Following the news of Archie’s death in the latest issue of Archie comics, an old issue of the comic has reportedly been banned in Singapore due to its topic surrounding same-sex marriage.
A Singaporean comic artist-illustrator Sonny Liew has revealed that the third volume of Archie’s “The Married Life” trade editions were not available in Singapore-based Kinokuniya’s Book Catalogue. The illustrator later sent an inquiry to Kinokuniya, only to receive such a response:
We regret that “Archie the Married Life 3″ is deemed to breach the Content Guidelines for Imported Publications, and removed from sale by notice of MDA. We are not able to sell this title.
In this case, it is not known if National Library Board (NLB) or Media Development Authority (MDA) was the one who put on a ban on the sales due to public pressures. However, the illustrator noted that NLB has previously withdrew several books due to the complaints from the “We Are Against Pinkdot in Singapore” Facebook group.
For those who have not read the comics series, the Archie comic series is one of the most popular comic series that has been running for over 70 years. The story mainly revolves around the adventures of the teenagers Archie, Betty and Veronica in the small town of Riverdale.
In 2010, the publisher released the 16th issue of “Life with Archie” in Volume 3 and the story unveiled the marriage of his first openly gay character Kevin Keller. While the publisher described it as “a historic moment”, the issue has received boycott call from the American Family Association’s website One Million Moms for Toys R Us.
However, the issue has reportedly sold out as the group did poorly on the boycott.
