Behind the Credits: Reader Participation and the Fan Community in Bill Woggon’s "Katy Keene"

Humanities: 1st Place (The Ohio State University Edward F. Hayes Advanced Research Forum)The "Katy Keene" comic book series is deeply indebted to and intertwined with the play of its readers. Central to the success of the series were the ways in which the lives and adventures of Katy and her candy-crazed little sister, Sis, were visually and narratively shaped by drawings and ideas sent in by readers across the world. Readers' integral role in the series is widely discussed and celebrated, particularly among members of the Katy Keene fan community. However, even as individual readers and contributors are celebrated, the series obscured unique social and cultural details in order to present a unified version of the fictional world. The stories of Katy's trials and adventures with Sis, therefore, allowed for little variation beyond the established narrative and aesthetics of Archie Comic Publications, which promised readers "clean, typical teenage American humor" that reflected the publisher's "highest moral and ethical standards." Readers' real social and cultural circumstances shaped how they played with and within the Katy Keene world, and celebrating the ubiquity of reader participation uncritically further obscures the lives of the readers behind contributions and fails to consider how contributions were treated by the series. This paper examines how readers were addressed and presented within the series pages and provides preliminary insights regarding the diversity of readers that can be glimpsed in the reader-credited contributions printed within the series.No embarg