Archie Andrews and the Riverdale gang celebrate their 80th anniversary this year and to mark the momentous milestone, Archie Comics released The Best of Archie Comics: 80 Years, 80 Stories. The more than 700-page volume commemorates the long history of the beloved characters with a somewhat unique twist: the book features one story from each year of Archie’s 80-year history going all the way back to the first appearance of Archie Andrews back in 1941. It’s a fascinating way for new fans to get to know the character as well as for longtime fans to revisit favorite stories as well as experience those they’ve perhaps never read before. For Archie Comics Senior Director of Editorial (and an Archie Comics writer herself) Jamie L. Rotante, putting together this milestone volume was a labor of love. “I keep saying this book is such a labor of love,” Rotante told ComicBook.com. “There was a lot of work that went into it. Obviously, we put a lot of work into all of our products, but this is one that is just really special. We had a similar book five years ago for the 75th anniversary because at Archie we believe in celebrating every milestone, as you should. We did a book called 75 Years, 75 Stories and now 80 years is the milestone we’re celebrating five years later so we did the same format, but what we wanted to be really cautious of and aware of is we don’t want people to think, ‘Oh, I read 75 Years, 75 Stories so now this is just five years worth of new stories on top of those.’ These are completely different stories from the last collection. So, if you’re a collector, you will want both because you’re going to get a different experience with each one.”
