Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on October 23, 2016, 12:14:00 PM

According to Fernando, the no-longer-employed-by-ACP artists like to joke that they are "on hiatus" (a term that ACP prefers to use instead of "cancelled"). No one's been "fired" or "let go", or "laid off"... they just haven't been getting any phone calls or scripts assigned from the editor at Archie Comics (and with the exception of Dan Parent's scripting his own stories, no writing assignments are being handed out to writers, either).

The Last Man Standing is Dan Parent, who continues to draw and/or write new five-page stories for the digest titles, and some new covers, as well. There have been no new comics assignments for ANY of the other classic ACP artists. Fernando Ruiz only found out that there was no new work to be had for him at Archie Comics when he turned in his last completed story at the end of January 2016. Some of the other artists, like Jeff Shultz and Rex Lindsey, hadn't had any new scripts handed to them to draw from the editor at ACP for many months before that, but by January of this year, Bill Galvan wasn't getting any new assignments, and neither were the Kennedy brothers. In fact, I don't know for sure that ANY new stories appeared by Rex Lindsey in 2015, never mind 2016.

Well, there is the occasional fluke like the Archie Meets Ramones special that came out a couple of weeks ago, drawn by Gisele Lagace. But to be fair, it was announced a whole year in advance, which is when she agreed to the assignment. She has to work a little further in advance, because she's got ongoing commitments with her own webcomics, but even so, it was more than six months later that she finally got sent a script to start drawing. They haven't contacted her about any new story assignments since she got the one-shot, either.

So it is... how do they say in Hollywood...?  "We decided to go in another direction."   

thank you for your detailed response. It's sad to see the creators being treated like this. Given what happened to DeCarlo I guess I shouldn't be surprised to hear this.

I'm so late to this party, I only recently found out that Fernando Ruiz was let go from Archie Comics and just found out from DeCarlos Rules's post above that the Kennedys aren't drawing for them any more either! I'm so bummed on both counts ... is Dan Parent (who I also love) the only 'classic' artist left?
Kennedy art took a while but they grew on me. At first I didn't like the exaggerated poses and over the top facial expressions. Their work in Life with Archie totally won me over. Their work in those books opened my eyes to how the poses enhanced the storytelling as well as comedic value.
I'm enjoying the new look of Archie (so much more than Archie's "New Look" ... sorry but that first B&V story which was supposed to be "more realistic" just came off awkward and unnatural). But I did not expect that they would move completely away from the house style artwork – is that what's happening now?
Does anyone know what happened to Rex Lindsey? Does he still do work for ACP? My google-fu fails me. I feel so ill informed, just consuming these great comics and not realising what's going on for the creators.

I remember a story where Archie had to stay home because his grandparents were visiting to show videos of their holidays.  He thought it would be boring but by the end of the story he was planning to join his grandparents on their next holiday as their cameraman.