[SPEAKER_01]: What's up everybody, welcome to Comic Book Club.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Alex and I'm very excited about this special episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have for you here talking about an upcoming book.
[SPEAKER_01]: A highly anticipated, highly hyped book called Archie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one, it is the first of only presses new Archie comics line reinventing the classic Riverdale characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're very lucky here to have pretty much the entire creative team or most of the creative team of the new book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nick Kegnetti and Fabio Moon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the podcast, guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for doing us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for making the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it is very early slash weird times for all of you as we're jumping out here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd just to lay out for listeners.
[SPEAKER_01]: The book is not coming out until September 2nd, but final order cutoff is July 27.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's coming out pretty quickly.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you do want Archie number one.
[SPEAKER_01]: you're going to want to head to your comic book shop and order that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I definitely will be huge archie comics fan here and very excited to see what you all have in store.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we've got little peaks here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've gotten you know press releases with quotes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got designs as we're taping this yesterday.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kano's designs and then Fabio I believe your sketches of the characters from the book as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's take like a big step back and talk about this, and I know you've probably been talking about this quite a bit, but What draws you personally to Archie these characters have been around for decades now?
[SPEAKER_01]: We all have Always I always fight a very interesting because everybody's like I know where I first saw Archie comics This is my Tie to it or have no connection to it whatsoever, so to kind of go around Ben for you first
[SPEAKER_01]: What was your experience with Archie?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your emotional connection or not to the property?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, Archie is like one of those things that's just in the ether of like the culture, you know, and certainly, you know, in America, I grew up Maryland, you know, but like I think probably all around the world, it's like it is iconic, which is a word that is kind of been broadened in its sense in the last decade or two decades, I would say, iconic, but I think there's no question that like,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's Archie's like Mickey Mouse.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like Coke.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just something that I don't think I could say for certain where I first encountered Archie comics.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just one of those things that's always been around.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like the primary characters, certainly Archie, Betty and Veronica, and Jughead are like, they are, um, they're like permanent fixtures.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you see them.
[SPEAKER_02]: and you get an emotional understanding what they are.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's just a resonance to the characters.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there aren't a lot of characters in culture that have that kind of immediate connection to so many people.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, I heard you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, and you guys can talk about this as artists, but as a writer, it's like,
[SPEAKER_02]: What an exciting challenge to be like, what am I going to do with this thing?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know how, what direction am I going to push this in?
[SPEAKER_02]: In a way that we will maintain that, that won't betray that trust, that emotional trust that I think readers have with these characters, but at the same time do something that is kind of new and kind of unique to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I want to do, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nick, what about you?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your connection if any to RG?
[SPEAKER_03]: Gosh, I think personally the first encounter in the characters just like the supermarket checkout lines as a kid seeing them they're bright and colorful and you know I personally I didn't read much of any of the books as a kid or anything but like that was like the type of thing that I was drawn to as far as comics go stuff that looked kind of of that ilk
[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, like my mom dad, my grandma, they all have their stories of reading the books, his kids, and stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think for me, as somebody who's mainly just done like, you know, create our own stuff up to this point, it's not lost on me, like just like all that lineage, and like, um,
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, being in that long line and trying to, like Ben was saying, you know, stay true to the core of those characters, which are really identifiable and really iconic, but also just trying to bring some of my own flare to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think like just instantly like working on some of the characters, like you get that feel of like that you know who they are,
[SPEAKER_03]: instantly and that's just really fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just gone and playing in that in that world already.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and Fabia, what about you?
[SPEAKER_04]: Are you here, am you okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, you're great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: I actually have very little Archie experience, but like Nick said, Archie has been around comics for so long that a lot of this stuff that I was exposed to is a result of Archie existing.
[SPEAKER_04]: comic book about a gang of kids is an influence by Archie existing.
[SPEAKER_04]: So here in Brazil for Existence, the biggest comic book in Brazil is a comic book for kids about a gang of kids called Monica's gag.
[SPEAKER_04]: And Monica wouldn't exist if Archie didn't exist.
