Archie

[Crimebuster]

Does anybody else out there collect modern Archies? I've been working on putting together some runs of Archie and Jughead recently and, holy smokes, these are not easy to find.

 

Based on sales figures, it looks as though Archie has been selling around or under 20k copies for upwards of an entire decade. And since many of those copies were still distributed via the newsstand - and the vast majority to kids - tracking down copies in any condition, much less nice condition, is like pulling teeth.

 

Luckily, they aren't worth anything in any condition because there's no demand. but the supply is seriously lacking. I went to My Comics Shop last week to try and fill in some gaps and from Archie #550-599 they had like five issues in stock. Jughead from #150-199 was the same. And Jughead's sales were even worse than Archie; by the time it got canceled, it was down to around 7k copies a month, and had been in the single digits for a while.

 

Just about all the copies of these issues from the past few years I have found have been at comic stores where they just leave them out indefinitely as part of their all-ages kids rack of comics (and as a result of being on the rack sometimes for years, they are usually heavily thumbed over). They are non existent in back issue bins.

 

It's an interesting challenge and it makes collecting these kind of fun. With most titles, the challenge is finding them in the right condition for the right price point. Here, price is no object, but just finding copies is the challenge.

 

Anyone else collect modern Archie?

[Legion HQ]

I read my first Archie comics a few years ago when they introduced the Kevin Keller character, and quickly became a fan of the Archie universe. It's just a nice palate cleanser to much of the darker books that come out from everyone else. (Although, if you haven't already, pick up the Life With Archie mag-format series. Holy cow, is it shockingly good! Should be winning all kinds of awards imho.)

 

As for your question on back issues, yes, for the reasons you mentioned, they can be quite the challenge at times, particularly in high grade. I haven't really tried to acquire all that much though in back issues, other than the first appearances of Cheryl Blossom from the 80s (those are HARD books to find in HG, jeez!).

 

If modern Archie ever does pull in the speculator crowd (don't see that happening any time soon, other than a couple Keller issues), long-time modern collectors would be sitting on a gold mine, that's for sure.

[LanceTX]

I love Archie. What you said is right, it's great to have wholesome, yet witty humor after reading every other book that comes out.

 

I've never tried collecting any back issues of Archie. I do have a lot of back issues though from the 50's and 60's that were my mothers when she was a kid.

[kimik]

I have not had trouble finding them locally or online, and when I take them to shows they sell out fast at a buck or two a book for commons. I did pick up a nice lot on Heritage a few months back with a bunch of low print late/last issues and a nice stack of Cheryl Blossom and Sabrina appearances from the 80s. Most of them went to my daughter, but I sold the higher $$$ ones at two local shows fairly quickly to a few different collectors so there are some out there.