Review: Little Archie #50

Little Archie #50 (November, 1968), by Dexter Taylor, Joe Edwards, et al.

review by BK Munn

My big comic book purchase this week. The Adventures of Little Archie #50. I'm a sucker for Archie Giants and this one just kind of gave off a "Summer" glow. Luckily, Ray Mitchell threw it in when Kara and I bought a mannequin from his store. 

I don't normally go for Little Archie. I prefer the mind-numbing antics of Archie and his gang as teenagers (or as teenage cavemen, or as teenage superheroes, or as teenage spies, etc). The Little Archie series to me has always been slightly terrifying. Not only are the children drawn in a hideous style, all with uniform buck teeth, but the very concept, that Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and Reggie have been locked in the same grotesque cyclical relationships since childhood, is very disturbing. 

Everytime I sit down to read one of these stories, I try to put aside my prejudices. After all, the Hernandez Brothers are huge fans and some of my favourite Love and Rockets stories are basically built on a Little Archie template. And this issue in particular has a lot to offer. I think most of the stories are by Dexter Taylor, the man who took over on the title from Little Archie's original creator Bob Bolling for most of the 1960s. This is from 1968. Peak period. This is the year of "Sugar Sugar" and the Archie band's pop music breakthrough, so a couple of the stories have Archie and the gang trying to rehearse at the Lodge mansion. As well, there are adventures at the soda shop and in school. 

As I get older, I identify more and more with the adults in Archie's world, especially the constantly humiliated Mr. Weatherbee (he ends up in front of the School Board and an auditorium of children in his boxers in one story here) and of course Pop Tate, the owner of the soda shop. Even snobby self-made millionaire Mr. Lodge gets my sympathy here, forever tormented by Little Archie and Little Jughead. In the story in #50, he runs for town council but when Archie mixes up his photo with the mugshot of a crook on a wanted poster, he keeps getting dragged into the police station by every prole in Riverdale until he finds and beats up "Bruiser McTuff" himself. You can kind of see a mid-life wish fulfillment thing going on in many Archie strips. The main characters are so eerily monstrous and unsympathetic (whether children or teenagers) and the put-upon parents, supposedly the moral compasses and bourgeois standard-bearers of the comics universe, often play-act at non-conformist rebellion, whether it's Mr. Lodge taking up prize-fighting and vigilantism, or "The 'Bee" trying out for Ed Sullivan. But of course, regardless of what they are doing in the final panel, all is safely back in its proper place by the first panel of the next story.

May Day 2010: Pass on Left

The Archie comics universe is one of scarcity and constant proletarian struggle. Witness this cover image from Mad House Annual #8, 1970. A generational-political schism emerges between the anachronistic beatnik Jughead stand-in and the lumpen appliance porters. A 1930s meets 2010 recessionary class conflict whose main expression is rejection. Rejection of logic. Rejection of good taste. Rejection of proportion. An upside-down world where repo-men both pass on the left, in the rejection sense, and pass on the left, in that they circumvent the already existing left to an outer left that is more left than left. By texting us with his ass, our hungry worker actually steps outside his inane scenario, into the realm of the possible.

"They are trying as directly as possible to sell you experiences, i.e. what you are able to do with the car, not the car as a product itself. An extreme example of this is this existing economic marketing concept, which basically evaluates the value of you as a potential consumer of your own life. Like how much are you worth, in the sense of all you will spend to buy back your own life as a certain quality life. You will spend so much in doctors, so much in beauty, so much in transcendental meditation, so much for music, and so on. What you are buying is a certain image and practice of your life. So what is your market potential, as a buyer of your own life in this sense? "

Slovoj Zizek, Believer magazine interview.

Further reading:

Making sure the recession will not pass the left by...

"We shall pass on to the misfortunes of our “Left” Communists in the sphere of home policy."

Blast from the Past

Awhile back I started the Canadian Comic Fan Project, posting the names of fans who appeared in old comic books. When I come across a Canadian letterhack in these old comics, I always wonder if they are still around and if they remember being a comic book fan. Do they still care about the superhero adventures and Archie jokes they loved as a kid? Do they have nostalgia for the comics of the past? Did they maybe grow-up to become comic book writers or cartoonists? I always ask, "where are they now?"

You will hopefully be only slightly less excited than I to learn that earlier this week I got my first answer!

