Rare Edward Bunker Penned Archie Comic Found – Escape From Riverdale Penitentiary

Rare Edward Bunker Penned Archie Comic Found – Escape From Riverdale Penitentiary.

Edward Bunker, actor, hard broiled crime author and former career criminal is perhaps best known for his role as Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs and his unflinching autobiography about prison life, the Animal Factory.

What isn’t widely known is that Bunker had a two-week writing stint for Archie Comics during the Missouri-based publisher’s failed work release program.

According to former Archie Editor, Mel Furnlap, “It was a noble experiment and Bunker was a great talent, but our sensibilities just didn’t meld.”

“We kept telling him that you can’t alter the Archie Universe. And he kept threatening me with a broken light bulb and the removal of my tongue.

Now, five years after Bunker’s death, his estate has released the infamous script for his crack at the comic, entitled: “Escape From Riverdale Penitentiary.

The gang’s outing to the local drive-in ends in tragedy when they discover that not only has Reggie Mantle been using Archie’s old jalopy to transport a small mountain of coke, but the constant rival also ditched the bodies of two dead hookers in the trunk.

“I thought I smelt something funny,” said local genius, Dilton Doiley. “I just didn’t know I was smelling trouble!”

Carted off to the Riverdale Hoosegow, the Archie gang doesn’t exactly take kindly to prison life.

Moose Mason, perhaps fared the best, quickly joining a white supremacist gang. He would be seen choking a Nation of Islam member with a lanyard keychain he made in shop. He would later marry Midge and during one of their conjugal visits, beat her half to death.

“He just doesn’t know his own strength,” she said in the hospital.

Betty and Veronica continue their infamous cat fights in Riverdale’s Women’s Penitentiary. Although Archie could never decide between them, poor Betty would soon find out that the big bull of a warden, Stella Stevens, definitely preferred blondes. Sadistic guards would later spray Veronica with a firehose during a riotous uprising, cracking her skull against the cement wall, leaving her half paralyzed but still snooty.

Bunker’s version has New fish Archie Andrews getting grisly buggered about every 15 minutes by a revolving cast of jail house characters. Just about every convict in that stinkhole wanted a piece of everything Archie.

According to Andrew’s old high school teammate, Chuck Clayron, already incarcerated for racial profiling during a Riverdale March of Dimes Walk, “That freckled pansy really discovered himself here. I’d say jail was the best thing for him.”

Released a few years later on ever so good behavior, Archie would open up a bead store in Asheville, North Carolina.

Jughead Jones befriends, old-timey, veteran con, Red, and after two decades, escape from Riverdale, patiently using his gray crown beanie to tunnel his way out through a sewer. Bunker’s version of the comic has Jughead in the last panel, arriving in Zihuatanejo, Mexico where he gets severe dysentery and suffers a slow, agonizing death.

Meanwhile, Reggie Mantle’s lawyers would keep him out of jail, allowing him to once again walk away totally scott free. “That’s what that little shit gets for telling me to keep my hands off his guitar,” snickered Mantle as he plunged his face into a Devil's Tower sized platter of marching powder.

Archie Comics has no immediate plans to release the Bunker scripted comic, but it’s rumored that long time Archie fan, Steve Buscemi has been eyeing the project for the small screen. “I’d make a great a great Archie,” claimed the bug-eyed actor. “Wouldn’t I?”