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I remember the first time I encountered Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, Reggie, Moose, Mr. Weatherbee, Miss Grundy, Hot Dog and the rest of the Riverdale gang. It was in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, 1971, and we were visiting our cousins, the Sirotkins. Fred Sirotkin, the youngest of the three children, had a basement filled with shelf after shelf of neatly ordered comic books. It was nirvana for me—and probably still would be, if not for the great flood that hit Wilkes-Barre a year later, obliterating Fred’s collection and everything else in the wall of water’s path. MICHAEL USLAN podcast excerpt: "Yes, we take the Archie story one step beyond anything it's ever been taken before... This has become a firestorm on the Internet on a worldwide basis. The Today Show took a poll on who Archie should marry. It was 80% Betty, 20% Veronica--and Jughead came in a strong third." Fast-forward to January 2010 and America’s oldest teenager, Archie Andrews—sorry, Dick Clark—has graduated college and announced his engagement to Betty Cooper. The writer of this six-part Archie Comics series, which takes us through the characters’ future, is as much a surprise, perhaps, as Archie choosing girl-next-door Betty over girl-with-a billion-bucks Veronica. His name is Michael Uslan, and while he’s written a few comic books before, he’s best known as an executive producer behind some of the biggest comic book movies of all time, including Batman and The Dark Knight. This is Michael’s second visit to Mr. Media Radio; he was previously a guest to discuss The Spirit movie, of which he was a producer. Michael Uslan • • • • •