One of my first DeCarlo pages is sill one of my favorites.
To say Dan infused the storytelling and character personality here with pizazz is an understatement. In fact, this page is a typical DeCarlo classic: Simple, clear, fun — and completely engaging.
The third panel (Archie’s close-up) is a classic summation of the dizzying nature of the character’s life overall, not just in this story.
I like that headshot so much I use the published version as my icon for this blog, as well as in other places too.
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.
