- How are you doing you wonderful nerds?
Normally I cover superheroes on this show,
but Archie Comics are a staple of American culture
as one of the longest running
and most successful publishers in the comic book industry.
While the company has published other comics involving
Sonic the Hedgehog, Mega Man,
and a couple other superheroes and anthologies,
the company gets its name from their most famous creation,
a red-haired teen named Archie Andrews.
(electricity zapping)
(bubbles popping)
(electronic tones)
Even if you've never read a story featuring Archie, Betty,
Veronica, Jughead, or the rest of the Riverdale gang,
you've probably at least heard of them
and know the basic idea.
Small town teens who usually face everyday problems
that usually get fixed quickly and comically
and usually have no bearing on the next story.
There's hardly a sense of continuity,
and in its place is a sense of consistency.
You pick up an Archie comic; you know what you're getting.
Everyday problems doesn't describe every story, though.
Riverdale has seen magic, aliens,
superheroes, sharknados and more.
For the most of its history,
Archie comics were simple kid stories that
refused to grow up, both literally and figuratively.
That is, until recent years when Archie started
to tackle more mature, contemporary themes,
diversify Riverdale's inhabitants,
and bring these characters into the modern world.
This change in course culminated in the reboot of Archie
and pals in 2015 that has been overall well received.
I know my buddy Geoff from Mother's Basement
loves the direction of the new Archie comics
and especially loves the CW's Riverdale show.
So much so that he made a video
about how great it is on his channel!
- Those are lies, Scott.
Lies and slander.
- Yeah, well, it was a long, sad, and strange road
from Archie's debut back in Pep Comics #22 from 1941
to the comic book reboot and Riverdale show.
The story involves a couple of business folk
cashing in on popular trends, a pair of untimely deaths,
spies, intimidation, sexual harassment allegations,
and multiple lawsuits that created
a toxic battle for the company's soul.
Plus, there's a story about someone shouting penis a lot,
so you'll at least want to stick around for that.
But to set the stage,
let's talk about two families at the heart of Archie Comics,
The Goldwaters and the Silberkleits.
John L. Goldwater was a New York orphan
who hitchhiked around the country during
the Great Depression, working mostly as a reporter
when he wasn't too busy being a ladies man.
Eventually, he found himself back in New York
where he started a shipping company called
Periodicals for Export, Inc. with an interesting idea.
Goldwater would buy old magazine issues from publishers
for cheap and sell them overseas for a decent profit.
But he would need a magazine publisher with whom to partner.
Enter Louis Silberkleit.
Silberkleit had a ton of experience working for and even
creating his own publishing companies for pulp magazines.
The two struck a deal to work together
and saw a surprising successful business.
Unfortunately, their success was short-lived
thanks to a war brewing in Europe
that would make international shipping a bit tricky.
Goldwater and Silberkleit continued to work together
as the two men witnessed the phenomenal popularity
of a brand new comic book about an alien dressed in
brightly colored spandex who would fight
as the champion of the oppressed.
The comic book superhero market exploded
as Superman stories started flying off the stands.
Figuratively, of course.
Superman couldn't actually fly when he first debuted.
Just jump real high.
Goldwater and Silberkleit saw,
along with many other publishers,
that the superhero comic market was where the money was.
Together, along with Maurice Coyne,
a business manager who worked closely with Silberkleit,
they set off on their new business venture.
With their powers and names combined,
they founded MLJ Magazines in 1939.
During the company's first three months,
they launched three anthology titles.
Blue Ribbon Comics, Top Notch Comics, and Pep Comics.
The latter is where the superhero The Shield was introduced.
That Patriotic hero that predates Captain America,
and is actually part of the reason
why Cap uses that iconic round shield.
It was originally triangular, as I'm sure we all know,
but was so close to The Shield's design
that the creators of Cap changed it
to something a little more unique.
And as much as MLJ wanted The Shield to be their
favorite creation by putting him on every cover
of Pep Comics when it started,
he simply could not compete with a red-haired teen
and his pals who debuted in the 22nd issue.
Co-created by John L. Goldwater, Bob Montana,
and Vic Bloom, Archie Andrews made his first appearance
alongside Jughead Jones and Betty Cooper.