[SPEAKER_04]: and this premise of kids growing up together and the scenario of growing up together and learning together, discovering the world together, it's something that
[SPEAKER_04]: Archie kind of initiated and has spread out everywhere in comics around the world and so I was certainly like I was influenced by that and since the stories that I like to tell are relationship stories
[SPEAKER_04]: That's how I started as well like in in myself publish comics in high school and that in college.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was talking I was making stories about relationships and relationships with that dealt with like my friends in school and the situations we encounter like meeting a girl for the first time or having trouble in school with a certain class, all that
[SPEAKER_04]: resonates with this work that I'm doing right now, and it's what interested me in coming aboard the projects.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's talk about growing.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's talk about discovering a world that is so familiar for everybody, but at the same time we have to feel that we're discovering it
[SPEAKER_01]: that is also interesting to hear I do want to ask a little bit we'll get more into the beat of the book in a second but then you kind of came in midstream initially when this is first announced it was W Maxwell Prince I was still to be clear excited to hear your day because we're big fans of Benjamin we talked about the podcast a couple of months back if I recall
[SPEAKER_01]: great book as well, but what was set and what were you able to bring to the project?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it already mid-streamed?
[SPEAKER_01]: You were just like catching up to the train I was running or did you start from scratch?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I started from scratch.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, obviously I was catching up to the train that's been running for eight decades or however long arties existed, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that, you know, it wasn't like, okay, you got to come up with a new character set.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like,
[SPEAKER_02]: So that piece of the assignment was there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But certainly I wasn't handed any existing scripts or any existing, you know, we want to go in this direction.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I could think this is a testament to Oni, like, and to the Archie folks, it was like new guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's see what he wants to talk about, and like I had a great long meeting with Hunter, you know, head of Oni and with the Archie team, and just like I was like, all right, look, here's what,
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's what I think the kinds of stories I think would be fun to tell and here's where I think would be a good starting place and like they were like great let's let's rock and roll.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it has been nothing but like green lights and open doors and like just have fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: And certainly like I am the kind of writer who responds to Deadline pressure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I think I like the thing of like okay you got this job and okay you almost done.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was part of the challenge for me and part of what made it fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, well, let's talk about the take that a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how much, obviously, like, for anybody who doesn't know, I'm just a sort of laid out there, Archie Comics is continuing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not going away.
[SPEAKER_01]: They still have the digest, they're putting out the classic stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only stuff is existing alongside of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're hitting this, and I think you start to touch on this a little bit, how much you pay tribute to the history of Archie versus forging your own path going forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: You wanna start with me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or about me?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think it's like, it's like 60, 40, pain like sticking with what we all know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think like inevitably, I am my own person, I'm my own writer, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So like whoever you hand this assignment to, there's going to be fingerprints of who that person is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Their stylistic choices, they're like, they're narrative interests.
[SPEAKER_02]: within this larger framework of Archie.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, I was really excited to think about, all right, they're these teenagers.
[SPEAKER_02]: We all love them as teenagers.
[SPEAKER_02]: We love that they're doing teenage things.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like all teenagers, they are caught in this interesting state between being kids and adulthood.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this sort of looming sense that like things are going to change, they're going to change sooner than I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like I was really curious to start to add, not in like,
[SPEAKER_02]: a melancholy way, but you know, a sort of thoughtful way of like, are these characters starting to think about what comes next and how does that color their lives?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I personally have three teenagers right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will for another couple of months.
[SPEAKER_02]: My oldest is about to turn 20, so but for this time period, I've been really interested in the way that they are both kids and adults.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think
[SPEAKER_02]: If there's anything that is particularly new in my version of Archie, it is that sense of like intersection and like what comes next.
[SPEAKER_01]: is one of your kids, Archie, one Jughead, and one Betty, and Ovaronica, or I said Jughead on the make-up there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're all Jughead in a way.
[SPEAKER_02]: But all teenagers are Jughead, but I do have a dog name, Archie.
[SPEAKER_02]: So every time that I put something like this in the calendar, like, you know, the home calendar, my wife's like, what's going on with Archie?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know it's the other Archie.
[SPEAKER_02]: The world famous Archie, not our German Shepherd mix.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the dog is still Archie number one in your heart, though.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about the look of the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Fabi, I just wanted to turn to you first just because again, this email came out yesterday.
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw Keynote's designs and then I saw your takes on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that sort of the workflow there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it going from Keynote setting up the looks or are you interpreting them in your own?
[SPEAKER_01]: How did you, what's your take on it?
