In this second and final part of our interview with the Archie Comics editor-in-chief, we discuss the dramatic character change that was the recent “New Look” series, Jughead’s mother’s nose, and fighting robots.

[Part One]

One of the bigger changes Archie has undergone over the past 50 years, was the launch of the “New Look” series.

What we did was, we had these longer stories written, which were a little deeper, and we were trying to direct these stories to our readers who were about to go away from Archie Comics—girls in particular. When girls are done with Archie books, they’ll go on to chapter books. Boys will continue reading comics until they’re 70 years old. But girls go on to read other things, and we wanted to come up with a look and the types of stories that a little older reader might be interested in—not to say that the younger readers wouldn’t be, too, but we’re trying to keep our audience a little bit longer. Also, we would take those stories after they were published—we were publishing them in four consecutive issues as a digest book—and combine those chapters into a graphic novel at some point.

I imagine there was a lot of discussion around the office about that, being that it was such a dramatic change.

We got a lot of press about that, too. It was big news. CBS news came up to interview the publisher. There was a lot of controversy around it. Some people liked it, some people didn’t like it. Some people got the wrong impression—they thought we were going to be changing the look of the Archie characters forever, getting rid of the look that Dan DeCarlo drew them. They thought that was going to go away and that they’d have these realistic Archie characters that some thought were pretty ugly, you know?

Are you still producing those books?

We’re still producing them, yeah. I have a few more stories in the works, but it’s going to run its course, and then we’re going to end it.

Did it not get the sort of reaction you were hoping for, initially?

It did and it didn’t. a lot of people were happy to see us trying. Archie hasn’t experience too many different things, over the years—nothing too dramatic, at least. our readers and fan applauded the fact that we did something in a different direction. We used different artists—more adventure-type artists for those pages. It didn’t do badly, but it didn’t create tremendous sales, like we thought it might. But they held their own, and we could probably keep putting them out, but I think we want to go on to other things. We did those books, we’ll collect them all into graphic novels, they’ll be available—and they sell.

It sounds like you’re very protective, in terms of what the characters should and shouldn’t do. Ultimately how do you decide upon the story lines? Are they written by committee?

Well, I work pretty closely with the writers who work for me. A lot of them will send me a springboard or a synopsis. It’s a couple of lines about what the story is going to be about. I tell them to do this one and not do that one. And we’ll take it from there. You’ll notice that many of our stories are seasonal. Right now we’re working on Christmas and winter stories [laughs]. We work pretty far ahead on them. We can try different things. Most of the time a lot of the ideas that come in from stories come from our readers. We pass the information onto the writers. I have one writer in particular who lives in California—every time he wants to write a story that’s a little out there, he’ll make sure to send a bunch of stories from the paper to back it up.

What’s one of the more bizarre storylines he’s pitched to you?

Well he’s got something recently—this was popular years ago and I guess it’s sort of coming back again—it has to do with building robots in teams.

The fighting robots?

Not necessarily fighting with each other, but competing with each other at a basketball game or a hockey game. Then he wrote a lot of stories about dogs, because all of the sudden everyone is interested in dogs. Using dogs for different things—I don’t mean for food. There’s an organization out there in California that takes dogs out to senior citizen homes, wearing little blue coats. It’s supposed to be really good therapy for senior citizens.

Everyone’s obviously drawing on the same mythology and using the same characters, but do you think the readers notice a difference in stories, from writer to writer? Do the writers have a distinct voice?

Sometimes. Somebody will say, “I really like the Jughead book,” and I only have one writer on that Jughead book. I have multiple writers on some of the other books. I can have four different stories by four different writers in one book. We’re moving toward longer stories now, though, that’s one thing I’m changing. I’m having the writers give me at least an 11 or 12 page story for the 32 page book, and then we’ll back it up with a couple of little ones.

Is there a reason behind that shift?

I think you can do a little more with that.  With the shorter stories, you’re in, you’re out. It’s a quicker read. This way with a 12 page story, you can put a little more meat in it, so to speak.

