Indian Archies is the truest of all film adaptation: Dan Parent

Chennai witnessed its first Comic Con, which had a slew of artistes from the comic industry- from illustrators to writers- attending it. One of the two international guests at the two-day fest, Dan Parent, renowned for his work on Archie Comics and Sabrina The Teenage Witch, talks to us about his personal favourites the best visual adaptations of Archies, and more.

On the various adaptations of Archies
I watched the Indian Archies (2023) twice, and I think it’s probably the truest adaptation of Archies on film. It captured the real spirit of the early days of the comics, and the music was great! Riverdale was also good, but then again, towards the end, it kinda got lost, but I must say it had an excellent cast. I enjoyed the comedic elements in the show.
On theMarvel vsDC debate
Oh, DC, for sure. I grew up on DC so that’s what I’m used to. About 20 years ago, DC Universe came up with New Frontier, and they re-introduced the DC Universe, and it brought back the classic style, which I thought was a great read and it reaffirmed my love for DC.
His favourite character in the Archies franchise
Probably Jughead, because I think he is the character everyone wants to be and relates to. I like Veronica over Betty, because, as a writer, it is harder to work with the nice characters and easier to do things with the ones who are in the grey area. You can do more stories with Veronica; she’s the edgier character.
On his upcoming projects
Right now, I am working on fall and Christmas books for next year and some Sabrina content. I am also working on a special Archie project with a new writer, which we will reveal soon, but we are very excited about this.

On his favourite comic characters and visual adaptations from comics
I love reading Batman 66, Superman, Wonder Woman and Legion of Super-Heroes. I love old romance and horror comics. Growing up, I loved reading Harvey Comics.

Ahh, and then, Casper the friendly ghost, Ritchie Rich, Hot Stuff were the first comics I ever had, they don’t print them anymore but I go looking for them and buy them.

Some adaptations of comics I really enjoyed were Super & Lois on CW right now, the first few seasons of Arrow, and The Walking Dead were all really good. I watch everything; if any comic gets turned into a TV show or film, I always watch it.
Original character profiles:

• Jughead is always going to be a nonconformist friend everyone wants, yet the rebel
• Veronica will always be the rich girl, spoilt but with a good heart
• Archie is the classic boy next door. I think he was loosely based on Andy Hardy, an old 1930’s serial, a red-haired goofy teenager.
• Betty is the good girl and the girl next door
• Reggie is the classic villain, and
• Dilton is the genius

They all have basic traits that make the character who they are. These characters were created back in the 1940's, and they have changed over the years a bit, but for the most part, the traits remained almost the same. I think if you keep those basic elements, then you can do all kinds of things with them.

Visually, the characters have changed over the years; we have the realistic version, the classic comic version and more contemporary artistes’ take on the characters. But I think when you think of Archies, you naturally associate it with the classic cartoon comic version.

Whenever we create a character, there is a lot of back-and-forth and discussion. Like they made Big Ethel cuter and better-looking over time, they modernized her, which wasn't the initial plan.

We did this book called Jughead’s Diner back in the 90's, and we had to come up with a whole bunch of crazy characters for it, and it was basically people that we knew, and thought were funny and quirky, and we just drew all these things from real life.