[SPEAKER_04]: uh well uh Kano came and did this pass on every character and I think that was an attempt from only to get like a uniform redesign for all the books since we're doing all many books and so the first fast was by one artist and then every artist is going to do their own take
[SPEAKER_04]: based on what was established by Cano.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I didn't came up with the clothes and more or less neither did Cano because it's such an iconic look that he'd just had to respect the look and think about what's each piece of clothing meant and what piece of how the hairdo's
[SPEAKER_04]: help the characters and then I took that and I started thinking about the personality of the characters and how that's really what's important in the drawing.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's showing that they have distinct personalities.
[SPEAKER_04]: They are not just the same
[SPEAKER_04]: teenager, the same girl, the same guy, the same jock, they are all different, and their personalities should transpire through the way, to the way they, they stand up to the way they talk to the way they walk, and that was more how I tried to approach the design of the characters, thinking that they are teenagers.
[SPEAKER_04]: So they are,
[SPEAKER_04]: They're less stiff and less heroic than a typical, I don't know, adventurer comic book character.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to ask you about some specifics in a second, but first, just to I've been very curious about this, Fabio and Nick, what is the coordination between YouTube like because you, as far as I see if your work are very different artists, so I can't imagine that you're going page to page back and forth, is it one of you doing one of arc and the next arc is there more of a coordination there?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is actually, what's going
[SPEAKER_03]: It seems like there's a little bit of like a switch and up back and forth kind of thing going on and I think I'm so far like I started working on my first issue here, first full issue and I think Ben's script is like really catering to the bombastic kind of fun zany stuff that I
[SPEAKER_03]: like to draw so like it's a perfect melding of worlds for me and that respect and I'm just kind of following you know the lead as far as the whole 85 years of Archie in general just looking at everything that's been done and just following Cano and Fabio's work and just trying to you know stay
[SPEAKER_03]: the wheelhouse of what Oni's doing at the moment with the character, but also, again, just trying to bring some of my own sensibilities and really trying to focus on the character acting and just push the cartoon in a bit with just expressions and stuff like that, really make it a little over the top in a fun way.
[SPEAKER_01]: and just to ask you out on a logistical level are you both switching off issues or you switching off arcs or is that TBD at this point?
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we have distinct issues.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're not drawing on the same issue.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it doesn't, it doesn't, it makes people like, ah, this character is different in the middle of that page that looks like a soap opera actor of change in the form of a suit to the other, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Let the actor play in Juggit, quit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, Ben, just to stick on this for a second, how does that affect your writing process that knowing that Fabio is doing one issue and Dick is doing another?
[SPEAKER_02]: It is not, it doesn't, it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I have not thus far.
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe it will change.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it will change as I start to get full issues back and see the, but I think that narratively and joke telling wise and like, what I'm doing with the character wise, is probably gonna remain who I am and then it will be hopefully fun and interesting for readers to encounter that through these two different.
[SPEAKER_02]: lenses rather than it being me trying to do separate forms of collaboration with Nick and with Fabio, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I said earlier, I wanted to dive into the characters a little bit and bad, and I'm curious to get your takes on them, but just looking at them,
[SPEAKER_01]: visually Betty and Veronica to be and this is just my interpretation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you tell me where I'm wrong here, but Betty and Veronica look like oh yeah, that's Betty and Veronica.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is kind of how I know I'm Archie and Jughead were interesting to me because there's a little bit of variation there Archie looked maybe a little doughier than we've seen him in the past like he's not
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking maybe a little bit of like the Mark Wade Fiona Staples run where he was a little bit more of a job, you know, he was a little bit more beefed up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here he seems more like a regular guy, there's more roundness to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jughead, I took away, there definitely seemed to be a little sense of the Riverdale Jughead, a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he was described as like an art weirdo, I'm paraphrasing here on the design sheet.
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe for either one of you,
[SPEAKER_01]: how accurate is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that take?
[SPEAKER_01]: Artistically on Archie, what makes say Archie to start with him different than we've seen before and maybe the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: For other one of you, I guess Fabio, if you want to go first.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, well, uh, I think what I want to convey is that like the
[SPEAKER_04]: teenagers, they are clumsy, they are discovering their bodies.
[SPEAKER_04]: So everybody is more clumsy than the previous versions.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I want them to be clumsy, to not be athletic, to not be super dynamic, and they're close sometimes, most times,
[SPEAKER_04]: shoes later in life, teenagers have terrible taste in clothing, they don't they always choose the wrong size because sometimes like the girls sometimes they are.
