ARCHIE BABIES

Calvin Reid at publishersweekly.com reports: “For the first time in its 70-year history, Archie Comics will publish an original graphic novel later this year — a major change for a company that still leans heavily on newsstand sales of single-issue comics and digests for the lion's share of its revenue. The new graphic novel, Archie Babies, will be written by Mike Kunkel, who wrote and drew the first issues of Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! for the DC Comics' DC Kids line. The artist for the project is Art Mawhinney, who has worked for DC, Marvel, and Nickelodeon. The book will be distributed by Random House. Archie Babies was originally announced as a monthly series, but Jon Goldwater, co-CEO of Archie, said the company is putting renewed emphasis on graphic novels since signing a distribution deal with Random House last September. ‘We are going to put a lot of emphasis on our graphic novels,’ he said. ‘It is a very, very important part of our business here at Archie Comics.’”

Archie’s latest foray into the future resulted in digital versions of its comics being online the same day as print editions hit the newsstands, reports George Gene Gustines at artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com. Postings began in April, but already comic shop retailers began raising a ruckus before that, fearing the web exposure will sabotage sales in their stores. Archie titles in print have been published in many different languages, but the digital variety started offering some titles in Spanish, reported the Associated Press. Said Goldwater: “We have an incredible number of fans—not just domestically—who speak Spanish.”

Archie is getting so up-to-speed that politics have intruded into the otherwise balmy afternoons at Riverdale High School. In Archie No. 616, Archie and Veronica are depicted talking environmental issues with President Obama, and Reggie gets his photograph taken with Sarah Palin. “Both political alliances are used for Archie and Reggie to further their campaigns for student-body president,” said Ken Tucker at EW.com’s Shelflife blog.Firmly in the stampede of a hard charge into modernity, Archie launched a mini-series starring the gay character, Kevin Kelly, who was introduced last spring.

Comments

[Michael Paraskevas]

eeeek...

[free mp3 editor]

that's the kind of books i would let my future children read.
now there are so many bad stuff for children (and i mean comics and cartoons) as if people forgot that our children are our future.
but this one, ARCHIE BABIES, is really promising