Fans have spoken: Archie & Friends has a new name

In the August 23 post of this news blog we reported that Archie Comics was taking your votes to rename their longtime title Archie & Friends. Well, the results are in ...

"Archie Comics has always listened to our fans," the press release says. "When planning to replace Archie & Friends with a new anthology title featuring both new characters and some of our best loved classic characters, we went to our fans for help to pick the title. Fans were given 10 proposed titles that were placed on the http://www.archiecomics.com/ website and they voted for the title they liked best."

With 14,629 votes cast, Archie All-Stars is the winner with 51 percent of the votes. Fans can look forward to this new title to debut in the second quarter of 2008.

Also, in the Archies world:

ARCHIE COMICS IS OFFERING THE SOLD OUT ARCHIE DIGEST #236 DIRECTLY TO FANS

Archie Comics has offered collector set and subscriptions to fans for years, but never single collector issues. As part of the 65th anniversary celebration of ARCHIE COMICS #1, they published ARCHIE DIGEST #236. When ARCHIE DIGEST #236 sold out across the country, fans wrote in and emailed that they could not find this comic in stores.

ARCHIE DIGEST #236 is a special issue paying tribute to Archie’s illustrious past by reprinting Archie’s very first adventures from PEP COMICS #22 and ARCHIE COMICS #1! From Archie being a hapless showoff when Betty moves into town, to Archie being a tongue-tied, discombobulated wreck when Veronica moves into town, these early stories written by Vic Bloom and others reflect the free-wheeling fun of the popular screwball comedy movies of the day. Not to mention the charmingly exaggerated cartooning styles of Bob Montana and others so popular in the 1940s. As if that weren’t enough, the original “funny animal” supporting features like Squoimy the Woim, Cubby the Bear and Bumbie the Bee-tective, from the legendary Joe Edwards are also included!

If you’ve never seen Archie and his friends as they originally appeared, you’re in for a treat with these milestone tales … The entire contents of ARCHIE COMICS #1 have not been available since 1942, so this is a very significant issue in Archie history. Keep in mind that the values and comedic traditions in 1942 are not the same as they are in 2007; some stories, although historically significant, do not reflect the culture and values of Archie Comics Publications and are only presented for their historical value.

In addition to re-presenting the first appearance of Archie and the first Archie Comic, they have a brand new story created in homage to the 1940s gang ...
“When Archie Meets Archie”: On the eve of his 65th anniversary, Archie Andrews meets … himself! At least, the version of himself that appeared in Archie’s first story! After Archie gets used to calling his other self “Chic,” he ends up meeting the vintage Jughead and Betty, too – also drawn 1940s style! The space-time continuum has never seen anything like this!

ARCHIE DIGEST #236
SCRIPTS AND ART: Vic Bloom, Bob Montana, Joe Edwards, Fernando Ruiz, Rex Lindsey and more!
Full-color digest format
$2.49 U.S.
http://stuffshop.archiecomics.com/spsiis.html