So, Lena Dunham is going to write an Archie comic.
Archie Comics have announced that Dunham will be writing a four-party Archie story to be published in 2015. Dunham story will follow Archie and the gang when they run into a new reality show filming in Riverdale.
“I was an avid Archie collector as a child — conventions, first editions that l kept in plastic sleeves, the whole shebang,” Dunham said in a press release. “It has so much cultural significance but also so much personal significance, and to get to play with these beloved characters is a wild creative opportunity.”
Dunham was born two years after I started reading Archie comics. My first was a copy of Archie Annual No. 45 for $1 that I bought from the Gulf Station down the street from my house. The crazy bearded Duck Dynasty-esque manager always looked like he’d blow my brains out if I breathed on a comic book without immediately paying for it.
I didn’t store that issue, which I still own, in a plastic sleeve at the time. Instead, I carried it with me everywhere I went and read the hell out of it, as comics were intended to be consumed before the dark times, before the speculator boom of the 1990s, and the Hollywoodification of comics that has almost destroyed the industry.
When I was 9, all I cared about were the stories in an Archie comic. If Molly Ringwald or some other popular figure of the time had written a story, I wouldn’t have noticed or cared. Years later, I learned the names Dan DeCarlo and Samm Schwartz but by then I’d already associated them with luscious depictions of Betty and Veronica and hilarious adventures with Jughead respectively.
I’ve no idea if Dunham is a four-color humor writer on par with George Gladir or Schwartz, but the following depresses the hell out of me:
Getting Dunham on board was the first official move of new Archie Comics Chief Creative Officer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who thinks she will be a “stunning fit” for the brand.
“When we found out Lena was a fan, the first thing I did was call Roberto,” Archie Comics Publisher and CEO Jon Goldwater said. “And he said, instantly, ‘Let’s try to make this happen!’ And here we are. It’s been a magical confluence of events, and it further cemented why Roberto is the ideal person for the CCO role, and why this is the next logical step in Archie’s evolution as a real pop culture company – a place where the strongest, most unique voices can come and contribute to Archie’s world. The best part is – we’re just getting started.”
No, I know how Jughead felt when he dug up that pot of gold and discovered just one Yugoslavian pfennig.
serhasacomplaint 