How I Created My ARCHIE #1 Variant, by JOE EISMA

EXCLUSIVE ART! The co-creator of Morning Glories joins us in our weeklong series featuring some of the best Archie #1 variants coming in July.

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We’re into variants in these parts, so when Archie Comics made a big splash for their historic 7/8 relaunch by Mark Waid and Fiona Staples, we decided to get in on the Riverdale action. We asked a number of top artists in the business how they came up with their image.

Part 1: Colleen Coover

Part 2: David Mack

Today, it’s Joe Eisma:

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Getting asked by Alex Segura to do a variant to the new Archie #1 was a no-brainer for me. I practically grew up with Archie — it being the one comic my sister would read growing up.

I sent in a couple of different ideas — all focused solely on Archie Andrews himself. My initial ideas were based around him just hanging out with his guitar. Then, I thought it might be fun to do a riff on the Rebel Without A Cause movie poster. So I sent that layout in with the original poster included for reference, and Alex and editorial were immediately taken with that idea. I had a lot of fun with it — I got to push my style a little more into exaggeration than I normally did in my work on Morning Glories up until that point. 

I’m happy I got to be a part of this amazing relaunch. Definitely get to tick an item off my bucket list!

— Joe Eisma

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Author: Dan Greenfield

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