Can’t say we really saw it coming, but unexpectedly, delightfully, Archie Comics has found itself in the news quite a bit as of late. First there was the lawsuit about the company’s CEO allegedly berating her staff with cries of “Penis! Penis! Penis!”—easily one of the better news stories of 2013—and now there’s the totally-different news that none other than Lena Dunham is set to write a series of comics for the beloved franchise.
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After Dunham mentioned her love of the Riverdale crew at an event with J.J. Abrams, the company’s newly-hired Chief Creative Officer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa reached out, and explains, “We sent her a box of tons of Archie books. She devoured them all, and maybe a week or two later came back with her pitch.”
He also notes that Dunham’s planned four-part story for the comics will be “set in the Archie continuity” and “very contemporary. It’s a classic Archie story with a definitely unique, Lena spin.” Bad penis PR aside, this is all part of a larger move from Aguirre-Sacasa to take the franchise into the 21st century, and to “[explore] the potential to take Archie’s Pals and Gals outside of comics and into different media.” This guy already deserves a raise, we’d say.
Anyway, all sounds like a pretty well-conceived plan, and we’re curious to see how the whole thing turns out. And if the series just happens to include Betty finally snapping and hysterically screaming “Penis!” at a guy who’s been stringing her along for the last 65 years? All the better.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.