share-blog: Archie

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Thứ Sáu, 2 tháng 5, 2014

Number 1569: The naked Archie

In this tale of teen tension and body dysmorphic disorder from Archie Comics #27 (1947), Archie takes a shower in front of a leering, sadistic personal trainer. It isn’t such a big deal except for our usual expectation of more clean, wholesome fun from an Archie comic book. That cleaned-up Archie came later, when the transition from the wild-and-wooly days of Archie’s publisher, MLJ Comics, was fnally complete. This story, drawn by longtime Archie artist Bill Vigoda, is part of that earlier style.

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From the same issue, here’s a titillating look at Archie’s girls, Betty and Veronica. Click on the thumbnail:

Thứ Hai, 11 tháng 7, 2011

Number 980

Bob Montana's Archie

This is the oldest Archie comic book story I have. It's by Bob Montana, from Pep Comics #31, 1942. From a humble beginning as a backup strip Archie took over the MLJ Comics line, and probably in the nick of time. As a reader turned the page of this issue from the last page of Archie he came across a Paul Reinman "Bentley of Scotland Yard" page showing a corpse impaled on a church steeple, dripping blood. MLJ cleaned up its act a lot with Archie, and probably had more than a few critics of the violent, gore-dripping comics of its wilder years before the publishers turned the company over to the Riverdale gang, and the pre-teen/teenage readers.

Montana, who drew Archie until the end of his life at age 54 (too young!) in 1975, did the newspaper comic strip version, which I read religiously. My newspaper dropped the strip shortly after Montana's death. I've included some early Archie newspaper strip originals by Montana I found on Heritage Auctions.

In this story we have the first appearance of Veronica's dad, Mr. Lodge.