Archie Comics

• 1. Introduction

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  Archie Comic Publications, Inc. set an unlikely record in March 2011 when a copy of Archie Comics #1 sold at auction for $167,300. That was a record price for any non-superhero comic book, a distinction that speaks to what this publisher built. The company did not start life as a home for cheerful teenage romance. How did a publisher founded by businessmen from outside the comics world become synonymous with a red-haired teenager from a fictional small town? What turned that publisher of clean-cut Americana into a company willing to tackle zombie apocalypses, gay storylines, and political assassination? And why did Archie Andrews outlive dozens of more celebrated rivals to attract the filmmaking team behind Spider-Verse?

• 2. The Superhero Roots

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  Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John L. Goldwater launched M.L.J. Magazines in September 1939. They named the company after the initials of their first names. Silberkleit came with unusual breadth: a college degree from St. John's University, a pharmacist's license, and a law degree from New York Law School. His focus stayed on the business side, covering printing, distribution, and finance. Coyne handled bookkeeping and served as CFO. He and Silberkleit had previously co-run Columbia Publications, a pulp outfit that published its final issue only in 1960. Goldwater took the editorial chair, and his influence extended well beyond the company. He became one of the founders of the Comics Magazine Association of America and served as its president for 25 years. That organization is remembered most widely for the Comics Code Authority, the seal that governed American comics for decades. Goldwater was also a national commissioner of the Anti-Defamation League.

  Pep Comics arrived on newsstands in November 1939 with the Shield on its cover. The character was created by writer and managing editor Harry Shorten and designed by artist Irv Novick. He wore his country's colors and embodied an explicitly patriotic mission. He reached newsstands 13 months before Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Captain America appeared. The Shield held the cover of Pep Comics every issue for years. When March 1944 arrived, a teenage newcomer displaced the Shield from the cover. That was the last time a superhero anchored the company's flagship title.

• 3. Archie Takes Over

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  Teenaged Archibald "Archie" Andrews first appeared in Pep Comics #22, cover-dated December 1941, alongside Betty Cooper and Jughead Jones. Writer Vic Bloom and artist Bob Montana created the strip, with publisher John L. Goldwater supplying the original concept. Goldwater drew inspiration from the Andy Hardy film series starring Mickey Rooney, hoping a comic could attract readers who responded to an ordinary, relatable boy.

  The New York Times reported that Goldwater's memories of Hiawatha, Kansas helped shape the fictional town of Riverdale. Bob Montana's own background offered a competing explanation: he attended high school in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and others noted its resemblance to Riverdale.

  Archie quickly became M.L.J.'s leading character. By 1946, the company renamed itself Archie Comic Publications in his honor. A standalone Archie Comics title had already debuted with a cover date of Winter 1942. The scale of what followed is captured in one number. Letterer Bill Yoshida, hired in 1965, averaged 75 pages a week for 40 years, producing approximately 156,000 pages in total. In 1992, Archie partnered with Sega to create a Sonic the Hedgehog comic series. It ran for more than two decades, concluding in 2016, and by 2008 had become the longest-running comic series ever based on a video game.

• 4. Courts and Copyright

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  The February 1962 issue of Harvey Kurtzman's Help! magazine ran a Goodman Beaver parody of the Archie characters. The story, titled "Goodman Goes Playboy," was illustrated by Will Elder. Help! publisher Jim Warren had already received a letter dated the 6th of December 1961, accusing the magazine of copyright infringement and demanding the issue be pulled. Warren could not recall the copies already in stores. He settled out of court, paying Archie Comics $1,000 and running an apology in a later issue. A modified version of the story appeared in the 1962 book collection Executive Comic Book, with Elder altering the artwork to obscure the Archie likenesses. Archie Comics still found the resemblance too close and threatened another lawsuit. Kurtzman and Elder eventually handed over the copyright to the story entirely. Denis Kitchen's 1983 request to include it in a Goodman Beaver reprint collection was refused. The standoff ended when Gary Groth, co-owner of The Comics Journal, discovered the copyright had quietly lapsed. He reprinted the story in The Comics Journal #262, dated September 2004, and made it available as a PDF on the magazine's website.

  In April 2003, playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa had scheduled a production at Dad's Garage Theatre Company in Atlanta titled Archie's Weird Fantasy. The play depicted Riverdale's most famous teenager coming out as gay and moving to New York. Archie Comics issued a cease and desist order the day before opening night. Dad's Garage artistic director Sean Daniels said the play was meant to show Archie and his friends "growing up, coming out and facing censorship." He added that Archie Comics feared the portrayal would "dilute and tarnish" the character's image. The production opened a few days later under the title "Weird Comic Book Fantasy," with all character names changed.

  Archie Comics filed a trademark infringement suit in 2005 against music duo The Veronicas. The suit alleged the band had taken their name from the comic character Veronica Lodge. The case settled out of court, with the resolution including a co-promotion arrangement between Archie Comics and Sire Records, the band's label. Richard Goldwater and Michael Silberkleit, who had guided the company into the 2000s, would both be dead within three years.