In terms of the changes that you’ve made over the years to characters, are there any you specifically regret in retrospect?

Yeah, many years ago we had Jughead really become a ladies man and really become interested in girls, and all that did was turn him into another Archie [laughs]. That didn’t work at all. We also tried making Jughead’s mother’s nose shorter, and all that did was make her look like everybody else. Her nose is back to where it was it was. She got a reverse nose job.

So those small aesthetic choices make a big difference in the end.

Yeah. They’re cartoon characters, so if Jughead is a little funny in the end, that’s funny. If his family all looks like him, that’s fine.

–Brian Heater

Over the past 50-plus years, Victor Gorelick has held nearly every position imaginable at Archie Comics. In 2007, the company’s one-time art assistant was named its editor-in-chief. Now 68, the Brooklyn native continues to be the lead editorial voice for America’s oldest high school students.

To the casual onlooker, not much appears to have changed about the Riverdale gang over the past five decades. To Gorelick, however, evolving the characters to fit the ever-changing times has proven a delicate balance—an attempt to maintain those qualities that have made them perennial favorites, whilst adapting them for changing fashions, technologies, and social attitudes.

We spoke to Gorelick about the successes—and failures—of keeping one of comics’ most beloved franchises forever young.

Do you feel like you’ve seen major changes to the Archie characters, over the years?

Yes, there have been. Each decade we’ve needed to make changes, whether with fashion, whether it’s with attitudes, whether it’s with fads—those things change with each decade, and certainly the way the characters’ lives have changed is all part of it, and they’ve all changed throughout the years. We’ve had to keep up with political correctness [laughs] in a lot ways. Attitudes and the ways the characters act towards each other—it’s important.

Are there any examples you can point to specifically? Anything that jumps out at you?

A couple of things. The first thing is, over the years, Moose and Midge have been an item—boyfriend, girlfriend. And every time someone would go up to Midge and try to flirt with her, or ask her out on a date, Moose being very possessive—in a humorous, cartoon way—would beat up whoever it was and stuff them in a garbage can. But in this climate, there’s an awful lot of jealous boyfriends going around—and girls as well—who might inflict some real serious harm on whoever was trying to talk to their girlfriend. You see it every day in the newspaper, so I had to tone it down, a little bit.

Is the worry that the comic will ultimately be an influence on readers?

Oh yeah. A lot of our readers—and us around the office—talk about these characters like they’re alive. We receive letters and e-mails written to Archie and Betty and Veronica, asking for advice and things like that. They write to them as if they were Liz Smith or somebody [laughs].

That’s one of the more…I don’t know if ‘controversial’ is the word—

It’s a social problem, I think. That’s one thing. In a lot of ways we’ve said that Archie is a typical teenager, and in a lot of ways he is and yet he isn’t. Riverdale High is probably not like any other high school in the country. There are no metal detectors to go through and there are no guards walking around in the hallways. And still it’s a comfort zone for our readers, because they haven’t gone to high school yet.

Is that just a case of things having changed over the years, or do you think Riverdale’s always been something of an idealistic setting—that things were never quite as neat as they were for Archie?

What’s changed is reality. In a lot of ways Riverdale hasn’t changed in that respect, as far as the high school goes. We have done some stories over the years that have dealt with bullying or other problems that kids might have in school. We even did a story back in the 70s that dealt with drugs and one that dealt with the Vietnam War. We did a few stories, here and there, but nobody stood on a soapbox. The subject was part of the story, without saying if they were for the war or against the war—certainly no one’s for drugs [laughs].

But comic books are for entertainment. Believe me, our readers get enough preaching from their parents, from teachers, from the clergy. Everyone’s preaching to them, telling them to do this and don’t do that. When they read a comic book, there should be escapism, entertainment—nothing more than that. So we really don’t do that to them. There have been instances where we did custom comic books for organizations. We did a custom comic for the FBI. In fact, millions of copies went out over the years, because a lot of them were distributed through the Elks organization.

