Archie's Long, Dark Journey to Riverdale (Article)

Although it may be unlikely to change minds, this lengthy article on Vulture covers the various ways Archie Comics have evolved through the decades and shows that "Riverdale" going for a dark teen mysery drama vibe isn't as far a departure as many people think. It covers some history of the comics' origins, the people behind them, and what ultimately led to the show.

Excerpts:

In the booth at Pop’s, [Roberto] Aguirre-Sacasa bears an Archie watch and a phone case depicting Kevin and Veronica; he later speaks of being ribbed by his fellow Glee writers for constantly wearing a Jughead fleece and setting his ringtone to “Sugar, Sugar.” “Over the years, people have said, ‘Roberto, Why are you obsessed with the Archie characters?’” Aguirre-Sacasa says, his emphatic voice bounding with the momentum of an evangelist. “The best thing that I could say is that, when I was a kid and I read Archies, I so wanted to be friends with them.” The son of a Nicaraguan diplomat, Aguirre-Sacasa was raised in the gritty landscape of 1980s Washington, D.C., and started losing himself in the Archie idyll at an early age. “I was a little bit of a misfit,” he says, “and it seemed like everyone in Riverdale, even if they were mean to each other, they still loved each other.”

How joyous, then, that Aguirre-Sacasa found, in Jon Goldwater, a fellow Archie revisionist. The pair tumbled into a thick friendship, and when the protégé pitched the tycoon on a series that would follow the Riverdale gang as they weathered a zombie apocalypse, Goldwater gave it the green light without hesitation, and an acclaimed series, cheekily titled Afterlife With Archie was born. The story — illustrated by Italian impressionist Francesco Francavilla — was a critical and sales smash, in no small part because it never let its premise devolve into silliness or cheap shocks. The story was surprisingly earnest and, therefore, movingly frightening for anyone who had an attachment to these characters.

Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Robert Hack soon started another horror series, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and in 2014, his golden-boy status was cemented when Goldwater named him Chief Creative Officer. Under his tenure, the comics have only gotten more ambitious, publishing surprisingly good stories bearing titles like Archie vs. Sharknado; Archie vs. Predator; Archie Meets Ramones; and most famously, the 2014 conclusion of Life With Archie, in which Archie dies saving Kevin Keller from an assassination attempt. Sleek, modern reboots of Archie and Jughead followed. Both were critical hits, and the latter abruptly became a minor progressive landmark when it canonically declared Jughead to be asexual, a sexual identity never before depicted with a character of that renown.

Archie Comics wasn’t a total stranger to wild ideas: Jon’s father had overseen stories where everyone became superheroes or cavemen or secret agents; the characters were licensed out for some supremely odd evangelical-Christian comics in the 1970s; and there had been an unexpectedly cool mini-series about Archie meeting Marvel Comics’ vigilante antihero the Punisher in the ’90s. But Aguirre-Sacasa and Goldwater have made such experimentation the rule, not the exception. They still put out digests containing old strips and new ones done in the old style, and Goldwater says those digests still make up a large share of the company’s revenue. But there’s no mistaking the goal that he and Aguirre-Sacasa seek: a breakthrough that once again liberates the Archie characters from the comics page and ensconces them in the American imagination. That plan of attack begins with Riverdale.

Real is a strong word. Earnest is a better one. The danger inherent in the pitch for Riverdale is that it could become a series of winking, deconstructionist jabs at the silly shallowness of the Archie legendarium. That is in no way what Aguirre-Sacasa has created, and as long as the superfan remains in charge of the show, it’s hard to imagine that changing. Jughead may not wear his crown or wolf down burgers, but he remains a compelling outsider; Betty and Veronica are not grinning sexpots, but they’re still frenemies trying to navigate romance; and Archie … well, Archie’s still the all-American, carrot-topped *beep*-up who carries the weight of the world with boastful charm and awkward dignity.

What Goldwater and Aguirre-Sacasa have realized and demonstrated is that those traits, so simple to describe and yet so deeply etched in popular culture, are what has kept these characters alive in uninterrupted publication for nearly eight decades — a run matched only by the likes of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Mickey Mouse. On one hand, the characters are archetypal representations of love, rivalry, and youthful hubris, concepts that are eternal and universal. But at the same time, they’re all just specific enough in their visual and behavioral quirks to remain boldly unique. That uncanny balance of the general and the specific allows the ensemble to teleport into nearly any environment and still be who they are. At least so far, the two men at the top of Archie Comics have figured out how to save their beloved intellectual property by changing the characters enough to make them relevant but not so much as to make them unrecognizable.