Archie Comics is going to change the look of Archie. Instead of the cartoony appearance that has gone through only minor changes over the last half-century, Archie, Betty, Veronica and the gang will now be drawn as (ahem) “realistic” teenagers. That is, if realistic means that all the girls are underfed 13-year-olds.

Here is my initial reaction.

Read on for my rant about this end to all things good in the universe.

For one thing, as soon as you start reading a “realistic” comic book, the action inside it will have to be realistic. No more cartoony slapstick as Archie slips on Mr. Lodge’s Persian rug and knocks a priceless Ming vase into the birthday cake, or Jughead running so fast his feet are as high as his waist as he tries to get away from Big Ethel.

(How are they going to do Big Ethel, and all the characters whose noses are drawn as half a hot dog jutting out between the eyes? Creepy!)

Archie is a CARTOON. This is not.

Sure, they may alter the rendering style of the Disney characters, improve the shading so it looks a little more 3-D, but they don’t make Donald Duck look like an actual mallard wearing a blue sailor’s coat just so he’s “realistic”! (I wish I was a photoshop wizard so I could show you that.)

If Archie LOOKS realistic, people will be expecting something different. I think the typical reaction will be like that of “tralfaz,” a commenter on the Newsarama thread, who says (seemingly with approval):

now the question is will they take the next step and have the gang in real teenage situations like teen pregnancy, drugs, divorced parents, etc. it doesnt have to be serious all the time, it could be funny in an OC kind of way

I’m sure there are some people who would like an Archie who deals with teen pregnancy, just as they like a teen Clark Kent who’s boinking his girlfriend. Well, go create your own book that’s an adult version of Archie, but don’t ruin Archie to do it! Comparing it to the OC is an odd choice, given that Archie is a book for kids and no one should let their kids watch The OC. Or Smallville, frankly.

Archie’s pretty much the last of the comic books you can safely give a kid. This summer at my garage sale, the neighborhood kids were eagerly grabbing every superhero TPB I was selling and their parents were forking over money without a care because hey, Superman’s on the cover. It must be OK. And I had to think: Does this book have a person shoving his hands through someone else’s brains, with eyeballs flying? Are there any women being graphically raped by a supervillain who the kids would recognize from Cartoon Network’s “Teen Titans” cartoon? Is the word “bitch”, almost ubiquitous in the DC comics of the last three years, in this one?

It pains me that there are hardly any superhero books out that you can just toss to a kid and say, “Here, read this in the backseat while we’re traveling.” Archie’s the only mainstream comic left that’s all-ages. I loved Archie when I was a kid, and I’d like to buy Archie for my kids someday.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this. If they can switch the art and still, somehow, maintain the same spirit and tone… well, I’ll still hate it, but if it helps sales and it remains “Archie” that’ll be tolerable. Or this may be the beginning of the end.

One thing is for sure: The new Betty and Veronica on the interior pages look like Paris Hilton whores. They need to remain pretty and healthy role models for girls, and those stick figures on the interior art are horrible. Body fat isn’t a bad thing; it’s better to be shapely and toned than to diet oneself skeletal. (And where are the girls’ BREASTS? Perhaps the artist got too realistic and decided to draw them as anorexics who’ve lost body fat even in places where it is attractive.)

Betty and Veronica used to look like capable young women, not dumb tarts who are four drinks away from flashing their goodies in a Girls Gone Wild video. I never liked Veronica, but she still seemed exceedingly smart, more likely to go into political science than supermodeling.

Archie may never work as a “realistic” book. The central theme of the premise…will Archie choose Betty or Veronica…almost doesn’t work these days when kids don’t get married young. It’s not often that you “end up” with someone from high school. If someone came up with the concept now, Archie’d just have cheap sex with both of the girls and then leave for college without them. I’m not saying I prefer that, not at all, just that the romantic notion of picking your soul mate in high school is not widely shared in modern society. Now, I’m a romantic at heart. I PREFER the cartoon world of Archie, where Archie never goes beyond kissing and the girls are battling to win Archie’s heart. I think a modern take on Archie would be pretty sad. That’s why I hope they never try to make Archie a primetime show appealing to today’s teens; it would just be appalling.

I think some of the commenters are right: it all hinges on how Jughead looks. Curious that they won’t show him.