• 5. New Leadership, New Voices

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  Richard Goldwater's death in 2007 and Michael Silberkleit's in 2008 ended the second generation of family ownership at Archie Comics. The following year, Silberkleit's widow Nancy and Goldwater's half-brother Jonathan became co-CEOs. Nancy Silberkleit, a former elementary-school art teacher, was assigned responsibility for scholastic and theater projects. Jon Goldwater, a former rock and pop music manager, took charge of day-to-day publishing and entertainment. The arrangement deteriorated quickly. The company sued Nancy Silberkleit in July 2011. Jon Goldwater filed another suit in January 2012, alleging she was making bad business decisions and alienating staff. She sued him in turn for defamation. In Manhattan, New York Supreme Court Judge Shirley Kornreich fined Silberkleit $500 for violating a court order that temporarily barred her from the company's headquarters.

  Kevin Keller, Archie Comics' first openly gay character, debuted in Veronica #202 in September 2010. Writer-artist Dan Parent created him out of a conversation with Jon Goldwater at the company's first creative summit, a meeting focused on bringing more diversity to Riverdale. The debut issue sold out at the distributor level. It was the first time Archie Comics had issued a second printing of a single comic. A four-part miniseries starring Keller followed in June 2011. A bimonthly Kevin Keller series by Parent launched in early 2012. It received a GLAAD award for Outstanding Comic Book the following year.

  The Life with Archie series launched in July 2010, running two parallel storylines side by side. In one, an adult Archie marries Betty Cooper; in the other, he marries Veronica Lodge. Both timelines incorporated death, cancer, same-sex marriage, gun control, and financial hardship. On the 9th of April 2014, the company announced that the adult Archie would die in issue #36, cover-dated July 2014, the series' second-to-last installment. Jon Goldwater confirmed that Archie's fate would be identical across both timelines. He died saving Senator Kevin Keller from an assassination attempt. In July 2014, Archie Comics announced that its superhero imprint Red Circle Comics would be rebranded as Dark Circle Comics in 2015. The new imprint would focus on crime, horror, and self-contained genre stories.

• 6. The Horror Turn

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  In October 2013, Afterlife with Archie launched as the company's first horror title, written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and illustrated by Francesco Francavilla. The series deposited the residents of Riverdale into a zombie apocalypse that also incorporated the occult, demons, and Cthulhu. It was the first Archie Comics title sold exclusively to comic shops and the first to carry a "Teen+" rating.

  Chilling Adventures of Sabrina arrived in October 2014, also written by Aguirre-Sacasa, with art by Robert Hack. The series placed a 16-year-old Sabrina Spellman in the 1960s, in the neighboring town of Greendale, balancing witch training with her feelings for her boyfriend Harvey Kinkle. In March 2015, Archie Comics grouped its delayed horror titles under a new imprint called Archie Horror.

  Dark Circle Comics debuted in February 2015 with The Black Hood #1, written by Duane Swierczynski and drawn by Michael Gaydos. The title introduced Gregory Hettinger, a police officer who becomes the new Black Hood while struggling with a painkiller addiction. A shooting outside a Philadelphia school set the addiction in motion. The Fox followed in April 2015, co-written by Dean Haspiel and Mark Waid. The Shield debuted in October 2015, introducing a new female character named Victoria Adams as its lead.

  In July 2015, the flagship Archie series relaunched from a new issue #1, written by Mark Waid with art by Fiona Staples. Subsequent issues featured art from Annie Wu and then Veronica Fish as new regular artist. After issue #32, the title reverted to its historic numbering at #699. Archie Comics launched a $350,000 Kickstarter in May 2015 to accelerate three new series, but cancelled it five days later after a critical reception. All three titles were eventually published anyway.

• 7. Television, Film, and Stage

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  CBS aired The Archie Show in 1968, a cartoon produced by Filmation that gave the characters their first regular television presence. It ran for one season but played in reruns for the next decade, spinning off several companion programs. Sabrina, the Teenage Witch received her own Filmation animated series in 1970. That same year, Josie and the Pussycats arrived on Saturday mornings, produced by Hanna-Barbera, the studio behind The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Scooby-Doo. A 1972 spin-off, Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, extended the franchise further.

  The live-action chapter began in 1996, when Showtime aired a Sabrina the Teenage Witch TV movie starring Melissa Joan Hart. The film served as a pilot for an ABC sitcom bearing the same name. That show ran until 2003. The most prominent live-action series came later: Riverdale, developed by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, was picked up by the CW on the 29th of January 2016. Aguirre-Sacasa described the show as "Archie meets Twin Peaks." It ran for seven seasons from January 2017 through August 2023.

  A live-action Archie film had been in development at Universal since 1994, with script announcements across years without a finished product. In August 2025, Universal announced a new attempt with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller attached as producers. The two had made Spider-Verse and The Lego Movie through their company Lord Miller. Tom King was named as screenwriter. In December 2025, Archie Comics announced a new publishing line in partnership with Oni Press. A new Archie No. 1, written by W. Maxwell Prince, was set to launch in September 2026. The first issue would arrive more than eight decades after Archie Andrews appeared in Pep Comics #22.