Archie, gay and maybe brown
Archie (a favorite of mine) has a new gay friend. I am gay about that, and pre ordered the comic book. 
I am also Latino. So I searched for brown characters in Archie comics before giving them a standing ovation. I found some. Most were minor characters. One of the characters,Toño Diaz had the makings of a great Archie gang member (Pals N Gals #123). Although he gets a good write up in Wikipedia, he did not survived beyond one comic digest. Archie’s African American friends Chuck and Nancy have done well. That’s a very good thing. They have become important in Riverdale the small town “anywhere in the middle of the U.S.” where Archie lives. A January 2010 publication by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany confirms that Latino population growth has fueled increased economic growth for the past two decades in those small communities in the U.S. whose populations had been in decline during the 1970s and 1980s. So Toño needs to make a comeback and stick around. Riverdale may do much better.
