ARCHIE #616
"Campaign Pain" Part 1.
President Barack Obama and famed politician Sarah Palin get involved as Student Government campaigns spiral out of control at Riverdale High! The race between Archie and Reggie gets hot as campaign chaos reaches to the top, forcing an impromptu visit from these big-name politicos, who get pulled into the fray!
SCRIPT: Alex Simmons
ART: Dan Parent, Jack Morelli, and Digikore Studios
COVER: Dan Parent and Tito Pena
Shipping Date: DEC 15, 2010
On Sale at Comic Shops: DEC 22, 2010
Newsstands: Week of JAN 4, 2011
Comic, 32 pgs, 40 lb glossy stock, Full-Color
$2.99 US
I'm sure we'll see more press for Archie in the months ahead...
Replies
The Baron said:
Philip Portelli said:
What he said.
I don't understand this attitude, to be honest.
The kids have to live in America too. Why shouldn't they be introduced to some of the players who will shape their lives?
Comics, like any artform should engage with the times they are created in.
Archie and co will wither and die if they don't speak to each generation about that generations' interests - as the current Archie editorial seems to understand very well.
Those guys seem to be on fire at the moment! I don't read Archie but I love what they are doing these days. I hope it all pays off for them.
The guy on the first page of JLA #1 could be any of the presidents from the last 20 years, except the present one...
And Archie, as a brand, has been quite successful for decades in part because it wasn't overtly topical. Being overtly topical doesn't make what you do living and vibrant; it makes it stale and dated, quite quickly, (For example, just try watching, say, any Saturday Night Live from more than 10 years ago.) DC famously got burned by including President Kennedy in a story that was ready to go within weeks of his assassination, remember?
I have no complaint about comics and other entertainment media taking a look at the times we live in -- I was as big a fan of The West Wing as the next guy, for example -- but, as I've stated elsewhere, that kind of use pulls me out of stories rather than draws me in.
Isn't Archie primarily sold as a newstand periodical? I don't think it is collected at all? Is it even possible to get collected Archie from 5 or ten years ago? It lives and dies in the moment its published, is my point.
It's more problematic in superhero comics, which are collected in TPBs 6 months later, and Ultimo-Fabulous editions 5-10 years after that, and events from 10 years ago are passed off as happening 'a few months ago'.
Still, immediacy in superhero comics is something that seems to be missing. Some of the biggest sellers of the last 10 years were Civil War, which people thought was addressing Bush-era America, and the Spider-man/Obama comic, which tapped into the moment perfectly. Some argue that part of the reason for the collapse of the market is in that very insularity. People don't see their world in those pages at all.
You're complaint in the link, Clark, is that you bring a lot of real-world knowledge to these fictions that gets in the way, but I'd hazard that the general Archie target market wouldn't be quite as au-fait with current events, constitutional law etc.