Hello Bryan...I was googling around and did a search for my own name (Roy Bishop) in Hamilton, Ontario. To my surprise I stumbled onto your website.

Years ago when I was about 12 I joined the Archie Fan Club. I wrote to them and gave them a short blurb of how much I liked their TV show on saturday mornings. They published my comments in one of their comic books and I won a cash prize of $1.00...yee ha! Well, jump ahead about 38 years to now. I still have the letter and envelope they sent to me and my original copy of Archie #191. It's one of my childhood joys.

They also spelled my street address incorrectly but no problem. Even today my brother and his wife live at [the same address]. I am still in Hamilton about 5 minutes from the home I grew up in.

I wrote to a pen pal who lived in England because of my mention in that comic. We wrote letters for a few years afterwards.

Bryan, Thanks a bunch for putting my name and address on your webpage. It brings back many good memories.
Have a great day. Roy Bishop.

Thanks for writing Roy! It's wonderful to know that the Archie penpal club actually led to some international correspondence in the days before the interweb!

Canadian Nerds

The Canadian Comic Fan Project, Part Two

Where are they now?


Beloin Chin
53 Stevens Ave
Marathon, Ontario
(Everything's Archie, Archie Giant #9, August 1970)

Belinda Goetz
Box 35
Stewart, B.C.
Age 13
(Laugh #233, Aug 1970)

Linda Billry
Box 87
Masset, B.C.
Age 15
(Laugh #233, Aug 1970)

Bonnie White
Talbotville Royal, Ontario
Age 10
(Laugh #233, Aug 1970)

Laurie Pahl
496 N. Court St
Port Arthur, Thunder Bay Ontario
Age 12
(Laugh #233, Aug 1970)

Marilyn Kusznier
185 Clarke St
Port Arthur Thunder Bay Ontario
Age 12
(Laugh #233, Aug 1970)

Roy Bishop
16 Welbouren Dr
Hamilton, Ontario
(Archie #191, June 1969)


top image: Fran the Fan from Mad House Glads #74, August 1970 (art by Dan DeCarlo)


New ad campaign for Toronto tourism: selling the plate the steak is on.




CityNews: Off Beat Ads Selling Toronto To Americans

Classic Off-model Archie

Current habit: leafing through old Archie comics looking for unusual images. As we all know, Archie comics can take on a uniform look --all the girls, with the exception of Big Ethel, are drawn using the same basic body type. You hardly ever see the sort of zaftig-type Dan DeCarlo drew in his Humorama adult joke gags, or any other size or shape of woman for that matter. The adult women in most Archie comics have historically been either comic grotesques (Miss Grundy), slightly more adult variations on the teen girls (Josie, the art teacher), or slightly heavier hausfrau types (Archie's mom). These are a few exceptions recently discovered:


From "Reggie the Match Maker" --Archie's Pals & Gals Giant #18, 1961.
Reggie cons a kid into a date with his sister, only to wind up wrasslin with the wrong girl. Jumpin' Jaime Hernandez!


And speaking of Jaime Hernandez, "Fat Chance" (Betty and Veronica Spectacular Giant #145, 1967) gives us a peak at Veronica's unconscious anxieties as she morphs through a series of weight gains--sort of like Maggie in "The Race" from Penny Century #6.

Another habit: collecting names and addresses of Canadians who wrote to comic books in the 1950s and 60s.

The Canadian Comic Fan Project, Part One
If you are out there please contact me! From Betty and Veronica Summer Fun, 1967.

Eileen Boutcher
194 Pelham St
Lunenberg, Nova Scotia
age 11 & 1/2

David Zuckerman
2278 Noel St
Montreal 9, PO
age 12

Sabrina Mania

Jay Stephens sings the praises of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and her creators George Gladir and the late great Dan DeCarlo over at his Monsterama Blog. Nowadays she is a tv star and her comic is drawn in a manga style but Jay remembers her back in the day. Also included is a look at Archie's Madhouse and the usual assortment of creepy comics and pop culture artifacts.

For myself, I've always felt there's something missing from the classic Sabrina comics stories --her fit in the Archie world has never been perfect, maybe because so much of her cast is so comic-book ugly (not that Archie and Jughead are any great prizes). The dynamic that enervates the other Archie teenage romantic rivalry series just isn't there. Maybe because the series has never been a priority for the publisher, even when it has been a cartoon show and live-action sitcom and Archie and the gang have languished.

Hallowe'en is coming!