Archie (comic strip)

Archie is a long-running comic strip based on the line of the popular Archie Comics. Launched by King Features Syndicate in 1947, it features the misadventures of Archie Andrews and his pals.

Bob Montana drew the first issue of the Archie comic book (November 1942). During World War II, Montana spent four years in the Army Signal Corps, drawing coded maps and working on training films with author William Saroyan and cartoonists Sam Cobean and Charles Addams. He was stationed at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where, in 1944, he met a 19-year-old Army secretary, Peggy Wherett, from Asbury Park, New Jersey. Married in 1946, they moved to Manhattan, where Montana was soon drawing the Archie daily and Sunday strips for 700 newspapers.

Two years later, the couple moved to Meredith, New Hampshire, and bought an old New England farmhouse where they raised four children, organic vegetables, assorted chickens, horses and sheep. The entire family sometimes lived for extended periods in England, Rome and Mexico. After hours at the drawing table, Montana relaxed by sailing his Friendship sloop, the White Eagle, on Lake Winnipesaukee, and taking ski jaunts through the back country near his home. He died of a heart attack on January 4, 1975, while cross-country skiing in Meredith. Dan DeCarlo then took over the strip.

Currently distributed by the Creators Syndicate, the Archie comic strip was until June 2011 written by Craig Boldman, pencilled by Fernando Ruiz, lettered by Jon D'Agostino and inked by Bob Smith. After that, Archie Comics ceased running new strips and began reprinting older strips by Dan DeCarlo.