Archie Celebrates ‘Kevin Keller Day’ With ‘It Gets Better’ Video

It's hard to believe that Kevin Keller, the first openly gay character in Archie Comics, debuted nearly three years ago. It simultaneously seems like the character first appeared yesterday, but it also kind of feels like he's always been around. Archie acknowledged the impact Kevin has made over the past 34 months by declaring July 9 "Kevin Keller Day" and releasing a video about his creation as part of the "It Gets Better" series.

You can watch the full video below.

"We didn't want it to just be like, this is the gay issue of Veronica and then just drop it and never come back to it," longtime Archie writer/artist Dan Parent says in the video. "We were introducing a character we really wanted to have some legs."

And so they did. Next month, Kevin experiences his first kiss, an event so big the Associated Press had to cover it.