Creator / Archie Comics

Archie Comic Publications, Ltd. is an American comic book publisher based out of Pelham, New York. It began in 1939 as MLJ Comics, after the initials of its founders, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John L. Goldwater. MLJ's titles included Blue Ribbon Comics, Pep Comics, and Top Notch Comics, and its superhero title The Shield ultimately yielded the character that would become the publisher’s new namesake in 1941: Archibald "Archie" Andrews.

The Andy Hardy films were the primary inspiration for this teenaged everyman, and his adventures with his friends soon became the publisher’s headliner. This led to MLJ changing its name to Archie Comics Publications, with the superhero titles being shifted over to the “Archie Adventure Series”.

Archie Comics pushed for the creation of The Comics Code, and more or less ran it for the entirety of its existence. Archie was the last publisher officially adhering to the Code when it ceased to exist in early 2011.^note  DC Comics was the other holdout – although they had been slowly dropping their titles from the Code throughout the 2000's, a few series continued to follow it until the end of 2010. Once DC left the Code, Archie agreed there was no point in keeping it around. Unofficially, they had stopped following it decades earlier, but nobody noticed because things like sex, drugs, or violence were never really part of the Archie universe anyway... until 2013 when they launched the Archie Horror imprint, depicting gruesome horror stories starring versions of the "Archie" cast.

More information and activities: http://www.archiecomics.com/

Imprints

• Archie Action
• Archie Horror
• Dark Circle Comics
• Radio Comics/Mighty Comics Group
• Stan Lee Comics

Archieverse Titles

• Archie Comics
• Josie and the Pussycats
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Licensed Titles

• Sonic the Hedgehog
• The Flintstones
• ManTech
• Mega Man
• NiGHTS into Dreams…
• Street Sharks
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures
• Wild West COW Boys Of Moo Mesa

Superhero Titles

• The Adventures Of The Fly
• Adventures Of The Jaguar
• Black Hood Comics
• Blue Ribbon Comics
• The Comet
• Fly Man
• Hangman Comics
• Mighty Crusaders
  • New Crusaders
• The Shield
• Shield Wizard Comics
• Top Notch Comics
• Zip Comics

Anthologies

• Pep Comics
• Jackpot Comics

Others

• Super Duck
• Wilbur Comics
• Katy Keene
• Lil Jinx
• Cosmo The Merry Martian
  • Cosmo (2018)
• That Wilkin Boy

---

Tropes:

• Abandoned Mascot: MLJ Comics's original mascot was the patriotic superhero The Shield. However their smash hit Archie Comics series was so successful, not only did Archie become their mascot, but MLJ changed their name to Archie Comics. The Shield languished and became a public domain character, however Archie has made attempts to revitalize the character since the 1990s.
• Animalistic Abilities: The Jaguar has all the powers of the animal kingdom amplified a thousandfold. For instance, summoning the toughness of a rhino's hide grants him invulnerability comparable to Superman.
• Appropriated Title: Archie Comics is named for the most popular title of its previous incarnation, MLJ, Ltd.
• Fanwork Ban: Concerned about the proliferation of Rule 34 fanfics, Archie Comics has put a general kibosh on all fan fiction of Archie Comics in general. That hasn't stopped people from putting up fan fiction and fan art on the Internet anyway, although more "official" venues still have to respect the ban; FanFiction.Net, for instance, took down its Archie section (but not its Josie and the Pussycats section), but Archive of Our Own still has one. The main exception is Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), since all Sonic characters are owned by Sega, which is Japanese and doesn't mind nearly as much. (Ken Penders, though, insists that any fan art of his characters include a copyright crediting him.)
• The Great Serpent: The Jaguar's origin story has him and his co-workers getting attacked by a giant, dinosaur-like serpent.

---