Archie in 2010: Eliminated Single Digests, Took Some Titles Bi-Monthly

Archie Comics logo

I took a look back at the list of publications Archie Comics released over the entire year of 2010 and noticed some interesting facts.

First, Archie has eliminated the standard single digest, the 80-pager priced at $2.69. Archie Digest became World of Archie Double Digest in October; Betty & Veronica Digest became Betty & Veronica Friends Double Digest in November; I’m assuming the quarterly Tales From Riverdale Digest became Archie & Friends Double Digest in December; and Jughead and Friends Digest just ended with #38 in June. That leaves Archie with this ongoing list of seven Double Digests (at $3.99 each):

  • Archie Double Digest – 10 issues released last year (skipped May, November)
  • Betty & Veronica Double Digest – 10 issues (skipped July, December)
  • Betty & Veronica Friends Double Digest – 10 issues (skipped February, August — but that’s including the previous single-size publication schedule)
  • Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals Double Digest – 9 issues (skipped April, October, December)
  • Jughead’s Double Digest – 10 issues (skipped February, September)
  • World of Archie Double Digest – monthly
  • Archie & Friends Double Digest – don’t know yet, started in December from previous quarterly digest

Archie Comics logo

Note that everything’s been renamed such that the titles feature the company’s most famous characters, and most use “Archie”. Also, I didn’t realize so many of them weren’t quite monthly. Once I looked at the single-issue publications, I found the same thing. Aside from Sonic (which I will address below), Archie only has seven comic periodicals. The magazine-sized Life With Archie has released six issues since its debut in July, which argues for monthly. The others are as follows:

  • Archie – monthly
  • Archie & Friends – monthly
  • Betty – 6 issues in 2010
  • Betty & Veronica – 6 issues in 2010
  • Veronica – 7 issues in 2010
  • Jughead – 6 issues in 2010

If you’re not Archie, you’re bi-monthly. I hadn’t realized that they’d cut back the publication schedule to that extent. Sonic Universe is monthly, though, and Sonic the Hedgehog put out 13 issues in 2010, as well as three Archives reprint books.

In addition, the company released ten collections. The Archie & Friends imprint had six releases, plus an Archie Wedding story was collected in March; there were two new Archie Americana volumes; and a left-over New Look reprint came out. If they’re still planning to put out 24 graphic novels for their Book Club in 2011, then there’s some stepping up to do here.



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