, just missing the Top 50.

CROSSOVERS AND MAGICAL GIRLS

More than a decade before DC would introduce Earth-Prime, Archie crossed over into the “real” world. For Archie #189 (Mar. 1969), in a story called “The Music Man,” Mr. Lodge introduces the group to music producer Don Kirshner, or as Jughead calls him, “the man with the golden ear.”

The Archies then performed pieces of “Truck Driver” and “You Make Me Wanna Dance” for him before he signed them to Calendar Records. Just two months later, in Everything’s Archie #1 (May 1969), the Archie gang came out to California and visited the offices of Filmation! Scheimer, Prescott, and Sutherland all appeared as themselves in the story. Scheimer joked later that, “I got a little peeved, though, because my two partners were very nice looking in this book, and I didn’t like the way I looked.”

For Fall 1969, CBS asked Filmation to expand on The Archie Show, and the decision was made to add another half-hour of Archie to the schedule, debuting it with Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Having made her debut in Archie’s Mad House #22 (Oct. 1962), the bubble-haired beauty was perfect for a TV realm that also had seen the original runs of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. Fred Silverman had been flipping through Archie comics on vacation in Mexico when he spotted Sabrina, and called Scheimer up to add something new.

“We weren’t terribly concerned about putting a witch on a kids’ show because she was a good witch,” said Scheimer, “and there were no real villains. No demons or warlocks or dark mysteries, just her two aunts and her boyfriend and cat, and whatever goofy stuff they would get into.” Jack Mendelsohn, who had started his career with the comic strip Jacky’s Diary, and moved to comedy writing, was brought in to develop Sabrina and a future companion segment for it about monsters living in a castle together.

Saturday, September 13th, 1969 was the debut of The Archie Comedy Hour from 11:00–noon on CBS. The following evening, September 14th, saw Filmation’s first primetime special, Archie and His New Pals,

airing on CBS at 7:30 p.m., sponsored by Bristol-Myers. The special was the story debut of Sabrina at Riverdale High, and it heralded two new songs: “You Need an Image,” which was actually about the story rather than a random song, and “Get on the Line,” sung under the special’s end credits. Archie Comics even promoted the special in its Archie Club News pages in comics for the month.

Not wanting to lose out on the nascent rock-and-roll teen animation genre, rival network ABC had also commissioned Filmation to produce The Hardy Boys for Fall 1969. Repackaging the teen mystery series by adding a teen girl and—in a first for children’s animation—an AfricanAmerican boy, Filmation followed the Archie formula of adding a short song and music video to each episode. The Hardy Boys’ music was produced by Chicago’s Dunwich Productions, and also released under the RCA Calendar label, as with the Archies. A promotional tour with a live band performing songs went to ten cities, and the songs charted.

Unfortunately, the TV series wasn’t a huge hit—though it did garner two albums, three singles, four comics from Gold Key, and other licensed merchandise—and the band lasted longer than the show itself.

SWEET SUCCESS (SUGAR, SUGAR)

In Summer 1969, RCA released the second album for the Archies, Everything’s Archie. One song on it would become a monster hit for the ages: “Sugar, Sugar.” The song was written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim, and sung

by Ron Dante, Toni Wine, and Andy Kim. “Sugar, Sugar” was initially a tough sell to radio stations, who considered the young audience beneath them, but finally KFRC in San Francisco began playing the song, followed

by Los Angeles stations. Once it got airplay on all of the RKO stations, it exploded. It entered Billboard’s Hot 100 on July 26th and hit number one eight weeks later, on September 20th, staying there until the week of October 11th. Ed Sullivan returned to Filmation for more, and featured the song and another animated clip of The Archies. “Sugar, Sugar” was certified as a gold record in August and eventually became not only the #1 song of 1969, but also the #24 song of the decade!

Post Cereal included a massive Archies promotion on their Super Sugar Crisp, Honey Combs, Crispy Critters, Alpha-Bits, and Raisin Bran cereals, which included Archie offers—stickers, buttons, hats, and more— but also playable records that kids could cut directly off of the Super Sugar Crisp cereal boxes! Four of the records included a variety of Archies hits, promoting both the TV show and the records to a young audience.

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Scheimer recalled that “That year, I was walking down a dark street in the south of Spain, and it was spooky, and I hear a song being played, in Spanish. It was ‘Sugar, Sugar,’ coming out of a Spanish beer palace of some sort. It went over the world… it was incredible that we could do that with one little television show!”

Dante is adamant that rumors about the origins of “Sugar, Sugar” are untrue.

“There’s a story out there that Don Kirshner had offered the Monkees ‘Sugar, Sugar,’ and even Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz said to me they had heard it. But I know for a fact from my friends Jeff Barry and Andy Kim that [Andy] got the call from Don Kirshner saying, ‘Could you write a song for the Archies?’ and Andy Kim, over the phone, went, ‘Well, how about something like Sugar, ba-da-dun-da-dunt-dunt, ahh-honey-honey?’ They just loved the idea. He came over, they wrote the song in 20 minutes, and it became a national hit.

So it was always an Archie song, it will always be an Archie song, and I’m really glad that the Monkees think they could have had it, but they couldn’t.”

Recording “Sugar, Sugar” was unforgettable, says Dante. “One of the most memorable moments I had with the Archies was when we recorded ‘Sugar, Sugar.’ We worked long and hard on that vocal in particular because that was a very special song.

Everybody knew it… That day, I imitated Donovan a little bit and it came out perfectly.

It was the perfect sound for that song. And we knew it had some magic.”

Dante credits singer Toni Wine with a large part of “Sugar, Sugar’s” success. Wine had written several hit songs, including “Groovy Kind of Love,” but Dante notes, “she was a fabulous singer. She had this great original voice and she could change it. And she was the girl singer on ‘Sugar, Sugar’ who sang, ‘I’m gonna make your life so sweet.’ She was very identifiable when she sang. She had that New York street sound in her voice and she was very talented.” Sadly, even as the songs were hitting big, behind the scenes, the singers for the Archies were changing. Toni Wine left, frustrated that she only got session fees for singing massive hits, and was replaced by Donna Marie and later, Merle Miller.

The Archies’ songwriters Ritchie Adams and Mark Barkam, meanwhile, had a stroke of luck with their B-side to the “Sugar, Sugar” single, a song called “Melody Hill.”

“They had a great ride because when ‘Sugar, Sugar’ sold six million singles, they were on the B-side and they got paid as if they were on the A-side,” said Dante. “So they were very happy campers.” He also notes how huge the song really was, on a global scale. “I know that ‘Sugar, Sugar’ was the number one record in every country in the world. I have 45s from every country—from Malaysia, from China, from Russia— wherever they put out 45s at that time, they put out a picture sleeve in that language and it was number one in that country. So, the reach of the Archies was great!”

A third album for the Archies, Jingle Jangle, came out in Fall 1969. CBS supported it with a second primetime special on December 12th, called The Archies’ Sugar, Sugar, Jingle Jangle Christmas Show. Little is known of the special, but Scheimer didn’t recall any new material in it.

On January 4, 1970, The Ed Sullivan Show featured its third appearance of the Archies, with Ed introducing the animated clip for “Jingle Jangle.” On February 7th, the title track song finally hit #10 on the pop singles chart. By mid-March “Jingle Jangle” had gone gold, and the next single, “Who’s Your Baby?,” had already sold 600,000 copies. Although “Jingle Jangle” was successful, it wasn’t quite the hit “Sugar, Sugar” was… but a gold record is still a gold record!

On Sunday, March 22nd, CBS aired its third—and last—Archie primetime special, titled The Archie Sugar, Sugar, Jingle Jangle Show. This was mostly a rebroadcast of Archie and His New Pals, but with a different opening title and the songs “Sugar, Sugar,” “Jingle Jangle,” and “Who’s Your Baby?” mixed in. It would be the final time this particular show was repurposed, though the music would survive for many decades thereafter.

BUBBLEGUM ON THE JUKEBOX

Archie Comics was still supporting Filmation in a big way. In addition to featuring blurbs about the shows on their covers and relentlessly pimping them in their news pages in the books, Everything’s Archie and other titles featured the band regularly.

In Archie’s Pals ’n’ Gals #57 (Apr. 1970), they did a third story that referenced the show and music directly, called “The Big Hit Fit,” in which the halls of Riverdale High became awash with the sounds of “Sugar, Sugar.”

The music of the Archies was soon branded a part of the “bubblegum pop” genre.

This style was a kind of “rock-and-roll light,” with semi-innocent lyrics, catchy melodies,

A Taste of Success (top left) Gold record for the Archies’ smash single, “Sugar, Sugar.” (top right and bottom) Box front and back for Super Sugar Crisp cereal’s cut-out Archies record. Note the box side’s promotion of other Archie items available for mail order. All courtesy of Heritage.

Archie characters TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Music © Don Kirschner Music Inc. Cereal © Post Consumer Brands LLC.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 43

definition. The fact is that we were never trying to compete with the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin or Janis Joplin. We were the Archies. We were this young group that you know was just trying to make some great preteen and teen music for the family set.”

RCA pumped out more Archies records, with a foreign releases of the first Archies album under the new title Sugar, Sugar, a new 1970 album called Sunshine, and eventually, The Archies Greatest Hits.

“Sunshine” became the group’s sixth single, and by August the cumulative total for the six Archies singles was over ten million copies sold!

In 1970, television animation was at its most successful phase in history to date, and Filmation was riding the Archies wave high. CBS ordered even more from the Archie run: one hour of Archie’s Fun House, and a second hour for a rebranded Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies! Ironically, Filmation had to sue CBS over Archie that same year; gaining the syndication rights to the Archie properties back from them for foreign distribution (and a sizable settlement for themselves and Archie Comics).

The full title of the Archie entry was the unwieldy Archie’s Fun House featuring the Giant Juke Box—though it is always referred to simply as “Archie’s Fun House.” The hour-long show featured three songs per episode. Thirty songs were new, while older songs were repeated with different animation.

As far as content was concerned, only a half-hour of the show was new, with the other half being repeated material from the earlier two seasons.

More intriguingly, Filmation filmed a live-action opening with real children in the audience watching the Archies onstage with the Giant Juke Box. One of those kids, seated front and center, was Darrell McNeil, who would grow up to be an animator at Filmation and co-author of the book Animation by Filmation. McNeil has also contributed to BACK ISSUE. Scheimer’s two children were also in the front seats, next to Hal Sutherland’s son.

The second hour for the set was Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies.

The Sabrina segments were pretty similar to the first season, though they included scenes with her co-stars, the Groovie Goolies. This was the concept that had begun development in 1968 with writer Jack Mendelsohn and Jim Mulligan, featuring Dracula, Frankenstein, and a werewolf as comedy characters. In addition to short stories and joke segments, the Groovie Goolies also played in their own band; Richard Delvy Productions was in charge of producing the music, which included 36 songs for the season (two per week). Richard Delvy, Ed Fournier, and Dick Monda produced the songs, and under the pseudonym of “Daddy Dewdrop” Monda later had a huge hit with one of the Goolies songs, “Chick-A-Boom.” The Goolies garnered their own albums, a live-action band, and eventually, a bizarre live-actionand-animated special in 1972: The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie: Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies. You can find out more about the Groovie Goolies in TwoMorrows’ RetroFan magazine #2, coming Fall 2018 [also from ye ed’s desk(top)—ed.]!

Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies and Archie’s Fun House debuted on CBS on September 12, 1970, at 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m., respectively, leading into The Hardy Boys reruns at noon on ABC. As anticipated, Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies was a solid hit, and Archie’s Fun House continued to do well in the ratings.

Soundin’ So Good The first five Archies albums.

Archie characters TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Music © Don Kirschner Music Inc.

44 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

danceable beats, repeated choruses or hooks, and, quite often, references to sugary foods. The Monkees and Bobby Sherman were played alongside the Archies, and eventually acts such as the Jackson 5, and other kids’ shows such as The Banana Splits, and Archie’s Josie and the Pussycats would join the fray. At real-life teen hangouts such as those seen in Archie’s Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe diner, bubblegum pop singles were continuously played on jukeboxes.

Ron Dante is unfazed by the “bubblegum” moniker. “At the time, they called the Archie music bubblegum music, which was kind of a putdown. Not to me; it was kind of a put-up, because bubblegum music was meant for preteens, young teens, people that chewed bubblegum.

It was fun, happy music, family music, stuff that the whole family could listen to. There were other groups out there like the Ohio Express or the 1910 Fruit Gum Company doing ‘Chewy Chewy Chewy’ or ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy.’ ‘Sugar, Sugar’ and ‘Jingle Jangle’ fit perfectly with that

COMIC BOOKS MEET COMIC STRIPS MEET ANIMATION

MAKING AMERICA ARCHIE AGAIN

Based on its long-running success, CBS wasn’t ready to give up on Archie yet, so in 1974, they commissioned Filmation to produce The U.S. of Archie. Scheimer noted that it “was our attempt to go back to the fun of Archie’s animated adventures, while providing an educational story for viewers as well. CBS particularly wanted a more pro-social message in the shows, and they were mindful that the nation was coming up on its bicentennial celebration in 1976. While they thought we could get

a head start on it, I privately was afraid that the show wouldn’t last until 1976.

“It was, however, a good show, and one of my favorites of our Archie run. The Archie gang and their ancestors would interact with famous historical people, such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington Carver, Paul Revere, Lewis and Clark, Thomas Paine, Alexander Graham Bell, Susan B. Anthony, and Harriet Tubman.

What a wonderful way to learn history! It was historical, it was worthwhile, and it was really a good, all-around wholesome, funny show. You could pass a test the next day about history with the Archies. And we did it with comedy and music.” The songs were produced by Jackie Mills, since Don Kirshner and Ron Dante were now working for rival Hanna-Barbera.

Importantly, Filmation added a new regular cast member to the series: African-American teen Chuck Clayton, introduced in Life with Archie #110 (June 1971). “I felt that he should have been in there a long time before that,” said Scheimer, who had been breaking ground since the beginning with minority representation in animation.

Debuting September 7th, 1974 on CBS at noon, The U.S. of Archie did indeed make it to 1976, though its second season was all reruns. The series was the final hurrah for Archie at that network.

In 1976 and 1977, Filmation sold the syndication rights for Archie, Sabrina, and Groovie Goolies to US television stations, supplementing an already-hefty foreign market. Sonny Fox, a game-show host and children’s show host from the 1950s, was the executive vice president of children’s programming at NBC. The network was being slaughtered in the ratings, so in 1977, they made a surprise decision to wipe their whole schedule and do new shows! Convinced by the syndication sales, Fox bought The New Archie/Sabrina Hour from Filmation for fall.

The hour included a 12-minute Sabrina episode, followed by a 24-minute The New Archies episode, and then another 12-minute segment called “Surprise Package,” which might feature any of the cast. In the Sabrina shows, the young witch spent much of her time trying to make people forget they had seen her use magic. The Archie shows were largely the same type of stories as before, with two added musical numbers per show. Filmation also added a Hispanic

From Sunday Funnies to Saturday Morning TV Screen captures from Archie’s TV Funnies, showing some of the comic-strip characters appearing on the show.

Archie TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Other characters © their respective copyright holders.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 45

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

For 1971, CBS wanted something completely different.

They initially commissioned Filmation to produce Alley Oop, based on the long-running comic strip with ecological messages mixed in, and Saturday Funnies, an hour-long anthology series featuring various United Features comic strips. But plans evolved, and CBS combined franchises with the comic-strip shows becoming part of Archie’s TV Funnies, Sabrina getting her own solo show, and Groovie Goolies moving to Sunday.

Archie’s TV Funnies was an odd fit. It was the first Archie show that cut out music, as sales were starting to wane on Archie albums; 1971 would see the final released album, This is Love, until 2008. Instead, for this series, Archie Andrews and his friends helped run a Riverdale TV station (which closely resembled the Filmation studios), and they showed cartoons in between segments featuring themselves. The cartoons were mostly from a deal Filmation had made with Newspaper Enterprise Association/United Features Syndicate, as well as others with Chicago Tribune and New York News. The shows included: Chester Gould’s detective strip, Dick Tracy; Rudolph Dirks’ The Captain and the Kids (based on The Katzenjammer Kids); Marty Links’ Emmy Lou, based on the comic strip Bobby Sox, but updated to be more popular for pre-teens; Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy and Sluggo; Howard Post’s desert island strip The Dropouts; Frank Willard’s Moon Mullins; Bill Holman’s Smokey Stover; and finally, Russell Myers’ Broom Hilda. That last show held a few shocking surprises, as Broom Hilda was likely the only female comic strip character that was ever animated smoking a cigar!

On Saturday, September 11th, 1971, Archie’s TV Funnies debuted at 10:30 a.m., followed by Sabrina the Teenage Witch at 11:00 a.m. on CBS. Groovie Goolies was moved to Sundays at 9:30 a.m. The following season, only the former two shows survived: beginning September 16th, 1972, Sabrina the Teenage Witch was at 8:30 a.m. on CBS, and Archie’s TV Funnies was at noon. CBS put reruns of Archie’s Fun House on Sundays at 9:00 a.m.

That same season, Filmation aired two other shows that utilized elements they had perfected with the Archies: ABC’s The Brady Kids featured animated versions of TV’s favorite blended family playing music; and CBS’s Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was the first-ever mostly African-American animated series, and featured the kids singing songs as the Junkyard Band (from producer Richard Delvy and lead songwriter Ed Fournier).

For the 1973 season, CBS dropped Sabrina from the schedule, but kept Archie under a new title, Everything’s Archie. No new Archie episodes were ordered, however, making this a rerun season. Filmation produced another pop music-themed series for ABC with Mission: Magic!, using the show to introduce Australian singer Rick Springfield to the world. On September 8, 1973, CBS moved its sole surviving Archie-verse show, Everything’s Archie, to the noon hour.

