The new Archie? So much to say. Not a botch. A workable new beginning. But I’m obsessed with shelf life. How long can any such reinvention last? We kind of know, thanks to the Archie “new look” series of a few years back, or the Life With Archie multiverse. A couple of years, probably, before the mix of drama and comedy gets consumed by the drama and continuity and loses the interest of anyone but the loyalest fans.
It’s not that I disapprove of bringing a classic character into the here-and-now. It’s just that I openly question something that works so well in short, colorful bursts and imposing such grand structure on it. Archie comics endured throughout the second half of the 20th generation in large part due to the comic ingenuity and rapidfire pacing of writers such as George Gladir and Frank Doyle and artists such as Stan Goldberg, Dan DeCarlo and Harry Lucey. This new Archie isn’t taking cues from them. It ought to, for longevity’s sake.