The Gothic Archies are a self-described goth-bubblegum band created and largely performed by Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields. In 1997, Merritt released The New Despair. The EP featured the song "Your Long White Fingers", which appeared frequently in the cult Nickelodeon series The Adventures of Pete & Pete. The band's name is apparently a pun on the term "Gothic Arch" and the Archies.

The band later became more prominent as Merritt would write, perform and record songs for the audiobook versions of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. A collection of thirteen songs based on each book and two additional tracks was released as The Tragic Treasury on October 10, 2006, to coincide with the release of the final book in the series. The Gothic Archies briefly toured to promote the album featuring Merritt on ukulele and Daniel Handler as Lemony Snicket on accordion. In 2002, The Gothic Archies composed original music for the audio book version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline.