• New York Times, Monday, August 16, 2010 10:49 AM

So who's the Liz Claiborne gal, do you think? Veronica Lodge or Betty Cooper? They certainly fit the demographic even if, as George Gene Gustines points out, they and their buddy Archie look preternaturally spry and fresh-faced at 68 years old.

Now Archie Comic Publications is morphing into a multimedia company, says co-CEO Jon Goldwater, replete with merchandising and PR gimmicks such as a multiple story line (Archie is married to Veronica in one; Betty in the other).

"It's a property that actually has some personality, so you can build on that," says Ira Mayer, publisher of The Licensing Letter. That just what Surge Licensing president Mark Freedman, who turned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into a top-selling toy line and media property in the 1980s, expects to do. He has contracted to license the company's entire family of characters.

"It's kind of the flip side of the superhero market, a soft intellectual property aimed more at girls," Freedman says.

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