Richard Goldwater, 71, was a president of Archie Comics, a co-creator of “Josie and the Pussycats,” and helped move the firm from Manhattan to the more Riverdale-like surroundings of Mamaroneck. He died October 2.

As son of Archie’s creator, John Goldwater, who died in 1999, Richard Goldwater joined the family firm when in his mid-teens, about the same age as the comic book protagonist. The eternal verities of “Archie,” and its countless spin-off titles, were already in place: locations like Riverdale High School and Pop’s Chock’Lit Shoppe; subsidiary characters like the jalopy-driving Jughead (lately updated to a Mustang), and lunk-headed athlete Moose (now diagnosed with dyslexia). It was a stage for the comic’s central agon, an unusual love triangle: Archie torn between a pair of cantilevered hotties, Betty and Veronica.

As the long-time president of Archie Comics, Goldwater ensured that nothing untoward ever happened in this relationship and that the saccharine wholesomeness of the strip was preserved, harking back to some Neverland ideal of Middle America.

“We don’t lead kids astray; we never have, and we never will,” Goldwater told the New York Times in 1985, not long after the company moved from downtown Manhattan to the suburbs.

“Archie” was created in the early 1940s as an alternative to the superhero strips that dominated comic books of the time. In part, the hope was to appeal to girls, who were seen as a massive untapped audience in the days before television was a mass medium. It was in search of the same readers that Goldwater and artist Dan DeCarlo — the lead artist on “Archie” for decades — revived a pair of minor “Archie” characters, Josie and her friend Melody, and gave them their own title, “She’s Josie.” For many years, Josie comic books displayed the tagline “By Dick and Dan” — somewhat cryptically since artists were generally not credited in Archie Comics.

In 1969, Josie and her pals donned catsuits and played in a rock band — the same year that a cartoon band, the Archies, into which the Hanna-Barbera-animated “The Archie Show” characters had been dragooned, had a real-life no. 1 hit, “Sugar Sugar.” A few years later, “Josie and the Pussycats” also became a Saturday morning cartoon, following “Archie” into America’s living rooms.

Goldwater also was responsible for the introduction of “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,” another peripheral Archie character who ended up with multiple media outlets of her own. Under his guidance, Archie Comics has more recently branched out into licensing and distributing other cartoon characters, including “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Sonic the Hedgehog.” Under his leadership, Archie Komics — a beacon of Americanness nearly as resonant as Coke — were distributed to 60 nations and translated into dozens of languages, including Swedish, Hindi, and Arabic.

Goldwater split administration of the company with Michael Silberkleit, who continues as chairman. The pair took the company private in 1982. Michael Silberkleit’s father, Louis Silberkleit, who died in 1986, was John Goldwater’s original business partner.

Richard Goldwater is survived by three daughters, who are not involved in the company, Michael Silberkleit said yesterday.