It All Started With Archie Comics

When people ask me how I got started writing, I tell them it started with Archie Comics.

Well, this is partially true.

I started writing much earlier, probably when I was 9 or 10.

Although whatever I wrote has been lost to the ages, what I do remember was that I had been watching this horror movie late at night about vampires, and there was this scene that took place in a foggy crypt with these females dressed in white gowns being summoned by the vampire, and then, I fell asleep before the movie ended. 

So, the next morning, when I woke up, I tried to imagine how the movie ended and started writing. 

But the best was yet to come.

Like most kids growing up, I was a big fan of comic books. But unlike many of my friends, I wasn’t especially drawn to superheroes. Superman and Batman never really captured my imagination the way they seemed to for everyone else. I read the occasional Spider-Man or Iron Man if one came my way, but the comics I really loved were Archie Comics.

Riverdale felt closer to the world I knew. Archie Andrews wasn’t saving the planet or fighting villains—he was trying to get through school, figure out girls, and stay out of trouble, usually failing at the last one. The stories were simple, funny, and somehow comforting.

I suspect my loyalty to Archie had something to do with his red hair. Archie Andrews looked a little like me, and when you’re a kid, that matters more than you realize. He wasn’t a distant hero flying above the world. He was just a regular guy who might have been sitting a few desks away in class.

And on quiet afternoons, with a stack of those bright, colorful comics beside me, Riverdale felt like a place you could step into for a while—where the biggest problem in the world might be Archie forgetting a date or Jughead losing a hamburger. For a kid, that was adventure enough.

In the back of the comics there was also a section for fan club letters. If you were a member of the Archie Fan Club, you could write in, and if they liked your letter, they might publish it.

So one day I decided to try.

I sat down with pen and paper and wrote a letter telling them how much I enjoyed reading Archie. I carefully folded the page, slipped it into an envelope, bought a stamp, and mailed it off. For a kid, sending a letter like that felt like sending something out into the world and hoping it might land somewhere.

Weeks passed and nothing happened. Eventually I forgot all about it.

Then one day a letter arrived.

It was from the Archie Fan Club. My letter had been chosen for publication, and I had won first prize—five dollars. That may not sound like much now, but to a kid at the time it felt like a small fortune.

But the money wasn’t really the important part.

Without realizing it, I had just earned my first publishing credit. Somewhere in the pages of an Archie comic book, my name appeared in print. For a kid who spent afternoons reading about Archie and Jughead in Riverdale, it felt like I had somehow stepped into the comic myself.

Looking back now, that was the beginning of something.