If you know the story, Jump to the Gallery
For over 50 years, Archie, Betty, Veronica and the gang haven’t changed one iota. You may have seen the news - Thanks to a $400,000 loss in the last year, Archie Comic’s Co have reached a quagmire. Change the merchandise for the YouTube generation, or face the end of the series.

Desparate Measures?

They’ve employed the talents of Steven Butler to give these characters a hip fresh new fa… No… no I’m sorry I can’t go on writing like this. Steven Butler (Talented though he may be) has broken every rule regarding messing with peoples childhood memories. Take a look at his proposed redesigns here and here and tell me your eyes don’t water. Not only are they ugly, show little regard for the character of each individual, but as John Brownly so eloquently commented, Butler’s work robs “Archie’s romantic quandary of its delicious irony (what does it matter which girl Archie picks?)”
It’s the training ground for the Blonde/Brunette conundrum. Wars have been fought over which of these utterly identical characters were more attractive, and Steven Butler has tried to take this from us.
Commence hating Steven Butler… Now.

Celebrity Redesign

So maybe it is time for change down at Riverdale, but is Steven Butler really the man for the job? In the interest of preserving our memories of Archie, Betty, Juggy & Veronica, I’ve taken it upon myself to render some alternative character redesigns as they might be conceived by other artists.

Listen up RiverdaleCorp!

Rich Gentlemen Hide Presents - The Archie Celebrity Cover Gallery

Original Riverdale Gang	Rich Gentlemen Hide	(Not) XKCD
This is the original Archie Style. Classic & Sassy! The others are loosely based on this "storyline"	The RGH version. Also the latest official comic.	Aw man! I love this guy. There’s something ironic in the fact that Randall Munroe is my absolute favourite comic artist…
(Not) Penny Arcade	(Not) Frank Cho	(Not) Frank Miller
This wouldn’t be complete without PA.Not much of a stretch really. Gabe and Tycho are basically Archie & Jughead as it stands (which would make Ninteno Betty, and PS3 Veronica…)	If I could draw like Frank Cho, My life would be complete. I’d Like to hope he’d get a kick out of this, rather than cut off my balls	This is the riskiest cover for sure. Frank Miller is dark… It takes a sick and twisted individual to come up with corrupt stuff like Sin City. If anyone’s going to hunt me down like the dog that I am, it’d be Frank Miller. Have mercy!

If you got a kick out of these, consider paypalling me a couple of bucks to help pay for the hosting!

Pharmaceutical companies are the most evil organisations on the planet. What Roche are doing with Xenical (fat absorbtion prevention drug) is abhorrent.

To Strike a Balance

I believe in a free and open market, but we must also balance and precede the liberties we afford ourselves with awareness and effective education. We’re now in a situation where the exploitation of people’s ignorance and weakness means that on one hand they’re gorging themselves on processed animal fat and on the other hand are being sold Xenical. Exploitation goes with exploitation.

Does this mean we should ban junk food advertising or stop Roche from marketing to teens? No. Definitely not (but it doesn’t make them ethical either). Censorship, over-regulation and molly-coddling serve only to keep the masses blinded and dependant on exterior forces to guide them. What we need is education, public awareness, lateral thinking. We need a society full of informed, intelligent, independent and mature humans.

Education before Censorship

Instead of censoring what people can watch, there should be fundamental changes to our education system, media laws and public services. Imagine if lateral thinking was a subject in primary school. Imagine if every paper, television station and radio station had to make room for antithesis views to their editorial from public submissions. Imagine if children weren’t allowed to ascend to the next grade until they ACTUALLY understood the curriculum. Imagine if instead of banning junk food or drugs, we educated people about a fantastic new diet craze: eat well and run around a bit.

The invisible hand of capitalism should not be allowed to push the weak and vulnerable around, but we should not handcuff it either. Freedom is the right direction, we just need to be more intelligent about how we educate people and how we govern our societies. As long as there’s wide-eyed idiots watching Today Tonight with hamburgers in one hand and Xenical in the other, our freedoms will not be well spent, but this is no good reason to take freedom away altogether.

It’s time for our societies to grow up, not time for them to be put back into nappies. - Jesse