Archie: His First 50 Years

by Charles Phillips

Traces the history of the popular comic strip and comic book, and includes selected stories from each period to show how the characters developed

Genres: Nonfiction, Comics

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads

Charles Phillips (b. 1962) is an established writer of popular history, a contributor to Cassell's Dictionary of Modern Britain as well as to the Chronicle of Britain and several illustrated stories.

He has a keen interest in the mythology and history of the great Maya and Aztec civilizations and was a key writer on Time Life's Myth and Mankind series.
Phillips is a graduate of Oxford University, and holds an MA from the University of Westminster.

See also:
Charles Phillips, 1787-1859
Charles Phillips, Goodreads author, Historical Fiction
Charles Phillips, b.1948, American history

Reviews

[Stven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although we do get a few items of interest here, including a full-color reprint of the first Archie story ever, what we get is woefully inadequate to cover 50 years of Archie. Really it's a handful of stories from the 1940s (the first half of the book) and then a handful of stories chosen to highlight some issue of contemporary relevance in the decades that followed: a "beatnik" story, a "women's lib" story, a "racial prejudice" story. (Apparently it's not okay to judge somebody because of the color of their skin, but it's okay to judge them because of their fashion sense.) It was illuminating to find out that the saga of Archie began with our familiar characters in place (Betty, Veronica, Jughead, parents and school figures) but not yet polished into their now iconic looks. But with 127 pages total and some 20 of that dedicated to the mostly superfluous prose of Charles Philips, this is at best a pretense of an overview.

[Jardley · Rating 4 out of 5]

writing parts were kind of boring though. Found myself skimming quite a bit.