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Archie, 7/3/06

I have a deep, dark confession to make: when I was a kid, I was really obsessed with Archie comics. There’s something about them that makes the teenage lifestyle seem especially fun and glamorous to a 9-to-11-year-old. You think that high school’s going to be about dating and friends and wacky contests, rather than humiliation and social exclusion. I’ve always been afraid to revisit Archie since for fear of being horrified at my own terrible tweenage taste. Still, it took this brilliant article at the Onion AV Club to make it clear to me that not only does Archie completely fail to capture anything resembling authentic teenage experience, but it’s actually written by adults who harbor active contempt for young people.

Anyway, I recently started reading the Archie newspaper strip, since it’s available at the Houston Chronicle Web site. I’d like to believe that I’d have recognized at least this iteration of the Archie mythos as deeply lame even when I was 10, but I have my doubts. I offer today’s installment for examination only because it illustrates the casualness with which the strip discards the characters’ long-established, deeply-held values. Specifically: Jughead has a job? For which he takes off his hat? What the hell?

Apartment 3-G, 7/3/06

Um, she hooked up with some guy who wasn’t her husband? C’mon, Tommie, keep up.

Incidentally, I think that as a nurse, Tommie has a moral obligation to set a good health example for the America’s young comic-reading public. In particular, she shouldn’t take long, soul-searching walks in the pouring rain without a hat. I’ve experienced some hard times and heartbreak in my life, and never once when I was at a low state did I say, “Hey, you know what would make me feel better? Going outside for hours and getting cold and soaking wet! Yeah!” Call me an old stick in the mud, but I’m quite capable of moping inside with a cup of hot chocolate.

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Well, the suspense is over and I’ve picked the winner. I have to say that it was incredibly hard and part of the reason that I’ve taken so long to pick the winner is that they were all so good. In a very real sense, you’re all winners! But in an even realer sense, only one of you is the winner, and that one of you is “Lucy Van Pelt,” whose entry just seemed to exude a certain je ne sais Margo to me. For mug purposes, I’ve filled in her word balloon:

And yes, this mug is now available at my store at CafePress! Click here to order yours! Lucy herself will of course be getting a free mug in the mail.

In addition, as promised, Dave Willis‘s super-awesome Margo Warhol graphic is going on a t-shirt:

The colors of this graphic seem to work perfectly with CafePress’s new black t-shirt. They’ve just introduced black tees at CafePress and say they can’t guarantee delivery times. Hopefully it won’t take too long, as I’m definitely ordering one of these for myself!

Again, judging this contest was really, really hard for me, and of course my final decision was to a certain extent arbitrary. Perhaps you’d like to see one of the other contestants on a mug or garment of your choice! If so, just e-mail me and I’ll send you a high-quality image of any of the other photos and drawings submitted. (Here’s the lot of them, for reference.) You can then upload them to CafePress yourself and make your own counter-winner. You’ll stick it to the man! (Meaning me.)

Since I was updating my store anyway, I took the opportunity to do a little housecleaning. I’ve added a couple of new shirt styles. The first is for anyone who loves double entendres and public domain clip art.

Work it, people, work it! (If this baffles you, click here and scroll down for the context for this quote.) This shirt is available for the gents and the ladies.

And, finally, if you want to cement your status as an above-it-all hipster with a t-shirt bearing an incomprehensible slogan, check this out:

Wear this shirt to remind you where to find more information about licorice. (Again, you can click here to learn more about learning more about licorice, but it doesn’t make a ton more sense in context.) This t-shirt is great fun for a boy or a girl.

There are still classic Comics Curmudgeon garments at the store, of course: Brick House exercise gear, a Fence Post Frank hat, Canadian Jive-Talkin’ intimate wear, and, of course, “More Zippers, Mule!” Check it out!

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For Better Or For Worse, 7/2/06

I admit it: In addition to being a judgmental bastard, I’m a capricious bastard. How else can you explain the fact that I found Grandpa Foob’s last sexual fantasy sequence horrifying and distasteful, while I was mildly charmed by this one? Maybe it’s because instead of hoping to be rubbed down by nubile slave girls, he’s imagining relatively innocent pursuits, like dancing at arm’s length, holding hands in the general vicinity of pert young rear ends, or sharing incredibly phallic ice cream cones. Maybe I’m impressed that he’s daring to dream about a blonde-brunette three-way, or at least about driving to one. Maybe it’s because the strip dramatically illustrates the fact that, no matter what our age, we’re always young and virile in our own minds, our chins firm and manly, with only a slight cleft pointing the way to their scrotum-like future.

Meanwhile, in Rex Morgan, M.D., Rex is wearing a kind of gay robe.

Going over my old posts, I’ve noticed a trend with me and Rex Morgan: I get all excited about every new storyline and inevitably have fun with it for the first few weeks; then suddenly the air goes out if it and I lose
interest. The last few weeks in this strip have involved a punk-haired girl killing Harry and taking over the blackmailing biz and … a partial fingerprint … and … something about arthritis … damn, I can’t even work up the energy to write a summary. But I offer Rex in his classy robe here as a reminder of happier times.

(Speaking of robes, what the hell is June wearing? At first I thought she had one of those little trays that hook over your neck, like an old-timey cigarette girl, which she was pretending to be in a desperate and doomed attempt to get Rex’s attention. But I suspect she’s just wearing a robe festooned with the exact same cheesy pattern as the top underneath it. More troubling is the hand at the bottom of the frame, which appears to be protruding from her torso.)