Gee Whiz!

December 22, 2006 By David Burn Leave a Comment

According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Archie Comic Publications Inc. of Mamaroneck, N.Y. “plans to experiment with changing the way the characters look to make them appear more sophisticated.”

The news has already drawn heat from loyalists in Web forums who have seen the new incarnations.

“Betty looks like one of the Olsen twins,” wrote one contributor to Newsarama.com, a Web site devoted to comics-industry news. “I say if it’s been good enough for the last four generations of kids it’s good enough for today’s ones,” wrote another.

Sales of “Archie” aren’t what they were in their heyday in the 1940s, one issue might have sold a million copies in a month. Now, a single issue of one of the comics sells only between 15,000 and 75,000 copies, while digests sell around 100,000 copies a month.

Filed Under: Brands

About David Burn

I wrote my first ad for a local political candidate when I was 17. She went on to win her race, and I felt the power of persuasive copy for the first time. Starting in Portland in 1995, I worked my way across the country as a copywriter and eventually became a content director making media products for big packaged goods brands. I returned to Oregon in 2008, and now I focus on building brands for companies that matter, including this one.