In Good Company (top) Courtesy of Andy Mangels, a 1974 art folder representing Filmation’s then-current properties. (middle) CBS-TV’s The U.S. of Archie placed Riverdale’s stars in historical settings. (bottom) Production art for America’s teenager from The U.S. of Archie.

Courtesy of Heritage.

teenager named Carlos into the show. Carlos only made a few appearances in the comics, beginning in Life with Archie #179 (Mar, 1977); in fact, his television appearances outnumber his comic appearances!

Filmation also added a robot character that Dilton Doily created, named Q. “That probably was our nod to Star Wars,” said Scheimer, “but you also have to remember that, at that point in time, robots were starting to appear everywhere, even on primetime shows: Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman had robots, Wonder Woman had robots [and let’s not forget Buck Rogers—ed.]—they were a part of what was going on in the entertainment culture.”

Sadly, the new show tanked. “Nobody watched the show,” said Scheimer.

“I’m not talking about a few people. I’m talking about nobody watched that show. So Sonny says, ‘We’ll change the name.’ So, we changed the name of the show and split them up into separate shows.” On November 19th, NBC split The New Archies/Sabrina Hour into two separate shows: Superwitch and The Bang Shang Lalapalooza Show. The Sabrina story and the “Surprise Package” segment comprised Superwitch, while The Bang Shang Lalapalooza Show was The New Archies stories.

“And still nobody watched it!” said Scheimer. “It wasn’t just us, though; they couldn’t get anybody to watch NBC. I mean, the kids were so entranced by CBS that it was all they watched. Back in those days, it was before remote controls, so kids had to get up to switch the channel; the networks knew this and designed their shows so that kids would stay on one channel all morning.” With all of its fall shows in third place in the ratings, NBC fired Fox and removed his job position, and rebooted their entire schedule again for the following season.

It was an ignominious ending for Filmation’s Archie franchise, but although new shows for the Riverdale gang ended, their animated lives didn’t. The NBC shows were repackaged as a half-hour syndicated The Archie and Sabrina Surprise Package, while all the rest of the syndicated shows continued airing worldwide as The Archies (strangely, most of the songs were removed).

Videotapes were released as well.

While it is rumored that Filmation’s 1981 series The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam! in 1981 for NBC was to have featured the Archies as their Super Teen counterparts (Pureheart the Powerful, Superteen, Captain Hero, and Evilheart) for a segment called “Hero High,” Scheimer discounted that. “I don’t remember anything like that happening at all…. However, if we did do some presentations for The Super Archies, we clearly made wholesale changes before we created our own characters and settings for ‘Hero High.’ It would be hard to find any hint of Archie-dom in it, other than the generalized elements of teenagers and a high school.” The Hero High characters did have a live-action pop band, though, which is more than the Archies ever garnered.

POST-FILMATION, THE ARCHIE SHOWS GET WEIRD

Outside of Saturday morning, ABC had tried its own hand at Archie with the live-action ABC Saturday Comedy Special: Archie. Aired on December 19, 1976, the comedy special starred Dennis Bowen as Archie (not then-unknown David Caruso, as TV Guide listed), Audrey Landers as Betty, Hilary Thompson as Veronica, Derrel Maury as Jughead, Mark Winkworth as Reggie, Susan Blu as Midge, Jim Boelson as Moose, Gordon Jump as Fred Andrews, and others.

The show had sitcom storylines mixed with joke segments, and a few musical interludes with a live band.

Though the Special didn’t do well, ABC decided to give the cast and producers a second chance, and shot a new pilot, broadcast as The Archie 46 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie characters TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Star Trek TM & © CBS Studios Inc. Shazam! TM & © DC Comics. Other characters © their respective copyright holders.

Situation Comedy Musical Variety Special in 1978. A more entertainment atmosphere was called for, with segments including musical performances by the Archies, featuring the cast members.

NBC tried the animation route again in 1987, with the DIC Entertainment-produced show, The New Archies. DIC decided to de-age the teens and make them pre-teens in junior high. The series only had one season, though repeats were aired into 1989. With that show tanking, what could NBC do but try the exact opposite approach? Thus it was that on May 6, 1990, the peacock network aired the DIC-produced Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again. In this live-action, primetime show, Archie (Christopher Rich) is in his 30s, and he returns to Riverdale High for a class reunion to see what’s become of Betty (Lauren Holly), Veronica (Karen Kopins), and Jughead (Sam Whipple). Sadly, the pilot telefilm underperformed in the ratings, and Riverdale was off the air again.

DIC held onto the Archie rights, producing Archie’s Weird Mysteries for the PAX network in 1999, producing a single 40-episode season— making it the most-produced Archie series to date. It would also be the final animated appearance of Archie to date, though a never-aired Hub Network series had been announced in 2013.

DIC also produced a trio of Sabrina toons for ABC and UPN, including Sabrina: The Animated Series (1999–2000), Sabrina: Friends Forever (2002), and Sabrina’s Secret Life (2003–2004). Sabrina was actually hugely popular due to the long-running ABC series starring Melissa Joan Hart. Sabrina the Teenage Witch had a pilot film on Showtime in 1996, and ran on ABC and the WB from 1996–2003!

Sabrina’s final adventures to date were for MoonScoop’s animated series titled Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch, which aired on the Hub Network (Oct. 2013–June 2014).

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa straddled the world of playwriting, comic writing, and Hollywood beginning in the mid-2000s, producing Marvel Knights 4, Nightcrawler, Marvel Divas, and The Sensational Spider-Man among others for Marvel, revising the aged script for It’s A Bird… It’s A Plane… It’s Superman for the musical stage in 2010 and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark for Broadway in 2011, and writing Glee, Big Love, Supergirl, and other shows. While producing Glee, he created 2013’s Archie Meets Glee miniseries, and debuted the Afterlife with Archie zombie series, all while working on an Archie film for Warner Bros.

In March 2014, Aguirre-Sacasa was made Chief Creative Officer at Archie Comics, where he presided over a number of plans to relaunch titles and diversify the properties for Archie’s 75th year.

One element of that was to turn his Archie feature film into a serialized television series for the WB. Riverdale debuted on television on January 26, 2017, with KJ Apa as Archie, Lili Reinhart as Betty, Camila Mendes as Veronica, and Cole Sprouse as Jughead. Riverdale not

only saw diversity amongst its cast—Veronica was now Latina, gay character Kevin Keller was a regular—but saw tremendously dark storylines involving murder, incest, underage sex, drugs, gangs, online prostitution, and more. But not forgetting its television roots, the now-wildly popular Riverdale includes Josie and the Pussycats as a band, Archie plays the guitar and wants to write songs, and “Sugar, Sugar” has made its pop music re-debut. Just like a record, what goes around, comes around.

Archie’s TV Weird-In (top) The New Archies, from 1987. (center) Archie’s Weird Mysteries, from 1999. (bottom) Main cast from the current TV hit, Riverdale.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 47

Totally Rad Archies The Archies continue to rock comics readers today… but let’s flash back to how they looked in the Big ’80s. (top) Cover to Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #100 (Apr. 1985) and (bottom) original cover art (courtesy of Heritage) to Everything’s Archie #120 (Nov. 1985), both by Dan DeCarlo.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

THE ARCHIE SHOW PLAYS AN ENCORE

In 1989, Filmation’s owner, Westinghouse, sold the company to investors from makeup company L’Oréal, and the company was shut down. The Filmation library has changed owners multiple times since then, being owned by Hallmark, UK-based Entertainment Rights, Classic Media, DreamWorks Animation, and now Universal Studios.

Archie Comics itself released four individual DVDs in 2004, each compiling segments from throughout the various Filmation shows.

In July 2007, Genius Products released The Archie Show: The Complete Series on DVD as a set, produced by the author of this article. The set was missing some elements of the originals that had been lost to editing over the years, but was as complete as could be done, and featured a documentary with Scheimer.

A second set, Archie’s Funhouse: The Complete Series, was released in March 2008, also produced by this author, and featuring a documentary with Ron Dante. Genius self-produced their final release in the Archie-verse in April 2008 with Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and other planned releases were canceled.

Although Ron Dante wasn’t originally allowed to reveal that he was the lead singer for the Archies due to contractual anonymity, the word of his involvement with the series eventually became industry, then public, knowledge. “I never toured with the Archies.

They did talk to me at one point about dying my hair red and putting on freckles, but I didn’t do it. I had my own solo career, I had a jingle career in New York City. But about ten years ago, I decided to go out and perform live, and I’m doing all of the Archies, so people can come and hear ‘Sugar, Sugar’ and ‘Jingle Jangle’ and ‘Bang-Shang-A-Lang’ live now. And it’s amazing to see how many baby boomers come to the show and are just so happy to see it live… The people who grew up on the Archies and love the Archies, they’re good-hearted souls, they really are good people, and they appreciate that kind of music, so it’s always a thrill to meet them after the shows.”

As for the legacy of the Archies, Dante noted, “when we recorded for the Archies, we never thought that 35–40 years later they would still be just as popular. And I’m thrilled by it…

‘Sugar, Sugar’ is one of the most downloaded songs on the Internet if you go to iTunes, so I’m very happy to be a part of this enduring legacy that continues. It’s on TV all the time, it’s in commercials.

So the stuff lasts, and thank goodness I was a part of it!”

A few years prior to his passing in October 2013, Lou Scheimer sat with me in his home office in Tarzana, California. On the walls were memorabilia from Filmation’s decades on the air, including some of the Archies’ gold records. Scheimer clearly was still proud of the various series. “The legacy of Archie was that soft comedy… without violence, can create an audience that is a magnificently dedicated audience. Archie had a great run. We had eight different shows come out of the one series, and not many shows can say that. Super Friends might be one of the few. But Archie was a unique show, and a lot of people tried to do the same sort of thing, using the same kind of characters, but they were never Archie.”

The quotes from Lou Scheimer are from the 2012 autobiography written with Andy Mangels, Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, still available from TwoMorrows. Mangels’ interview with Ron Dante was conducted in 2007. Special thanks to Darrel McNeil.

ANDY MANGELS is the USA Today bestselling author and co-author of 20 books, including the TwoMorrows book Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, as well as Star Trek and Star Wars tomes, Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, and a lot of comic books. Additionally, he has scripted, directed, and produced special features for over 40 DVD releases. He recently wrote the Wonder Woman ’77 Meets the Bionic Woman series for Dynamite and DC Comics. His moustache is infamous. www.AndyMangels.com and www.WonderWomanMuseum.com

48 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

TM

by M

ark Arnold

Archie Comics’ That Wilkin Boy ran for 52 issues, from 1969–1982. According to Jeff Branch’s long-defunct fanzine Riverdale Ramblings, That Wilkin Boy was an offshoot or sequel series to Wilbur, which was published by Archie for 90 issues from Summer 1944 through October 1965 (cover dates).

Even though the character of Wilbur seems derivative of Archie Andrews, Wilbur actually made its debut before Archie by first appearing in Zip Comics #18 (Sept. 1941)—a full three months before Archie’s first appearance in Pep Comics #22 (Dec. 1941)—in a story entitled “Meet Wilbur,” written by Harvey Willard and drawn by Lin Streeter.

Wilbur Wilkin is either the same character or is related to him. It has never been officially explained, although Bingo Wilkin’s real first name in That Wilkin Boy is actually Woodrow. When That Wilkin Boy debuted in January 1969 (cover date), it seemed that the series was artist Dan DeCarlo’s creation, but actually it was derivative of Wilbur. For the first 12 issues, the stories were solely drawn by DeCarlo.

DeCarlo (1919–2001) was the longtime Archie cartoonist who developed the “look” of Archie Comics with a style dan parent that lasted from the 1950s until 2015, when the line was revamped to a more © Luigi Novi / realistic look. The DeCarlo style still Wikimedia Commons. regularly appears in Archie digests and in a modern series entitled Your Pal Archie, drawn by Dan Parent and written and inked by Ty Templeton.

Archie Comics editor-in-chief Victor Gorelick confirms the idea that Bingo was derived from Wilbur Wilkin. “The publisher wanted to revive one of our oldest characters, Wilbur,” Gorelick says. “The idea was to hopefully interest Hollywood into producing another animated series for TV. Included in the storyline was a band called the Bingoes [That Wilkin Boy’s first name was now Bingo]. Bingo’s girlfriend, Samantha, has a father who’s not too fond of Bingo. In fact, her father was sort of a toned-down Archie Bunker.”

Gorelick has worked for Archie Comic Publications, Inc. for over 50 years in a wide variety of roles. After studying at the School of Industrial Arts, Gorelick joined Archie Comics at age 16 in 1958. He began in the publisher’s art department, making corrections and learning how to color and ink.

He eventually served as a production coordinator, art director, and now, editor-in-chief. He was honored with an Inkpot Award at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2008.

Regarding That Wilkin Boy’s roots, Dan Parent agrees with Gorelick: “I was told several times that the That Wilkin Boy series was a reboot of Wilbur.”

THAT WILKIN CAST

And Bingo Was His Name-O The Dan DeCarlo/Rudy Lapick cover to That Wilkin Boy #1 (Jan. 1969), premiering the book’s cast (left to right): Teddy Tambourine, Bingo Wilkin, Samantha Smythe, Buddy Drumhead, and Rebel. Look closely and you’ll spot a few other Archie-ites.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

With Dan DeCarlo in charge, these characters premiered and were developed: Bingo Wilkin, the star of the comic and of his own rock band, the Bingoes (similar to the Archies). He is obviously (as Wilbur became) patterned after Archie. Like Archie, he is clumsy and raises the temper of his girlfriend’s father.

Gorelick confirms the initial setup: “Dan was the artist and Frank Doyle wrote the stories in the beginning.

Later on, other writers and artists worked on the book.”

Unlike Archie, Bingo only has one girlfriend, Samantha Smythe. Her father—Sampson Smythe—is a bodybuilder and is not very fond of Bingo, or Bingo’s father, Willie Wilkin. Willie, in turn, is not very fond of Sampson and gets irritated that Sampson insists upon calling him Wilkins, with an “s.” Both Sampson and Willie are married to Sheila and Wilma, respectively.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 49

That Prototypical Boy (left) The first story featuring Wilbur from Zip Comics #18 (Sept. 1941), three months before Archie’s debut in Pep Comics #22. By Harvey Willard and Lin Streeter. Scan courtesy of Mark Arnold. (right) That first Wilkin, in Wilbur Comics #1 (Summer 1944).

Cover by Bill Vigoda.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Bingo has an intelligent dog named Rebel, similar in attitude, but not in breed, to Jughead’s pooch Hot Dog. Bingo’s band is a three-piece (as the Archies originally was) group featuring Teddy Tambourine and Buddy Drumhead (any guesses as to what they play?). The band idea is surely a response to the Archies, Josie and the Pussycats, and the Madhouse Glads (from Archie’s Mad House).

On Saturday morning television, the Archies spawned The Archie Show from Filmation and Josie spawned Josie and the Pussycats from Hanna-Barbera. Was That Wilkin Boy’s musical group the Bingoes destined to have the same television animation fate?

Longtime Archie artist Dan Parent responds, “I know Dan DeCarlo mentioned there being interest in a That Wilkin Boy Saturday morning show back in the ’70s, but it never got past model sheets. I’ve never seen them, but he said he did some designs.”

A graduate of the Kubert School, Parent began working for Archie Comics immediately after graduation and was mentored by DeCarlo.

Parent’s writing of the “Archie Love Showdown” series from 1994 received widespread attention. He has also illustrated Felix the Cat, Barbie, Disney Adventures, and many other titles.

THAT WILKIN COMIC

Most of the earliest That Wilkin Boy issues featured a sort of continuity with comedy situations arising from the conflicts between Sampson and Bingo and Sampson and Willie, the band trying to get gigs, and Rebel’s wiseguy responses to the dumb things that the humans do.

With issue #12 (Apr. 1971), That Wilkin Boy was expanded into a 52-page giant featuring more dramatic stories that were also touted on the cover.

The Mighty Sampson Samantha’s musclebound daddy needs to get a grip!

Title page from “Generosity,” the lead story in That Wilkin Boy #3 (June 1969), written by Frank Doyle with art by DeCarlo and Lapick. Original art scan courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

50 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

This dramatic format with an increased page count permeated virtually the entire Archie Comics line at the time.

With the added page count, Samm Schwartz and Stan Goldberg were brought in to help round out the issue as artists. The tone of the series also changed as all of the established running gags like the “Wilkin(s)” one were dropped by the wayside.

This format remained until That Wilkin Boy #27 (Apr. 1974), when the series reverted back to the original size and format with DeCarlo solely back at the helm.

This was also short-lived, and very soon DeCarlo had help again and eventually left the series.

By 1977, the popularity of the series was decreasing, and soon That Wilkin Boy was only being published twice a year!

This is understandable because without DeCarlo, the series became truly boring, in this writer’s opinion. The humor was very strained or non-existent to the point that when the series was canceled with #52 (Oct. 1982), it was not missed.

The series was at its best in its first two incarnations— roughly the first 30 issues—where the humor and later the drama really blossomed.

THAT WILKIN COUSIN

In recent years, reprints from That Wilkin Boy have been running almost exclusively in Archie Comics’ Jughead & Friends Digest beginning with issue #5 (Nov. 2005) of that series, and proudly announced on the cover of that very issue. In order to justify the inclusion of these reprints, it is mentioned that Bingo and Jughead have a common relative in a character named Uncle Herman. Both of their mothers are Herman’s younger sisters. The new story introducing the pairing was called “Cousin Effect” and drawn by Kubert School graduate (and current Kubert School instructor) Fernando Ruiz, a multi-talented commercial illustrator.

When asked how this Jughead/Bingo connection came to pass, Victor Gorelick comments, “It was the idea of one of the digest editors to make Bingo Jughead’s cousin.” Dan Parent adds, “All I know about the newer stories is the reinforcing of Jughead as Bingo’s cousin.”

