Can’t Wait for Comics | DC celebrates Pride Month; ‘Ant’ returns; 80 years of Archie

Check out new comics this week from N.K. Jemisin, Jamal Campbell, Matthew Rosenberg, Jason Aaron, Erica D’Urso, Fred Van Lente, Dan Parent, Kyle Starks, Chris Schweizer and more.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital this week. This week brings new comics and graphic novels from Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, AfterShock Comics, Viz and more.

Check out a few highlights below, or visit Diamond’s website for this week’s almost complete list of new comics arriving in stores — you can visit Lunar Distribution’s home page to see DC’s release — and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Fred Van Lente on ‘Everything’s Archie’

The writer of ‘Action Philosophers,’ ‘MODOK’s 11’ and more discusses his work on Archie’s 80th anniversary one-shot, which arrives in stores next week.

Fred Van Lente is well known as the writer behind Action Philosophers, The Comic Book History of Comics, Archer and Armstrong, MODOK’S 11 and many more. He’s written novels like The Con Artist and Ten Dead Comedians, and he co-wrote the play King Kirby, which premiered earlier this year as a podcast.

Van Lente is also the writer of the new comic Everything’s Archie. The one-shot from Van Lente and artist Dan Parent is a collection of linked short comics that center around Archie trying to make enough money to buy a new guitar. To do that, Archie signs up for an app and what follows is a satire of the gig economy with multiple jokes about late stage capitalism, and yet, it still feels like an Archie comic we’ve seen before.

Van Lente and Parent’s comic is paired with an Archie story from 1997 by the late George Gladir and Stan Goldberg, Betty in High School 2021 A.D. The story went viral because of remote learning and other not entirely inaccurate predictions about this rather unusual year. I spoke with Van Lente recently about the comic, which is out next week.

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Van Lente + Parent team for Archie’s 80th anniversary one-shot

‘Everything’s Archie’ will present a new story in the classic Archie art style.

Archie Andrews celebrates his 80th anniversary this year, and Archie Comics will acknowledge the milestone with a new one-shot, Everything’s Archie. Fred Van Lente and longtime Archie artist Dan Parent will craft all-new story told in the traditional Archie Comics art-style.

The comic is the first in a series of classic-styled one-shots celebrating the anniversary.

“You can always tell a great franchise because it quickly and easily updates to any era, and bringing Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie and Jughead into our world of social media insanity and real life anxiety was…pretty effortless,” said Van Lente. “Turns out the Riverdale gang is your perfect guide to modern living, even if half the time they can’t figure it out for themselves!”

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