Archie ist tot!

[zwergpinguin]

Archie is dead: 'Everyone is really emotional. It's an amazing moment'

Archie Andrews died taking a bullet protecting his gay friend in today's issue. Photograph: Reuters
Wednesday 16 July 2014 16.25 BST Last modified on Wednesday 16 July 2014 19.39 BST
The long-running comic book character Archie Andrews, 74, died on Wednesday. He was shot at Pop Tate’s restaurant in Riverdale while protecting his friend Kevin Keller, a newly-elected senator and a campaigner for gay rights and gun control, from an assassin’s bullet.
He is survived by his wife, Veronica; his wife, Betty; and his teenage self, twice over, who lives on in two separate comic universes. His teenage adventures at Riverdale high school, in the comic Classic Archie, will continue – the company that publishes them, Archie Comics, is looking forward to the character’s 75th anniversary. He is only dying in the shorter-running, separate storyline Life with Archie, in which the character is an adult.
“It’s been an unbelievable week,” says Jon Goldwater, the publisher and CEO of Archie Comics. “It’s the most dramatic scene in the history of Archie Comics. It’s the death of Archie, it’s his demise.
“Everyone is really emotional,” he continued. “This is an amazing moment – the most important comic this company has ever published.”
It is not unusual for comic book characters to die but also carry on. When DC Comics killed off Superman in 1992 to enormous international fanfare – the story was widely covered in the news media – he was resurrected less than a year later. Marvel comics killed off Peter Parker (technically he just swapped brains with Doctor Octopus and was only thought of to be dead), in issue 700 of The Amazing Spider-Man, and writer Dan Slott received real-life death-threats from incensed fans at the move. Parker's return was announced in April 2014.
Many felt short-changed when Superman returned so quickly to life. Arlen Schumer, a comic book historian and the author of The Silver Age of Comic Book Art, told the Guardian that comic book companies killing off their major properties, as DC Comics did with Superman, was “ludicrous”.
So why do comic book companies kill off characters? Partly for sales, said Schumer; the issue where Spider-Man died sold more than 200,000 copies, more than double the comic’s usual circulation, while the (temporary) death of Superman was an enormous bestseller, with between two and three million copies sold. "DC Comics was laughing all the way to the bank," Schumer said.
Some fans of Archie feel this is why he was killed off – and don't like it. “Is it me or am I the only one that feels like they are doing this for media attention?” said one long-standing poster on the ArchieFans.com message board, who didn't want to be named.
She felt the move was cynical. “I think some of the political framing of the story is done in a way to attract the attention of the media like yourself,” she told the Guardian. “You then write stories about it, make it appear significant somehow, and this adds to the sensationalism that acts as a form of free marketing for them.”
Jeff Merrifield started the Riverdale podcast just over two years ago, which caters to fans of the Archie Comics world. “A lot of folks thought it was a publicity stunt and were kinda bummed out at the perception that Archie Comics is doing this as a way to boost sales. Kind of a gimmick,” he told the Guardian.
“That was one camp. Then another camp, myself included, were just excited to see what happens with it,” he said. “I’ve been following Life of Archie since issue one; it’s one of my favourites. I was surprised they were killing him, but it makes a lot of sense in the context of the comic book.”
Goldwater, whose ultimate decision it was to run this storyline, does not mention sales as a motivating factor. “It was a really hard decision,” he told the Guardian. “We’ve been talking about it for two years now. There came a point, as the series started evolving and the feedback we were getting was so exceptional – and the critical acclaim was where we wanted it to be … there came a point where we realised that this storyline had to wind down.”
“Then we thought: how do we wrap it up?” he continued. “Just like with a great television show – The Sopranos, or Seinfeld – there comes a point where you say: ‘How do we end this?'”
“Death is tricky in comics,” says Albert Ching, the managing editor of ComicBookResources.com. “Fans are conditioned to expect them to not to last, because they don't. This one is an interesting case; it seems to confuse people that while Archie is dying in one series, the Archie Comics publishing line will continue, as will multiple series starring the character.”
But, he says, “it actually seems pretty fitting given some of the serious territory explored earlier in the series – death, cancer, financial problems and marital strife.”
Archie was created in 1941 in the 22nd issue of comic book anthology Pep Comics by artist Bob Montana, and placed in the fictional town of Riverdale. An accident-prone red-headed everyman in an arena of comic books where bulletproof superheroes reigned supreme, Archie nonetheless became extremely popular, with several TV series, including the spin-off Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
The Archie universe (should that be multiverse?) is less complicated than that of Marvel or DC Comics. There is Classic Archie, in which the character is a teenager in high school, there is Afterlife with Archie, a spinoff horror series in which Archie and his high school pals fight zombies. Those two will continue.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...fe-with-archie