GUEST COLUMN: With a Facsimile Edition of Little Archie #1 coming, Archie Comics’ executive editor offers an appreciation of a living legend… By JAMIE L. ROTANTE Who doesn’t miss being a kid? There are few pieces of pop-culture media that captured the essence of childhood better than Little Archie. The comics series, which ran from 1956 to 1983, wasn’t just a look at the kid-size versions of America’s most popular teens, but rather an exploration of the vast imaginary landscapes that children access. And it’s all thanks to the work of the great writer/artist Bob Bolling. Bolling got his start in comics working under cartoonist George Shedd while Shedd was assisting on Al Capp’s Li’l Abner in 1952, followed by assisting Shedd on his own adventure comic strip Marlin Keel. Two years later, Bolling started freelancing at Archie Comics, writing and drawing joke pages. Archie editor Harry Shorten enjoyed Bob’s comic renditions of children, so he tasked Bolling with working on the short-lived series Pat the Brat, Archie’s answer to Dennis the Menace. In 1956, Archie publisher John Goldwater decided to do a comic about the adventures of Archie as a little boy—and who better to handle the art duties than Bob Bolling? With his designs approved by both Shorten and Goldwater, he was then assigned to both write and draw the first issue of Little Archie, which proved to be a success. Bolling went on to exclusively work on the Little Archie series until 1965 — writing, penciling, inking, and lettering roughly half the stories in each giant-size issue, and very often drawing the covers. (Many of the other stories were handled by Dexter Taylor, another Little Archie legend and, interestingly enough, Bolling’s former roommate.) Bolling also handled art duties on many Little Archie spinoffs, including the four-issue Little Archie in Animal Land, and two issues of Little Archie Mystery Comics. Bolling’s Little Archie stories were usually longer than the typical Archie story, and his versatility in style meant that he was always willing to try something new. Often the characters came face-to-face with mythical creatures and scary monsters; sometimes the kids became pirates or astronauts, with stories ranging from action-adventure, to comedy, to science fiction. An element of sentimentality was nearly always prominent — such is the case when looking back fondly on the days of youth through a lens...