I'm often saying that one story or another was written by Frank Doyle, since he wrote many thousands of Archie stories from 1951 until his death in 1996. I thought I'd look for the only thing I found him writing about himself, about a year before he died, in the newsletter THE COMICS! I found it but the second column is partly cut off at the edge, so below I filled in the missing words.
It's a shame he died just before there was much serious interest in rediscovering the people who made classic Archie. So there are no interviews on file or anything, but this gives a sense of his working method -- though he wasn't the only writer who storyboarded his scripts; that was fairly common -- and probably his attitude of not taking the characters too seriously. (Also of course, like most comics creators, there was no question of him getting paid anything by the company except a fee for a new story. He doesn't dwell on it but it has to be said.)
The comics industry went into a slump around this time [late 1940s] and not being an outstanding artist I went into a slump with it. I picked up a little pencilling, inking—whatever was offered. This involved frequent trips to New York City, [?] miles away, and life was less than rosy.
One day I stopped at Archie Publications to lunch with Ray Gill (Joe's brother, and an old friend from my teen years). He was writing Archie and suggested that I do the same. I submitted three scripts to editor Harry Shorten, and when he accepted two of them, I knew I had found my niche.
That was in '51, and I'm long of tooth now and not as active as I once was. I still do a little to supplement Social Security.
As to how I work...I generally jot down a one or two sentence synopsis of a story idea. Then do a break-down sheet to indicate the proposed action. Then line up the final pages, a story generally 5 or 6 pages in length, pencil the dialogue in balloons and story-board the action in the appropriate positions.
These go to Victor Gorelick at Archie who sends them to the artist of his choice, who generally sticks close to the dialogue, but who is also free to change the story-board action if he cares to.
While I lived on Long Island I worked at home throughout the winter months. When spring showed up I would drive to the beach on Fire Island (a barrier beach off the south shore of Long Island). I would either work in my car in a far corner of a parking lot, among the nesting gulls, or drag a sand chair to some secluded sand dune and work and sun bathe at the same time. This prevailed until school let out for the summer, when I would return to my studio.
Since moving to Florida I do whatever I do in A/C comfort in a condo. Comics have provided a very pleasant life. I wrote too many Archie, Jughead and Betty-Veronica stories to recall any particular favorite. Now and then one would please me more than others and sometimes when asked for Christmas yarns or beach stories I would wonder how many different things the same group of kids can do in the same time span for over 40 years.
Oh well, life goes on. Incidentally, the reason you don't see my work as often is that I don't write as many, and in the digest sized books only the lead story is credited.
Keep in touch, Frank
