Archie Andrews – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Dan Parent — The Amazing Transformations Of… Archie Andrews?

October 31, 2023 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Commission, October 2019, Based on Brian Rolland’s TPB cover, The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen

As a kid, I loved the goofy adventures of Jimmy Olsen.

As an adult, I love Brian Bolland’s art. I wish I had the good sense to acquire a cover years ago, when the price was in a lower level of the stratosphere. But of course, hindsight is 20/20, etc.

So naturally, I get a kick out of Brian’s cover for The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen. Peanut Butter and Chocolate, yes?

Well, mostly. I think Bolland’s interpretation of Jimmy is a just a bit too “adult” — despite the bizarre themes and eccentric characterizations.

Enter Archie All-Star Artist Dan Parent: Turn Jimmy Olsen into Archie Andrews, and presto, you have the goofiness and joy this treatment deserves.

My pal Dan knocked it out of the park, and he is kind enough to show appreciation for my wacky commission ideas.

And let’s face it, the 60s Jimmy Olsen is pretty much a Pete Costanza or Curt Swan version of Archie anyway. Wait a minute — now that I think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the two of them in the same place at the same time. Hmmmm…

Happy Halloween!

*My first two issues of Jimmy Olsen (#104 and 105, 1967) obviously shaped my Olsen worldview forever.*

Bob Montana — Just Joking

February 13, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Archie’s Joke Book #2, January 1954

Although the newspaper strip kept Archie co-creator Bob Montana busy, he did manage to continue to find time to provide comic book pages as well, setting (and ultimately evolving) the house style for the Archie family.

Archie’s Joke Book used a similar formula to the newspaper strips: Short gags, either a half page or full page in length, possibly even recycling or amplifying some of the same gags from those strips.

IDW collected one small volume of these “jokes” from that era to minimal success. The format didn’t appeal to collectors, and the joke themselves in all fairness, don’t appeal all that much to a contemporary audience.

Bob Montana — Instructional

February 12, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Sunday June 13, 1954

Archie, as noted in the previous blog, rapidly achieved success. Within a few years after the character’s introduction, the Archie family added a hit newspaper strip to the successful comics line. Bob Montana, Archie’s co-creator, worked on the strip for nearly 30 years until his untimely passing in 1975.

IDW and the Library of American Comics intended to publish a complete sequential series of these strips, but ran into a problem: Finding the actual strips themselves. Archie had no strip archive, and collectors, who had kept clipped strips from the era, concentrated primarily on adventure series and mostly ignored Archie.

Fortunately, we managed one book each of dailies and Sundays from the period, and even a cursory glance reveals Montana’s cleverness in cartooning.

*Early solicitations for the Montana dailies book included this preliminary cover, but imprint Editor Dean Mullaney ultimately went in a different direction for publication.*

Andrew Pepoy — Happy Birthday, Archie

February 9, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Archie Americana Volume 1: Best of the 1940s HC, 2011

Archie Andrews, (along with many of the rest of his timeless Riverdale gang), celebrates his 80th anniversary this year.

Starting as a back-up feature in MLJ’s Pep Comics #22 (cover date December 1941), Archie and his pals gradually took over the whole comic, and eventually, in 1946, the entire company.

Archie’s creation is generally credited to MLJ founder John Goldwater, and cartoonist Bob Montana. Montana apparently based many of the characters on friends and neighbors from his high school days in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

IDW Publishing and Dark Horse both relentlessly chased Archie Comics for archival reprint rights — an area the company itself was slow to develop, and in 2009, Archie ultimately split those reprint rights between the two publishers.

AT IDW, we published hardcover “Best of” collections, based on both era and artist. We also added the Archie strips to our Library of American Comics imprint headed by Dean Mullaney. (More on that later.)

Andrew Pepoy drew era-specific covers for all four Archie’s Americana volumes. This cover from the first volume — Best of the 40s — is a faithful and clever re-working of Montana’s cover for Archie’s Pals and Gals #3. Ironically, Montana’s original is from the 50s (1954), but I don’t think anyone complained.

More Archie coming up in the next few posts as we celebrate his very youthful 80th.

*All four volumes in the IDW “Archie’s Americana” series feature era-specific covers by the talented Andrew Pepoy.*

*Starting as a back-up feature in MLJ’s Pep Comics #22 , Archie and his pals gradually took over the covers, the comic, and in 1946, the entire company.*

Andrew Pepoy — Wally World II

September 14, 2019 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Archie #646, September 2013

What if EC Comics merged with the Archie line back in the ’50s and survived through the present day? Andrew Pepoy gives us the short answer with Betty and Veronica as Wally Wood-styled space girls on this cool variant cover for Archie #646.

And, as bonus, Cosmo the Merry Martian brings along the whole Martian army. (Mars Attacks!)