Josie the comic book basically began as a female Archie.
Josie was Archie, Alexander was Veronica (but very similar to Reggie).
Melody was the dumb blonde, sort of replacing the Jughead character.
There was also a feminist girl in glasses, can't recall her name right now (Pepper?), and over time, other oddities appeared, such as a fat homely fellow named Sheldon who Melody dated.
As I stated earlier, Alexandra showed up simply to be a soundboard for Alexander in his pursuits of Josie.
She was eventually friended up with Josie, along with Melody and the other girl.
It wasn't until the cartoon came about and Alan M. was added that everything went into effect. There is a panel where Alan M. first appeared and both Josie and Alexandra went nuts over him.
With the Scooby Doo cartoon influence, it was obvious Alan M. was essentially a Freddie clone to the group.
Valerie was added to be a token black, as she and a character called Freight Train on Where's Huddles are two of the first black people to appear as regulars in cartoons.
All earlier characters vanished, never to be seen again.
With the success of Scooby Doo, Casey Kasem would repeat doing the Shaggy voice for Alexander and that is what has brought about the two faces of Alexander; he would still maintain the girl-crazy approach in the comic books, like Reggie, but in the cartoons, he was the absolute coward, like Shaggy.
I remember the first time I saw him in the comic book, he wasn't wearing the glasses and I had no idea who he was.
WHY the stripe was added to Alexandra's hair and Sebastian became a reincarnated warlock or any of that took place, I have no idea. Magic was never used in the cartoon, nor was Sebastian ever effectively utilized in the comic book.
The only thing for that time period I can think about was some idea about giving her her own show or something, like Sabrina the Teen-aged Witch, but I truly have no idea why any of that took place.
In the end, the only two lasting factors of Alexandra have been the stripe and Sebastian.
As it is, Josie cartoon adventures never carried over well into the comic books. Archie comic book adventures were more isolated, as was Josie's adventures, one-on-one stuff, not James Bond like the cartoons.
The scene you are referring to with the portrait of the wizard came about in the comic books just about the time the cartoon came out. Clearly someone had some ideas about the character, but they didn't end up using them, whatever they may have been, and they just went with her being a rival for Josie, for Alan M. and the band. That was always more than enough to solidify the cartoon's uniqueness with her character.
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jmatrixrenegade
9 years ago
Yes, Pepper. She was the brunette of the hair color scheme at the start.
Melody at times is shown as quite sexy in the comic. More so than in the show, which probably reflects a teen v. preteen audience. The comic had a cute device where her voice is shown to be musical or something whenever she talks via a music note service as a sort of quotation mark for her words.
Alan is first listed in August 1969. I believe they were going to give him a band (we see him playing a guitar when Josie meets him) but dropped the idea. The "Josie & The Pussycats" band & Valerie came a few months later in December. The show (the comic has an amusing promotion where the cast visits the cartoon studios) started in September 1970. Given production lag time, it might all be connected though. The scene with the picture was Sept. 1969. The magic overlapped some with the "Josie & the Pussycats" comic but don't know when dropped.
A bit of research shows me that Sabrina was an Archie comic that started around Josie's original formation. So, the idea of a teenage witch was in the "universe." There is a magical cat for Sabrina too. So, it seems a bit of a copycat thing.
http://www.archiefans.com/archies-friends/sabrina-and-alexandra-separated-at-birth/
Years later, Archie hooked up with Valerie. I'm all for their happiness, but the comic itself wasn't that engaging for me personally when I checked it out.
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richard.fuller1
9 years ago
I always deduced (incorrectly) that Sabrina first came about with her cartoon, circa 1970 or '71, and was influenced by Samantha on Bewitched (who actually would have been going out by then), but yes, as you stated, she began around the same time as Josie, in 1964.
Sabrina first appeared, with her name identified as such, on a cover of Madhouse Comics, of all things.
With that, I can only deduce she was given a go by the success of Bewitched on tv, then she got her cartoon after the success of Archie in cartoons.
Now by the time Alexandra came about, Samantha on Bewitched would just be a year or two on her way out, and even with Archie comics already having Sabrina, that just makes the witchcraft powers of Alexandra terribly odd and redundant.
All I could then conclude from that is someone at the comic book did not understand what would be going down in the cartoon and vice versa, and no magic powers made their way into the cartoon.
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