Photo credit: Mark Rosenthal

The future queen of pin-ups has arrived! Lucy Hale (Pretty Little Liars) has been cast as aspiring fashion designer Katy Keene in the upcoming Riverdale spin-off pilot in development at The CW!

"Katy Keene" follows the lives of four young people following their dreams in New York City and features Ashleigh Murray reprising her "Riverdale" role of Josie McCoy, along with Jonny Beauchamp (Penny Dreadful) as Ginger Lopez, Julia Chan (Saving Hope) as Pepper Smith, and Camille Hyde (American Vandal) and Lucien Laviscount (Snatch) as Alexandra and Alexander Cabot.

Bold, big-hearted and independent, Katy Keene is a twenty-something New Yorker who aspires to be a fashion designer. When she's not working as a personal shopper at a luxury department store, she's navigating friendship and dating in the big city.

Katy's comic origins date back to 1945 when she was introduced in the pages of Wilbur Comics #5 by Bill Woggon. The model, actress and singer was known for her impeccable taste in fashion. Katy's comic book series were well-liked for including fan-submitted fashion designs and fun reader activities.

Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Showrunner Roberto Aguirre–Sacasa and Michael Grassi will script the pilot episode of the new musical dramedy, with Maggie Kiley as Director/Executive Producer.

"Katy Keene" will be produced by Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. TV and Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Archie Comics CEO/Publisher Jon Goldwater serving as executive producers.

Saw this on my phone this morning! Can't wait!

It'll be interesting to see what they do with it. I'm not too familiar with the source material but it's good to see them giving it a spotlight again. Hopefully it'll renew interest in the comics.

Quote from: Oldiesmann on March 12, 2019, 09:23:48 PMIt'll be interesting to see what they do with it. I'm not too familiar with the source material but it's good to see them giving it a spotlight again. Hopefully it'll renew interest in the comics.

I have the tpb collection of the more recent reboot, so I'm more familiar with that than the 1980s comics (and I really like it). I was able to get a hold of the script for the pilot and have started reading it. Um, mild spoilers below for things that you'll learn within the first few minutes of the episode:

Katy's younger teen sister (Sis/Melissa/Mackenzie) doesn't seem to be in it, judging by the list of characters in front of the script.

K.O. the boxer, probably the most well-known of Katy's many boyfriends, is a main character, and they're together.

Gloria Granbilt, Katy's archrival model in the comics, is in it, but she's aged up to her 40s and is Katy's boss at Lacy's Department Store. (Katy is one of "Gloria's Girls".) Katy has a new, different archrival at work in the pilot.

The Cabot twins from the Josie comics, previously unused in this universe, are main characters. Alexandra stops in to shop at Lacy's early in the episode, and Katy has to work hard to keep her satisfied (although this comes mostly from Gloria, not Alexandra).

Pepper Smith from the pre-Pussycats Josie comics is also a main character, judging by the cast list, although I haven't gotten to her scenes yet.

Josie moves from Riverdale to NYC and joins the cast. She makes jokes about the bonkers nature of Riverdale. Katy Keene, by contrast, is much more grounded and normal.

One surprising thing that I noticed was the fact that the song selections are scripted. I always assumed they were chosen during post-production.

Just out of curiosity, I tried searching for "Katy Keene" under "books" on Amazon. I wasn't expecting a great lot of results, but to my surprise, I got more than 3 pages of relevant returns. Admittedly, from page 4 onward most of those are Amazon z-shops sellers with various out-of-print/collectible back issues. But an awful lot of people are selling print-on-demand collections of old public domain KK comics.