Archie Comics announced a new series featuring an old character: Archie & Katy Keene, a five-issue series that will revive the once-popular fashion model created by Bill Woggon in 1945.

In Archie & Katy Keene, which will launch in January 2020, Katy is a social media star who arrives in Riverdale and immediately causes a stir, both because no one is quite sure who she is and because she brings out Archie’s competitive side.  The series will pick up where Archie & Sabrina ended.

The creative team for the new comic will include writers Mariko Tamaki (This One Summer, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me) and Kevin Panetta (Steven Universe, Zodiac Starforce, Bloom), artist Laura Braga (DC Comics Bombshells, Blossom 666), colorist Matt Herms (Archie & Sabrina), and letterer Jack Morelli.  The first issue will have a cover by Braga and variants by Francesco Francavilla, Emanuela Lupacchino, Paul Renaud, and Billy Tucci and Wes Hartman.

The Katy Keene television show, a spinoff of Riverdale set five years later, will air on The CW in its 2019-2020 season (see "CW Orders ‘Batwoman,’ ‘Katy Keene,’ ‘Nancy Drew’ Series…") and will stream on HBO Max (see "Warnermedia Streaming Service Takes Shape"). The musical comedy series will follow the fortunes of Katy and her friends as they struggle to succeed in the worlds of fashion, music, and theater in New York City.  Deadline reports that Broadway star Bernadette Peters has joined the cast and will play a "mother figure" to one of Katy’s friends.

Katy Keene was originally conceived as a fashion model, and Woggon incorporated readers’ designs for her clothing into the comic itself.  She first appeared in Archie Comics’ Wilbur and later got her own series, which ran until the early 1960s.  She has made several comebacks, first in the early 1980s and then in 2005.

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