What were the specifics of the FBI storyline?

The storyline was ‘Peer Helping,’ where older high school kids—in this case Archie and his friends—would be counseling younger kids from middle school and younger who had problems. It could have been a parent with a drinking problem, it could have been some other problem at home. But it wasn’t a newsstand comic book, it was done for the FBI, and this was a subject that they wanted to approach and endorse that program in high school. They felt that younger kids sometimes would open up a little bit more to someone who was their peer.

In terms of partnerships and licensing, I imagine you’ve been approached a lot, over the years. Have you turned down a lot of offers?

Well, not really. Some of them were more commercial, like the one we did with Kool-Aid. We did many over the years. We did one of the custom books for Alcoholics Anonymous—though not with the Archie characters. The same thing with Radio Shack. We also did one with the county of West Chester up here, on under-aged drinking.

Did that feature the Archie characters?

That featured Archie characters—certainly none of the Archie characters were drinking, but they were dealing with the problem. And not only did we do the custom comic book, but the county had these huge bus posters made up, saying, ‘think before you drink,’ showing the Archie characters saying different things like that on the sides of huge buses. That went on for over a year.

In terms of commercial endevours, I imagine you’re pretty protective of the characters.

Yes, we are. There are certain things that we would probably stay away from, but we take each one as it comes. The most recent thing that we did was for DC Comics, which had to do with conserving electricity, for Con Edison. For San Diego years ago, we did something on toxic waste disposal.

Again, featuring the Archie characters?

Featuring the Archie characters, yeah. The thing is, kids probably have a bigger influence on their parents with disposing of things like you take out the oil from you car, what are you going to do with it? Put it down into the sewer? Wrong [laughs]. Or paint. It teaches kids how to dispose around things in the house when you’re done with them. That was a custom comic. That was huge.

[Concluded in Part Two]

–Brian Heater

“I connect the dots,” explains Alex Simmons, smiling, pressing his hands together for emphasis. The artist, decked in a large, attention-grabbing Hawaiian shirt is a self-described conduit in this community—a tough point to argue as I attempt to pull him aside for five quick minutes with my tape recorder. No one ever said it would be easy to interview the most popular guy in the room.

There’s bustling activity in ever corner of Colston Hall’s lower level, a cafeteria-like setting, which is host to Bronx Community College’s Kids Comic Con. Simmons, a writer for Archie Comics, is the event’s patron saint.

The single day comics convention is not the largest any stretch the imagination, but it may just be the one with the most heart. Held on the Bronx Community College campus—New York University’s former University Heights location—the eight hour event affords children aged 17 and under the opportunity to mingle with creators and hone their own comics making skills in a setting devoid of other conventions’ numerous adult trappings. It’s a rare chance to educate kids and parents alike about the wonders of the comics medium.

After trailing him around through countless handshakes and business card exchanges, we finally managed to pull Simmons aside for a few questions about the KCC.

[Kids Comic Con Flickr Set.]

How did the Kids Comic Con first become a reality?

It needed to be done. The industry had turned its back on youth for over a decade when I started trying to make it happen. I knew how comic books and fantasy empowered kids, inspired kids, did all sorts of things, so I knew with reluctant readers and English as a second language individuals, comic books were a very powerful medium. The images and the text helped them decode the story, and we weren’t getting anything out there for them. So I kept trying to promote that and ended up doing a lot of workshops based on comic books. I was meeting people—artists and writers—who felt the same way. But it was difficult to get the more established conventions to do that.

The first time it happened was about 10 or 11 years ago, when Wizard took over the Chicago Con. They let me do what I called The Kids’ Corner there. And that worked out really well. We had everything from the team of artists that I was working with on my books doing workshops with the kids to Kurt Busiek and some of the others sitting down and having a panel discussion with some of the kids and Q&As. It was parents and older brothers and so forth knew that they could leave their siblings with us and go do what they wanted to do.

You were babysitting in a sense.