Artist Fernando Ruiz reveals to BACK ISSUE, “It was digest editor Nelson Ribeiro. He was the one who noticed both Jughead and Bingo Wilkin had an Uncle Herman in common.

It was Nelson who decided that since both Jughead and Bingo shared an Uncle Herman, they should both be cousins!

As I remember it, it was decided that Jughead’s mother and Bingo’s mother were sisters and that Herman was their older brother. We all thought it was a great idea and the perfect vehicle for bringing Bingo into Jughead’s book!”

This created the ability to have new stories in the digest star both Bingo and Jughead without any further justification of continuity. However, the Jughead & Friends Digest series came to an end with issue #38 (Aug. 2010).

Boss Hog (top) TV’s short-lived (1969–1970) Then Came Bronson, starring Michael Parks as a freewheeling adventurer, no doubt inspired Frank Doyle’s story “Along Came Bingo” in That Wilkin Boy #9 (Sept. 1970). Art by DeCarlo and Lapick. (bottom) That Wilkin Boy was on its last leg in mid-1981 when issue #50 was published. Cover art by Stan Goldberg. Courtesy of Heritage.

Then Came Bronson © MGM. That Wilkin Boy TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 51

Comic Cousins (top left) Jughead introduces his cousin Bingo Wilkin to Archie in The Archies #1 (Nov. 2017). Written

by Alex Segura and Matthew Rosenberg, with art by Joe Eisma. (top right) The Bingos rock the house in that same issue. (bottom) That Werewolf Boy, Bingo, from Jughead: The Hunger #3.

Written by Frank Tieri and drawn by Pat and Tim Kennedy.

Scans courtesy of Archie Comics.

Archie TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Dan Parent reveals, “I didn’t get a chance to work any That Wilkin Boy stuff with DeCarlo. The only Wilkin art I ever did was a Battle of the Bands story in Archie #650 (Feb. 2014)–653 (May 2014), where the Bingoes (here called ‘the Bingos’) were featured.”

When surveying That Wilkin Boy’s history, Ruiz reflects, “I wasn’t a regular reader of That Wilkin Boy as a kid, but I was a big reader of Archie and I would come across occasional TWB stories in the digests. I loved them and even as a kid, I found them a bit edgier and more sophisticated than the usual Archie fare. I’d love a nice collected edition of That Wilkin Boy, especially containing many of those stories they’d never reprint these days.”

THAT WILKIN BOY TODAY

At this writing, Bingo Wilkin has recently resurfaced in the Archie Universe.

“That Wilkin Boy is a wonderful series and the characters are important parts of the Archie canon,” Archie Comics co-president Alex Segura tells BACK ISSUE. “In fact, Bingo and his girlfriend Sam are major parts of the recently concluded monthly series, The Archies, where their band, the Bingos, served as mentors to the classic super-group, and even took Archie and his friends on tour with them!” A darker version of Jughead’s cousin Bingo has also appeared in 2017 in Jughead: The Hunger.

Dan Parent adds, “I would love to use Bingo in Your Pal Archie. And as far as [TV’s] Riverdale goes, I would be surprised [if he showed up there].”

Wilbur Wilkins did make a “cameo” on an episode of the CW’s Riverdale series in the form of a fake I.D. presented by Archie Andrews in a scene in the episode entitled “Chapter Seventeen: The Town That Dreaded Sundown,” which originally aired on November 1, 2017. Will this one-time Easter-egg cameo lead to greater things for That Wilkin Boy? MARK ARNOLD is a comic-book and animation historian.

Among his comic-book-related works he has written are Pocket Full of Dennis the Menace and The Harvey Comics Companion. He has assisted on Craig Yoe’s Archie: A Celebration of America’s Favorite Teenagers. He is currently finishing up a book on longtime Harvey artist Warren Kremer called Friendly Ghosts, Little Devils, Giants and Rich Kids: The Art and Creations of Warren Kremer.

52 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

compiled by J e r r y

Boyd

I couldn’t let this wonderful chance at getting as much Archie material as I could gather go by! Michael Eury (BI’s resident Mr. Weatherbee) was nice enough to let me take over Rough Stuff for this issue. Special thanks to Bill Morrison, Greg Beda, and Mark Arnold for their help with this and other items for this special Archie issue of BI! All characters TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

From the collection of MAD Magazine executive editor Bill Morrison, two pencil etchings by the great Dan DeCarlo: (inset) Archie’s torn between Betty and Veronica (good thing Cheryl Blossom’s not around). (right) The argument’s settled, at least for now!

Archie shares a super-milkshake with his two favorite girls.

54 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

(top) From the Greg Beda collection: This pencil illo of the fetching Josie James (she was “Jones” at one point) was done by Dan DeCarlo at Oakland, California’s WonderCon in 1999. (bottom) Josie and the Pussycats romp in this undated but beautiful sketch-and-marker illo by DeCarlo!

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 55

(top) Was Phil Seuling’s 1977 Comic Art Convention worth attending? The three chief male members of the Archie gang discuss that subject in this Stan Goldberg program offering from the con. (bottom left) I met the great Dexter Taylor at a SDCC (thanks to everyone who’s responsible for bringing the legends of the field to San Diego to meet their fans!) in the ’00s, and kept in touch. He did the sketch of Little Archie skateboarding past the girls for me in 2006 and (bottom right) the sketch of Little Archie and Betty in 2007.

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betaraubdw / Comic Vine.

(top) Archie fan Greg Beda wrote Samm (who sometimes went by Sam) Schwartz in 1989, after having asked him to critique his artwork, which he did in this letter. (inset) A page of his from Jughead #302 (July 1980) is also presented, along with (bottom) a photo of the artist.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 57

Longtime industry veteran Mark Wheatley vividly recalls a meeting years ago with legendary comic creator Gray Morrow. Morrow was, of course, a phenomenal artist, but he was also a passionate fan. His walls were filled with his original art. One page stood out. Wheatley, who has worked as an artist, editor, and publisher, recognized this as a page from the short-lived ’70s comic series helmed by Morrow, Red Circle Sorcery.

Morrow smiled and explained to Wheatley that he really loved that project because he was able to work with his friends. It didn’t hurt that so many of his friends were the top artists in the industry.

He wasn’t the only one who felt that way. “I loved the Red Circle revival in the 1970s,” says J. David Spurlock, Vanguard publisher. “A lot of great work was done by Gray Morrow, Vincente Alcazar… surprise visits by Wally Wood, Steranko, Alex Toth, Doug Wildey, Neal Adams, etc. Just the kind of party that comics lovers relish.”

The story of Red Circle’s Sorcery line of comics is many things—a publisher’s attempt at diversification, a bold effort at updating a well-worn genre, and a quintessential example of ’70s comics at a crossroads. Like a teenager, this series was awkwardly striving to grow up and be recognized for casting aside childish ways. Red Circle Sorcery comics are an example of creators, at the top of their games, getting together and creating something, albeit fleeing, that was both impressive and memorable.

by E d

Catto

ARCHIE GROWS UP

Archie Comics, originally known as MLJ Comics, has a long history of producing one particular genre of comic books really well, and always trying something new.

Victor Gorelick is currently Archie Comics’ co-president/ editor-in-chief, but was there in the early ’70s when the decision was made to launch a new line of comics that would focus on genres beyond teen humor. In retrospect, the launch plans for this Red Circle line were very simple.

“The company was looking to become more diverse and expand our readership,” Gorelick recalls.

Gorelick would soon recruit Gray Morrow to run the show. But before all that, it’s important to understand the real beginning of the Red Circle Sorcery line, with what was essentially a two-issue false start.

YOUR HOST, SABRINA

Chilling Adventures in Sorcery as Told by Sabrina #1 is kind of like a child “playing house.” This 1972 comic lays the foundation for what would become the Red Circle Sorcery line, but there’s a naivety and simpleness that may make older readers smile and nod patronizingly.

All the traditional horror tropes are clearly exhibited on the cover: a moonlight scene, a creepy, brutish monster, a nebulous spirit and even a spooky narrator.

But each element is scrubbed and sanitized for an all-ages audience.

“They didn’t want to do something that would scare our readers away!” explains Gorelick. “They were horror stories but they were kind of low-key as far as the horror went. It wasn’t with people biting heads off or killing or anything like that, nothing like what Warren was doing at that time.”

Archie Comics’ cute teenage witch, Sabrina, was enlisted as narrator, introducing each tale. Horror hosts had been a staple of ghost stories on radio and TV,

Sophisticated Suspense Once “Demonic Delineator” Gray Morrow took over the formerly Sabrina-hosted Chilling Adventures in Sorcery with issue #3 (Oct. 1973), many of the field’s top talents followed him. Cover art by Morrow.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

58 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

as well as in comics. The benefit was that as shows or comics would spotlight new characters for each episode’s tale, the narrator provided a familiar presence.

Old-time radio drama started it all. The long-running radio show The Whistler was named for its host. He started each story with a 13-note whistle before teasing the audience with his suspenseful stories. Likewise, hosts on shows like Lights Out, The Mysterious Traveler, and The Strange Dr. Weird narrated a weekly frightful tale. One of the most enduring radio horror hosts, The Inner Sanctum’s Raymond Edward Johnson, laid it on thick with his breezy, teasing introductions, inviting listeners to join in the gag with corny puns and dark humor.

Comics would use many different types hosts as narrators.

On one hand, Key Publications’ Mister Mystery would don a tuxedo and top hat each month to narrate his chilling tales.

At the other end of the spectrum, EC’s three hosts, the self-styled “GhouLunatics”—the Crypt Keeper, the Vault Keeper, and Old Witch—were each gruesome to behold. They are arguably the most memorable emcees from the Golden Age of Comics.

For new readers, it was time to create new horror hosts. In 1969, Marvel introduced Roderick “Digger” Krupp in Tower of Shadows and Headstone P. Gravely in Chamber of Darkness. Competitor DC would soon follow suit, and introduce horror host Charity in Forbidden Tales of the Dark Mansion (originally titled The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love).

Charity herself was part of another mini-trend, in fact.

Most horror narrators were either scary men or creepy old women. Early TV, as a visual medium, combined the traditional horror-host trope with an attractive, sexualized woman when Vampira debuted in 1954. Inspired in part by Chas Addams’ Morticia character from New Yorker cartoons, vivacious Vampira tweaked the narrator’s role to include equal parts of sexy and silly. Vampira inspired other horror hostesses including Moona Lisa and eventually Cassandra Peterson’s Elvira. [Editor’s note: Elvira is the cover star of TwoMorrows’ RetroFan #2, on sale in September 2018.]

In 1968, DC’s The Witching Hour comic was hosted by three witch sisters. Two were hideous old hags in typical horror-host fashion. But the third sister, Cynthia, was a gorgeous young blonde. She was often at odds with her older sisters, reflecting the generational conflicts so prevalent in society at that time.

Cynthia’s long, slinky dress inevitably displayed her décolletage to prurient adolescent readers. [Editor’s note: For more on the horror hosts of the Bronze Age, see BACK ISSUE #52.]

Following in the footsteps of Charity and Cynthia, Archie Comics recruited Sabrina, the teenage witch with a wholesome girl-nextdoor personality, as narrator for this new series.

The cover of the first issue of Chilling Adventures in Sorcery (Sept. 1972) apes the feel of a mid-’60s Marvel cover. The logo, with an emphasis on the word “Sorcery,” evokes a slanted sense of urgency and each letter has “Marvel style” jagged edges. The cover is divided into three comic panels, although they represent four stories.

Comics of this time would typically showcase a small image of the lead character in the upper left-hand corner box, a tradition used for newsstand identification and trademark reinforcement.

But on this debut issue, a green-haired hag reads a thick tome in that traditional corner box spot, and Sabrina, as hostess, only gets a headshot on the cover’s bottom corner. Her inclusion seems more like an afterthought than a selling point.

Sabrina starts off the festivities in the first issue without fanfare, jumping right into the first story and casually telling the readers, “He was a nice boy, Tommy was.” The inaugural story, “Behold the Beast” by Archie regulars Frank Doyle and Stan Goldberg, tells the tale of misguided love and the adult community’s predictable dislike of a bad boy. The heroine of the story, like almost every teenage girl, essentially proclaims, “You just don’t understand” with drama-filled teenage angst.

Archie doesn’t seem to have a handle on exactly “what type of girl” Sabrina is. In the revenge tale “Assignment in Fear,” Sabrina, in white go-go boots, starts the tale from behind a

Macabre Master Morrow (top) Gray Morrow, the visionary behind Archie’s Red Circle Sorcery, in a portrait

by Michael Netzer. (bottom) Sabrina briefly served as mystery hostess in Archie’s Chilling Adventures in Sorcery As Told by Sabrina #1 (Sept. 1972). Cover artist unknown.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 59

lectern and wraps it up by addressing the audience from her bed.

Her bedroom is darkened, and you can just discern a Riverdale High pendant on her wall. She seems to be pulling up the covers, but teases the readers as one strap of her nightgown is falling off her shoulder.

Penciler Stan Goldberg is teamed with inker Henry Scarpelli for the last story, “Curiosity Kills.” It’s notable for Sabrina’s headshot on the splash page. The teenage witch gets her creepiness on, and stares straight at the reader in a decidedly gothic pose. The story about two brothers is reminiscent of the old Highlights magazine’s “Goofus and Gallant” comic, showing how an ill-mannered boy behaves in contrast to a good-hearted young man.

In the second issue (Oct. 1972), there is a lessening of Sabrina’s presence. She’s not on the cover, and her introductions within are relegated to a simple “floating head” teeing up four mundane stories.

In the last panel of the last story, Sabrina does make a brief appearance, in Rod Serling fashion, before vanishing from the series.

The same creators contributed this issue—Doyle, Goldberg, DeCarlo, etc.—but there was no indication that they, like Sabrina, wouldn’t return in issue #3.

“I often wish they left Sabrina in Sorcery,” maintains writer T. Casey Brennan, who would contribute to the next phase of what would become known as Archie’s Red Circle line.

GRAY LEADS THE WAY

The title went on a hiatus while being retooled. Archie’s management turned it all over to one man with a big vision and bigger talent: Gray Morrow.

“Gray’s work spoke for itself,” says Gorelick. “He was our first choice.

He was well known by comic-book fans and throughout the industry.” He’d take the reins with issue #3 (Oct. 1973), but it wasn’t until issue #7 that the public was provided background on “Demonic Delineator” Gray Morrow.

A self-portrait accompanies a brief one paragraph bio and explains:

“Not long ago, Red Circle’s sorceress succeeded in seducing the supernatural sketch-maniac into producing a high-quality line of comics magazines. Sorcery is the first… and a prelude of things to come.”

Morrow was given great authority and latitude to develop this line, dubbed Red Circle Comics Group with Chilling Adventures in Sorcery’s third issue. “He had the authority to recruit other talent without interference from the publishers,” says Gorelick.

Writer/artist Bruce Jones contributed several stories to Sorcery, and recalls how he got involved: “I bumped into Morrow at a New York Comic Con and he mentioned he had taken on the editorial duties at Red Circle; this was just before I moved from New York back to Kansas City, which is where I did most of the work for Red Circle.”

Jones had a high level of optimism for the series. “I was excited about it,” he admits. “[Gray Morrow] was a great editor who appreciated the efforts of his artists. Also, it was a chance to do non-superhero comics and to write and draw my own stories.”

Writer Don Glut explains that industry professionals were talking about Morrow leading the then-upcoming series. “Somebody told me—it could have been Roy [Thomas], it could have been Alex Toth, it could have been Steranko—‘Hey, there’s a new comic-book line starting up and Gray Morrow’s the editor of it.’ And whoever that was that told me also gave me Gray’s home phone number. He was very polite. He was very friendly. And he said, ‘Send me some stories.’ ” Other great talents would be recruited, including Alex Toth, Doug Wildey, Vincente Alacazar, Dick Giordano, and a young Howard Chaykin. Even Wally Wood joined the fun, assisting Jack Abel for a five-pager called “Demon Rider.”

Scripter Marv Channing supplied many of the stories.

In fact, Channing seemed to quickly become a right-hand man and the most prolific Red Circle writer.

For nine glorious issues (from issue #3–11), Morrow presided over this bubbling cauldron of macabre stories by some of the industry’s most talented professionals.

JUDGING A BOOK BY…

As the title was relaunched, first as Chilling Adventures in Sorcery (#3–5), then as Red Circle Sorcery (#6–11), editor Morrow pulled double duty as the cover artist for every issue. Each impactful cover is creepy don glut and engaging, as bewitching and intriguing as a bride of Dracula. As an artist with a keen design donglutsdinosaurs.com sense, Morrow also incorporated a circle motif on several of the issues, either overtly or subtly.

Sabrina was sent off on her broomstick and although the title had no true horror host now, Morrow would use the chilling final image of the haunting femme fatale he illustrated from issue #3’s “The Cat” as the corner box trademark character for the series. In fact, she would soon be named “The Sorceress” in promotional copy.

SPOOKY STANDOUTS

“As much as it changed into a horror book, there really wasn’t anything in there that was as gruesome as in some of the other books that were out at the time,” says Gorelick.

“At the time I was writing a lot at Gold Key—where they called them ‘mystery stories’— but they were ‘horror stories’—and Warren,” says Glut. “There were a lot of things I couldn’t do in the Gold Key books because they had their own in-house censorship. At Warren, you could pretty much do anything you wanted, things that you couldn’t get away in a Code book. So I just looked at the Red Circle books as

A Ghoul, a Girl, and a Golem Writer Don Glut’s stories are showcased on this creepy Gray Morrow cover for Sorcery #4. Original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

60 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

somewhere in between. More adult than Gold Key, but [I could] not go as far as the Warren books.”

