They need to figure out new distribution ideas I guess.  Sadly even Betty and Veronica's solo titles couldn't survive int this climate I guess.

My favorite topic to rant and complain about...comics distribution.   
There doesn't seem to be a reasonable fix to the problem, so I just complain. No solutions from me. 

They really do. They need to drop this new art style too, go back to the way it was in the 90s/early 00s.

Remember when everything used to be better? 

They really do. They need to drop this new art style too, go back to the way it was in the 90s/early 00s.

They need to figure out new distribution ideas I guess.  Sadly even Betty and Veronica's solo titles couldn't survive int this climate I guess.

I realize it wasn't so much an outcry as much as it was just a large amount of attention to the Kevin introduction. There were a lot of opinion pieces where the author questioned the reasoning behind Kevin, as the brand itself has always been considered safe and a throwback to old-timey middle America values.  I didn't mean that Kevin was better known to the non-comics public, I was thinking more about the Archie brand itself.

My point on the 40 Moms thing was that it was a manufactured "controversy."  It was something planned by the idiots that run the American Family Association, possibly over a table at their headquarters when they were devising strategy and choosing things to go after.  It wasn't actually real outrage from regular people that shopped at Toys R' Us.  There's no evidence of that.  Similarly, there was no actual outrage about Ellen doing JC Penny's commercials, their other project.  It was pretty much fake.  This is why there would be no difference between Kevin Keller and Northstar.  These people aren't comic readers.  They just see a gay target.  It doesn't matter what the average age of the readers of Marvel Comics is.

I didn't come across any negative opinion pieces at all.  Probably didn't read a lot of them, but most stuff I came across seemed rather positive.  Maybe some forum rants I remember, but I never saw anything negative published apart from perhaps a Rush Limbaugh tirade via the public airwaves.

Going to examine this old-timey middle Americaa idea.  I know you're only referring to it, and you are referring to other people's opinions, not your own.  So please don't misconstrue this as me criticizing you.  I'm definitely not.  However,  I think this idea is worth examining anyways. 

Personally, the notion of a safe, old-timey Middle America is a total farce. The people that lived during those times are dead or 60-80 years old.  Also gay kids have always existed, it's just their lives were 4,000 times more horrendous during the 40's, 50's, 60's, etc.  Not to underestimate what it is like for many now.  For many friends and people I know it is/was a nightmare because their parents are bigots that don't love children unconditionally or they were terrorized in the US school system.  But lets get back to the past, these olden eras that were supposedly without gay people. 

Similar parallels can be drawn to a time when black people were lynched in a lot of old-timey, "safe" Middle America neighborhoods including up the street from here where I live in Middle America, the supposed bastion of these values that are often referenced. If you do some research, you can probably find pictures of individuals with dark skin hanging from trees in front of places that look like Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe while white skin goons with those old-timey values stand around them with smug looks on their faces.

Were these times really safe?  I'd say no, unless you were white, straight as an arrow, and followed every single rule pushed upon you from the powers that be that created the norms that controlled how such a society functioned.  I don't really think the American ideal of "freedom" really factored into this world for a lot of people.

Personally, I think the people that consider things safe that treat gay people like space aliens that should never be mentioned have serious problems with empathy, compassion, and morality.  Just my two cents on that.  Sure gay people may have not have seemed to have existed in the world of 1950, but that's probably because if you were out of the closet there was a good chance you would shortly wind up in jail or be murdered.  Good times right?

Most of the people that still think the world should be like that are 65 years old and don't have children in the targeted age demographics of Archie Comics, which why ignoring them was probably much easier than what people first assumed.

Not that I don't think retro-40's, 50's, etc. stuff is fun.  Sure, I love it.  I like going to retro diners, I like watching old movies, and I like the music.  But it's probably about as removed from the reality of every day life from back then as Westerns probably are to what the 1800's were like for the average random citizen.  Great for a setting I guess, but I don't know if wanting to keep the same mindset in regards to all those accepted norms in present time is less than barbaric.

I'm interested in the DC approach because instead of introducing a new character and letting his back story come about organically they are using an existing character. The press release used the words "major character", "re-introducing", and "he", so of course speculation is rampant. It doesn't make clear that it will be someone with super powers or in costume, so that leaves the field more open.

It seems organic to me in the way that it mirrors every day life.  Lots of people are forced to be in the closet for whatever reason until they make the personal decision to come out. This sounds pretty gutsy to me actually, maybe slightly more so than Marvel bringing an out of the closet gay character they had killed three times back to life.  Not that I want to criticize Marvel over this really.  I think they deserve credit for trying rehabilitate him in recent history.  Marvel doing something like this is very good, especially in the context of their entire history.

Archie 8 +
Betty 12
Veronica 7 -
Jughead 16+
Reggie 9+