Archie Arcs

I have a lot of friends who read comic books, but I don't. I usually explain that I didn't grow up reading comic books, but that's pretty dishonest. Still, dishonesty sometimes beats admitting to X-Men and anime fans that I grew up reading my mom's Archie comic books from the 60s. Not only were they readily accessible, but I genuinely liked them. It catered to my naive sensibilities by featuring teenagers who forget to bring their homework to school and asking one another out on dates to the malt shoppe.

Archie is not a serial, you could pretty understand everything you needed to with no context, making it easy to just pick up sporadic comic books out of order. Likewise, nothing of consequence ever occurs in Riverdale. Hurt feelings and lessons learned are completely forgotten by the next strip.

I think Archie has the same appeal as Saved by the Bell. Not only does it have similar characters experiencing trivial matters in a high school setting, but nothing that happens in one episode can't be erased by the next, with rare "to be continued..." exceptions. Remember when Zack suddenly was in love with Lisa, his best friend Screech's lifelong crush? Lisa and Zack dated for an episode and Screech just had to "deal." What seemed like it would have lingering consequences was never so much as referenced on another episode, which makes no sense.

Meanwhile, Archie was in the news a while back after announcing that Archie would be proposing marriage to Veronica. A lot was made out of the fact that it shows that men prefer brunettes to blonds, but Archie is hardly some kind of allegory. If this were reflective of real life, no one would be attracted to Archie, a ginger.

Kim mailed me an article about a comic book store owner who sold his rare first issue of Archie in order to protest Archie choosing Veronica over Betty. I think this guy is an idiot. Not for liquidating the comic book, that's probably a smart move, but how can he be upset about a story line that will quickly pushed aside for a new version of reality? Nothing is permanent in Archie, even marriages meant to stir up sales.

Of course I like Betty. She's the nice one and the blond one, to boot. But Betty needs to lose the crush on Archie as it does her no favors. Why should we cheer for Betty to have Archie when we could just cheer for her to meet someone better? 70% of Archie plot lines deal with Archie waffling between the two objects of his affections. He has probably bailed on Betty literally hundreds of times since the comic book series began. Sure, Veronica is an awful snot, but then why is Betty her best friend half the time?

If I were Betty, I'd start reconsidering that charming Jughead fellow. If it doesn't work out, it won't ruin their friendship anyway.