The cover to Chilling Adventures in Sorcery #4 (Dec. 1974) spotlights the two stories Don Glut contributed to this issue. “The Horripilate Host,” illustrated by Dick Giordano, was originally titled “The Horror Host,” but that word “may have been too strong for the Code,” supposes Glut. “A Thousand Pounds of Clay” was Glut’s Golem story, and he explains that the title was inspired by the song “A Hundred Pounds of Clay.”

“Even the artwork was a lot more sophisticated,” says Glut. “It wasn’t all the action-oriented [art] like you saw at Marvel. It was sophisticated. Especially some of Gray’s stuff. The poses were more realistic. Almost like photorealistic. They really had their own distinctive look.”

All in all, for a writer like Glut, working with and for Gray Morrow was a positive experience. “One of the best working relationships I’ve had working with an editor,” he says.

In these Sorcery issues, illustrator Vincent Alacazar may be the under-appreciated MVP. Born in Madrid, Spain, he was something new to most US fans. He was introduced to Morrow by way of Neal Adams, and the two became fast friends.

Alacazar’s art is solid and engaging, with just enough moodiness and atmosphere to beguile the reader into a sense of complacency, right before delivering the gut punch.

“The first time I ever saw his work was on one of my stories in one of the Red Circle books,” says Glut.

Alacazar would continue to work for all the major publishers, including a stint as the main artist on DC’s Jonah Hex. Eventually he left his work in American comics to return to Spain and pursue a career as a fine artist.

Carlos Piño was a friend of Alacazar, and he also drew several stories. When his colleague returned to Spain, Piño would, too.

“Die in the Name of the Law!” in issue #8 (Aug. 1974), written by Marv Channing and illustrated by Morrow, was a particularly personal story for the artist. It tells the tale of pulp character called the Cobra, a mash-up of the Shadow, the Spider, and the Green Hornet.

“Gray was inspired by the pulps and he loved reinterpreting the pulps,” says Mark Wheatley. “He really put it all into that story.”

ESSAYS INTO THE SUPERNATURAL AND TEXT STORIES

Just about every issue had a one-page comic entitled “Essays into the Supernatural.” Most were illustrated with aplomb by Morrow, but Frank Thorne and Sal Amendola each contributed an entry. These succinct factoids covered familiar topics like witches, dragons, and werewolves. A few times, readers might have actually expanded their knowledge with essays on dibbuks [from Jewish folklore, a supernatural entity that possesses and controls the bodies of the living—ed.], poltergeists, possession, and exorcisms.

The only double-page entry in the series was in issue #10 (Dec. 1974) and focused on Universal’s horror films. Written

by Channing, this essay may have been the most factual.

Morrow’s moody art is impressive and he delivers spot-on likenesses of the actors and their monstrous alter egos, specifically Lon Chaney and the Phantom of the Opera, Boris Karloff and the Frankenstein monster, Bela Lugosi and Dracula, and even Lon Chaney, Jr. and the Wolf Man. Like comics of old, each issue also prolonged the reading experience with a short, two-page text story.

Written by Channing, subjects ranged from the agonies of Hell to the final battle of a WWI ace. They were gorgeous to behold, as each one was punctuated by lovely spot illustrations provided by the seemingly indefatigable Morrow.

THE CIRCLE EXPANDS… WITH A REALITY COP COMIC

As those early issues of Red Circle’s Sorcery were completed, fans and management alike must have been impressed. And it’s easy to see hints about expanding the line.

The Comics Reader, at the time a leading fan news magazine commonly called TCR, identified what would be the first new Red Circle series. TCR #104 reported: Arrangements are being made for Red Circle to put out a new book about Dave Greenberg and Bob Hantz, the “Super-Cops” (in conjunction with the movie of the same name).

The late ’60s and early ’70s was a time that ripped the shiny facade off of so many of society’s heroes. The tidy and clean cowboy-hero icon was being replaced by unkempt “realistic” Western heroes who often looked worse than the onscreen villains. The handsome military

Red Circle Inferno Original page from Sorcery #9 (Oct. 1974) featuring pasted-up galleys of writer Marv Channing’s Hades piece, illustrated by Morrow. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 61

Funky Flatfoots Red Circle’s media tie-in The Super Cops #1 (July 1974).

Cover by Morrow. © 1974 Dave Greenberg Enterprises, Inc.

THE FAN PRESS REVEALS GROWING PAINS Throughout the run of Gray Morrow’s Red Circle line, there are teases of an expanded slate of books. Super Cops was to be the first title of an expansion, but house ads and the fan press reveal the plans underway that were constantly changing.

The Comic Reader #102 (Dec. 1973) reported, “Tentative plans for the new mystery title from Red Circle have progressed a bit. Plans currently call for the title to alternate with CHILLING ADVENTURES IN SORCERY as either a type of ‘Red Circle Presents…’ title or two separate books coming out in alternate months. The basic premise for the as-of-yetuntitled book is to have the stories revolving around a large detective agency. This will allow for the use of regular, as well as frequent new characters. Writers and artists have yet to be chosen, altho editor Gray Morrow will definitely be doing some work on both ends.”

Two months later, the detective book was evidently still in development. TCR #104 announced, “Red Circle continues to put new material into their plans for the future.

The detective book announced previously is moving along but no title has been chosen yet… Finally, there is a talk about a sister book to SORCERY.” The plans for a second horror book are firmed up in The Comic Reader #106.

“A second Sorcery-type comic is in the works. RED CIRCLE MADHOUSE is the title at the moment, but that title may be changed.”

Confidence in expanding the line, perhaps reflecting decisions before sales figures arrived, is evident in TCR #108.

“Red Circle has met with enough success with their two mystery books that plans are now to be implemented to expand the line to six titles. Most exciting news: the revival of the BLACK HOOD in his own comic, with his origin story

by Gray Morrow. The book should be out in late August or early September [1974]. The other planned books include a sword-and-sorcery title, a mystery-detective book, and another hero revival, HANGMAN.”

soldiers of WWII were replaced by gritty war heroes who were sweatier and more morally challenged than any 1940s cinematic hero. And cops, so often depicted as the neighborhood paragons of virtue, were revealed to be flawed individuals that might even end up on the wrong side of a political argument. All bets were off after Peter Maas’ book, Serpico, and its subsequent movie adaptation, revealed the corrupt underbelly of a metropolitan police force, and the struggles of a hero to operate within this structure and remain true to his own ideals.

As reported previously by Dewey Cassell in his Super Cops article in BACK ISSUE #89, a pop-culture Serpico-lite, the true-life story of Dave Greenberg and Bob Hantz, captured headlines. As a modern-day Robin Hood/rulebreaker-as-good-guy fantasy, these two cops blurred the lines between law enforcement and criminal behavior. It was reported that one of the detectives liked to wear a Batman T-shirt. An adult wearing a Batman T-shirt in the early ’70s was a rare thing, unlike today.

For most, it would be a sign of immaturity, but the Super Cops turned it into a pop-culture exhibition of defiance and personal branding.

They were nicknamed Batman and Robin, and like a real-life buddy action movie, Greenberg and Hantz were spotlighted in local newspapers, New York Magazine, a book by L. H. Whittemore, and a Super Cops movie that clearly rode on the coattails of Serpico.

Red Circle Comics Group’s Super Cops #1 (July 1974) was a loving tribute to everything that could have been right about these tarnished angels. The comic, written by Marvin Channing, presents three stories depicting the clever cops as working hard to develop creative solutions to make a positive difference amidst a flawed and corrupt police force.

Gray Morrow provides a stunning cover that evokes its own funkadelic soundtrack. Morrow also supplies the art on the first story. The comic’s additional three stories are illustrated by Carlos Piño, V. Hack (Vincente Alacazar used this pseudonym as this was a rush job), and Frank Thorne.

Mark Channing also supplies a whitewashed text piece on “The Men Behind the Shield,” while Gray Morrow provides a full-page ad for the MGM Super Cops movie, complete with a hand-lettered logo and copy.

Curiously, the comic also has a full-page ad for an official Super Cops watch (an-extra wide mod watch-band option is available for $1.00 more) offered c/o Red Circle Productions. “We were approached by someone who represented the two detectives, possibly an agent,” reminisces Gorelick. “We only ran the ad for the watch and did not fulfill the orders.”

Unfortunately, the Rolling Stones may have foretold this dynamic duo’s fate when they sang, “Every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners, saints.” The duo’s real-life careers were later stained with criminal charges.

The Comic Reader, in issue #106, glumly predicted, “A second issue of SUPER COPS is uncertain at this time.” They were right. There was never a second issue of Super Cops.

A MAD HOUSE FULL OF SORCERY

The Red Circle line did grow, and the long-running Mad House title was rebooted as a sister series to Sorcery.

The reasons behind Mad House’s change seem lost to history.

“I don’t remember the details,” explains Gorelick. “I know that the decision was from the top.” The reboot would only stick for three issues—but what three issues they were!

This series made a big impression on fans, including Steve Banes, who would grow up to become comics horror host Mr. Karswell for his site, The Horrors of It All. “I’m a huge fan of the Red Circle Mad House issues,” Banes says. “It was sadly short-lived (only three issues) but undoubtedly one of the best of the ’70s terror-era comics, and jam-packed from cover to cover with expertly written tales of demons and the living dead, plus brilliant illustrative artistry from all-stars like Doug Wildey, Frank Thorne, Vicente Alcazar, and Gray Morrow—who also seriously rocked the living Hell out of each cover as well!”

Archie’s Mad House had been a long-running title that changed formats, and logos, with an alarming frequency. Originally envisioned as a way to blend the Archie gang with the offbeat zaniness of MAD Magazine, it would continue to morph into a spooky-ish humor magazine introducing long-running characters such as Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Salem, her cat. After another series of mini-reboots,

62 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

There Goes the Neighborhood Courtesy of Ed Catto, a scan of the logo from the cover of Mad House #95 (Sept. 1974), featuring this astounding new title graphic reminiscent of a Will Eisner Spirit splash.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

the series had settled into a showcase for the Madhouse Glads, a teenage group of friends and relatives who were also in a rock band, in the tradition of Josie and the Pussycats and the Archies.

But the Madhouse Glads were pushed aside with issue #95 (Sept. 1974) for the newly re-christened Mad House. The graphics stretching across the top of the cover clearly announces that the book is part of the Red Circle Comics Group now, without any remnants of Riverdale in sight. A chilling Gray Morrow cover, featuring a beautiful woman about to be attacked by a vampire, essentially screams a warning for fans to toughen up and buckle in… things are going to get scary!

Mad House #95 also boasts one of the most creative and intricate logos in modern comics. The words “Mad” and “House” have combined to form the corner of a gothic village, complete with barred windows and peaked roofs adorned with wrought iron railings.

It looked like something that Will Eisner had designed for a moody Spirit splash page. “I don’t know who the artist was,” says Victor Gorelick, “but Gray commissioned the art.” The intricate logo was simplified for the subsequent two issues.

Don Glut wrote two stories in Mad House #95.

“The Terrible Trident” recounts the misadventures of a man in a Devil costume on the way to costume party.

This story clearly reinforces the ongoing, yet understated, conflict of more adult material contrasted with the usual childlike fare that Archie churned out. At the tale’s conclusion, the lead character meets a horrific end at the hands of a sexy demoness from Hell. Vincente Alcazar renders it with a moody inkiness that, as the line promised, sends chills down one’s spine. But the next page, the reader is encouraged to “Meet Snoopy, my new pal.”

This comic-style advertisement shows squeaky-clean grade school children who are ecstatic to sharpen their pencils in the new Kenner Snoopy Pencil Sharpener.

A classmate, presumably the teacher’s pet, had brought it to school. One almost expects this story to become a chilling cautionary tale of how the kindergartners used

There Goes the Neighborhood Issue #95’s cover, by Gray Morrow.

Note that the Red Circle avatar was changed to a bat by the time this issue was published.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 63

Pucker Up! (left) Gray Morrow’s cover to Mad House #96 (Nov. 1974), spotlighting Bruce Jones’ tale “Demon Kiss.” (right) That creepy tale’s title page, featuring Jones’ script and art.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

pencils to kill the young boy and steal his plastic Snoopy toy. Thankfully, that never came to pass.

“The Night of the Leopard Men” is also written by Glut. Alcazar’s friend Carlos Piño illustrated this jungle tale that focuses on the real-life leopard cult. “At the time, I was writing a book about werewolves,” says Glut, “and I included the Cult of the Leopard Men in there.

And that’s what inspired that story.”

Another standout in this issue, “The Happy Dead,” skewers the ’70s rock scene. In this tale by Channing and artist Doug Wildey of Jonny Quest fame, a British rock band embraces a vampire gimmick to set them apart from their competition.

There are two ads on the last page of the comic. On top is an ad for “100 Decals Free!” The bottom half of the page sports an alarmingly creepy Red Circle Sorcery ad by Gray Morrow, inviting readers to “the inner circle” and an opportunity to “meet its eerie inhabitants in Red Circle Sorcery.”

Gray Morrow delivers the most stunning cover of the whole series on the second issue, Mad House #96 (Nov. 1974). It depicts the cruel protagonist of “Demon Kiss,” a remarkable thriller that Bruce Jones both wrote and drew.

This story is a public peek into the early days of a long-lived professional. It is overflowing with the creator’s future potential.

Despite a few unpolished panels, the tale reads very well for today’s audiences, as do all of Jones’ contributions to the Red Circle Sorcery series. “Well, I hope I’m a better artist now, but I suppose they stand up fairly well,” Jones humbly reflects.

“Issue #96 is my particular favorite, containing not one, but two super-spooky tales of sexy Satanism,” says Banes. “I guess I was maybe ten years old the first time I read [Bruce Jones’] ‘Demon Kiss,’ and to say that it made a lasting impression on the mind and formation of young Mr. Karswell is possibly an understatement!”

This issue also serves up tasty morsels by artists Jesse Santos and Sal Amendola, both scripted by Channing. A strong Doug Wildey story, with unique shading, rounds out the issue.

Mad House #97 (Jan. 1975) was the final entry in this triumvirate of creepiness, but you’d never have guessed from reading it that the series was ending. The first story, “The Vampire Hunter” by Channing and Frank Thorne, reads like a pilot episode for an ongoing series. You can almost visualize its pitch meeting: “What if Sherlock Holmes fought vampires?”

Short features in this issue include a one-pager, “Essays into the Supernatural,” about zombies; and a text piece by Channing called “The Earth Children,” with spot illustrations by Morrow showcasing a group reminiscent of Krypton’s Science Council and angry space hippies.

One is reminded that there was nothing that Morrow couldn’t draw well.

[Editor’s note: Gray Morrow was no stranger to Superman’s home world.

He illustrated scribe Cary Bates’ “A Name is Born” for the “Fabulous World of Krypton” backup series that appeared in Superman #238 (June 1971), and drew Super-parents Jor-El and Lara on the cover for a Krypton collection that saw print in the digest, The Best of DC #40 (Sept. 1983).]

But after three issues, that was it. Mad House reverted back to a standard humor series.

COMING FULL CIRCLE

The grim inevitability of cancellation fell upon the main title, Red Circle Sorcery. The reasons are not fully known, but it’s easy to imagine that when the sales figures finally came in and were analyzed, difficult management decisions had to be made.

“Remember, that was the ’70s,” observes Don Glut. “The horror books, [such as Gold Key Comics’] Doctor Spektor and Mystery Comics Digest and Boris Karloff ’s Tales of Mystery, weren’t selling well.

The competition was superheroes, which were really big. I think it just wasn’t the right time for the Red Circle books to come out.”

Various Red Circle Sorcery stories would be reprinted, either in Archie comics or by international publishers, but the stage was set for Red Circle’s next incarnation: a showcase for the company’s superheroes, the subject of the article following.

“Alas, like so many good parties, it ended far too soon,” laments J. David Spurlock. “Had they been able to continue, it would have really helped to educate a new generation as to what good art and story storytelling really is.”

ED CATTO is a marketing strategist with a specialty in pop culture. As co-founder of Bonfire Agency, Ed is dedicated to connecting brands with the “Geeks of the World” in innovative and authentic ways. And as a “retropreneur,” Ed leads a team specializing in rejuvenating brands (including Captain Action) for today’s audiences.

64 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

by S

teven Wilber

In the early ’80s, the comic-book business was beginning to boom with the inception of direct-market sales, and it seemed everyone was taking notice. While well-known publishers Marvel and DC were riding high, new, smaller independent publishers began to crop up and create their own corners within the market.

Longtime publisher Archie Comics, known for its humor and teen titles, was no different. Archie editor Richard Goldwater decided to revive the company’s line of “MLJ Superheroes,” created in the 1940s and revived in the 1960s, which had proven to be popular nearly two decades before.

Aside from a couple of one-shots in the late ’70s—Archie’s Super Hero Special (Jan. 1979) and Archie’s Super Hero Comic Digest Magazine (Aug. 1979)— these characters hadn’t been seen by audiences for some time.

Artist Lou Manna played a role in helping Archie Comics find its helmsman for its new imprint. “I had known Rich Buckler and helped him get an apartment in Staten Island,” Manna tells BACK ISSUE. “I wasn’t responsible for Rich getting the job, but I was responsible for recommending him to John [Carbonaro], who recommended him to Goldwater.”

With the assistance of John Carbonaro, who had brokered a deal with Archie beforehand to distribute his own JC Comics, Goldwater was able to lure popular artist Buckler, known for his extensive DC and Marvel work, to help reinvent characters like the Shield and the Fly for modern-day audiences. Buckler was a fan of the Archie-owned lou manna heroes, and was soon named managing editor of the new Red Circle Comics (RCC), Archie’s new superhero imprint that reused the name of the publisher’s former horror-comics brand (covered in the preceding article).

RED CIRCLE’S SUPER-TEAM

Buckler himself would write, draw, and edit the first few issues of Red Circle’s The Mighty Crusaders, which reunited the Shield, the Fly, Fly-Girl, Jaguar, and more. [Editor’s note: In one of his final interviews, Rich Buckler (1949–2017) shared his recollections of overseeing The Mighty Crusaders revival in BACK ISSUE #94.] Remaining in MLJ continuity, these heroes had continued their own solo exploits since the ’60s, but the team itself had separated some time ago. It would take a global threat to bring them together.

