Archie’s New Focus on Boys, Not Girls

Here’s the list of what’s coming out from Archie Comics tomorrow:

Afterlife With Archie #3 (Francesco Francavilla Regular Cover), $2.99
Afterlife With Archie #3 (Tim Seeley Variant Cover), $2.99
Archie #651 (Dan Parent Regular Cover), $2.99
Archie #651 (Renae De Liz Battle Of The Bands Variant Cover), $2.99
Archie Double Digest #247, $3.99
Fox #3 (Dean Haspiel Regular Cover), $2.99
Fox #3 (Mike Allred Get Freaky Variant Cover), $2.99
Kevin Keller #12 (Dan Parent Regular Cover), $2.99
Kevin Keller #12 (Phil Jimenez New Years Variant Cover), $2.99
Sonic The Hedgehog Legacy Series Volume 3 TP, $16.99

It made me realize something. As Archie targets the comic market more actively — Afterlife With Archie, the zombie title, is direct-market-only, while The Fox is a revamped superhero, and variant covers are a long-standing DM trick to boost sales on the same amount of story material — its titles focus more on boys, not girls. Archie is the only monthly title the company puts out any more from its core Riverdale universe. The girls, who used to be a focus of multiple comics, are down to one title, the six-times-a-year Betty and Veronica. The new projects have gone to Kevin Keller and the Fox.

Girls also used to be a core part of Archie’s audience. Now, that’s not so big a deal, since there are many more graphic novels for young women to read, so they’re no longer relegated to the “Archie ghetto”, but I thought it was worth noting as a comic market change.