I hear a lot of complaining about the reboots and RIVERDALE, etc, but I'm genuinely curious.  How would people on this forum have done it differently? 


I love classic Archie as much as the rest of y'all.  Trust me on that.  In a perfect world, the original house style Archie would be the best selling comic books in the world.  I think they should be.  They're my favorite comics of all time.  However, they weren't selling much.  Something had to be done.  Archie Comics chose one way.  Seems like most of the people on this forum don't like it. 


So, how would y'all have done it?  Personally I don't have any ideas.  That's why I'm asking.


Full disclosure: I'm mostly happy with the reboots and the TV show.  They're not perfect, but I don't dislike them.   


Love to hear your ideas.   

I don't know exactly what I would have done, but here are some ideas (whether plausible or not):

Instead of canceling the floppies, I'd cancel the digest line and, instead of just reprinting the same stories over and over, print full-sized chronological collections of every story (reissue the collections as demand warrants).

I'd also digitize every previous floppy issue and sell them cheaply on Amazon and other platforms.

I'd also collect the new stories from the digests and sell those digitally as well.

As for the floppies:

Instead of doing New Riverdale, I'd do more of a soft reboot. Older stories, published before the characters' lifetimes, wouldn't hold any weight. The stories would be more modern and relevant. But it wouldn't be a fresh start. The characters wouldn't be meeting each other for the first time.

Story lengths and art styles would vary, from 5-6 pages to 20, from Classic style to various New Look styles. The older and newer writers and artists would contribute.

I'd set up a "continuity of situations", meaning if a character is in one place or predicament in one title, it would carry through to the other titles, so we could avoid situations like Betty and Veronica globetrotting in their own title but being in Riverdale in "Archie", all during seemingly the same school year. Or Riverdale High having different principals in "Archie" and "Jughead".

The floppy titles would be:

Archie
Jughead
Betty
Veronica
Cheryl
Reggie
Sabrina
Josie and the Pussycats
Katy Keene

I'd work in Sabrina's supporting casts from the original live-action film and the various TV series (Seth, Katy Lemore, Fran, Freddie, Marnie/Jenny, Libby, Gem, Cassandra, etc.).

I'd have everyone live in Riverdale to make for easier interaction.

I'd still do the "Riverdale" TV series but without the murder plot, and each season would be only 13 episodes long. I'd introduce all of the characters right away. Between all of them, there should be enough artificial drama to fill 40+ minutes per week.

I love the reboot of each comics. But I wish Reggie & Me would be than 5 issues. I'm not crazy about The Josie & The Pussycats comic. I really just like covers. I may quit getting it. I don't get digests anymore. There's too expensive. I just buy the floppies.

I'd have cancelled the floppies altogether. The comic shop market demographic that supports that format clearly isn't buying what Archie Comics is selling. Instead of trying to reinvent the characters to appeal to a marketplace demographic that has rejected them, I'd have concentrated on different formats and different avenues of distribution. That may have involved some slight degree of modernization for new stories as far as appealing to kids in the traditional audience age range, and probably a shift away from the short stories under 20+ pages. More likely the shift would be toward a standalone OGN with more pages, in a format that could be kept in print and distributed via the book trade, as opposed to comic shops. For comic shops, the high-end chronological/complete format in hardcover, starting with the very best material (Silver Age). Also all of the same stuff (and individual issues complete with ads and everything) for digital format. They could do some "best of" or character-centric or thematic collections of older stuff in the same format they were using for The Best of Archie Comics TPs (not that every collection would need to fit the 400-page format, they could try different page-count/price-point combos).

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 09, 2017, 11:07:21 AM
The floppy titles would be:

Archie
Jughead
Betty
Veronica
Cheryl
Reggie
Sabrina
Josie and the Pussycats
Katy Keene

Well you've obviously identified the major problem with Archie's floppy comic books. Betty and Veronica in a comic book together must have led to the downfall of the entire empire. Obviously those two need to stay far away from each other.

It's just sad that we only gonna have 3 Betty & Veronica issues that are new. I hope they get a new artist & writer to take over. But the question is when will that happen?

Quote from: BettyReggie on March 09, 2017, 01:36:07 PM

It's just sad that we only gonna have 3 Betty & Veronica issues that are new. I hope they get a new artist & writer to take over. But the question is when will that happen?

I didn't hear that BettyReggie.  Is it confirmed that number 3 is the last by Adam Hughes? 

So will they start over with a new artist? Will there be another Betty & Veronica #1 since it will be totally different story arc.

I believe the stories changed a lot after Dan Decarlo, nothing really sat with me or I was ever that interested in purchasing newer issues. Everything now is super PC and the panels were just drawn
differently like no funny characters hidden in the backdrops no detail to style and fashion.
It's just kinda blah.

I don't like the Archie reboots, it totally ruins the looks and feel of Archie and I stoped buying them.

If they could bring back the vibes Dan decarlo and others of his time brought I could see a pike in sales.

I'd also like to see another animated series!   

They she also do all the issues made into big books in chronological order too!!

