Everyone Loves Archie!

A couple of months ago (in Archie #600), Archie publications kicked off a six-issue storyline that had Archie marrying Veronica. In #603 the story goes for three more issues exploring a Archie/Betty wedded life. According to the company, the storyline brought world-wide attention back to the perennial teen (who first hit the stands in December of 1941.

The minaj a trois is the result of a storyline that has Archie traveling down memory lane, and taking first one fork and then the other, so as to get both sides of the marital issue.

Jon Goldwater, co-chief executive of Archie Comic Publications estimates that the first part of the story line sold some hundreds of thousands of copies. According to sources, the sales of #600 come in at just over 54,000 (by contrast,issue #597 sold around 2,500 copies. These numbers do not account for newsstand, supermarket

“This has really pushed ‘Archie’ into the consciousness of everyone’s mind,” Mr. Goldwater said. The plotline was mentioned on everything from the BBC to the “Late Show With David Letterman” to “The Rachel Maddow Show” and in newspapers worldwide. The response in India was especially enthusiastic, and so “Archie” will now be printed in five languages there. Archie Comic Publications plans to open its first international office in New Delhi next year and is also preparing some exclusive comics for that market that will include Indian characters.ket and international sales of Archie.

The marriage story arc has been written by Michael E. Uslan (executive producer of the Batman films) and illustrated by Stan Goldberg (a longtime Archie illustrator).

Neeedless to say it is the hope of the company for this “relaunch” of Archie and his gang may help launch the characters into feature films or even a new animated series. Archie Publishing has recently signed with Creative Artists Agency to represent the gang in Hollywood. Then, on the print side, the publisher is joining with the fellow comic-book publishers IDW and Dark Horse for several collected editions, in softcover and hardcover. IDW will reprint Archie newspaper strips, as well as best-of volumes devoted to the work of longtime Archie artists like Dan DeCarlo and Stan Goldberg.

Starting next year, Dark Horse will publish archive editions of Archie that begin with his first appearance in Pep Comics #22 in December 1941.

For more on this story go here.

Facebook for Superheroes

I just saw this today, and had to put it up here. It is a bit that imagines if Superheroes spent as much time on Facebook as did the rest of us, and what kinds of things they would post.

I especially love the Spider-man bit:



As it turns out, the best part of the article (in its original post) is that if you click on the various entries, you link to a web page that explains each of the various references.

Hilarious!

Another Blast from the Past

The other day I came across this badge that my son, Dylan acquired on our trip to Universal’s Marvel Island Adventure a couple or three years back. I’m not sure why he got one and I (apparently) didn’t, nor am I certain where it has been hiding out for the intervening years, but now that I’ve (re)discovered it, and he is off at Syracuse University (and long since stopped caring about anything Spidey-related), I have co-opted it, and am now hanging it in my office — amid all my other Spidey stuff.

I know that he doesn’t mind, and, well, It keeps me thinking about him (not that I really needed a trinket to remember my son). One of the things I acquired on that trip was a Spidey tank top, and, well, a couple other Spidey things, I’m sure. One of those items was a Marvel/Universal comicbook (Universal Studios: Marvel Superhero Island Adventures) Which I reviewed for SpiderFan.

Still, I’m enjoying having the badge hanging around, and, well, I’m really looking forward to going back to the Universal Theme Park, only, now that Disney has purchased Marvel, Lock Stock and Stan’s toupee, I’m wondering if we can expect for the Marvel Characters to be evicted from Universal and wind up in Disney’s Theme Parks any time soon.

Disaster!

My Spidey coffee cup is broken!

To be more accurate, one of my (five) Spidey coffee mugs is broken.

I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but I can only assume normal wear-and-tear did it. Apparently the cup (which is probably 20 years old), just got banged around one too many times, formed a chip, and now leaks.

I discovered the chip this morning when close to half of my coffee leaked out before I was able to drink (or transfer) the coffee.

Needless to say, I won’t so much be be “retiring” this cup, as putting it out to pasture. I'm probably going to keep it either in my office or bedroom and use it to collect coins, pencils, or other small items that gather around but you really don’t have any place to put them (but can’t throw them out).