The Mighty Crusaders #1 (Mar. 1983) heralded the first strike of Eterno, ruler of risen Atlantis, and his would-be ally, the Brain Emperor, another former foe of the Crusaders. With an army of human-manned giant robots and mentally controlled clones of other MLJ heroes, Eterno nearly succeeded in destroying the Crusaders by the third issue. But undermined by the Emperor, who had his own plans for his enemies, and the timely intervention of new hero, Darkling—plus a second Shield, and the resurrection of a revitalized Comet (phew!)—Eterno was banished to the sun by the end of the first story arc. Their teamwork cemented, the Crusaders dedicated themselves to continue working as a unit.

The Mighty Crusaders moved ahead, and solo series emerged for various members. Red Circle’s creative lineup grew as Buckler enlisted some of comicdom’s finest talents. Rich Buckler said in The MLJ Companion (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2016), “My editorial approach was first to generate ideas, and then find the right writer and artist team for each book.”

Circle of Crusaders Four from the Big ’80s: (top) Mighty Crusaders #5 (Jaguar cover by Rich Buckler and Tony DeZuniga) and The Fly #2 (cover by Jim Steranko), plus (bottom) Blue Ribbon Comics #6 (Fox cover by Buckler and Rudy Nebres) and The Original Shield #1 (cover by Nebres).

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 65

Dueling Perspectives (inset) The Hangman’s got the best of our heroes on the Buckler/Nebres cover to The Mighty Crusaders #3 (July 1983). (left) Its back cover, spotlighting Darkling, is from the Hangman’s P.O.V. TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

By 1984, Red Circle Comics was publishing nearly a half-dozen titles, mostly original stories, but also reprints from earlier eras. Before long it was clear that Buckler would need assistance, and Archie Comics brought aboard Robin Snyder to help manage the multiple titles. With the likes of such established names as Cary Burkett (Detective Comics) writing The Crusaders, Steve Ditko (Amazing Spider-Man and Captain Atom) penciling The Fly, Carmine Infantino (The Flash) on The Comet, Robert Kanigher (Sgt. Rock and Wonder Woman) and Eduardo Barreto (The New Teen Titans) on Steel Sterling, Alan Weiss (KISS) penciling Lancelot Strong: The Shield, Alex Toth (Super Friends) on Black Hood, and Dick Ayers (Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos) penciling The Mighty Crusaders, it seemed Red Circle Comics would go far.

FLIES ON THE WALL

The first Crusader to receive his own title would be the Fly, with Fly-Girl costarring as well as appearing in various backup stories, in The Fly #1 (May 1983), which continued bimonthly until its ninth and final issue (Oct. 1984). The two lovers also shared appearances in Red Circle’s showcase series, Blue Ribbon Comics.

As the story goes, attorney Thomas Troy and film actress Kimberly Brand

were transformed into the Fly and Fly-Girl by Turan, an emissary of the Fly People. In their heroic identities, Troy and Brand had superhuman fly-like abilities and each was armed with a special “Buzz Gun.” Gone were the campy Fly stories of the ’60s. Instead, Red Circle provided sophisticated dramas of a young couple trying to balance successful careers and the struggle of returning to the world of superheroing full-time.

Both heroes would be mainstays of the Crusaders through that book’s entire run. Besides Crusaders and Blue Ribbon, The Fly would be the longest-running series for Red Circle Comics. Buckler would co-plot the initial first few issues of the Fly book with writers Stan Timmons and Jack C. Harris, as well as inking the pencils of famed artist Steve Ditko, because “I was disappointed.

I was hoping for much more than I ended up getting, like the material Alex Toth handed in—which blew me away. So Steve and I did interact, sort of, but I don’t think we were ever on the same page, so to speak” (MLJ Companion).

When asked about updating the Fly and Fly-Girl for the ’80s and the biggest challenge to making the heroes accessible to modern-day audiences, Stan Timmons tells BACK ISSUE, “Ironically, in our attempt to make them more accessible rich buckler to modern audiences, we went even further back in pop culture and © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. patterned them after William Powell and Myrna Loy, from the Thin Man [movie] series. I don’t think anyone ever realized that!”

In The Fly #3 (Oct. 1983), Timmons penned the short story “Faithfully Yours.” He reveals, “We were trying to wean Fly-Girl away from the Fly and into a series of solo adventures, and I remember we were talking about giving her some different powers, so she wasn’t considered just a female version of the Fly. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance to see where that would have taken us.”

TWO SHIELDS ARE BETTER THAN ONE

Besides the Fly and his paramour, Rich Buckler and his Red Circle team would showcase two heroes known as the Shield, starting with the original, chemist Joe Higgins, who premiered in Pep Comics #1 (Jan. 1940). (The Shield became the first patriotic superhero, preceding Timely Comics’ own Captain America.) As the story goes, Higgins created a process that, while wearing a specially treated uniform, gave him enhanced strength and rendered him nigh invulnerable—a human shield.

Through his exploits Higgins became known as a living legend during World War II. Unfortunately, his career was short-lived and he would become permanently petrified by his enemy, the Eraser.

Fellow Crusader the Comet would eventually reverse the process, leaving this Shield a man out of his own time, now in the 1980s. Through most of his short run in backup stories and adventures with the team, plus a solo series that lasted four issues under the “Archie Adventure” imprint, Shield would try to cope with his place as a hero, working covertly as an FBI agent.

In The Mighty Crusaders #9 (Sept. 1984), Higgins found himself framed for murder by the Brain Emperor after apprehending would-be jewel thieves. It was attorney Thomas Troy (a.k.a. the Fly) who defended 66 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Shield during his trial. With the aid of Mr. Justice and the other Crusaders, Troy secured a not-guilty verdict. Unfortunately, it was an experience that would haunt Higgins going forward. By issue #7 of Mighty Crusaders, Higgins would remain the sole Shield of the team and go on to have a lasting impact on the modern-day Crusaders incarnation.

The second Shield for Red Circle Comics was Lancelot Strong, a superhero created by Captain America’s own Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in Archie Comics’ The Double Life of Private Strong #1 (June 1959). Unlike his predecessor, Strong had multiple abilities, not the least were his ability to fly, hurl bolts of bioelectricity, and superhuman durability and reflexes.

For Red Circle, Strong was awarded his own title in Lancelot Strong: The Shield #1 (June 1983). Series writer Stan Timmons tells BACK ISSUE, “There wasn’t a lot of ready reference on these characters available, so we worked with the little we had, and even that didn’t really have a great deal of information we could glean from. We guessed at a lot. We tried to be respectful of what had gone before, but not so reverential we couldn’t put our own stamp on it.”

It was Lancelot Strong who provided the Crusaders with a new headquarters (his deceased father’s laboratory) and direct contact to the US government (through his alias as a captain in the Army) and his superior, General Smith.

While a shining example of what the new Red Circle Comics had to offer readers, the younger Shield’s career would end abruptly by the third issue of his series as he sacrificed himself battling the Russian spy-turned-nuclear monster, Deathstar. Timmons explains, “That was an awful decision, fueled by office politics. I was pretty much gone by that time, and I think Rich [Buckler] only lasted a little longer. My favorite [hero] had to be Lancelot Strong. He was the first RCC character I wrote, plus, any time you get to play with a character created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, what’s not to love?”

The Lancelot Strong series would be renamed Steel Sterling, after the character that was appearing in backup stories of the book. To avenge his father’s wrongful death, John Sterling developed a chemical substance of with which he covered himself before plunging into a vat of molten steel.

The process granted Sterling superhuman strength and invulnerability.

Steel Sterling would be one of the few Red Circle Comics heroes not involved with the Crusaders. Instead, writer Bob Kanigher chose to have Sterling travel the US with his upstaging dog, Honcho, and team of teenage supporters, the Steelers, while filming and promoting their exploits for his upcoming film debut with co-star Ms. Samson. Sterling’s legacy, along with the other MLJ heroes, would impact the Crusaders team decades later.

The stories of Steel Sterling were perhaps the most tightly knit continuitywise of the entire Red Circle Comics line because Kanigher would remain its author until its cancellation with issue #7 (July 1984). While usually shying away from the more sophisticated (and violent) themes of other RCC books, Kanigher would attempt to keep his stories grounded by focusing on the real-life problems of the Steelers, and through them, the youth of America.

Of particular interest was Steel Sterling #4 (Jan. 1984), “License to Kill.” In it, Steel and company are confronted with the impact of drunk driving and how serious the threat had risen in the 1980s. For the most part, however, Kanigher kept his stories in the vein of traditional superhero comic books, unlike other Red Circle comics, in particular, titles such as The Comet and Black Hood.

THE CIRCLE EXPANDS, AND REBRANDS

It was by August of ’83 that Rich Buckler’s brother-in-law, Bill DuBay, became a third editor for Red Circle. Lou Manna recalls, “Rich wanted control of the whole process—he wanted to plot, draw, and ink. Rich was a good guy and wanted to help a lot of people… but like all freelancers, y’know, you take on as much work as you think you can handle and lot of times more work than you can handle. Sometimes you gotta hire guys who can help before you fall behind. I don’t think there was enough time in the day for him to do everything.”

One of DuBay’s RCC projects was The Comet, which he wrote and edited, with art by the team of penciler Carmine Infantino and inker Alex Nino.

By its second issue, DuBay’s The Comet tried to escape the fundamentalist approach of the comic-book medium and may have succeeded had the series not been prematurely canceled.

The Comet was no ordinary superhero, and possibly had the strangest origin within the Red Circle Universe. An experiment with unstable elements gone wrong cursed scientist John Dickering with “Dissolvo-Vision,” an optic blast that would incinerate whatever he gazed upon. Only his special visor could keep his awesome power in check. Unique among his Crusaders colleagues, the Comet would act as judge, jury, and, most notably, executioner, until his apparent death at the hands of mobsters.

Men of Steel (top left) Rich Buckler and Ricardo Villgran’s samuraismashing cover to Lancelot Strong, The Shield #2 (Aug. 1983). (top right) Its back cover, featuring Steel Sterling as rendered by Rudy Nebres. (bottom) Archie pulled the plug on The Original Shield with issue #4.

From the archives of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com), this Dick Ayers-drawn cover would have graced the fifth issue had it seen print. Learn the full history of the MLJ heroes in the MLJ Companion (center), available now at www.twomorrows.com.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 67

MIGHTY CRUSADERS REMCO ACTION FIGURES As Red Circle Comics was rebranded the Archie Adventures Series in 1984, Archie Comics inked a deal with Remco Toys, Inc. to produce action figures based upon its Mighty Crusaders property. Superheroes the Shield, the Web, the Comet, and the Fox would now be able to do battle against supervillains the Brain Emperor, the Eraser, the Buzzard, and the Sting in the comfort of your own home! Each action figure came equipped with a “Secret Sonic Signaling Shield” that was also a whistle, “Mighty Punch Action,” and firearms to aid their cause.

While the Brain Emperor and the Eraser had earlier Archie Comics appearances, the Buzzard and the Sting were introduced into comic books in The Mighty Crusaders #11, their only comics appearance to date. In that tale they raided Crusaders headquarters, killing Doc Reeves in the process. This was the same issue where the Brain Emperor vanquished Darkling.

[Editor’s note: Toy collector and author Steven H. Kimball, in his book Greenberg’s Guide to Super Hero Toys (Greenberg Publishing Company, Inc., 1988), wrote of Remco’s Mighty Crusaders line, “Made of the same plastic as the figures in the Marvel Secret Wars collection, they were painted hastily and TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. molded from dies (stamping machines) with minimal detail.”

Flashy Original Art The unusual combo of veteran Flash draftsman Carmine Infantino and stylized Filipino artist Alex Nino on writer/ editor Bill DuBay’s graphic The Comet. Page 15 from issue #1 (Oct. 1983), courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

To avenge his slain brother, Bob Dickering became the Hangman, a vigilante armed with a noose. But the Comet would survive, on the planet Altrox, as the champion of its queen. While Hangman would occasionally serve as an ally of the Crusaders in the early ’80s, the Comet would be the cord reuniting the team upon his return from outer space, helping the team to end Eterno’s threat in the first Crusaders story arc. Within his own short-lived series, because of time lost away from Earth and an evolving powerset, the Comet found kinship with the revived Shield, their alter egos sharing an apartment. The Mighty Crusaders eventually saw the Comet face his past as a murderer and become a stalwart and powerful member of the team. Unfortunately, The Comet would never see its third issue.

Another of DuBay’s books was Black Hood, for which he took over the editorship from Robin Snyder with its second issue. The Hood chronicled in Red Circle Comics was the second Kip Burland, nephew of the original. Armed with sophisticated weapons—not the least his unique pepperbox revolver and a custom-made space motorcycle, a gift from the Comet (in May 1983’s The Mighty Crusaders #2)—the Black Hood was one in a long line of vigilantes stretching back centuries who donned a black hood and served their own brand of justice.

The Hood was considered a loner and wasn’t always comfortable working alongside superpowered heroes. Toward the end of the Mighty Crusaders series, he would reluctantly find a kindred spirit in the Fox, another mortal character uncomfortable among superhuman peers.

Unfortunately, Black Hood was canceled after three issues.

Scribe Gary Cohn’s sole Red Circle writing credit was Black Hood #2.

Cohn tells BACK ISSUE, “I’m a motorcycle guy, so the idea of playing with a wandering motorcycling character appealed to me. I sure wished that [issue #2 artist] Pat Boyette had looked at some motorcycles, though, instead of just drawing a non-motorcyclist’s misconception of what a bike looks like. As for the plot, it was probably influenced by Steven Spielberg’s Duel, and misshapen man-monsters are always fun.”

Besides the Hood’s nomadic adventures, some of which were detailed by famed illustrator Gray Morrow, the Black Hood series remains largely remembered for its backup stories starring the Fox, due to the work of writer/penciler Alex Toth. Toth excelled at injecting humor and wit into grizzled crime dramas. The Fox stood out among the other Red Circle Comics thanks to the animated realism Toth brought to the character’s adventures.

As revealed in Black Hood and Blue Ribbon Comics, photojournalist Paul Patton was secretly the martial artist known as the Fox, a role he claimed from his father, the first Fox. Stan Timmons recalls the Fox’s short spotlight stint in BRC: “Blue Ribbon was pretty much a showcase title, so if a character did well in there, he would probably get his own title.

Rich [Buckler] and I both loved kung-fu films, and we tried to introduce a bit more of that into the Fox strip.” Just before her banishment to the astral plane by the Brain Emperor, Darkling would nominate Paul Patton for Crusaders membership in Mighty Crusaders #10 (Dec. 1984). This issue would see a drastic shift within the team, particularly with the addition

68 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

of the Fox and the attitude of the Black Hood. The Hood would be UNREALIZED POTENTIAL more gruff and irritable, especially next to the wisecracking Fox. While on an expedition to Peru, zoologist Ralph Hardy discovered a Eventually the Fox would get his own partner, She-Fox, in backup mystic belt that gave him the powers and abilities of the animal kingdom. stories of The Mighty Crusaders. This was an abrupt departure from As the Jaguar, Hardy also had jet-propelled flight. Among his Crusader the adventures Toth had depicted and a clear indication the Archie colleagues, Jaguar sometimes seemed ill tempered and concerned more superhero line was undergoing changes. with animals than humans. The Jaguar’s origin would be expanded Before he would go on to become the co-creator of upon in The Mighty Crusaders #4–8, written by Cary Burkett, DC Comics’ Blue Devil and Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, who told The MLJ Companion, “Jaguar was one of the Crusaders or even write The Black Hood, Gary Cohn would help who didn’t have his own feature at the time. I thought give the Crusaders their newest member, Darkling. it was important to dig into the roots of the individual This mysterious woman, clad in purple and black, was characters, more than the little one-page origins that had not only a psychic with the power of teleportation been produced. … The ‘mentor’ I created for him was a sort of guardian animal spirit, Varigon. And, of course, but also a skilled hand-to-hand combatant. Cohn reveals, “To the best of my recollection, I went up to seeds are sown then for possible future conflicts if Varigon’s their office, got introduced around, Rich and I talked. agenda doesn’t coincide with some Crusader missions.”

He asked me to do some ‘script-doctor’ work on The While a strong story, both for the team and Jaguar, Mighty Crusaders as they battled Brain Emperor. the origin would be slightly revised (or ignored) in My memory is faulty, but my recollection is that I did separate backup stories that ran months before in The most of the scripting for that, and at one point said Fly. Lou Manna explains, “The plan was for Stan Timmons gary cohn to Rich something like, ‘I have this character called and I to work on the Web and Jaguar, but for some Shadow-Walker who has the Darkling Cloak that reason it just never worked out. I wish Stan and I had allows her to walk between dimensions,’ and I had the character stayed longer with it. I did a couple of pieces for a Jaguar solo, and that was pretty much developed. Rich said, ‘Her name should be Darkling and supposed to be the next thing, but Rich would promise me work, then give she should have the Shadow Cloak. Let’s put her in the story.’ So, I did… it to someone else. I think he was trying to make everyone happy. They with much talk about how we’d develop her later. I do know that I were trying to expand the Red Circle line, but they did it a little too quickly. didn’t get credit for Darkling (and I don’t think I got any credit for They had so many titles coming out at once. In Rich’s mind he just wanted to get the whole lineup at once so he could get everyone up and working. whatever contribution I made to Mighty Crusaders, either).”

Cohn would get a nod in The Crusaders’ letters column, with a But he had good intentions, he got overwhelmed towards the end.”

Eventually, the task of keeping the Jaguar in check, with and without promise that he’d give readers her origin in the near future.

