Why DeCarlo isn't in Last Kiss

This isn't the way things were supposed to be.

Dan DeCarlo was supposed to draw a story for Last Kiss #3. I was excited about working with Dan. And who wouldn't be? As Archie Comics' chief artist, Dan drew the most beautiful women in comics: Betty, Veronica, Cheryl Blossom, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycats.

Dan liked the first idea I pitched to him: a young bride is going down the aisle to the wedding altar when she suddenly realizes that she has slept with everyone in the church. Including...well, if you've read the story then you know. If you haven't then go and read it in Last Kiss #3.

The only problem was...I knew that Dan liked drawing beautiful women in bikinis. And I wanted Dan to have fun with this story.

"Maybe they could be at the beach when the guy proposes to the girl," suggested Dan.

It sounded good to me. As I developed the script, though, I began thinking about how Dan had been drawing a classic love triangle at Archie Comics for decades. But there was never any final resolution. Wouldn't it be fun, I thought, to set up a similar triangle (Different characters, but similar situation!) and finally show a DeCarlo woman getting her man?

Dan loved the script, but he was also concerned. We weren't using any of the Archie characters. But there were similarities...and he was having enough trouble with Archie Comics as it was. (Dan was battling Archie over the rights to some of his creations--especially Josie and the Pussycats.) So Dan spoke to his lawyer about our story and sent the lawyer a copy of an ad I'd created to publicize Last Kiss #3.

You can see where this is going, right? Despite the fact that we clearly weren't violating Archie's copyright, the lawyer felt that Archie might use this as a pretext to launch a new lawsuit to harass Dan. So the lawyer told Dan he shouldn't draw the story.

Dan still wanted to draw the story. He offered to abandon his normal style. It definitely wouldn't look like an Archie comic. The lawyer said it didn't matter. In fact, he didn't want Dan to draw the story...or anything else for my comic book.

Why?

This is when things started getting really weird. I called the lawyer and he explained, "If this case goes to trial then Archie might use this against him."

What?

"Dan will lose the sympathy of the jury if it comes out that he worked on a filthy comic book."

Filthy?

"Yes! Last Kiss is a filthy comic."

But...

"According to this ad of yours it's a filthy comic book."

But Last Kiss isn't filthy!

"So this is false advertising?"

It's just a quote from a reviewer. I thought it was kind of funny. And I'll admit I thought it might bring in a few readers. Maybe I shouldn't have used it in the ad. But Last Kiss isn't...

"It doesn't matter if it's filthy or not. The ad says it's filthy and that's all that it will take to turn the jury against us."

If I'd thought about it, I might have pointed out that Dan has done things far racier than anything that has ever appeared in Last Kiss. But I don't think it would have mattered to this lawyer. He'd made his mind up before I'd opened my mouth with the first, "But..."

I couldn't blame him for wanting to protect his client. And I couldn't really urge Dan to go against his lawyer's wishes. But I was disappointed. So was Dan. We still wanted to work together. And we worked out a plan for Dan to draw up some panels for my Last Kiss comic strip in Comics Buyer's Guide. We figured this was safe enough. It wasn't for my "filthy" comic book. It was good ol', clean, fun-lovin', family-approved, let-the-kids-read-it CBG.

Unfortunately, Dan never got a chance to draw anything for me.

A couple of weeks or so later, Dan's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected. I heard Dan was pretty depressed about it. I meant to call him in the next few days and offer my condolences—just as soon as I got through my latest deadline crunch. The following week Dan died.

Like I said, this isn't the way things were supposed to be.

--John Lustig, February 2002