Interview: “Archie” Writer/Illustrator Dan Parent Says that Kevin Keller is like Archie, Except Gay

Did you hear about the massive earthquake that recently struck the fictional town of Riverdale?

His name his Kevin Keller, and he’s the first out gay regular character in the 70 year history of Archie Comics – home to Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and all the rest. He first appeared in an issue of Veronica last fall, and today sees the release of his own four-issue miniseries (see exclusive pics here).

It's probably not as strange as some people think to see this venerable slice of Americana become gay-inclusive. What’s the old expression: “Change or die?”

But Archie is a little different. It’s decidedly old-fashioned – its squeaky clean image, a holdover from its heyday in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, is now one of its major selling points. And its comic books are produced for young children.

We recently talked to Dan Parent, the writer-illustrator who created Kevin. The 46-year-old man, married to a woman and a father to teenagers, has long had a reputation for trying to make the world of Riverdale more relevant.

Boy, did he succeed.

AfterElton: Did you know from the beginning what a big deal Kevin was going to be?
Dan Parent: I kinda did. I knew it was it was going to be a big change. I knew it would get people’s attention, obviously. But I was more concerned with handling it correctly. I also didn’t want it to be a one-time gimmicky kind of thing. If we were going to do it, I wanted to do it right.

AE: I know that the positive reaction was really strong – it was the first Archie issue ever to sell out. Was there a negative reaction we didn’t hear about?
DP: There’s always going to be some negative. But I’m shocked at how little negative reaction there has been. I was getting ready for a boycott, or people to be outraged, but we didn’t have much of them.

Some discussions online, that’s where I would see the most negative comments. People can get pretty crazy in online forums on any side of any issue. But some of it was so off-the-charts ridiculous that I couldn’t take it seriously.

But for every negative comment, it seemed like there were nine or ten positive ones. And personally – I attend a lot of comic book conventions – the reaction is almost always positive. Now and then, someone will say, “Why did you do that?” And I’ll say, “Give me a reason why we shouldn’t have.” And usually that kind of quiets them down.

AE: A lot of people equate being gay with sex, so when you talk about something for kids that includes gay characters, people think, “You’re talking about sex!” They can’t understand how it could not be about sex, how it could be age-appropriate.
DP: It’s interesting that you say that because of the people who had the craziest, most outrageous opinions, they were saying, when we announced it, “There’s going to be an orgy in Riverdale!” But we don’t show sex in our comics now, and we’re not going to show sex in our comics with Kevin either. It’s family-appropriate reading. The fact that there’s a gay character there doesn’t mean it’s not a safe haven for kids.

There were a lot of people who were on the fence before the issue came out. But once the issue came out, there was sort of a sigh of relief that we’re still Archie Comics, that we still knew what we were doing. We should know what we’re doing – we’ve been doing it for 70 years.

AE: At the same time, you have taken a stand on a controversial topic, especially in this latest issue where you come out firmly in support of gays in the military. This is one step beyond tolerance – it’s a political issue.
DP: It’s true we’ve upped the ante a little bit. We introduced the character, hopefully in a good way. But now that it’s a full-fledged series, we can explore it a little further.

The biggest thing we had to cover was his coming out. We were telling the backstory of a gay teenager who was out, so it was important to show how he came out, I thought. That was the main thing we wanted to show in the mini-series.

We take a stand on the military issue, but we’re not trying to hit people over the head with it. We’re trying to show that a person can be patriotic and gay.

It’s the same thing with Kevin’s parents being very accepting. We understand that’s not the case with a lot of situations.

AE: Why that particular choice, especially parents you could think might not be the most accepting?
DP: There’s a stereotype that military people are not gay-friendly – of course there are gay people in the military. I just felt like it would’ve been more stereotypical if we’d shown the father as an angry colonel who can’t come to grips with it. I wanted to show the other side, that there are people in the military who are gay-friendly and aren’t homophobic. That’s just the way I felt like going with it.

Next Page! Will Kevin get a boyfriend?