Unfortunately, Rich Buckler soon left Red Circle—an imprint that the Crusaders, would be up to his sister and his brother-in-law, had been rebranded the “Archie Adventure Series” in early 1984, reusing a recurring Archie brand that dates back to the ’60s—and Darkling would become trapped in the astral plane, her mind wiped by the Brain Emperor, in The Mighty Crusaders #11 (Mar. 1985), the title now edited by Victor Gorelick.

This issue would also mark a turning point for The Mighty Crusaders.

It seemed as though the Archie Adventure Series title was doing away with the book’s earlier style. Gone was the realistic art of Buckler and his contemporaries, as the title became more cartoony in tone and appearance, with a new writer and artists at the helm. This drastic change was introduced to newsstands outside the direct market. Alas, a new headquarters and a few new members in The Mighty Crusaders wouldn’t satisfy fans of the RCC incarnation and the changes quickly spelled doom for the Archie heroes. The writing was on the wall for what had been Red Circle Comics, but Buckler and his team should be recognized for what was planned, but otherwise proved fruitless, especially for characters like the Jaguar.

Toth-erific (left) Space Ghost and Super Friends visionary Alex Toth’s dynamite cover to Black Hood #1. (right) Page 19 of Blue Ribbon Comics #14 (Dec. 1984), featuring the Web/ Jaguar team-up

by Stan Timmons, Lou Manna, and Chic Stone.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 69

Days of Thunder Courtesy of Lou Manna, art from a proposed-butabandoned team-up of the Mighty Crusaders and the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, from 1986. Pencils by Lou Manna, inks by Mike Gustovich.

Mighty Crusaders TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents © Radiant Assets, LLC.

John Raymond, Jr., a.k.a. the Web. The ’80s version of the Web, John Raymond, was an assistant medical examiner who utilized keen detective skills combined with incredible athletic prowess and fighting skill to stamp out crime.

Raymond had married his former student, Rose. The Web’s attaché, Doc Reeves, became tech support for the Crusaders and a staunch ally until his death in The Mighty Crusaders #10 (Mar. 1985).

In the final issue of Blue Ribbon Comics, #14 (Dec. 1984), Stan Timmons and Lou Manna presented a team-up between the Web and Jaguar that could have led to its own series. “We were hoping to do a Web/Jaguar book, which could have been interesting, since the two characters are brothers-in-law,” Timmons elaborates. “They were our Batman/Superman, with the Web being more pragmatic, while the Jaguar was going to be more headstrong.

Ralph viewed John as kind of a wimp for letting Rosie henpeck him, but he actually liked John and would have tried to make him a little more assertive with Rosie in his civilian identity. Of course, Ralph still saw Rosie as his kid sister and he would have become as big a nag to John as she was, constantly telling him how he needs to handle her, what to say, etc. There was really a lot there to work with.

Oh, she was still going to be a nag, but neither one of us wanted to stay on that note for too long. We talked about several ideas, from Rosie having a baby (which either would have given her a completely different focus or even more reason to nag her husband to be careful out there) to Rosie becoming a superheroine. We joked about Web becoming the nag then, always worrying about her safety.”

Beyond the Jaguar, when surveying the entirety of Archie’s Red Circle Comics superheroes, Gary Cohn reflects, “I recall a lot of big talk, a lot of big plans, all coming to nothing.”

WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN?

ARCHIE’S OTHER REMCO-BASED TITLE ManTech Robot Warriors #1–4 (Sept. 1984–May 1985), published under the Archie Adventure Series imprint concurrently with many of the later issues of The Mighty Crusaders, provided background material to support a Remco action-figure line featuring interchangeable-limb toys.

Remco’s line featured three human/robot hybrid “High-Tech Heroes”—AquaTech, LaserTech, and SolarTech—and three “Evil Enemy Robots, with no concept of fear and hearts of steel!”—DoomTech, NegaTech, and TerrorTech.

Under Archie editor Victor Gorelick, writer Rich Margopolous and artists Dick Ayers and Chic Stone revealed the conflict between two scientists, Dr. Jaxon Goode and Tyranik, who stood as opposing forces that fought for control, Goode for humans and Tyranik for artificial intelligence. On the planet Mekka, Jaxon would discover cryogenically preserved astronauts from Earth who soon became cyborgs and battled Tyranik and his army of “Mecha-Mooks.”

By the summer of 1985, every former Red Circle comic title would cease publication. The final issue from the Red Circle/Archie Adventure line would be The Mighty Crusaders #13 (Sept. 1985).

In 1991 DC Comics licensed the rights to the MLJ stable and reinvented the likes of the Shield, Jaguar, Web, and more as Impact Comics. These heroes would have little to do with the stories of the ’80s or earlier and eventually folded by 1993. [Editor’s note: BACK ISSUE will examine the DC/Impact line in a future issue. One of its artists, The Fly’s Mike Parobeck, was the subject of a tribute article in BI #99.] DC would again utilize the members of the Crusaders in 2008, tapping creator J. Michael Straczynski to introduce these characters into the DC Universe proper, this time tying them closer to their predecessors. It wasn’t until 2012 that Archie Comics again embraced its superhero pantheon.

In recent years, Red Circle Comics was relaunched as an app for readers, offering the catalog of ’80s comics and a new series titled New Crusaders.

Led by the original Shield, Joe Higgins, the new team would see the children and heirs of the MLJ Universe take up the mantle, as the Brain Emperor once again rose from the shadows to wreak havoc. The Black Hood earned an ongoing series and the Fox would receive a five-issue miniseries before RCC would be rebranded Dark Circle Comics.

In 2015, short-lived series with more mature themes were released for the Shield, Hangman, and the Black Hood, a decidedly different take from the earlier New Crusaders and perhaps reflective of the early Bill DuBay’s edgier Red Circle Comics. Then, courtesy of writer Ian Flynn and artist Kelsey Shannon, Dark Circle Comics’ The Mighty Crusaders #1 (Jan. 2018) hit the shelves. “New” Crusaders no longer, the team now find themselves in conflict with Eterno. The cycle has come full circle (pun intended) with the reintroduction of Mighty Crusaders characters introduced over 30 years prior, showing the impact (another pun) of those exciting stories.

© JAKKS Pacific, Inc.

While its run was brief, the Red Circle Comics of the ’80s had some definitive gems that should not go overlooked. These stories are still remembered fondly by fans and comic professionals alike. Were he alive today, Rich Buckler would no doubt smile proudly that the adventures of Red Circle Comics have not been forgotten.

This article is dedicated to Rich Buckler, Bob Kanigher, Alex Toth, and all the creators of Red Circle Comics who have passed.

STEVEN WILBER is an artist and an educator based in Boston, inspired by his growing 30-plus-year collection of comic books.

70 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

TM

One day, a beautiful redhead with fire in her soul arrived in Riverdale on a mission to shake up the Archie Universe.

She stayed. Meaner than Betty, more manipulative than Veronica, Cheryl Blossom is a wealthy and headstrong girl who liked Archie well enough, but had a way of letting her contemporaries know clearly and directly that she was a higher-quality person. One who always got her way. Who’s going to tell her she can’t have it? You?

CHERYL BLOSSOMS

by J e r r y

Smith

Sexy Cheryl (along with her twin brother Jason) made her debut in Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica #320.

Cover-dated October 1982, the book was released in July of that year. From her first appearance it was clear that Cheryl knew how to make an entrance. In the story, Cheryl Blossom shocks Betty and Veronica, and everyone else on the beach, by showing up in a bikini that leaves little to the imagination.

Cheryl then attempts to go topless, “like people do on European beaches.”

Meanwhile, Cheryl’s brother Jason tries to smuggle a beer onto the beach. “To be honest with you, she was going a little too far in the books,” says Archie co-president Victor Gorelick.

Gorelick was editorin-chief when Cheryl was created, and has guided her appearances for many years. “Nowadays it wouldn’t really matter. I don’t think we ever got any complaints from the Comics Code Authority, but we decided to scale her back a little bit.”

According to Gorelick, Cheryl was created to provide some long-overdue competition to Betty and Veronica.

Her debut story was written by Archie veteran Frank Doyle and drawn by Dan DeCarlo, co-creator of Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, who helped set the Archie house style from the 1950s on.

Regarding Cheryl, Gorelick adds, “She was very rich and very flirtatious.”

With Cheryl’s multiple appearances in Betty and Veronica, Doyle and DeCarlo slowly shaped Cheryl,

Seeing Red Ronnie and Betty are livid over the gal who turned Riverdale’s most famous love triangle into a rectangle. Cheryl Blossom Special #1 (1995) cover by Dan DeCarlo. (inset) The eye-catching DeCarlo/Henry Scarpelli cover to the first issue of Cheryl’s first three-issue miniseries, Cheryl Blossom #1 (Sept. 1995).

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 71

New Girl in Town (top) Note the blurb above the logo introducing the Archie cast’s newest member. Cover to Betty and Veronica #320 (Oct. 1982) by Dan DeCarlo. (bottom) From that issue, it’s clear that Ms. Blossom is here to shake things up.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

her family, and her world. Her father was Clifford Blossom, a software mogul. Her mother was Penelope Blossom, an affectionate mother and homemaker. They both regularly shook their heads in frustration at Cheryl’s antics. Cheryl’s twin brother Jason was a car enthusiast and athlete who looked down upon anyone who took school too seriously. He was also in an endless sibling rivalry with Cheryl, to see who could win bigger at life.

The twins lived in Pembrooke, the town next to Riverdale, and attended the prestigious Pembrooke Academy. “I would have preferred her to be in Riverdale High to start with,” says Victor Gorelick. “She started out in a private school, and there was always a rivalry between the private school and Riverdale High. There were a lot of stories Doyle wrote that had them competing in different sports against each other, things like that.”

Doyle’s stories stressed the class difference between Pembrooke Academy and Riverdale High, with Cheryl and Jason regularly “slumming” to hang out with the local “townies.” Being considered a “townie” did not sit well with some characters, especially wealthy debutante Veronica Lodge. In Doyle and DeCarlo’s “Pool Your Talents” in Betty and Veronica #321 (Dec. 1982), Veronica, after admitting she thinks her father should have sent her to a private school like Pembrooke Academy, accepts an invitation from Jason Blossom to go to a party at Pembrooke.

Imagine her consternation when she discovers that Jason and Cheryl Blossom were on a scavenger hunt for a genuine townie, and she was the lucky choice!

A SHOWDOWN

Cheryl faded rather quickly from the comic racks for a while, next appearing in Archie’s alternate-universe adventure comic Archie’s Explorers of the Unknown in 1990. She appeared as “Blaze” Blossom, the team’s Washington contact who would brief the Explorers on their missions. Cheryl wouldn’t return to Riverdale again until 1994, but in a big way. She starred in an epic four-part story aptly entitled “Archie’s Love Showdown.”

The story, which ran through Archie #429, Betty #19, Betty and Veronica (second series) #82, and Veronica #39 was written

by Bill Golliher and drawn by Dan Parent. In it, Archie receives a mysterious letter from Cheryl, informing him she will soon be returning to Riverdale. Betty and Veronica see the letter, but it is destroyed before they can read it. Furious and jealous (as usual), each decides the other wrote it and vow to win Archie’s heart once and for all. What follows is total war, complete with super-soaker fights, concert-ticket fraud, and dirty dancing. Cheryl does return to town and immediately goes after Archie. When Archie realizes what Betty and Veronica have been up to, he makes a surprising choice to settle the love triangle. The story is wrapped up in Archie’s Love Showdown Special, which mostly resets the status quo—until Archie is distracted by yet another new face, Riverdale High transfer student Savannah Smythe, from Mississippi. Teenage boys are easily distracted.

One happy outcome of the “Love Showdown” stories was that fans were pleased to see Cheryl back in Riverdale. Over the next few years, Cheryl ruled the comic racks with a series of miniseries and a long-running eponymous comic all her own.

First for Cheryl was her first miniseries, Cheryl Blossom #1–3.

Premiering on newsstands in late June of 1995, this first mini told stories of Cheryl being Cheryl (mostly on the beach), and Dans Parent and DeCarlo began to crystallize her attitude and personality into the Cheryl we know today. In issue #1 (Sept.

1995), not only does Cheryl become the busiest lifeguard on the beach (guys throw themselves in the water and cry wolf when they see her swimsuit), but Cheryl’s father meets Archie for the first time… and likes him? In fact, Papa Blossom likes him so much that in issue #2 he hires Archie to be the Blossom’s new groundskeeper—which Jason Blossom tries in vain to sabotage.

Issue #3 is where a strange attraction develops between Jughead and Cheryl. They get stuck in an elevator and a kiss is exchanged.

You won’t believe who initiates it.

72 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Over the next year, from early 1995 to early 1996, Cheryl appeared a series of four specials, containing some funny and revealing stories.

Two stories particularly stand out. In Cheryl Blossom Special #2’s “Snob Hill,” fellow Pembrooke Academy students Cedric and Bunny foil Cheryl and Jason’s habit of spending time with the townies of Riverdale. Jason even refers to Archie’s pleasant, middle-class neighborhood as “tract housing.” When Archie’s mom tells her he’s not home, Cheryl says, “I don’t blame him.” Ouch. Snob Hill, indeed.

In “Faith, Hope and Cheryl,” Cheryl and Jason are challenged by a teacher to do volunteer work. To outdo each other, they both collect disadvantaged kids from the Little Brothers and Sisters program.

Kids who soon learn to love their lives when they escape from the snobbish twins. By the last panel, their Pembrooke instructor announces Cheryl and Jason as “the most selfish, snobbish students at Pembrooke.”

Their faces beam with pride.

Because the first sold well, Cheryl’s second miniseries soon followed. Issue #1 (July 1996) hit the stands on May 1, 1996.

The theme for the three-issue series was Cheryl finding a… gasp… job! Intending to ask her father for money to buy a new car, Cheryl becomes jealous when Jason buys a new speedboat with money from an actual job. She does succeed in obtaining employment, with each job more disastrous than the last. Cheryl tries dishing tacos at Taco Town, babysitting at Little Tyke Daycare, delivering pizzas, and even a stint as Mr. Lodge’s Girl Friday. He ended up liking her even less than he likes Archie.

Cheryl’s next act of destruction appeared in late 1996. Her third miniseries, titled “Cheryl Goes Hollywood,” dealt with Cheryl’s West Coast adventures in Tinseltown. First, Cheryl steals Jason’s camcorder to erase embarrassing footage of herself. Then, she decides to make a documentary of her life, which is stolen and held for ransom.

Cheryl’s friends help her reclaim her movie, which goes on to premiere at the Canned Film Festival. At the film’s premiere, she enlists help to keep her Riverdale co-stars away, but somehow they pull through and make it! Naturally, Cheryl’s movie serves to portray her as a doe-eyed do-gooder who helps the less fortunate and shows the Riverdale gang in the most negative light possible. However, all ends well as Cheryl wins an award after Jason submits her movie’s outtakes to the program America’s Biggest Video Blunders.

By this time, Cheryl Blossom’s sales were good enough for Archie Comics to give Cheryl her own ongoing series, launching with Cheryl Blossom #1 (Apr. 1997). When asked why Cheryl had finally graduated into her own series, Victor Gorelick remarks, “It was simple. Cheryl had become very popular, so let’s give her a comic series of her own.

We were also talking to some animation studios that were interested in producing an Archie cartoon show for TV. They liked the Cheryl character very much.” The creative team on issue #1 was once again Dans Parent and DeCarlo. Writer Parent wastes no time setting up hooks for the series. In “Join the Club,” Cheryl’s aunt dies and leaves Jason and Cheryl an old abandoned country club, which Cheryl wants to turn into a combination nightclub/hotel. With lots of paid help, the twins rehab the club and invite actors, celebrities, and rock stars to the grand opening. Cheryl stretches the truth a bit to convince pregnant pop star Medusa to attend. The experience is so traumatic Medusa goes into labor, bringing nationwide attention to “Club Cheryl.” The club is then used throughout the series as a gathering place or dramatic set piece. This first issue also introduces a hilarious tongue-in-cheek advice column with Cheryl answering her readers’ dating questions as only she can.

Dan Parent is the writer of the first 21 issues of Cheryl Blossom, with Bill Golliher stepping in to script issue #9 (Feb. 1998). Dan puts Cheryl through her usual crazy paces and does some nice development with the supporting cast and Cheryl’s love life. He also regularly brings in members of the Archie gang to play off of Cheryl’s selfishness and vanity. For example, issue #3, “Home Unimprovement,” has Club Cheryl needing a renovated stage to accommodate a famous rock band. Cheryl manipulates Bob Gila from the This Old Shack TV show to do the renovations for free, and manages to put herself in the show as the sexy “tool girl.” When Bob and his assistant are injured, Cheryl enlists Betty to do the work, which she is happy to strap on her tool belt and do—mostly because Archie asks her nicely.

Stripe, Stripe Baby A totally ’80s Cheryl Blossom fashion page by Dan DeCarlo and Jim DeCarlo, from Archie’s Pals ’n’ Gals #161 (Nov. 1982). Photocopy of original art courtesy of Anthony Snyder (www.anthonyscomicbookart.com).

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

SENTIMENTAL LADY?

Cheryl is shown occasionally as having a sentimental side. In “Looking for Mr. Mumps” in issue #5, someone steals Cheryl’s cherished childhood teddy bear. She is lost without it, and the culprit is unexpected (and cute). She also loves publicity, TV, and movies—being in them, that is.

She is constantly trying to shoot her own movie, host a television show, or be the subject of a fawning documentary. This comes to a head in a three-part tale running through issues #15–17, “Cheryl Mania.” Here Cheryl weasels her way into hosting an NTV summer beach house show, and causes a national panic until the Riverdale parents put a stop to it.

