# I haven't read Archie comics in 25 years; what's new? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 7, 2004, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642 "2004-12-07T23:07:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/21 "2004-12-08T14:52:43Z")
The two main girls were supposed to represent **Betty** Grable (perky all-American blonde) and **Veronica** Lake (sultry man-killer). ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/22 "2004-12-08T15:07:05Z")
The herpes outbreak (boy was Mr Lodge angry about that) and the Jughead “Columbine” disaster (we’ll miss you Moose) spring to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/23 "2004-12-08T15:23:48Z")
I was reading one recently where Veronica accidentally gets sent to an Italian reform school. She puts a poster of Archie on her wall and one of the other asks why he has a checkerboard in his hair. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/24 "2004-12-08T16:39:58Z")
> [@Cat Fight](#): > > Well, at lot has changed… And I thought nothing had changed… 😉 Wife still likes a Betty & Veronica Digest in her Christmas stocking. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/25 "2004-12-08T16:59:32Z")
> [@Sternvogel](#): > > Also, the Lodge family of “proper Bostonians” exemplified the concept of “old money”. [Henry Cabot Lodge](http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=L000393) served in the United States Senate from 1893 to 1924… Weren’t the rich assholes in the “Josie and the Pussycats” series named the Cabots? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/26 "2004-12-08T18:54:07Z")
And, [HERE (click the link, dammit, I don’t post them for my health)](http://www.electricferret.com/fights/bettyveronica.htm) is something more to the point. The way we all wanted it to be. 🆒🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/27 "2004-12-08T19:17:33Z")
> [@Cat Fight](#): > > Jughead is a woman hating compulsive eater (except for that one girlfriend in the wheelchair) Right, he didn’t eat her. And **Eve** , in some of the very early comics from the 1940s Veronica’s last name WAS “Lake.” ---
**Author:** ![Gr8Kat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gr8kat/32/18668_2.png) [@Gr8Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gr8Kat)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/28 "2004-12-08T23:57:09Z")
I wouldn’t mind a “Betty & Veronica” digest in my stocking. The reprints of the 40s and 50s stories were always my favorites. Betty had a lot more chutzpah in those stories. She wasn’t just a doormat, she was a schemer. I miss that. In the newer comics, though, I liked Dan DeCarlo’s artwork. Did I hear that he passed away recently? That’s too bad, I really liked his renditions of the kids the best. And he struck me as someone who could really draw when he wasn’t following a pre-set templet. ---
**Author:** ![Gr8Kat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gr8kat/32/18668_2.png) [@Gr8Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gr8Kat)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/29 "2004-12-09T00:06:58Z")
Ok, looking at the web a little, I see dan DeCarlo _was_ a respected artist and, like, _created_ the template Archie used. I just felt funny for a moment praising an Archie artist when one of the jokes/criticisms I’ve always heard is how hard could they be to draw when everyone looks alike? Anyway, I always thought he was the best. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/30 "2004-12-09T01:19:27Z")
Here’s some changes I’d **like** to see, just to make it, you know, a little more realistic story of “America’s typical teenagers”: Reggie gets busted for possession with intent to distribute. Mr. Weatherbee gets swept up in a NAMBLA crackdown, goes down the river. Mr. Lodge gets caught up in the Enron scandal, winds up in federal prison. Mrs. Grundy loses her retirement pension under suspicious circumstances (see above), gets desperate for money, tries to recruit the whole faculty and student body into Amway, fails, commits suicide. Veronica gets date-raped by a fellow socialite, turns to drink, winds up in Betty Ford. Betty gets pregnant. Archie beats the shit out of her until she agrees to get an abortion. Chuck Clayton goes out with Cheryl, is lynched by Swenson’s Aryan Nations Militia cell. Moose and Dilton come out of the closet (at long last!). Jughead does the same and is shortly diagnosed with AIDS. (Why do you think he’s so skinny?) Archie goes to a Riverdale-Central High game, gets drunk, gets into a silly, pointless fight with a Centralian, takes a shiv in the gut. Big Ethel continues her silly, pointless existence with no perceptible change. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/31 "2004-12-09T01:37:17Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > I seriously don’t know which is harder to believe. That someone is making a Golden Girls reference or that I get it. So, that is where it came from. I’d heard it but couldn’t remember where. ---
**Author:** ![phaishazamkhan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@phaishazamkhan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phaishazamkhan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/32 "2004-12-09T02:18:08Z")
Now that’s just mean, plain and simple. Plus I always figured Reggie was the homosexual not Moose and his nerdy bottom. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/33 "2004-12-09T02:26:26Z")
I can’t for the life of me see Moose or Dilton as gay–both have love lives and in fact “Danni,” a scientist like Dilton, is pretty and nice. 🙂 Since giving birth to “Jellybean,” Jughead’s mother has turned rather sexy. Archie’s mother Mary–depicted as plump and gray in the 50s and 60s–is now lithe, sexy, and red-haired. Reggie, thankfully, is no longer depicted with his part in the middle. Ms. Beazly still looks like Popeye’s sister. Jughead has had at least two girlfriends–one story even made me cry. ☹ Betty’s dad Joe Cooper doesn’t smoke a pipe anymore. Frankie Valdez and his girlfriend Maria Rodriguez don’t appear as much as they used to. Sabrina no longer appears with the Riverdale gang. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/34 "2004-12-09T02:29:38Z")
So, basically, what \*\*BrainGlutton \*\*is wanting Archie to enroll at whatever school _Boston Public_ took place at. Yeah, that was a believable high school. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642/35 "2004-12-13T00:40:23Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > So, basically, what \*\*BrainGlutton \*\*is wanting Archie to enroll at whatever school _Boston Public_ took place at. Yeah, that was a believable high school. Compared to Riverdale High, yes, it was. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-havent-read-archie-comics-in-25-years-whats-new/278642.md?page=1)