I’ve previously suggested that although there were a lot of teen comics which obviously owed their existence to Archie Comics, Archie Andrews himself had few rivals.   But a few did exist, as we see in Andy Comics.

It came from Ace Magazines, a publisher I usually associate with such superhero titles as Lightning Comics, Super-Mystery Comics  and Four Favorites.  But as this house ad from Andy Comics #21 indicates, when the company switched to mostly teen fare they went in hard and heavy.

Andy Comics lasted two issues and I’ve read only one, but in spite of Andy being a total Archie clone,I kind of like it.  First there was the solid cover by Mike Suchorsky and the following story which the Grand Comic Book Database suggests might have been drawn by Ruth Atkinson.  Whoever did it’s quite nice and is in no way done in the Archie style.

However he rest of the contents were fairly mediocre, as we see here…

…and here.