At this year’s Calgary Expo I had a chance to catch up with American comic book writer and artist Dan Parent. You may remember him as the man who gave us the first gay character in Archie Comics: Kevin Keller.

As to what’s up with Riverdale’s openly out and proud teen, Parent gave me some good news and some bad.

"With Kevin Keller we have a couple of fun issues coming out...where he is a superhero and Veronica is his cohort in fighting crime," he says.

Unfortunately that’s the end of the ongoing series; they will make an announcement at the end of the year regarding a series re-launch. They are going to change Kevin’s world around a little bit, but fans needn’t worry – Kevin will still be around in the other Archie stories.

In addition to breaking new ground with Kevin Keller, in recent years Archie Comics has been exploring different interpretations of the main characters. For example in Life with Archie there was a storyline occurring in a possible future. While it didn’t it didn’t impact the existing line of Archie comics, it did make quite a splash in the media and amongst fans as it explored the possibilities of what would happen if Archie marries Betty or, alternately, what would happen if he married Veronica. These innovations to the Archie universe brought in new readers and impressed older readers.

A lot of LGBT fans who grew up reading Archie have told Parent that they wished Archie Comics had published Kevin Keller 20 to 30 years ago. There are others who question why a comic book like Archie needs a gay character intruding on the Riverdale universe, but "for every naysayer you get, you get a hundred people who love him... you focus on the people who love him and that’s where we go," Parent says

Often the people who love the character are kids who are dealing with their sexuality. Parent often gets letters from them, or from a supportive parent.

"I got a really good letter from a military dad from Canada and he was telling me how much his son loved the Kevin Keller books," Parent says. "He described his son as sort of gender neutral...I guess he’s about seven years old and he wasn’t really sure where he fit in. He gravitated right to the Kevin books just because of the fact Kevin had the issues who he was."

Admittedly Kevin’s life is ideal, but the seven-year-old found similar ground with the character. Parent was touched by the father’s heart warming letter because, unlike what some people would expect from a military father (i.e expecting his son to embrace the hetro-normative), the father just wanted his kid to be happy and well adjusted.

Regarding limits to what the Archie comics will do, even in alternate/future realities, Dan admits there are constraints.

"As a joke I wanted to do a cover where Betty and Veronica were pregnant and Archie looks kind of stunned – but they wouldn’t let me do that," he says.

The concept would have been a fake-out even if it had been published; the inside story would have seen Betty and Veronica pretending to be pregnant for a school assignment.

For a comic book company that has been around 75 years, Archie Comics (unlike DC or Marvel Comics) frequently bundles together reprints of old stories along with the new in the comic digest magazines. Given what I’ve mentioned above, you’d think any ‘controversy’ would involve the new stories, but that’s not always the case.

Creative editing of old stories has irked some fans. Sometimes the editing is barely noticeable – for example, in the original story the Riverdale gang are going to a Madonna concert and in the reprints they will update that to Lady Gaga.

On the downside, "...sometimes there are old stories where Archie will say a line to Betty that Girls should stay in the kitchen where they belong," Parent says. Or other scenes will illustrate guns or a character smoking.

Previously the editorial board would have proceeded to alter these lines or artwork, but now they more often leave them as they were. Parent thinks this is because the fans didn’t like it.

"People like the pure art; they don’t want to see it filtered," he explains. "The best thing to do is – and they do this sometimes – is reprint the story with a disclaimer."

As Archie Comics approach their 75th anniversary, Parent told me that they are working on a special commemorative item: a coffee table book that reflects on all the years of Archie Comics. There may be more things coming out, like new story lines, but in the meantime life carries on for Kevin, Archie and the town of Riverdale.