We like Josie’s origins. Created by Dan DeCarlo in 1963 and named after his
beloved wife. Josie was originally supposed to headline She’s Josie, a
comic strip for newspapers. But since DeCarlo’s success on the Archie titles was
already unprecedented, Archie Comics convinced him to develop his new heroine as
a comic book character.

He did. For seven years, She’s Josie sold
moderately as a story about a groovy group of high school students (not much
different than Archie’s clique). It wasn’t until 1970, when DeCarlo and his
writers decided to revamp their concept, making Josie the frontwoman of all-girl
rock trio that sales and interest began to skyrocket.

By removing Josie
and the Pussycats from their hometown and high school and sending them on a
world tour, DeCarlo was able to considerably broaden their book’s subject matter
and redefine its premise. Josie and her friends faced off against the
millionaire Cabot siblings (Alexander, the band manager, and his conniving
sister, Alexandra), occasionally joining forces with them to solve mysteries and
book gigs.

The title was primarily marketed to girls, and in 1970, just
one year after Woodstock, rock was a very hot commodity. The idea that teen
girls could score mainstream success as guitarists, percussionists and singers
was absolutely compelling. Even if their skimpy cat costumes may have seemed an
artistic compromise, Josie and the Pussycats were rather groundbreaking. They
moved a bit left of the fashion-frenzied Katy Keenes and just right of the
fierce and infallable superheroines. They represented the everygirl, letting
each of them know that dreams were achievable, and that rock wasn’t just for
folksy female soloists and longhaired all-guy bands. Rock, like dreams, were for
everyone.

The group got their own TV show in 1970, which ran for three
years in total (the last being a kind of embarrassing intergalactic turn renamed
Josie & the Pussycats in Outer Space). And as many may remember, the
trio also appeared in a feature film starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson
and Tara Reid in 2001.