Bill Golliher has both a tough and an enviable job. He has been creating Archie Comics for the last 30 years. Golliher, who will be at the first-ever Kolkata Comic Con this weekend, chatted with t2 about what he is looking forward to in the city, getting to work on Archie Comics and more.

Looking forward to having you in Calcutta for Comic Con...

I am really looking forward to it too. I really enjoy Delhi and Indian culture and getting to meet a lot of cool people. I am looking forward to a fun experience in Calcutta as well. I have been looking online and it sounds like a very interesting city. I was checking out some of the sites to see and there seems to be quite a bit of history about the city. I heard the food is really good too!

What for you are the standouts of Comic Con, no matter where it is in the world?

It is a huge event that takes place all over the world. It has only grown over the years and decades. The standout is interacting with fans and getting their reactions or just getting to meet them. Knowing that they enjoy the work that I have done is a wonderful feeling.

Growing up, most people of my generation had a stack of Archie Comics. Do you also find fans of the comic among
Gen Z?

I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s in the US and Archie was really big here then. There was a television cartoon and I would read the comics and there was a lot of merchandise, so it was always part of my childhood. So growing up and being able to be one of the creators was a really neat experience.

The TV show Riverdale, which is kind of like a modern approach to Archie, has been very popular with Gen Z. At comic conventions, I have a lot of families come by where the parents know Archie from the comic books or from the cartoons and the kids put two and two together and realise it is the same characters that were in the Riverdale show.

I have had a lot of young, even younger than Gen Z, fans come by and tell me that they discovered the comic books after watching Riverdale, which is kind of a whole different adaptation of the Archie storyline.

That is always a good thing, right? Or are you a purist?

I am kind of a purist. I only made it through the first season of the show because it was just so crazy to me! But it is good to see that it did bring in new readers. That kind of impressed me that these kids that watched the show, which was totally different from the books, would then read the books and enjoy them. So I guess that there is still something in the books that draws people in.

Are you aware that there is a Hindi film based on the comic book?

Yes, I watched it (The Archies, directed by Zoya Akhtar) on Netflix and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the musical numbers. It was very entertaining.

Growing up reading them, what did it feel like getting to create Archie Comics for 30 years?

I had gone to art school and the editor for Archie Comics would come and review portfolios. Since I grew up reading Archie Comics, the characters I drew had the ‘Archie eyes’ and stuff. That is what worked for me and I began working on Archie. I started writing and then moved on to drawing as well. Now I do both. It was a dream come true getting to work on Archie and when I finished art school, I began working for the comic.

What would you pick as the highlights of your career with Archie Comics?

Early on, (co-creator) Dan Parent and I created a title where Archie was going to choose between Betty and Veronica. It got a lot of press in the States, which is really cool, because we were young and just starting out. There is a character, Cheryl Blossom, the redhead. So instead of having Archie choose Betty or Veronica, we reintroduced Cheryl Blossom because she had been big in the ’70s and ’80s, but she had been gone for a while. This was in the ’90s. So we brought her back and the attention that it got was kind of fun. Around the same time, Archie was trying some different
things. So we got to come up with some very creative ideas, like one where Jughead had his own diner and another where the Archie characters are set in the year 3000. Before I went to Delhi last time, I had done a story with the Archie characters visiting Comic Con in Delhi. That was a fun addition to the work I have done with the company.

If you were Archie, would you choose Betty or Veronica?

I have always been a little more partial to Betty. When I write the stories, it is always fun writing the Veronica part because she kind of writes herself with her personality. But if I had to choose, it would definitely be Betty. She is a little lower maintenance (smiles).

What do you think makes Archie Comics universally relevant?

It embodies the time in life that everybody has been through. For the readers that are younger, I think they kind of fantasise about what high-school is going to be like when they get into their teens. They experience that through the Archie characters. Later in life, it becomes a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Which other work of yours has come closest to Archie Comics in terms of challenge and creative satisfaction?

I have done a few independent things and those have been fun, but my heart has always been in Archie Comics. I do some children’s work, I also do some work for an educational company. That is rewarding because it is aimed at speech therapy and helps kids in learning.

Is there a secondary character in Archie Comics that you feel should have got more attention?

The first book I did when I came to Archie was a Dilton (Doiley) book. It was called Dilton’s Strange Science and was a fun book. But it had kind of a limited audience because it was mainly Dilton.

What is the process that goes into you creating an Archie Comics title?

Usually, I hear from the editor and he will tell me things he needs. Seasonal things, like say, a winter story or a spring story. I think of some ideas based on the theme and run it by the company and once they decide, I will go on from there. Sometimes, there are stories that are based on funny things that have happened to me. Real life, after all, is almost as funny as a comic book... you just have to exaggerate it a little more. There is a lot of material out there... you have to think about real-life situations and then maybe take it up a notch or two. There have been times where I am going through something and I am thinking that it would probably make a good story.

What made you want to take up this profession?

As a kid, I would draw all the time... I would draw from Archie Comics and the Peanuts. I always had it at the back of my mind that I wanted to be a cartoonist... it was just about finding a way to get there.