And how about some nice merchandise and clothing for once?
The Betty and Veronica collection is honestly garbage and does not represent who they are and their individuality!  Also way to expensive for real archie fans. 
I'm going to do a little collection based on them through my own line. I have one dress coming based on a skirt Veronica wore that's coming up for sale this month I will be posting later on!   My Instagram is @rebelloveclothing if you want to follow it and see the collection once it comes out!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote from: BettyReggie on March 09, 2017, 03:28:52 PM
So will they start over with a new artist? Will there be another Betty & Veronica #1 since it will be totally different story arc.

BettyReggie, I honestly haven't heard that they're replacing Adam Hughes as the artist.  Where did you hear this?  Do you have a link?

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 09, 2017, 01:24:40 PM

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 09, 2017, 11:07:21 AM
The floppy titles would be:

Archie
Jughead
Betty
Veronica
Cheryl
Reggie
Sabrina
Josie and the Pussycats
Katy Keene

Well you've obviously identified the major problem with Archie's floppy comic books. Betty and Veronica in a comic book together must have led to the downfall of the entire empire. Obviously those two need to stay far away from each other.

Meh. I just meant, with floppies not money-makers, it'd be pointless to have a title for a B&V team-up. They can interact in their solo titles.

Aside from some experimentation with format options, I'd have allowed the pool of creators to actually control the content.  I think there was too much meddling from the top that left the artists and writers hamstrung. 

I would like to see a cartoon.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 09, 2017, 05:31:08 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 09, 2017, 01:24:40 PM

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 09, 2017, 11:07:21 AM
The floppy titles would be:

Archie
Jughead
Betty
Veronica
Cheryl
Reggie
Sabrina
Josie and the Pussycats
Katy Keene

Well you've obviously identified the major problem with Archie's floppy comic books. Betty and Veronica in a comic book together must have led to the downfall of the entire empire. Obviously those two need to stay far away from each other.

Meh. I just meant, with floppies not money-makers, it'd be pointless to have a title for a B&V team-up. They can interact in their solo titles.

So basically you're just wanting to return to what they were publishing circa 1982 before they cancelled all of the titles on your list (but with the addition of Veronica and Cheryl in their own titles, which didn't happen until later), but MINUS a BETTY & VERONICA title, which has a longer track record of selling than anything else but ARCHIE and JUGHEAD. Never mind that for a lot of their shared running time, B&V was outselling both of those titles. It is, in fact, the chemistry between the two girls (rather than the simple formula of adding Betty's popularity as a character to Veronica's popularity) that made that title a best-seller for ACP that outlasted JUGHEAD by three years (not to mention all the other titles on your list that were cancelled sooner, including their own solo titles). You just seem to want to ignore reality here, in favor of your own personal wish-fulfillment.

It's all well and good to play the fantasy wishing game and say "I wish they'd just start publishing all those titles/characters I like again", but you're not really identifying or offering any solutions to the problem of why ACP floppy titles aren't selling. Adding continuity to all the titles may please you, but it isn't going to make them sell any better.

You're just not getting it. The only place floppy comics sell is in comic book shops. But the comic shop customer doesn't want Archie Comics -- or any humor comic, really. If humor comics sold, Marvel and DC would have established ongoing titles in that genre. The only reason DC even publishes things like Looney Tunes or Scooby-Doo or Teen Titans GO! as floppy comics is that DC's main audience includes parents who buy DC's comics aimed at older readers, who are also encouraging their kids to read comics by buying those titles for them. Those comics DC can afford to publish at close to break-even, just to seed an upcoming generation of comic readers (and to tell the truth, half the sales of those comics are probably coming from older nostalgic adults who buy them for themselves).

On the other hand, the only thing that IS selling for ACP, the digests -- if less than in their heyday, still far better than the floppies, and far more profitable at higher cover prices -- you want to cancel, presumably for no other reason than that they don't interest you personally.

No, what ACP should have done, after cancelling one floppy title after another, is they should have started tranferring all that new content (20-25 pages worth) into all the digest titles. To encourage print digest sales, they shouldn't sell a digital version of the digests. They could make the new content from the digest issues available later (6 months to a year) as a digital single, for $2 -- but if you want those new stories earlier, you need to buy the print digest.

They obviously can't do that now, since they cut all their freelancers loose except for Dan Parent (who couldn't fill 80-100 new pages needed to fill the digests with a floppy comic's worth of new content every month).

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 10, 2017, 12:42:18 AM
No, what ACP should have done, after cancelling one floppy title after another, is they should have started tranferring all that new content (20-25 pages worth) into all the digest titles. To encourage print digest sales, they shouldn't sell a digital version of the digests. They could make the new content from the digest issues available later (6 months to a year) as a digital single, for $2 -- but if you want those new stories earlier, you need to buy the print digest.

Meh, I'm not a fan of the "delay digital to get you to use the old format" tactic. Heck, I was pissed when The CW used to wait 8 days before putting a new episode online. Now, it's the more reasonable day after.

If floppies don't sell anywhere other than comic shops, ditch the physical format entirely and go digital-only. That way, customers can have a 20-page story (or a group of stories totaling 20 pages) for around $3.99 (heck, maybe less) and wouldn't have to pay shipping costs or deal with packaging. For anyone that really wants a physical copy, Archie Comics could set up a POD service.