Archie Gets Political

[The Toyroom]

Hitting the stands this December....

[Adam West]

Looks like another cheap stunt to sell magazines.

[samurainoir]

Archie's new PR company is obviously worth the $$ they are paying them, but anyone else think that they are constantly late to the party?

OBAMA COVERS WERE "HOT" TWO YEARS AGO. They are now cluttering up the dollar bins in every comic store.
(not to mention the mainstream press "Obama's Nailin' Palin" garnered).


Superman has been imagining what it would be like to marry Lois Lane (or Lana Lang or the mermaid) since the fifties, and actually did marry her fifteen years ago.


Northstar has been out of the closet for TWO DECADES.


And who cares if they are introducing a new gay character when the movie Chasing Amy outed Jughead in the nineties? "That's why Jughead wears that crown"


This is the company that backed off on an interracial relationship that Betty was supposed to have back in the eighties a QUARTER CENTURY after Look Who's Coming to Dinner and Spock/Uhura. NOW they think this is "edgy"?

[johnnystorm]

Obama was in a couple issues of Veronica I think last summer. No big news here. I like the cover though with the soda.

[palitoy]

Archie is branded "safe" so when the comic does something radical it's always going to be tame by modern standards. It's actually a bit of a litmus test to see whats no longer considered shocking.

[samurainoir]

According to JLU/Batman Beyond/Static Shock writer Dwayne McDuffie, here is how things played out in 1992 when a creator introduced an African American love interest for Betty named Dexter...
Dwayne McDuffie | Web Column Archives

He was ordered to change the story in the cheapest way possible: Dexter was to be re-colored white. Unfortunately, this fooled approximately no one. Archie's offices were flooded with four or five letters congratulating them on their progressive move of adding that "cool, black guy" to Betty's cast. Uh oh.

Darryl had to deliver the bad news. The finished comics would see print, but Matt Wayne's run on Betty and Me was history; he was canned after only two issues, one of which hadn't even seen print yet. Two issues later, Dexter was gone from the cast, never to be seen again. Commenting on the controversy years later, Matt Wayne said, "Just as Sidney Poitier prepared us for Danny Glover, I'd hoped that Chuck Clayton had prepared us for Dexter Howard. I guess I was wrong."

and 2008...
The Racial Politics of Riverdale: Why an Interracial Kiss Is Still a Big Deal - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

And that's not the last time it happened, either. As recently as 2008 -- 2008! -- a "Dating Game" style story-arc in "Betty and Veronica Double Digest" saw Cheryl Blossom hooked up with new characters, with readers voting on which one she should stick with. One of the potential love interests, Brandon, a character that was clearly black in the solicitations, show up with a much lighter skin tone in the actual issues:

The common thread here, of course, is that they were both black characters built as love interests for white girls.

This plays out as a bit of a double standard. Particularly when the last instance was just two years previous.

[jwyblejr]

When the girls start running around topless,then I'll pay attention to these comics.

[samurainoir]

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

Isn't Archie actually getting A-political? Political Archie comics would have Veronica leaving Arch 'cos of their differeing takes on healthcare.

Don C.

[HardyGirl]

I really liked the inter-racial storyline w/ Valerie (and posted on it), but the President thing just seems too gimmick-y.

[kingdom warrior]

Yawn, so Played out......great for lining a bird cage with....

[Earth 2 Chris]

I always thought Valerie was hot, so way to go Archie!

Chris