As far as Dan Parent’s portrayal of Cheryl’s dating life, he brings in some unusual suspects to court her. In issue #8, “Masquerade Madness,” subtly named Pembrooke student Sidney Snavely decides he and Cheryl should be a couple and combine their treacherous personalities. When she rejects him, he dons a mask, crashes her costume ball, and seduces her. He does manage to steal a kiss that she can’t seem to get out of her mind.

As the series progresses, the Archie gang is given a larger part in the proceedings. In issue #12, “Undercover Blossom,” Cheryl uses her Shirley Merriwether identity to secretly enroll in Riverdale High and sow discontent between Archie, Betty, and Veronica, hoping to

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 73

see her that way. I saw her the way I saw her. So it was just very organic.

I was told not to make her necklines too low.” Holly’s favorite part of writing Cheryl? “There was no limit because of her finances! She could do all the things I dreamt of doing. I got to live vicariously through her.

All the things I wanted to do I did through her. I am very entrepreneurial, I’m very much into music, I’m into fashion—I used to be a fashion designer as well. So I got to live through her, and that was fun.”

Holly wastes no time starting with a bittersweet and funny tale about Cheryl’s quest to join the music group “Sugar Girls.” Cheryl auditions for a place in the “Sugar Girls” and wins it! But in order to join she has to lie about her age. Things progress well until her press conference, which her father happens to be watching on television. When he finds out minor Cheryl has signed contracts for the group, he intervenes and puts an end to Cheryl’s musical dreams. Regarding the story, Holly says, “I did a Sugar Girls story with her, where I wanted to instill a business sense—a savvy young woman with brains who was very confident.”

The incident does end on a sweet note. In the CHERYL B, MEET HOLLY G! Writer/artist Holly G! (co-founder, VP, and creator at following story in the same issue, “Puppy Love,” BroadSword Comics) takes over creative chores in despondent over Cheryl losing her Sugar Girls gig, Cheryl Blossom #21 (Apr. 1999) and stays for the Cheryl’s mom searches for a gift to make her feel better. Upon advice from their female limo driver, duration of the series. She does a bang-up job, holly g! bringing a welcome sense of fantasy and whimsy to she buys her a new Pomeranian puppy, which a the book. Regarding her general approach, Holly G! joyful Cheryl names “Sugar Blossom.” “Yeah,” adds states, “I related to Cheryl and I am a redhead, and I didn’t see her as Holly G! “I wanted a Pomeranian really bad. I think Cheryl is a very bitchy or mean. I also grew up in the theater, so taking on a character good dog mom. It shows that she wasn’t so self-involved.” is like taking on a role. I saw the good side of her and I wanted to Holly G! also made Cheryl a world traveler. In issue #22’s (May 1999) portray that. Just because a character is strong-minded, smart, wealthy, “Big in Japan,” Cheryl not only creates a video game for girls, she goes and has high fashion sense doesn’t mean she has to be mean!” to Japan for a business meeting to sell it. Says Holly, “I always wanted Regarding Cheryl’s reputation for being naughty or too sexual for to go to Japan. I’m a huge manga fan, a huge anime fan. I worked that younger readers, Holly remarks, “I didn’t write her as naughty, I didn’t in.” In issue #31’s (Aug. 2000) “Highland Spirit,” a particularly amusing break up the triangle and move in. In issue #13’s “Stop the Presses,” Miss Grundy makes Cheryl the co-editor of the school newspaper.

Cheryl covers the “boring” goings-on at Riverdale with Dilton Doiley as her photographer, leading Cheryl and her Pembrooke friends to manipulate the pictures and alter the headlines to make them more… interesting. This starts an attraction between Cheryl and Dilton, and later they actually begin dating.

Archie Andrews is not the center of Cheryl’s series, but he is not forgotten, nor are Cheryl’s attempts to tweak Betty and Veronica.

In “Strike a Pose!” from issue #18 (Jan. 1999), Cheryl hires a photographer to take pictures of her and Archie for a teen model contest. Her plan is for Betty and Veronica to think Archie and Cheryl are dating when they see them posing together. It works! In issue #20’s “Cinderblossom,” while designing gowns for a magazine pictorial, Cheryl has a Cinderella-esque dream where Betty and Veronica are her “less attractive” stepsisters.

As If! (left) No one turns heads on the beach faster than Cheryl.

This fashion page from Cheryl Blossom #23 (June 1999) was contributed by its illustrator, Holly G! (right) A red-faced moment for the red-headed gal from Cheryl Blossom #26 (Oct. 1999). Original art scan courtesy of its artist, Holly G! TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

74 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

story, Archie and Cheryl travel with the Blossoms to the part of Scotland from which both their families hail.

While hiking the moors, they meet the ghosts of their ancestors, who were in a Romeo-and-Juliet forbidden love affair. In “Crocodile Rock” from issue #33, Cheryl and the Archies music group go Down Under to play a gig in the Outback. Their guide is the “Croc Catcher.”

This in turn leads to many questionable bits of Aussie slang from the corny, croc-catching guest-star.

One of Holly G!’s most interesting stories was “Friendly Fire” from issue #23. A petulant Veronica exposes Cheryl on her talk show “Teen Talk” for dyeing her hair.

Betty gives Cheryl the videotape of her expose before it airs, saving her much embarrassment. As a result, Betty and Cheryl become friends. Veronica doesn’t much care for the development, but Cheryl and Betty being close has been a theme in the Archieverse ever since.

Nothing lasts forever, and even though Holly G! kept Cheryl’s stories fresh and imaginative, issue #37, released in December of 2000, was the last for Cheryl’s ongoing series. As with most cancellations, it all boiled down to copies sold. According to Victor Gorelick, “Every once in a while we looked at a sample of the books. Some of the sales were starting to drop off. We didn’t want to get rid of the character completely, but the book wasn’t doing all that well. It wasn’t my decision, it was a publishing decision. I would have kept it going for a while.”

NO REDHEADED STRANGER

The redheaded bombshell did not disappear for long. In 2004 a sequel to “Archie’s Love Showdown,” titled “Love Showdown II,” ran through Betty and Veronica Spectacular #64 and Archie and Friends #79. Cheryl has appeared sporadically in many Archie comics through the years and continues strong today, even in other media.

In 2016, the CW Network launched a dark, edgy television version of the Archie gang called Riverdale. Along with Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and the rest of the comic-book cast, Cheryl Blossom stands out as a major character on the show. On Riverdale, Cheryl goes back and forth between being sultry and sweet and a vengeance-oriented mean girl—sometimes in the same scene. “We never got rid of the character completely,” comments Gorelick. “And obviously, the CW, the network that is carrying the Riverdale show, is very interested in her.” Riverdale’s Cheryl Blossom has been played for two seasons now by Madelaine Petsch, an actress hailing from Washington State. A natural redhead, Petsch is Cheryl Blossom come to life in live action. In a Q&A on her YouTube channel, Petsch points out that she originally auditioned for Betty Cooper. “I’m pretty sure they always wanted me for Cheryl. [After the Betty audition,] four months later I came in for Cheryl.” When she asked what she likes most about playing Cheryl, Petsch said simply, “Her complexity. I think every actor dreams of a role where you can play so many different things. Cheryl allows me to do so much.”

Thirty-six years after her creation as a minor love interest for Archie Andrews, Cheryl Blossom has become a fully realized character and an indelible part of the Archieverse and pop culture in general. Asked to sum up her feelings on Cheryl, Holly G! says, “She’s awesome!

I loved drawing her, I enjoyed working with her. If she

ever wants to contact me, she could. I’d hang with her.

I’d have a cappuccino with her. I like imaginary people.”

Victor Gorelick, who has been Cheryl’s boss for all of those 36 years, sums her up this way: “She’s still appearing in our books, the digest books and the Archie titles. She’s a big part of Riverdale, and she’s going to be a big part of any future stories that we produce. She’s always going to be part of the Archie Universe. She’s a very important character. She opens the door for a lot of different storylines, which makes things easier for the writers.

That’s about it.”

Special thanks to Victor Gorelick, Holly Golightly, and Steven Thompson for their invaluable assistance with this article.

JERRY SMITH is a sales rep and freelance writer living in Northern Kentucky. Follow his blog about comics and pop culture at https://jerryshumbleopinions. blogspot.com.

Queenpin Original cover art by Dan Parent and Jon D’Agostino for Cheryl Blossom #37 (Mar. 2001), the final issue of this incarnation of the series. Art scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 75

From the collection of Bill Morrison, executive editor of MAD Magazine, original Dan DeCarlo/Rudy Lapick cover art to Life with Archie #106 (Feb. 1971).

Courtesy of Jerry Boyd.

TM & © Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

76 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

Send your comments to: Email: euryman@gmail.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief • BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE * Concord, NC 28025

Sauron story with Golden art, the Black Widow with Pérez, and the Angel story with art by Mazzucchelli.

The coverage you all provided was stellar! It was fantastic to be reminded of all of the gems that series gave us, including the Warriors Three, the Frank Miller Captain America story, the Vision and Scarlet Witch, and on and on. The insight you provided by so many interviews with writers, artists, and editors was thorough and appreciated.

It took me a long time to read that issue, and it was a pleasure to take such a great trip down memory lane while doing so.

– Paul Bickel

A REMINDER OF SIMPLER TIMES

Find BACK ISSUE on

A LITTLE LOVE FOR ‘ROUGH STUFF’

I always liked Terminator as a character (even though I thought his blaming the Titans for what the Hive did to his son was extremely questionable), a character that I believed might have been better off staying in a supporting role.

But as comics moved more towards the “Dark Age,” his move into the spotlight was inevitable. A contributing factor to the transition of the character was most assuredly the evolution of Terra.

Wolfman and Pérez did such a great job playing with readers’ perceptions. They knew how evil she was but made us sympathize with her, and in retrospect had Slade Wilson underestimate her as well. Artwork-wise, New Teen Titans #34 has one of my all-time favorite covers. The detail on the entire cover is awesome and the execution of the bullet-ridden banner is amazing.

I loved the concept of the Taskmaster when he first appeared. Like a lot of other fans, I always wondered where all those goons come from!

Once more, a character that I think might have been better off as a supporter, but then again, there have been lots of characters where I have thought, “Wow, there is so much that could be done with him/her”…

Great job as always choosing artwork to go with my Vigilante article. I tried to include something about the cover to issue #8 and the relevant interior sequence probably being an homage by Wolfman and Andru to their mutual Spidey backgrounds but just ran out of space. Hopefully BI readers made their own connection.

It was very interesting reading the various creator comments in the Cable and Deadpool articles. With all of the hoop-jumping and concessions creators have to make, sometimes I’m amazed comics are as great as they are.

I really do have to plan a trip to the Hall of Heroes. I think my only concern would be jealousy regarding the comic-book and actionfigure collections. Otherwise it seems like Heaven on Earth for an aging comic-book fan like me.

I’m glad you have included “Back in Print” again. With so much stuff being reprinted these days, it’s almost as difficult to keep up with that front as the new titles.

Finally, I want to give some love to the “Rough Stuff” feature.

You have mentioned that you have had little feedback from readers.

I just figure that with the popularity of big books filled with original art these days, there must be some love out there for this feature and would encourage readers to make their opinions known.

– Brian Martin Brian, you did a great job writing that issue’s Vigilante article.

Thanks for the “Rough Stuff” feedback. It’s appeared in the last two issues and will return when space and appropriate images allows.

“Back in Print” will occasionally pop up, too.

BELATED FANFARE FOR MARVEL FANFARE

Just finished #102 (loved it!) and noticed that Mr. Eury wrote that no one commented on issue #96, dedicated to Marvel Fanfare.

Marvel Fanfare was a great series. I bought many issues when they were new, and saved up to buy the back issues. I vividly remember the

An earthquake happened two months ago and my apartment was damaged. Almost all the furniture was broken and an entire wall collapsed (my family was safe, thank God).

I was very worried to get through the debris to find my BACK ISSUE and Comic Book Creator magazines. Happily, I could get almost all the issues.

This is an example for what your publication represents to me and other people around the globe. Memories, happier times, brighter times, the history and genesis of the characters that grew up with us during our life and the creators that made them.

I hope to get in touch in happier times, but I needed to let you know what BACK ISSUE means to me…

– Pablo, Mexico Pablo, I’m sorry you and your community experienced the earthquake but am glad you were not injured. I hope that by the time you read this life will have returned to normal.

While BACK ISSUE is a comics history magazine, we also share nostalgia—and with the harsh realities of our world, we’re proud to create a safe haven where readers can revisit happier days.

DESPITE SOME TREPIDATION, HE LIKED BI #102

Just wanted to drop a note of appreciation. Admittedly, a bit of guilt motivates me—I was very surprised to read in “Back Talk” that no one sent in any letters for the Marvel Fanfare issue. It was a great issue. (I pause for emphasis.) A GREAT ISSUE—although every BI has appeal for me, BI #96 hit quite a number of high notes, being Marvelcentric (I always did like Marvel better than DC), and chock full of my favorite characters and artists. The Pérez Black Widow, the Byrne splashpage Hulk, and the Windsor-Smith Thing gag story have been treasured favorites for years. I was stunned to find out that Captain America story by Norm Breyfogle was originally conceived as a Batman story (obvious when I look at it now). Thank you!

I just finished reading the Mercs and Anti-Heroes issue (#102).

I confess I was not looking forward to this issue much, since I am not a huge fan of anti-heroes. If I’m completely honest, I’m pretty sure I’ve gone on more than one heated rant about how characters like Wolverine work fine in a team dynamic (as a contrast and a redemption story), but are terrible in solo stories where the “action” devolves into gory violence (gross, no matter how lovingly rendered). Characters like the Punisher only work (in my opinion) if everyone around him is such a horrible person that you can rejoice when he finally murders them… but I find my taste for that sort of grisly entertainment very limited.

Despite my trepidation, I found BI #102 stuffed with goodies. The article on Deathstroke reminded me that I’ve only read a handful of issues of the New Teen Titans. Why? (Probably my Marvel bias…) Clearly, I need to track down those back issues and enjoy the entire saga. I was delighted with the beautiful illustrations that accompanied this article (especially the Zeck and Pérez work). The page from Identity Crisis with Green Arrow stabbing Deathstroke in his blind eye reminded me why I am so often dissatisfied with modern comics (though I was able to overlook the same kind of brutality in the Longbow Hunters… hmm, how inconsistent of me).

Delving a bit deeper, I have always thought Taskmaster was a great villain and thoroughly enjoyed his article (including the part where he keeps getting beaten up by Ant-Man! Ant-Man!!). The only issues of Vigilante I ever read were the Alan Moore ones, and I was delighted with the feature and the array of superb covers. And it was nice to see two of my favorite Mikes (Grell and Zeck) featured in “Rough Stuff,” though honestly that’s never really been one of my favorite features.

If I had my choice I’d rather see B&W inked work, but I have to admit many of these gems deserve to see the light of day.

Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 77

The Hall of Heroes Museum was fascinating, but I really feel the author (Philip Schweier) missed out on a very important detail. As soon as I saw the founder’s name was Allen Stewart, I thought, “Oh, he must be a huge Green Lantern fan” (because, you know, Alan Scott/John Stewart—right?). And, sure enough, in the very first picture [Stewart’s] wearing a Green Lantern ring! Maybe it was the movie ring mentioned later in the article, or maybe he is the one true Green Lantern… anyway, someone should have pointed that out. I also blame the author for this museum being in Indiana, where I will never ever see it (so sad).

If I could just toss in one additional thought—I think five of the articles in #102 (Deathstroke, Taskmaster, Vigilante, Wild Dog, and Cable) followed a similar format: picking one character, and tracking his timeline from genesis to current incarnation (often through a number of series, miniseries, and guest appearances). These complete histories (for heroes or villains), studded with art and interviews, are my favorite type of article. I’m looking forward to seeing more (and I’d like to cast a vote for a Sunfire article, I’ve always had a fondness for that grouchy mutant). Thank you!

For an issue that featured a theme I don’t even like that much, there was a ton of great art, interesting tidbits, and reminders of why I love the Bronze Age. Well done, gentlemen, and I thank you. I’m really anticipating to your upcoming “Deadly Hands” issue, as I particularly enjoy both Iron Fist and Armor.

– John Shaw P.S. I wrote a letter about a year ago (which was eventually printed in #97), and you sent me a very gracious reply with some suggestions on how to get back issues of BI and some details about Frank Springer, whose work I had admired. I don’t believe I ever thanked you—please allow me to do so now. I was able to find most of the missing key issues.

If you ever reprint #4, let me know!

You’re welcome, John. No reprint plans for #4 at this point.

A PÉREZ FAN PRAISES BI #102

As a big George Pérez fan, it was good to see three of this issue’s articles focused on characters designed and/or co-created by him (Deathstroke, Vigilante, and Taskmaster).

Also, thanks for the article on Wild Dog, which I always thought no one had even heard of but me.

I’ve noticed that recently more of the articles are going further than the end of the Bronze Age for character and title coverage, and I like this. I know it will become more necessary in the future, but it’s great at helping us readers find more modern appearances of characters we may not have fully discovered until now.

The Hall of Heroes museum looks awesome, and if I get out to Indiana again in the future, I’ll be sure to stop in.

In regard to your note at the beginning of this issue’s letters column about no mail for BACK ISSUE #96 (Marvel Fanfare): When I initially saw it advertised, I was wondering how a rather short-lived anthology series could take up a whole issue. Well, maybe it wasn’t that short-lived, and only seemed that way since I bought it sporadically, based on the character or creator involved… but it’s no Action Comics, okay? I’m glad to say my fears were unfounded. I loved the issue, and enjoyed the in-depth articles.

I prefer the articles that have more of an issueby-issue (or storyline) breakdown than just highlights, and this issue fit the bill perfectly.

While I do prefer that format, I realize not all of them can be done this way, and would prove impractical in most cases. An issue-by-issue breakdown of Batman, spanning 35 years, would be a bit much and take at least one book, like your great Batcave Companion (extra plug, free of charge), if not two. Speaking of a second book, do you and Michael Kronenberg have any interest in doing a sequel to cover Batman’s main titles through the mid-’90s or 2000s?

