HBO darling Lena Dunham is going to test her hand at comic books by penning a story arc with everyone’s favorite teenage ginger, Archie. From The New York Times:
Sometimes, opportunities will present themselves. That was the case when, in November, Lena Dunham, the creator and star of the HBO series “Girls,” expressed her love of Archie during a conversation with the filmmaker J. J. Abrams and the novelist Doug Dorst at Symphony Space in New York. Ms. Dunham said she owned the first Archie comic and remarked, “You really haven’t lived till you’ve been to an Archie convention.”
The information went from stage, to audience, to text (a friend sent the line to Mr. Goldwater’s son), to Archie’s publisher, to its new chief creative director, who is friends with Ms. Dunham. “As his first initiative, Roberto really brought together the whole Lena project,” Mr. Goldwater said.
“I was an avid Archie collector as a child — conventions, first editions that I kept in plastic sleeves, the whole shebang,” Ms. Dunham said in a statement. “It has so much cultural significance but also so much personal significance, and to get to play with these beloved characters is a wild creative opportunity.”
This is the newest in a line of events to sort of bring the Riverdale gang into modern times, including a gay marriage, zombies, and a crossover with Glee. The Kevin Keller storyline in particular was a big success, selling out for the company and serving as a marketing juggernaut for the company.
This isn’t the first time that a comic company has reached across the media barriers and brought in talent from TV and film to work on comic stories. Kevin Smith famously handled several successful runs on Daredevil and Green Arrow while Lost scribe Damon Lindelof handled a lopsided run on Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk. DC Comics even brought in Superman director Richard Donner for a run on Action Comics, giving him a chance to expand his film storyline into the comics universe.
Archie Comics have already released some promotional art by artist Dan Parent that mirrors the poster for Dunham’s Girls and heralds her story before it arrives sometime in 2015. It’s easy to say things and complain about Dunham at any time, and we’ve done it quite a bit. But it’s clear she’s doing what she wants and how she wants to do it, so you have to give her a little credit.