In a time when superheroes were popping up left and right
and dominating culture, they looked to the Andy Hardy movies
as inspiration for a non-super, relatable person.
The stories involving the Riverdale gang
were a surprise hit!
Even though The Shield kept appearing solo on the covers
of Pep Comics, Archie's popularity could not be ignored.
The two started sharing the covers in 1944 with a series of
images that continually showed how Archie was simply better.
The Shield would lift Archie up on his shoulders,
announce him as victorious,
and even build a monument to the kid.
It was bizarre, and I love it so much!
The Shield started getting smaller and smaller
on each cover until Pep Comics #51
where Archie took over the covers completely.
And in 1946 between issues #55 and #56,
MLJ Magazines became Archie Comics Publications,
permanently changing the company name
to reflect their most iconic creation.
Like when National Comics briefly branded themselves
as Superman-DC, before just being called DC Comics,
reflective of the title where Batman debuted.
There's more to that story, we made a video about it.
Moving on.
It wasn't long before the Archie Universe started to explode
with new characters and ideas that would settle
into the standard for the series for decades to come.
When Archie debuted, he went by the nickname Chick
and wanted to impress the girl-next-door,
Betty Cooper, who only found him annoying.
Veronica Lodge came into the picture a few issues later,
establishing the classic love-triangle
that would be a constant driving force of the plot.
As the years went on, other characters
like Josie and the Pussycats
and Sabrina the Teenage Witch found themselves in Riverdale.
There was even a Saturday morning cartoon that,
while only lasting 17 episodes,
created the real-life #1 hit single Sugar, Sugar!
♫ Sugar
♫ Aw honey, honey
♫ You are my candy girl
♫ And you got me
Nope, not that one.
Well, close enough.
Archie comics were so popular
that they were regularly outselling Marvel's Fantastic Four
at the height of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby era.
Archie wasn't selling expansive universes of spandex-clad
superheroes or experimental storytelling art pieces.
They were selling consistency.
Assembly-line narratives with a unified
art-style developed by Dan DeCarlo.
The stories were so simple and cookiecutter
that there was even an issue where they broke down exactly
how to write them beat for beat
in Archie's Pals 'n Gals #34.
It ironically follows a basic and generic plot
while ending with the phrase,
"Variety is the spice of life!"
That sentiment does not seem to be true
for the characters of Riverdale.
As Bart Beaty wrote in his spectacular book
Twelve-Cent Archie, quote,
"The goal of Archie Comics was not to
"produce a widely disparate set of stories
"but to provide readers with virtually the same material
"month after month, with only as much variation
"as would be required to keep them coming back for more."
End quote.
And this worked for a while,
but it also made the characters and stories rather stale.
Eventually, sales would start to drop.
In 1983, both John L. Goldwater and Louis Silberkleit
retired from the Archie Comics business.
In their place, they left the company to their sons
Richard Goldwater and Michael Silberkleit.
To maintain the legacy that their fathers established,
Richard and Michael didn't want to change a thing.
Archie, Jughead, and the rest of the Riverdale gang
would remain more or less stories for children,
fearful that venturing outside of what was already
established would risk the integrity of the Archie brand.
As one example, there was an unlicensed play titled
Archie's Weird Fantasy which featured the character
coming out as gay.
Richard and Michael could not let this stand,
so they sent the play a cease and desist the night before
the show's debut thinking
that it would tarnish the Archie image.
The creative stifling only led sales to diminish further,
and it's conceivable to think that if nothing changed,
Archie Comics might have died out for good.
Then between 2007 and 2008,
both Richard and Michael died of cancer.
Although tragic, their deaths would set the stage
for an updated Archie, saving the company and bringing
the characters of Riverdale into the modern world.
But first, there would be a toxic rivalry that would result
in severe and somewhat hilarious allegations.
To keep the Archie dynasty alive,
the void at the company left by Richard and Michael
was filled by Nancy Silberkleit, Michael's widow,
and Jon Goldwater with no H, Richard's half-brother.
Both Nancy and Jon were pretty unqualified.
Nancy was an elementary school art teacher,
and Jon had a career in music management.
And from minute one,
the two feuded over Archie like Betty and Veronica.
Nancy, again, being a teacher, wanted to secure
the Archie brand as stories aimed specifically towards
children to encourage literacy,
instill a love of reading, and combat bullying.