I’d love to see that down the road.

Aquaman TM & © DC Comics.

BACK ISSUE TM & © TwoMorrows. All Rights Reserved.

I’m also looking forward to trying out your new magazine, RetroFan, starting this summer (also, another free plug!).

– Scott Andrews P.S. Thanks for bringing “Rough Stuff” back to the magazine. I hope it’s winning other readers over.

Scott, Michael Kronenberg and I would love to do a second volume of The Batcave Companion, but it seems unlikely due to circumstances beyond our control. Hope you enjoyed the first issue of RetroFan!

VIGILANTE JUSTICE

Loved BACK ISSUE #102’s cool coverage on Cable, Deadpool, Deathstroke, Wild Dog, Taskmaster, and the rest, but there is one thing about one of the articles that really annoyed me.

Try as I might as I looked through Brian Martin’s story on the ’80s Punisher clone the Vigilante, I could not find a single mention of the original Golden Age character of the same name that he had been specifically designed to replace. That was a major oversight and a rather big insult to a costumed hero who managed to get his own movie serial back in the day as well as still showing up on animated series like Justice League Unlimited, while his successor was largely forgotten until Arrow revived a lame version of his costume and used his secret identity’s name for a completely different character.

I mean, come on, to my mind at least there is something still cool and archetypically iconic about a cowboy strapping on his six-guns, putting on a red bandanna mask and white Stetson, and trading in his mustang for a motorcycle to battle modern-day mobsters in the big city. Heck, the original Vigilante, alias country singer Greg Saunders, even managed to be ahead of the curve back in the ’40s by having one of the few non-stereotypical Chinese-American characters in comics in the form of his sailor-capped kid sidekick, “Stuff.” And as for recurring villains, there were none as creepy as the tuxedo-, top-hatand-monocle-clad midget mastermind dubbed the Dummy, due to his distinct resemblance to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s little partner Charlie McCarthy. And that’s not even mentioning his membership with Green Arrow and Speedy, the Shining Knight, Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, and the costumed crusader who started it all, the Crimson Avenger, in the Seven Soldiers of Victory (Coolest. Superhero. Team.

Name. EVER!!!). It says a lot that when Grant Morrison revived that group a decade or so back, the only original member he included was the Vigilante (although that’s probably because he, like me, read as a kid that World’s Finest #214 where the cowboy crimefighter rode in to rescue Superman from a Western werewolf…).

– Jeff Taylor Jeff, I reckon you plumb forgot that Greg Saunders, the Vigilante—at least the Earth-One version of the character—got his moment in the sun way back yonder in BI #42, our “Wild West” issue. Brian Martin and I discussed including mention of him in issue #102’s Vigilante article, but since there were so many incarnations of the masked Vigilante, with no connections to the cowboy Vig, we opted against it. I was going to include an image and caption of the Saunders Vigilante as a nod to the character, but space didn’t allow it.

Next issue: Get ready for the Aquaman movie with this special Aquaman issue! Bronze Age Aquaman team-ups and merchandise, the postCrisis Aquaman, Aqualad: From Titan to Tempest, a Black Manta history, PETER DAVID and ESTEBAN MAROTO’s Atlantis Chronicles, and Greatest Stories Never Told looks at the original Aquaman #57 and the unproduced Aquaman animated movie. Bonus article: Elite Comics’ rarity, Seadragon! Featuring JIM APARO, JIM CALAFIORE, MARTIN EGELAND, STEVE EPTING, CRAIG HAMILTON, DAN JURGENS, SHAUN McLAUGHLIN, DAVID MICHELINIE, JEROME K. MOORE, STEVE SKEATES, MARV WOLFMAN, and more. Plus an Aquaman cover by ERIC SHANOWER. Don’t ask—just BI it! See you in thirty!

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor-in-chief

78 • BACK ISSUE • Archie Comics in the Bronze Age Issue

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“Creatures of the Night!” Moon Knight’s DOUG MOENCH and BILL SIENKIEWICZ in a Pro2Pro interview, Ghost Rider, Night Nurse, Eclipso in the Bronze Age, I…Vampire, interviews with Batman writer MIKE W. BARR and Marvel’s Nightcat, JACQUELINE TAVAREZ. Featuring work by BOB BUDIANSKY, J. M. DeMATTEIS, DAVE SIMONS, ROGER STERN, TOM SUTTON, JEAN THOMAS, and more.

SIENKIEWICZ and KLAUS JANSON cover!

“Marvel Fanfare Issue!” Behind the scenes of the ‘80s anthology series with AL MILGROM, interviews and art by ARTHUR ADAMS, CHRIS CLAREMONT, DAVE COCKRUM, STEVE ENGLEHART, MICHAEL GOLDEN, ROGER McKENZIE, FRANK MILLER, DOUG MOENCH, ANN NOCENTI, GEORGE PÉREZ, MARSHALL ROGERS, PAUL SMITH, KEN STEACY, CHARLES VESS, and more! Cover by SANDY PLUNKETT and GLENN WHITMORE.

“Bird People!” Hawkman in the Bronze Age, JIM STARLIN’s Superman/Hawkgirl team-up, TIM TRUMAN’s Hawkworld, Hawk & Dove, Penguin history, Blue Falcon & Dynomutt, Condorman, and CHUCK DIXON and SCOTT McDANIEL’s Nightwing. With GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, GREG GULER, RICHARD HOWELL, TONY ISABELLA, KARL KESEL, ROB LIEFELD, DENNY O’NEIL, and a GEORGE PÉREZ cover.

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“DC in the ‘80s!” From the experimental to the fan faves: Behind-the-scenes looks at SECRET ORIGINS, ACTION COMICS WEEKLY, DC CHALLENGE, THRILLER, ELECTRIC WARRIOR, and SUN DEVILS. Featuring JIM BAIKIE, MARK EVANIER, DAN JURGENS, DOUG MOENCH, MARTIN PASKO, TREVOR VON EEDEN, and others!

Featuring a mind-numbing Nightwing cover

by ROMEO TANGHAL!

“BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES’ 25th ANNIVERSARY!” Looks back at the influential cartoon series. Plus: episode guide, Harley Quinn history, DC’s Batman Adventures and Animated Universe comic books, and tribute to artist MIKE PAROBECK. Featuring KEVIN ALTIERI, RICK BURCHETT, PAUL DINI, GERARD JONES, MARTIN PASKO, DAN RIBA, TY TEMPLETON, BRUCE TIMM, and others! BRUCE TIMM cover!

100-PAGE SPECIAL featuring Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom! Buyer’s Guide, Comic Book Price Guide, DC’s Comicmobile, Super DC Con ’76, Comic Reader, FOOM, Amazing World of DC, Charlton Bullseye, Squa Tront, & more! ALAN LIGHT, BOB OVERSTREET, SCOTT EDELMAN, BOB GREENBERGER, JACK C. HARRIS, TONY ISABELLA, DAVID ANTHONY KRAFT, BOB LAYTON, PAUL LEVITZ, MICHAEL USLAN, and others!

ROCK ’N’ ROLL COMICS! Flash Gordon star SAM J. JONES interview, KISS in comics, Marvel’s ALICE COOPER, T. Rex’s MARC BOLAN interviews STAN LEE, PAUL McCARTNEY, Charlton’s Partridge Family, David Cassidy, and Bobby Sherman comics, Marvel’s Steeltown Rockers, Monkees comics, & Comic-Con band Seduction of the Innocent. With AMY CHU, JACK KIRBY, BILL MUMY, ALAN WEISS, and others!

MERCS AND ANTIHEROES! Deadpool’s ROB LIEFELD and FABIAN NICIEZA interviewed!

Histories of Cable, Taskmaster, Deathstroke the Terminator, the Vigilante, and Wild Dog, plus… Archie meets the Punisher?? Featuring TERRY BEATTY, MAX ALLAN COLLINS, PAUL KUPPERBERG, BATTON LASH, JEPH LOEB, DAVID MICHELINIE, MARV WOLFMAN, KEITH POLLARD, and others!

Deadpool vs. Cable cover by LIEFELD!

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ALL-STAR EDITORS ISSUE! Past and present editors reveal “How I Beat the Dreaded Deadline Doom”! Plus: ARCHIE GOODWIN and MARK GRUENWALD retrospectives, E. NELSON BRIDWELL interview, DIANA SCHUTZ interview, ALLAN ASHERMAN revisits DC’s ’70s editorial department, Marvel Assistant Editors’ Month, and a history of PERRY WHITE! With an unpublished 1981 Captain America cover by MIKE ZECK!

FOURTH WORLD AFTER KIRBY! Return(s) of the New Gods, Why Can’t Mister Miracle Escape Cancellation?, the Forever People, MIKE MIGNOLA’s unrealized New Gods animated movie, Fourth World in Hollywood, and an all-star lineup, including the work of JOHN BYRNE, PARIS CULLINS, J. M. DeMATTEIS, MARK EVANIER, MICHAEL GOLDEN, RICK HOBERG, WALTER SIMONSON, and more. STEVE RUDE cover!

DEADLY HANDS ISSUE! Histories of Iron Fist, Master of Kung Fu, Yang, the Bronze Tiger, Hands of the Dragon, NEAL ADAMS’ Armor, Marvel’s Deadly Hands of Kung Fu mag, & Hong Kong Phooey! Plus Muhammad Ali in toons and toys. Featuring JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, STEVE ENGLEHART, PAUL GULACY, LARRY HAMA, DOUG MOENCH, DENNY O’NEIL, JIM STARLIN, & others. Classic EARL NOREM cover!

GOLDEN AGE IN BRONZE! ’70s Justice Society revival with two Pro2Pro interviews: All-Star Squadron’s ROY THOMAS, JERRY ORDWAY, and ARVELL JONES (with a bonus RICK HOBERG interview), and The Spectre’s JOHN OSTRANDER and TOM MANDRAKE. Plus: Liberty Legion, Air Wave, Jonni Thunder, Crimson Avenger, and the Spectre revival of ’87! WOOD, COLAN, CONWAY, GIFFEN, GIORDANO, & more!

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The Ultimate Look at a Bronze Age Legend!

From a seminal turn on Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes and creating the lost world of the Warlord, to his work on Green Arrow—first relaunching the Green Lantern/ Green Arrow series with DENNY O’NEIL, and later redefining the character in Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters—MIKE GRELL made an indelible mark at DC Comics in the 1970s and ’80s.

But his greatest contribution to the comics industry was in pioneering creator-owned properties like Jon Sable, Starslayer, and Shaman’s Tears. Grell even tried his hand at legendary literary characters like Tarzan and James Bond, adding to his remarkable tenure in comics.

This career-spanning tribute to the master storyteller is told in Grell’s own words, full of candor, optimism, and humor. Lending insights are colleagues PAUL LEVITZ, DAN JURGENS, DENNY O’NEIL, MIKE GOLD, and MARK RYAN. Full of illustrations from every facet of his long career, with a Foreword by CHAD HARDIN, it also includes a checklist of his work and an examination of “the Mike Grell method.” It is a fitting tribute to the artist, writer, and storyteller who has made the most of every opportunity set before him, living up to his own mantra, “Life is Drawing Without an Eraser.”

By DEWEY CASSELL, with JEFF MESSER.

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ALLEN BELLMAN (1940s Timely artist) interviewed by DR. MICHAEL J. VASSALLO, with art by SHORES, BURGOS, BRODSKY, SEKOWSKY, EVERETT, & JAFFEE. Plus Marvel’s ’70s heroines: LINDA FITE & PATY COCKRUM on The Cat, CAROLE SEULING on Shanna the She-Devil, & ROY THOMAS on Night Nurse—with art by SEVERIN, FRADON, ANDRU, and more! With FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

Golden Age artist/writer/editor NORMAN MAURER remembered by his wife JOAN, recalling BIRO’s Crime Does Not Pay, Boy Comics, Daredevil, St. John’s 3-D & THREE STOOGES comics with KUBERT, his THREE STOOGES movies (MOE was his father-inlaw!), and work for Marvel, DC, and others!

Plus LARRY IVIE’s 1959 plans for a JUSTICE SOCIETY revival, JOHN BROOME, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY and more!

All Time Classic Con continued from #148!

Panels on Golden Age (CUIDERA, HASEN, SCHWARTZ [LEW & ALVIN], BOLTINOFF, LAMPERT, GILL, FLESSEL) & Silver Age Marvel, DC, & Gold Key (SEVERIN, SINNOTT, AYERS, DRAKE, ANDERSON, FRADON, SIMONSON, GREEN, BOLLE, THOMAS), plus JOHN BROOME, FCA, MR. MONSTER, & BILL SCHELLY! Unused RON WILSON/CHRIS IVY cover!

Interview with JOYE MURCHISON, assistant to Wonder Woman co-creator DR. WILLIAM MARSTON, and WW’s female scriptwriter from 1945-1948! Rare art by H.G. PETER, 1960s DC love comics writer BARBARA FRIEDLANDER, art & anecdotes by ROMITA, COLAN, JAY SCOTT PIKE, INFANTINO, WEISINGER, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, and others! Extra: FCA, JOHN BROOME, MR. MONSTER, & more!

Fantasy/sci-fi illustrator DONATO GIANCOLA (Game of Thrones) demos his artistic process, GEORGE PRATT (Enemy Ace: War Idyll, Batman: Harvest Breed) discusses his work as comic book artist, illustrator, fine artist, and teacher, Crusty Critic JAMAR NICHOLAS, JERRY ORDWAY’S regular column, and MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp.” Mature Readers Only.

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STANDARD-SIZE REPRINT OF SOLD-OUT #61! Covers every all-new ’70s tabloid, with checklist of reprint treasuries. Superman vs.

Spider-Man, The Bible, Cap’s Bicentennial Battles, Wizard of Oz, even the PAUL DINI/ALEX ROSS World’s Greatest SuperHeroes editions! With ADAMS, GARCIALOPEZ, GRELL, KIRBY, KUBERT, ROMITA SR., TOTH, and more. ALEX ROSS cover!

BRONZE AGE AQUAMAN! Team-ups and merchandise, post-Crisis Aquaman, Aqualad: From Titan to Tempest, Black Manta history, DAVID and MAROTO’s Atlantis Chronicles, the original unseen Aquaman #57, and the unproduced Aquaman animated movie. With APARO, CALAFIORE, MARTIN EGELAND, GIFFEN, GIORDANO, ROBERT LOREN FLEMING, CRAIG HAMILTON, JURGENS, SWAN, and more. ERIC SHANOWER cover!

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE 40th ANNIVERSARY! CARY BATES’ plans for unfilmed Superman V, ELLIOT S. MAGGIN’s Superman novels, 1975 CARMINE INFANTINO interview about the movie, plus interviews: JACK O’HALLORAN (Non), AARON SMOLINSKI (baby Clark), JEFF EAST (young Clark), DIANE SHERRY CASE (teenage Lana Lang), and Superman Movie Contest winner ED FINNERAN. Chris Reeve Superman cover by GARY FRANK!

MAKE MINE MARVEL! ENGLEHART’s “lost” issues of West Coast Avengers, O’NEIL and INFANTINO’s Marvel work, a WAID/ NOCENTI Daredevil Pro2Pro interview, British Bronze Age Marvel fandom, Pizzazz Magazine, Speedball, Marvel Comics Presents, and backstage at Marvel Comicon ’75 and ’76! With DeFALCO, EDELMAN, KAVANAGH, McDONNELL, WOLFMAN, and cover by MILGROM and MACHLAN.

HALLOWEEN! Horror-hosts ZACHERLEY, VAMPIRA, SEYMOUR, MARVIN, and new interview with our cover-featured ELVIRA! THE GROOVIE GOOLIES, BEWITCHED, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, and THE MUNSTERS! The long-buried Dinosaur Land amusement park! History of BEN COOPER HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, character lunchboxes, superhero VIEW-MASTERS, SINDY (the British Barbie), and more!

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BRICKJOURNAL #53

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #18

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #19

KIRBY COLLECTOR #75

KIRBY COLLECTOR #76

VIDEO GAME ISSUE! Get ready as LEGO designers TYLER CLITES and SEAN MAYO show you LEGO hacks to twink and juice your creations! Also, see big bad game-inspired models by BARON VON BRUNK, and Pokemon-inspired models by LI LI! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!

Career-spanning discussion with STEVE “THE DUDE” RUDE, as he shares his reallife psychological struggles, the challenges of freelance subsistence, and his creative aspirations. Also: The jungle art of NEAL ADAMS, MARY FLEENER on her forthcoming graphic novel Billie the Bee and her comix career, RICH BUCKLER interview Part Three, Golden Age artist FRANK BORTH, HEMBECK and more!

Celebrating the greatest fantasy artist of all time, FRANK FRAZETTA! From THUN’DA and EC COMICS to CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPIRELLA, STEVE RINGGENBERG and CBC’s editor present an historical retrospective, including insights by current creators and associates, and memories of the man himself. PLUS: Frazetta-inspired artists JOE JUSKO, and TOM GRINDBERG, who contributes our Death Dealer cover painting!

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID! The creators of the Marvel Universe’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and TV interviews, painting a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s relationship—why it succeeded, where it deteriorated, and when it eventually failed.

Includes a study of their solo careers after 1970, and recollections from STEVE DITKO, WALLACE WOOD, & JOHN ROMITA SR.

FATHERS & SONS! Odin/Thor, Zeus/ Hercules, Darkseid/Orion, Captain America/ Bucky, and other dysfunctional relationships, unpublished 1994 interview with GIL KANE eulogizing Kirby, tributes from Jack’s creative “sons” in comics (MUMY, PALMIOTTI, QUESADA, VALENTINO, McFARLANE, GAIMAN, & MILLER), MARK EVANIER, 2018 Kirby Tribute Panel, Kirby pencil art gallery, and more!

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