[SPEAKER_04]: not yet comfortable with their bodies, and there's social pressure.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you put bigger clothes, you hide, and boys, they pick clothes, they don't think about clothes.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's whatever is closer to their hand when they're late, going to school, and they have other things in their minds.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's kind of what I wanted, and at the same time, I was also trying, and that's trickier because depends on the story if I have a chance to do that, but I'm trying to make sure that Veronica and Betty are very different.
[SPEAKER_04]: not only being a blonde and a brunette and like everything should make clear that they're different girls with different personalities, different ideas and more than Jughead and Archie, which are easier.
[SPEAKER_04]: Jughead and Archie are much easier to draw and
[SPEAKER_04]: because I don't know, people paid less attention to boys, they learn not as worried, even the archie people had less notes about the male characters than the female characters.
[SPEAKER_04]: People are much more worried about how we portray women, young women, especially.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, more pay more attention to how to
[SPEAKER_04]: make sure they are different, and they reflect young women today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nick, are you having the same experience, or are you fighting that Archie a Jughead, or just like smooth sailing, and Betty and Veronica were the tough part is, you're not eggs, or I guess a guess.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, honestly, I feel like we were having pretty similar feelings on the matter, just
[SPEAKER_03]: book before a pink lemonade and I think doing that book since it was starting a woman as the lead, I tried to be more aware of like just how to carry the character and how to like, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: give that like the most care possible just because like I wanted to feel like a certain type of way and like same applies for Betty and Veronica so far even just doing my sketches for this first issue here like really trying to hone in on those differences immediately
[SPEAKER_03]: This kind of fun right now where we're recording.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think the public has seen any of my Archie art so far, but I think my approach to that.
[SPEAKER_03]: you know him in general is you know like like he said a little bit further away from the Mark Wade Fiona Staples also but trying to do some fun stuff like you know like the classic hairstyle trying to make that the make sense blending but
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, with Cano and Fabio are doing, but also, you know, trying to get those those side, the side, the little scratches going on in a fun way and then incorporate that, make it look like seamless somehow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well then, what about you from the writing perspective?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you having the same female problems that the artists have or what have you found?
[SPEAKER_01]: Which characters have you found like just their smooth sailing to write and which are potentially maybe not trouble but a little trickier?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what's funny is that like the is that for me in a weird way Archie is the hardest character to write because like I feel like if you put junk in any situation I understand almost instinctively the way he'll respond or the sorts of things that he'll say he's this sort of art weirdo yes he's in he's a little bit of a
[SPEAKER_02]: Self-imposed outside or he sort of looks at things for a little bit of a funny angle all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was a little bit of a philosopher king, he's like a character like Linus or like, you know, hops from cabinet hops.
[SPEAKER_02]: He exists on the level slightly above.
[SPEAKER_02]: but still inside his milieu, like, I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like it's a really fun and interesting thing to write, even as he has his own concerns and problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: And PS, he loves hamburgers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Betty and Veronica, of course, like famously, Betty is more...
[SPEAKER_02]: optimistic and bright and like good with her hands and knows how to do things and like is She's a girl next door.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's the sweetheart.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas Veronica holds herself a little more aloof and is the unattainable Like and has something a little bit more of a cutting edge to her point of view like all of those things present themselves and are so There's like a body of lore to them and same with a red jeans and same with mousse and mousse's girlfriend like all of the But aren't you right at the center?
[SPEAKER_02]: He's an every man.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a classic every man character.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in one sense, he is the lead and most of these stories.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's the one driving the action from what he wants, or the trouble he gets into.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yet like every every man, that's an expansive category.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it is hard to sort of nail down sometimes, exactly what his point of view is.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a note I got early on from Archie, where I, from the Archie comics, people, there's a shorthand we call them Archie, which is a little confused.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like, you know, where I had him doing something that was a little too sneaky or even illegal or unethical.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Archie wouldn't do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like he's not,
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, he's not that he's not a, uh, uh, it's the word I'm looking for.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not a rogue, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not like a miscreant.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is someone that you would want to be friends with and want your kids to be friends with and sometimes that can feel vanilla.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we don't want him to feel vanilla.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's all about looking for ways for him to get himself into really interesting situations, but from a place of
[SPEAKER_02]: loyalty, decency.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like ambition that even if it takes them too far, we can, we can admire.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so no, it's not the women, the girls who I've had particular trouble with, but maybe it's because two of my three teenagers are girls.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I, I feel like I get, I have a little bit of what's going on in their minds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not that much, believe me, but a little bit, maybe enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: What about the love triangle?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something that I think is core to Archie.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got Archie, you've got Betty, you've got Veronica there, but it's something that particularly in more recent decades has been looked at as problematic because it diminishes Betty and Veronica down to just chasing after Archie and Archie being indecisive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this is something that will become apparent we actually read the book and you want to save them for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But how are you tackling that, Ben?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's just a matter of saying that, yes, they each have a crush on RG, yes, RG has a permanent and unreservable, unresolvable crush on each of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in addition to that, they all have other things going on in their lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in other words, it is not just like a constant being driven by like this one simple aspect of character.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we've all been talking about this,
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of like, undesirable, conflicting things and a lot of like things that can be burned very hot one day and very low the next.