Her motto according to her website is
Children + Comic Books = Reading, Knowledge and Confidence.
Jon, on the other hand,
saw Archie as irrelevant in today's society.
He recalled a story where he was reading
a few Archie comics on a train.
A woman sat down next to him, took a look at the comics,
and remarked, "Archie!
"Wow, they still make those?"
Jon knew from that point that the company needed to be
reworked from what kinds of stories they were telling
to how they would distribute those stories.
Under this new leadership,
Archie Comics introduced new ideas like the character of
Kevin Keller the first gay character in Riverdale,
Life With Archie which would explore slightly more mature
themes than readers had seen in those comics,
and even the simple concept
of distributing their comics digitally.
Kevin Keller's first appearance in Veronica #202
would receive a second printing,
which was unprecedented for Archie Comics at the time.
Life with Archie was also a huge hit,
and the company became the first major American publisher
to offer same-day digital releases of their comics,
something that new comics fans
might take for granted nowadays.
All of this happened despite Nancy's input,
who reportedly hated all of these ideas.
But when she stopped teaching and started working at Archie
full-time, things began to get crazy as she and Jon
battled for the control of the company's direction.
The work environment at Archie Comics around this time was
absolutely next-level bonkers in the worst way possible.
That is if any of these allegations are to be believed.
I think that's important to keep that in mind going forward.
Most of this is alleged behavior,
but it's way too crazy not to at least mention.
Nancy claimed that Jon and the other employees
conspired to push her out of the company
simply because they didn't like her.
But if any of it's true,
they kinda had a lot of good reasons.
Nancy Silberkleit reportedly wanted long-time employees
fired based solely on their appearance, age, or weight.
She allegedly wanted her dog to be given
free-reign to poop where ever it wanted in the office.
There were claims that she hired a member of Hells Angels
to come to the office and intimidate employees,
although some reports say
that it was the former football player Howard Jordan.
Honestly, I don't even know.
It could have been both.
Her former assistant claimed that she asked him
to spy on everyone and dig up dirt, but he refused,
later explaining, quote, "This woman is trying to
"kill the company for her own purposes.
"It's the worse job experience of my life."
End quote.
Everyone around the office expressed the opinion that Nancy
was mentally unstable, unreasonable, and prone to tantrums.
The best example of this behavior is when
she allegedly stormed into a meeting
pointed at each attendee,
and yelled, "Penis, penis, penis, penis,"
and then walked out.
Some reports claim that she did the same stunt in 2010,
but also added the phrase, quote, "My balls hurt!"
There were also claims that she would refer to male
employees as penises instead of their actual names.
Whether or not all of that actually happened is beyond me,
but literally every employee backed up the claims of her,
let's say unusual behavior.
There were lawsuits and counter suits
shooting back and forth.
The whole thing was an enormous, complicated mess.
I'll have more info in the description below,
but I would be remiss not to read this one statement
from the case itself so you can get a feeling
of just how much people did not like Nancy Silberkleit.
Quote, "While World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War,
"and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan did not stop
"the publication of Archie Comics,
"the war-like attitude and approach of Nancy Silberkleit
"may destroy Archie Comics unless the court intervenes."
End quote.
I mean, you gotta appreciate that language.
So dramatic.
Nowadays, Nancy doesn't do much
for the company as a largely powerless co-CEO.
With Archie entering the modern era under Goldwater,
the company started seeing success and praise
for their new comics,
even the strange ones like the crossover with KISS.
In fact, at a book signing for Archie Meets KISS,
one of the co-producers for the TV show Glee,
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa,
turned up to geek out about the book.
As a lifelong Archie fan,
he pitched the idea of a Glee and Riverdale crossover.
Goldwater loved the idea so much, the two made it happen,
becoming great friends in the process.
Later, Aguirre-Sacasa would pitch the idea of a zombie
apocalypse story revolving around the Riverdale gang.
Goldwater immediately approved, and the acclaimed
Afterlife With Archie hit shelves in 2013.
Its success led to Aguirre-Sacasa to be given the title
of the Chief Creative Officer of Archie Comics.
Also, fun fact.
You remember that play about Archie coming out of the closet
that got shut down by Richard Goldwater
and Michael Silberkleit?
