Archie Comics – or at least half of Jon Goldwater’s 50% stake in it – is in danger of being auctioned off to pay off debts, according to legal filings reported on 9fin. As we reported a few months ago, Goldwater is locked in a legal battle with finance company Raven Capital Management. It all started in 2022, when Goldwater, son of Archie co-founder John Goldwater, borrowed $40 million from Raven, and signed a deal with producer/investor James Masciello, to develop Archie’s secondary characters for media.
Since then, Masciello fell out with Raven and took his own life, while Goldwater has been unable to pay back the debt. Raven has been trying to collect and was further incensed by the 2025 announcement that Goldwater has signed a deal with Universal for a new Archie movie. Raven claims that they controlled the rights formerly owned by Masciello via a previous foreclosure auction following his death, although that does not cover the main Archie characters.
It has all resulted in a web of complicated lawsuits. According to the 9fin article reported by Maria Heeter and Laurie Tomassian, things were set to come to a head in late July, when a foreclosure auction was scheduled to take place, selling the half of Goldwater stake in the company that he used as collateral for the loan.
Goldwater has since fired back with his own lawsuit, claiming fraud and misrepresentation by Raven – and he means business, too. He’s hired lawyer Mitchell Schuster who previously represented Justin Baldoni in his epic legal battles with Blake Lively.
The foreclosure sale was halted after an appeal by Goldwater, as reported in an update on 9fin. That story is locked up behind an unbreachable paywall, but I have been able to view it, and it was also summarized on Twitter.
A New York appellate court paused an auction that was set to strip Archie Comics chief executive Jonathan Goldwater of his quarter stake in the 88-year-old comic publisher — with just a few days to spare.
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This stalling in the foreclosure timeline gives Goldwater a fighting chance he probably didn’t have earlier this week. However, Raven is fighting back, saying that Goldwater has saddled Archie Comics with debt, and that the stake is not worth all he is asking for.
According to Raven, Goldwater is still racking up debts: in May 2026 he got another $4 million loan. In the paywalled follow up article, Archie’s future seems even more troubled:
Recent court filings show that Raven is looking to sell more than just Goldwater’s 25% stake in Archie. Marketing discussions run by Salem Partners, an investment bank engaged by Raven, included the potential sale of equity interests acquired by Raven in a 2024 foreclosure sale. One of these companies holds an exclusive license to develop certain Archie characters, the other a 22.5% economic interest in the publisher.
New filings included in Goldwater’s request for relief show that Archie Comics struggled even after taking out an investment from Raven. Archie CFO Robert Wintle emailed Raven cofounder Jeremy Tucker to ask for more funding several times in early 2024, warning that the business was dangerously low on cash. ”We will need additional funds as soon as possible, in order to pay other vendors and staff,” Wintle wrote in January 2024.
The filings in Goldwater’s lawsuit against Raven are accessible here, but they are tough reading – one filing includes 500 pages of exhibits, which are dense contracts and affidavits. But where this all seems to be at this point is that Raven is hoping to buy half of Goldwater’s stake in Archie Comic Publications in the foreclosure sale. They would then sell that AND the media rights for Archie’s secondary characters (Sabrina, Josie and the Pussycats, etc) to yet another prospective buyer. One can only imagine what kind of media company would want to get a stake in America’s most beloved eternal teenagers in this day and age.
Even in the worst case scenario, Goldwater would still own 25% of the company – and the remaining 50% is held by Nancy Silberkleit, the widow of Michael Silberkleit, another one of Archie’s original founders. Silberkleit has been a somewhat silent partner while Goldwater updated Archie in the 00s. But she could become less silent should all of this mess lead to new co-owners.
WHEW. This is a thorny case, but for comics fans reading this, the bottom line seems to be that Archie Comics, the publisher, has been struggling along for a while, and their publishing output is slim, although they have Shaq and Co on board. They’ve also licensed out the characters for a revamp from Oni Press, which should at least give them a boost.
As the number of stakeholders trying to get a piece of the characters suggests, Archie, Betty and Veronica are still beloved and popular figures who will retain their value amid all the legal jostling. But as we’ve seen with several other comics cases in the past, when rights become entangled, a lot can get lost in the shuffle.