I’d appreciate it if you could all take a few moments to remember the good times I had with the cup.

Bounty Hunter, The War of the Independents, and

About a hundred years ago, I agreed to lend my characters, the Wülf Girlz to this artist that I had just met named Dave Ryan, to participate in a Independent-style Civil War. Well, I thought that it was kind of a cool Idea and all, so I agreed.

To be sure, not much more has been seen of the Girlz, the War (or Dave, for that matter), but I have met some cool friends because of the War, one of them is this Sean Koury fellow who has a character called Bounty Hunter, and, well, I’m currently working on a team-up of the Girlz and his character (no, really I am).

Well, I just learned that Bounty Hunter has teamed up with The Living Corpse for a War of the Independents tie-in that is slated to appear in issue # 8, 9 or 10 (not sure which). Apparently it is a fun book, and you can get issues 0-6 and the Annual with Hack/Slash for 15.00 bucks off the website.

Well, here is the Bounty Hunter/Living Corpse page, which I think looks pretty neat, and is inspiring me to finish off the Bounty Hunter/Wülf Girlz prose story that I I told Sean I’d do.



So now I’m going to have to actually get down to it and do the work. (then of course there is that Wülf Girlz/Hell’s Blood Team -up I told Hector Rodriguez I’d do.

In the mean time, here is a page of Wülf Girlz art (illustrated by my new artist, Rick Lundeen), that will appear in an upcoming Atlas Unleashed Newsletter (due to be distributed at the upcoming Big Apple Con).

G-Man is in Greensboro, NC!

I just heard that Chris Giarrusso along with several other cartoonists (Art Baltazar, Jacob Chabot, Brian Smith, and Gregg Schigiel) all of whom have back-up comic strips in Chris’s on-going Image Comic, G-Man will be signing special variant issues of G-Man #2 in Acme Comics on October 24 from 10 A.M. – 7 P.M. (Acme Comics is located on Lawndale Drive in Greensboro, NC).

G-Man is similar in structure to the Mini Marvels that Chris does over at Marvel (and is perhaps best known for), only G-Man is his own character, and has been appearing in back-up strips in Image comics.

If you haven’t been buying G-Man, you really should. It is one of the coolest comics currently being published.

Oh yeah, and if you love the Mini-Marvels, and want to collect them all in one place, then you are in luck, as Marvel just announced a new collection of Mini Marvels, that is due out in December ($19.99).

The book is all-ages fun that features the wild and crazy kid counterparts to Marvel’s greatest heroes! Featuring Spidey, Wolverine, Iron Man, Hulk and more Marvel favorites! ALL your favorite Mini Marvels adventures collected in one hilarious and action-packed collection! Plus: Spidey gets in over his head when he babysits Power Pack, but he gets by with a little help from his AMAZING FRIENDS Iceman and Firestar!

Belkis in October

Well, here it is the beginning of October and well, it is time to continue our year-long study in Belkis, my favorite, Marketing pro, model, and well, (just recently) client. This month’s image is brought to us courtesy of my pal Ray Felix.

The focal point of Ray’s Art combines his childhood superhero fantasies with a powerful erotic twist that is liberally flavored with American politics and religious dogma. At 17, he (like many of us) wanted to become a comicbook character. As a young artist he was living a detached existence from the real world. In a sense it was a survival mechanism from growing up in the Bronx and a reaction to being raised in a religious cult. Having given up on ever becoming an actual carton, his current goal as an artist is to transport the viewer to a fictional comic world of his creation. Since becoming a freelance teaching artist in various prisons in the New York area, Ray attempts to convey his interpretation through his comics and paintings as to how he reconfigure the details of this so-called reality and brings his viewers to contemplate his personal view of the world according to him. Since the events of 9/11and the vast conspiracies surrounding the event have come to flourish, his work has grown to pantomime the political circus that consumes mainstream media here in America.

If you are still interested in acquiring NovaStar Studios, Fantasy Art Calendar (featuring Belkis), you can contact James Rodriguez (who put the whole thing together) over at his site, and while you are there, ask him about his up-coming sci-fi comicbook. You can even stop by and see him at the upcoming Wizard World/Big Apple con later this month.