Aguirre-Sacasa was the man who wrote it.
The same die-hard fan who got a cease and desist
for tampering with the Archie brand years before
was suddenly a major part of the company.
Awesome.
In 2015, Archie Comics rebooted.
Unlike other comic book reboots
where continuity was making it hard for new
and even current readers to follow the stories,
Archie rebooted to cement the idea
that they were about to embrace change.
They wanted to show that they were willing to go all in
and give the characters a fresh coat of paint with the
stellar creative team of Mark Waid and Fiona Staples.
As titles like Jughead, Betty and Veronica,
Life With Kevin, and more started coming out,
it was clear that the Archie Comics brand
was strong once again.
So strong, in fact,
that The CW picked up an Archie show
that Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa co-produced with Greg Berlanti
called Riverdale which premiered
its first episode earlier this year.
And boy,
it is just swell.
Right, Geoff?
- No, it's really not.
I'm a fan of a few other CW adaptations,
especially The Flash, but this is not really Archie at all.
It's just this typical teen melodrama that bears
only a passing resemblance to the original comics.
It's basically the Gotham of Archie,
which also explains why it's such a good hate-watch
when you're drunk with friends.
It's especially disappointing given how well they've done
with the new run of Archie Comics.
I mean, those are also written like a teen soap opera,
but a good one, where the teenagers actually
act like teenagers, while still staying true
to their original archetypes,
or Archie-types.
I am so sorry for that.
Even before their big re-boot,
Archie comics have been taking big risks,
like you said, Life With Archie, Afterlife With Archie,
and Kevin Keller coming out as gay,
were all huge departures from the norm.
And their Archie vs. Predator event uses the classic
homogenized Dan DeCarlo art style in conjunction with some
absolutely shocking and hilarious blood and gore,
to create a blood-bath that would not be out of place
in the pages of Mad Magazine.
So it's baffling that Riverdale plays things so safe.
Miring itself so deeply in cliche televise formula
that the original material disappears almost entirely.
As a long-time fan, I couldn't be more disappointed.
- Thanks, Geoff.
Honestly, I was never a big Archie fan growing up.
I just wasn't exposed to too much of it.
I always associated it as stories belonging to a simpler
and largely manufactured period in American history.
But that mindset overlooks the other arguably
more important period of time that the characters represent.
Even when the gang was transported into stories set in
distant historical time periods,
whether that be ancient Egypt or Rome,
the teens from Riverdale were just that.
Teens.
This creates an interesting paradox with Archie Comics.
One's teenage years are known for being
a time of change and transformation.
Yet Archie and the gang remained in their teens,
unchanged for decades.
But as we've seen, Archie in the past few years
has started to finally grow up.
And I can't wait to see what a clumsy,
redheaded teenager from the 1940s and his friends
from Riverdale can bring to a modern world.
♫ Sugar
♫ Aw honey, honey
♫ You are my candy girl
♫ And you got me rocking you
♫ Break it down won't you please
(applauding)
- We discussed a lot of Archie's past in this video,
but if you want an in-depth analysis of the
new Riverdale show, make sure to go check out Geoff's video
where he tells you how much it sucks
and how you're wrong for liking it.
I pop up over there in that video
because I also have words to say about that show.
Even though he is a long-time Archie fan,
it's kind of a new topic
for both of us to make videos about.
Geoff makes some truly amazing videos analyzing anime.
I can't get enough of them, and I don't even watch anime.
They're just that good!
We'll have his video linked in the description below
and on the end card.
Also, I just wanted to say that there were
75 years of history that I had to dig through for this video
so there are no doubt hardcore Archie fans in the comments
writing about "How could you possibly
"skip over Harry Lucey?" or something.
A lot got cut out, and potentially some of it was incorrect.
I do the best that I can and I leave you
with my sources in the description below,
so you can do further reading if you wish.
As always, I want to thank our patrons
who make these videos possible.
The names of those wonderful nerds are right here.
Special shout outs to Alberto Ramirez, Cristoffer Lange,
Patrick Caddy, Elizabeth Moncel, and Austin Rogers.
I'll see you guys next week for a new video.
In the meantime, I'm Scott reminding you
to read between the panels and grow smarter through comics.
See ya.