[SPEAKER_02]: So every time Betty appears her storyline is not going to be about, oh, I want RT so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so mad, he's with Veronica right now because that would be problematic because it's saying, well, that person is just one thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: and she's not.
[SPEAKER_02]: She has other things going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: She has her own like emotional inner life.
[SPEAKER_02]: She also has a friendship with Veronica.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like it isn't as if they are constantly at each other's throats because they both like the same guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that is reflective of not just what teenagers lives are like but what all of our lives are like that we can't be reduced to being one simple problem or one simple thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... you mentioned a couple of the supporting characters and i will say when yesterday we put up the art designs on our website the first comment i got was where's regi for somebody and i was like okay got a calm down and they're just showing off the four main characters but i'm curious uh... phobia maybe for you first again and then for you neck is there a supporting character you've been drawing that you particularly has popped for you that you've enjoyed not to lean towards pop date or anything with the pop comment but
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody there, Reggie, Dilted, maybe a Sabrina, if she pops up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody like that off the core forecast that you've had a little fun putting a little pep into?
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, any character aside from the teenage core is funnier to tackle, because we have more
[SPEAKER_04]: Because of what I say, like people are so focused on how this gang of teenagers look that we have to pay attention to that.
[SPEAKER_04]: With the adults, we can have more fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, I have more fun drawing pop than I have drawing the teenagers, but I like drawing the teenagers more, but I have more fun with
[SPEAKER_04]: older character, rounder character, it has like wrinkle, maybe characters have wrinkles, maybe characters have a lot of bellies, maybe characters have different clothes that reflect what they like their job, everything is more interesting in the adult world because we don't have
[SPEAKER_04]: how these characters have been presented for the last 85 years.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I can be more cartoony.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like my style has a little bit of a cartoony thing, flavor, but not as much as nicks.
[SPEAKER_04]: So every character where I can express more of this cartoonishness,
[SPEAKER_04]: Nick, what about you?
[SPEAKER_03]: I would think right now the answer for me would be Vegas Archie's dog.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not doing a little bit of that character right now and love love dogs so it's really been fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think just
[SPEAKER_03]: trying to draw animals like just being like crazy and just running around all over the place and get the personality that he's got, poke poppin through at the same time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a fun challenge so far.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I always appreciate when I get
[SPEAKER_03]: to tackle some of the more offbeat stuff for situations or characters.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cause like, I don't know, I think that was one thing earlier on when I was first, like, really trying to push into comics was like trying to draw as much situations in the types of characters that were like, push my push what I could do,
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember people were always saying like kids, animals, vehicles, like that's like the hardest stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, to get acquainted with drawing a bunch.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's like, feeling from that perspective, it's pretty fun too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just keep trying to make that stuff work.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh now then for you uh we touched on a little bit earlier that design-wise this is all taking place in the same world and I've talked to Hunter and Sierra about it a couple of months back and clearly Sabrina is taking place at the same world is Archie Sabrina's coming out in October
[SPEAKER_01]: Archie and Hell, I guess we'll see how that connects to all of this later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: They remained pointedly silent when I asked them about a upcoming crossover with the titles, which told me basically all I needed to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is all a wind up to say, like, what has the coordination been like?
[SPEAKER_01]: How much are you running on your own track with Archie versus making sure it's aligned with the other titles?
