ROBOT CHICKEN WRITER/PRODUCER CREATES JUGHEAD COMIC

Robot Chicken writer/producer Tom Root Lends Irreverent Humor to Comic Book Icon

Tom Root, co-head writer and co-producer of the Emmy Award-winning Robot

Chicken on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim—and co-creator/executive producer of the

network’s new Titan Maximum—brings his patented irreverent humor to the milestone

200th issue of JUGHEAD.

“Something Ventured, Something Gained” takes Riverdale High’s fabled teens on their

wildest ride ever, as Jughead trades his body’s metabolism to a witch in exchange for an

irresistible mega cheeseburger… and everything goes bonkers from there with a chain

reaction of cataclysmic proportions! 

“Tom Root infuses his scripts with wild humor and great storytelling that perfectly fits

Jughead,” said Archie Comics CEO Jon Goldwater. 

This won’t be the first time Root has tackled the Archie comic book teens.  One of Robot

Chicken’s most popular episodes parodies the Archie Comics characters in a send-up of

the movie “Final Destination.”

“The Archie Comics characters are comedy icons,” said Root.  “Each character’s

personality has been so well-defined over the course of nearly 70 years that it was a lot

of fun to shake them up and present them with new challenges.  Mostly, though, I just

wanted to write a funny issue.  I hope Archie fans like it!”

Root’s comic book debut isn’t the only first associated with Jughead’s 200th issue – the

book will also be available with Archie Comics’ first-ever variant cover, by noted comics

artist and JUGHEAD penciller Rex Lindsey. For every three regular issues purchased, the

variant will be included free. 

JUGHEAD #200 retails for $2.50 and will be available March 17.

I must get this!  I don't know WHERE I can find it in my hick town, but I MUST get this!

Cool cover.  Looks like they are dropping the 'Archie's Pal...Comics' off the logo too.

I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped the "Archie's Pal ... Comics" from the title. Archie has a history of doing weird things with Jughead... There are essentially 4 different series of the title...

"Archie's Pal: Jughead": 126 issues (January 1949 - November 1965)
"Jughead": 126 issues (numbering continued from "Archie's Pal: Jughead", December 1965 - June 1987)
"Jughead" (Volume 2): 45 issues (August 1987 - May 1993)
"Archie's Pal Jughead Comics": ? issues (June 1993 - present)

What happened to Jughead in 1987 remains a mystery - why would they suddenly start over again after 352 issues?

They did the same thing with the Betty and Veronica title.  Until April 1987, it was known as Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica, and now it's just Betty and Veronica.  But, I think 1987 was a year in which they totally revamped the floppy comics, as Archie and Me and PEP were moved to the Giant Series title the same year.

Should be interesting to see how this turns out.

Captain - if you can't find it, I'll be glad to send you a copy when it comes out

Well, thank you!  I'll see if I can find it myself before I resort to that, but thanks for the offer! 

Quote from: Rik on December 03, 2009, 08:51:49 AM

This won’t be the first time Root has tackled the Archie comic book teens.  One of Robot

Chicken’s most popular episodes parodies the Archie Comics characters in a send-up of

the movie “Final Destination.”

You mean the episode that you guys kept off of the DVD set?

That particular episode, "Veggies for Sloth," is happily available again! It's been back on tv, and hopefully will be in a Robot Chicken Box set in the future.

Forsythe: I always wondered that about Archie myself - they changed virtually all their titles to monthlies, but never their flagship title. One possibility that occurred to me: I read somewhere that Harry Lucey wasn't as fast as some of the other artists (of course, few people at any company could produce as much as DeCarlo). He certainly didn't seem to do as many stories per month as DeCarlo or even Schwartz, even when Schwartz had editorial responsibilities at the company. Since Lucey was the main artist on "Archie" -- and turned out brilliant work in nine books a year -- maybe they didn't take it monthly because Lucey couldn't have done it as a monthly title?

Notice that when they finally did take Archie monthly, it was under Dan DeCarlo Jr. (Of course then the early '80s recession hit and they changed all their titles to bi-monthlies.)

Captain Hero: I think with Jughead it was twofold: they wanted to attract kids with "early" issues instead of issue # 353 or whatever, and they also wanted to re-launch the series with a new image. Samm Schwartz was the main Jughead artist right up until the end of vol. 1, but when vol. 2 started Schwartz was replaced with a series of new artists (well, Doug Crane had worked for Schwartz on Tippy Teen, so he wasn't that new) and an attempt to make Jughead more popular with female readers. Hence all the rad skateboarding girl-loving Jughead stories.

(Luckily the story has a happy ending because the current Jughead, under Lindsay and Boldman, is IMO by far the best title that Archie currently publishes. But Jughead was really struggling there in the late '80s.)