Sugar, Sugar, You Are My Candy Girl

Imagine you're well over 60, but you are still trying to appeal to teenagers who read Japanese manga and worship at the alters of Lohan, Hilton and Duff. How can you possibly compete? A facelift and a makeover seems to be the fashion – just ask Betty and Veronica of Riverdale, USA.

The comic book icons, who often duel over the apparently must-have affections of Archie Andrews, have gone under the pen and emerged with a look that is more Hollywood than Toontown, all in an effort to give the brand a little more realism and romance. This is what female fans are supposedly clamouring for, according to Archie publisher Michael Silberkleit, and how they want to view themselves.

But you needn’t worry that these wholesome young ladies are going to start partying till dawn, snorting cocaine and dropping their underwear before eventually checking into rehab for “exhaustion.” No, no. "There will be no denigrating anybody, no putting down authority or family, no sex, no drugs. The characters will still wear seatbelts. There'll be no smoking. Nobody is going to break the law. It's going to be the same thing from dear old Riverdale that we know and love," says Silberkleit. Phew!

As a kid, I was always more partial to Archie comics, but despite what some may think I am not a prepubescent girl, so I really have no idea what they are looking for in a comic book. Maybe they could make Betty and Veronica more like Ugly and Mars versions currently tearing up our TV screens. They are strong, clever and rarely boy and clothes crazy.

Of course, they could also just leave well enough alone. The desire to changes the characters seems more an exercise in brand expansion than any desire to keep the characters fresh and relevant. Archie comics haven’t been cutting edge since, well, ever. You can pick up an issue and literally read the same stories, with the only concession to the times being our current technological obsessions. And what’s so wrong with that? There is a time for everything and once those readers have grown out of that phase it is as foolish to chase after them as a senior citizen trying to pass herself off as a teenager.