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Josie and the Pussycats #1
By Hervé St-Louis
October 4, 2016 - 16:48

Archie Comics
Writer(s): Marguerite Bennett, Cameron Deordio; Dick Malmgren
Penciller(s): Audrey Mok; Dan Decarlo
Inker(s): Audrey Mok; Rudy Lapick
Colourist(s): Andre Szymanowicz
Letterer(s): Jack Morelli; Bill Yoshida
Cover Artist(s): Audrey Mok, Andre Szymanowicz



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Josie’s solo signing career in the town of Riverdale doesn’t appear to be going well until she meets Valerie, who works at the local animal shelter. Valerie’s voice is great and mixed with Melody’s rhythms, Josie and her friend may rock the boat at a local benefit concert for the animal shelter. That is, unless her arch-nemesis, Alexandra screws everything by making the Pussycats rebel against Josie first. Will Alexandra succeed?

As a first issue, the story establishes the main characters, conflicts and locales very well, using the same Archie style that has been used in the 2015 reboot. However, while technically competent, the story did not have a strong hook or dealt much with the inner turmoil in Josie’s life. Josie was always designed to be a female equivalent for Archie, yet looking at this story, there is none of the pathos that has made the Archie reboot so sticky with readers.

When Josie sings, there is none of the hardships or sense of accomplishment that we can read in the Archie comic. Josie does not even appear to be a teen. It feels like she is a college student but we don’t see any of her college or home life problems. I could say the same for Valerie and Melody. We see glimpse of their lives but the entire issue is focused on the signing.

Audrey Mok’s work is fun. It’s clean, simplified, with touches of manga. Expressions seems to be her forte. Her work also reminded me of Evan Shaner’s. I like her lines and the energy in her layout. Much of the comic is talking heads yet, it does not slow down when heavy exposition is required. The writers could scale back a bit and let Mok tell more of the story visually and use her skill to create visual puns to great effects.

One criticism about Andre Szymanowicz's colours. Valerie’s palms should be coloured properly. You would think by now that all colourists would have gotten the message about how to colour Black characters in comics.

Fans of the classic Josie and the Pussycats will enjoy the retro reprint of Josie and the Pussycats by Dick Malmgren, super star Dan Decarlo, and Rudy Lapick.
Rating: 7.5/10

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