The original Archie

THE famous comic book character, Archie, who was introduced to the juvenile market in 1941 along with his fictional friends Jughead and Veronica at Riverdale High in a fictitious small American town, is now the focus of a worldwide media blitz. Here is one of those manufactured controversies in which news outlets react en masse to clever marketing. Archie is killed off as a character in the latest issue of Life with Archie in the course of defending his friend, Kevin, a homosexual character who was introduced in 2010. Kevin Keller is a senator who supports gun control. During the course of an attempted assassination, Archie intervenes and is killed by the assassin’s bullet instead.

Thus, the controversy. Singapore has banned the comic because of its depiction of Kevin’s “marriage” to another man. And many have condemned the homosexual themes. None of this condemnation could possibly be unexpected or unwanted by Archie Comic Publications, Inc., which is one of a matrix of media companies, including the publisher Random House, now invested in the Archie stories as depicted in comic books, movies and digital media.

However, an important facet of this story has been generally overlooked. A living Archie is not so important anymore. A dead Archie is even better. Most of the characters of the comic book have now been transferred from life to the realm of horror in a new series, Afterlife with Archie.

Afterlife with Archie depicts a zombie apocalypse which begins in Riverdale. The comic is Archie Comics’ first title to be rated ‘teens and up,’ which means it has a potentially much larger audience.

Here is a synopsis from Wikipedia: “After a car driven by Reggie kills Hot Dog, Jughead asks Sabrina to bring his beloved pet back to life. She does, but with terrible consequences: Hot Dog becomes a zombie, and kills Jughead, who himself rises as a zombie and spreads the contagion.”

Archie Comics CEO Jon Goldwater has said that his father, the late John L. Goldwater, would have been “shocked by Afterlife (…) but shocked in a great way”.

That is probably true. The first four issues of Afterlife with Archie, introduced in 2013, sold out.

Archie Comics represents a now-familiar cultural trajectory, described so perceptively by the writer E. Michael Jones in his book Libido Dominandi. First comes fairly wholesome mass popular culture, with its homogenizing effects. Then comes sexualized mass entertainment, with profit as the single greatest motive for transgressing former taboos. Then, as much of society is suffering the personal chaos, disorientation and alienation caused by the Sexual Revolution, horror becomes a major preoccupation of mass entertainment, its purveyors reacting with prompt sensitivity to the appetites of this disoriented public. Horror confirms the inchoate awareness and knowledge of chaos and social apocalypse. Archie was destined to die defending sexual transgression and to become a superhero in a world of zombies.

Archie, angry and vengeful shortly before his death.

— Comments —

Jane writes:

Marvel Comics has recently announced that Captain America will be black and Thor is now a women: Link.

Paul T. writes:

Comic book publishers have always been notorious trend-followers, and once the zombie craze has passed, Zombie Archie will go the way of the mid-60’s Captain Pureheart Archie, who was meant to cash in on the ‘camp’ Batman craze. The (relatively) wholesome core franchise Archie is always protected and capable of being revived, unless society degenerates to the point where there’s just no market for it. I believe it was to protect the franchise that the publisher probably didn’t do the obvious thing, which was to have made the notoriously girl-indifferent Jughead the gay character. That would just be too risky, so “Kevin” was pulled out of thin air.

When comics publishers really do find themselves backed into storylines which threaten bottom lines, they generate some nonsense along the lines of “Oh, THOSE stories took place in an alternate universe, or were ‘imaginary” [as if the others aren’t]”. It’s a business that has always thrived on hucksterism and exploitation of current trends. In fact, Archie was based on Mickey Rooney’s teen films, maybe with a dash of Henry Aldrich. That’s why he was made a basically unhandsome hero (very noticeable in the early books, where he’s positively beaver-faced).

Paul writes:

This article shows the importance of your site and why it deserves support.  It teaches about what is going on, so we can be discerning Christians or at least thinking traditionalists.  Someone said he was teaching Sunday school, and he pointed out the world has a lot of R-rated movies, many of which have redeeming characteristics.  And they can be viewed by Christians if the Christian has the ability to discern what is bad about the movie.  He specifically mentioned he was not talking about pornography, which has no redeeming value.  A Protestant, he was called in by his pastor or priest, who said a child’s parents found their child viewing pornography.  And the child justified it based on the teacher’s lesson.  The teacher explained the above, and he continued teaching.

You are on to something when you say, “Horror confirms the inchoate awareness and knowledge of chaos and social apocalypse.”  This is why Christians should make a huge effort to use modern technology such as the modern DVD recorder and its cloud storage abilities to buffer the junk inundating society and society’s most vulnerable, children.   Christian organizations should be packaging titles and codes and publishing them to parishioners.  The packages would be wholesome movie and TV titles.  In addition, Congress can limit Constitutionally-protected copyrights (and the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction), and therefore could allow organizations to edit out offensive material.

EWTN TV and particularly Catholic radio is absorbing and entertaining for anyone interested in traditionalism.  Catholic radio is not part of the fire and brimstone genre one hears from usually night radio stations.  Radio is unique communication.  Radio is intimate and demands attention, unlike TV.  Set the dial to the free or pay radio station and give up sports radio and noise.  (One has friends, the press, the Net, and TV to catch up on that stuff.)  Catholics are catechized.

Walks and protests are helpful, but contributing money or time or both to Christian causes and traditionalist politicians is extremely important.  The devil does not sleep, which is why Christ urges us to stay awake, a point a priest made tonight during a mass.

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