Yeah, exactly, but it was all good. James Brown—the colorist, not the singer—and a number of people that I worked with, were are totally there to do that. It was great. We had a lot of trouble finding another place to do that until ECBACC, which is the East Coast Black Age of Comics Con in Philly. About five years ago, they asked me to do a workshop and I told them what I’d like to do. We did it and they loved it, so they’ve kept it going. When I’m not there, they’ll have someone else do the same basic formula. But I kept trying to get it going other places.

Finally I met Eugene Adams here. He said, “what do you want to do?” I said I wanted to do workshops with school children. That happened. And then he said, “what do you want to do?” I said I’d like to do professional development for young people to understand that there’s a career possibility here, whether you want to be an illustrator or a writer or whatever. So he said, “fine, let’s do it.” and then he asked me again, “what do you want to do?” And I decided to do the Kids Comic Con. That was year one, which was 2007. That was how it all came together.

I invited five to ten of my friends to come do this. We tried to let the community know about it. We figured we’d have maybe 100 people show up and we’d be fine with maybe 15 artists. What happened was, the word got out and I was getting e-mails galore and 45 professionals joined this year—artists, editors, etc., from D.C. to independents. And I kept saying, “there’s no money making opportunites. It’s not going to be like Comic Con. We go here and by the end of the day, we’d seen over 700 people. The energy from the creators was so high and they were so jazzed from seeing kids with their books. Several of the Archie people said they’d never been thanked by parents so much for simply coming. We all agreed we’d have to do this again.

There was a moment a little while ago where I was thinking, ‘gee, I wonder if I’m going to do this again,’ and parents came up to me and said, “god bless you.” And you realize, ‘okay, I’m going to do this again.’ We’ve been approached to do it in different venues and there are a couple I’d consider.

Different cities?

Yeah. The thing I have to be cautious about is what would make this not successful? People keeping saying that this is getting bigger and bigger and you want it to get bigger in quality. But I’m not looking to make more money.

All of the kids get in for free. It’s obviously not a big money making proposition for everybody involved.

No. if everybody who came through that door paid $5, wow, we’d be doing all right. But the reality is that that’s not what the theme is. So if we were in a venue where everyone’s paying at the door, that changes it. you go into an event where it’s a kids comics convention inside a standard one, that changes the atmosphere.

Has it been at the Bronx Community College since the beginning?

Yeah.

How did you settle on the location?

The opportunity opened the door. Gene—we’d already done several workshops together. We did an event and expected 20 or 30 kids, and we got 150. And the teacher came by seeing all of these kids jammed in here, and it changed kids ideas of this. This is no longer a joke anymore, when 150 students are in the room asking poignant questions, and people who are not just artists, but writers, entrepreneurs, and doing comics about social issues, and then you talk about the process—there’s a whole industry here. It’s the business of comic books. So that changed their perception of it.

Have you personally seen the changes in attitudes of educators and the educational system toward the medium over the past decade or so?

Yes, and I take it two ways. I’m thrilled because a kid who doesn’t like to read novels, you pick up a comic and you’re into it. It’s an instant benefit. But the other thing I have to deal with is that, like music, film, or anything else, this is a fad right now. I don’t know how long it’s going to last. We have to enjoy it while it’s here and use it while it’s here, but we also have to figure out what to do when it’s no longer the flavor of the month.

What sorts of outreach are you doing, once the show ends today?

First off, I sort of entered this realm of arts and education as a teacher/artist. I was an actor and a playwright for a number of years. Doing children’s theater as an actor was one of those things that made me more aware of kids as an audience and the little people that they are. So coming into process of arts and education as a teaching artist and working on various artist boards, all of those things keep me grounded in that arena. But first and foremost I’m an artist and a storyteller. Life is part of what is real for me, so I reach out and do workshops and anything I can to promote arts and education in general, whether it’s dance or music or mult-media—whatever. We had a thing called Comics Connection. We’re identifying schools that have a comic art workshop already and we’re going to donate books to them. Another conduit to say, “we support what you’re doing.”

–Brian Heater