[SPEAKER_01]: And presumably as long as this goes well, titles to come.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that is one place where I'm catching up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like in other words, when you asked me before, I'm sort of thrown into this project when it was already underway.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've been putting in Patrick are both amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And those are the writers of those two other titles that you mentioned and had developed some lore and some intersecting lore before I came around.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we have started to work on ways in which those things can interact.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which's interesting about my titles
[SPEAKER_02]: the none, what's the word genre, a piece of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Sabrina obviously is part of the core.
[SPEAKER_02]: Archie World, but she has her own very elevated, you know, genre position, and then Archie Hell is a tall-owned crazy thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, but mine is just like, it's just regular Archie.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I get to sort of just do my thing and look for the places where we can sort of sort of sort of into intersect with those worlds.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there is something I am some seeds.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am hopefully slowly planting.
[SPEAKER_02]: without saying too much, that will bear fruit down the line in those ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, it's funny, because my orientation is, I am a genre writer and I always have then I've written a lot of mystery and a lot of science fiction and like, so there's, for me, a particular joy in doing the title that is just a regular thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: In other words, I don't have those filigrees, I don't get to play around with the devil showing up or whatever it is in this, it's a dream or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm enjoying the card rails at that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, guys, I'm very excited about this book very excited to see where it goes like I said big Archie fan and I'm excited to see all of your take on it, but just to wrap up your broadest possible question and Fabio, maybe we'll start with you and go around.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what are you looking forward to people checking out in the book?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if somebody was maybe on the fence of, I haven't read Archie and
[SPEAKER_01]: 10 to 15 years, maybe more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe since I was a kid, something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's something that you think would make people definitely want to pick up this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, Fabio, maybe starting with you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, well, uh, from my perspective, not, not having any
[SPEAKER_04]: in my life and I want to make this project interesting for me and if I can make this project interesting for me hopefully it will be interesting for everybody even if they know or
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't, I just want this to be an interesting story about teenagers discovering life.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's how I'm drawing it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm drawing it to make it look fresh, to make it look honest, and to make it look fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you like fresh honest and fun,
[SPEAKER_04]: then you're you're in the right place.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to imagine a listener being like, well, I don't like any of those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like fresh honest or fun, a rubbed.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll insist here until.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nick, what about you?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's something that you're excited for people to check out in Archie number one and beyond?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think, honestly, just like, I feel like the vibe so far is just trying to make the best comics we can, you know, a distant general.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like, you know, it's, it's
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's sort of the, the always the guiding light of course, but I think just like Fabio said kind of that every green just wanting like a good comic kind of a kind of a mentality is sort of what I'm also trying to go for just, you know, like from the perspective of like, again, like somebody who hasn't done like a whole lot of license work just trying to, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: put best foot forward and give that my all and just keep playing with like I really like to play with like the page layout a lot and there'll be like a lot of that for sure so just like playing with the form and and just just putting all that on the page you know that's sort of the perspective
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't, I love what you guys put, said.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would just say, like, for people who have a Red Archie a long time, like, I think I'm hoping that they will recognize and send them what I'm doing and send them what the guys are doing, and that, like, so much of the stuff that we love in culture now, especially something has to do with teenagers is like something they've said at the beginning about that Brazilian comic book, like,
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, Simpsons, South Park, Beverly Hills, 9 or 2-1-0, like Wednesday, that's on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like anything, like, show is about this time of life and these kinds of kids, like, they're all descendants of Archie.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, I think it's fun to try to put some of that energy back into
[SPEAKER_02]: the comic itself and so people come to it and I'm like oh I see I get it like I get the way that and part of what I want to do and the issue that Nick was referencing with the dog like is like expand the palette of what Riverdale is and find new places in it and new characters and in the way that the Simpsons keeps doing so brilliantly with Springfielders like it is this it's this contained place and yet it is infinitely expandable to contain new situations and
[SPEAKER_02]: buzz that you're never sure what you're going to get in any of these issues but and yet it still comes back to these core characters.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a really fun thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fun to write and I'm hoping people find it run fun to read.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm excited to read it for anybody listening out there again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll just mention that final order cutoff for Archie number one is on July 27th of tell your comic book story to pick it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now it is coming out September 2nd on stands.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Nick, Fabio, thank you so much for taking the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot wait to check this out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very excited to visit Riverdale with all of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll let's just turn back to number one The words you say, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get
[SPEAKER_00]: They sit on crap-bake couches and they let us see what we can And he's just nothing, they're like fast, they're so fast So wrap your brain paleo, don't be late for a cold Fair, fair, fair, fair, fair, fair