Nice find! I really should try to keep up with these blogs more.

Yeah, they have multiple Archie-themed ones, as well as general stuff about the "good girl" era of comics, as well as "read between the lines" sexiness from Supergirl and such. It's a bit ironic to read the guy talking constantly about butt-shots and Betty & Ronnie in bikinis decry the modern use of "porn face" and "upskirts" . I guess he prefers a tiny shred of subtlety.

Those aren't subtle at all though.  The message is the same, "this is eye candy," it's just slightly restrained as far as content goes, but it certainly tries within those editorial limits.  Which can be more fun at times, I guess.  It depends.  But I'm sure DeCarlo wouldn't be turning out the same stuff if he had complete freedom to draw what he wanted.

Quote from: Ghidra on January 28, 2012, 05:08:56 AM

Those aren't subtle at all though.  The message is the same, "this is eye candy," it's just slightly restrained as far as content goes, but it certainly tries within those editorial limits.  Which can be more fun at times, I guess.  It depends.  But I'm sure DeCarlo wouldn't be turning out the same stuff if he had complete freedom to draw what he wanted.

You never know, though. Many artists from his generation (and now, too) drew a line between what they thought of as wholesome drawing that was appropriate for comics, and the kind of dirty stuff that artists drew mainly for themselves. Al Hartley would not have wanted to draw anything un-wholesome, yet he was perfectly happy to draw men flipping over huge-busted women in skimpy outfits.

DeCarlo and many other comics artists actually did draw nudity for their own amusement, and sexier stuff for "adult" magazines, but I think many of them really did believe that comics, being aimed at kids, should stay within certain limits. It's just funny to see what they thought those limits were.

Well, I'm still a "n00b," compared to most people here, but I'll take a crack at this.

Al Hartley doesn't count I think since he was "reformed" into a super Bible thumper mid-way through his career.  Not trying to come off as anti-religion, my grandfather was a Baptist minister, but I'm just being honest here.

DeCarlo on the other hand seemed to be one of the most unabashed libido fueled artists out there through pretty much his entire career, which is great because he was awesome at drawing the female form.  I just think he worked with in the the limitations of the industry at the time.  His comics have plenty of "dirty stuff," it just plays around the edges, which at different points in Archie's history were different (the 70's seem a lot sexier than the 90's). 

I think at times he was probably told to tone it down.  Stan Lee says he did this.  I haven't seen any record of Archie doing this, but then again, it's Archie Comics, they don't admit a lot of stuff.  I think I heard the Cheryl skinnydipping story didn't go over well, but I can't be sure.  Either way, Archie Comics was ran by the people that made the Comics Code Authority, so the limitations were in place whether he liked it or not I think.

He obviously still enjoyed drawing  stuff within those limitations, and it's a joy to read, but I think to suggest he could have easily started drawing sexier comics if he wanted to is unrealistic.  Mainstream comics in the US for the most part were not allowing anything like that, and if he would have done underground work or something of that nature Archie may have blackballed him from coming back, and there goes his steady paycheck.

If things were different, yeah, I could probably see him producing some comics like we saw coming out of Europe during the 80's with a lot more nudity and adult content.  Just my opinion on that.

I always find it kind of weird though when people refer to DeCarlo's sexy Archie stuff as "wholesome."  It's fun and quaint, but I don't really get that tag that like gives it some kind of strange moral righteousness.  It kind of reminds me of this old Devo interview I watched on youtube recently where they're reacting to criticisms of the video for Whip It.  People aren't really against seeing "sex" all over the place, just as long as it's the kind of sex they're accustomed to due to the media or what society accepts as normal or permissible.  Doesn't mean it's still not a double standard sometimes though.

It's not completely arbitrary, though, because it is part of a whole way of seeing the world.

I disagree about it not being completely arbitrary.  I mean I obviously consume and partake in mainstream US culture, but let's just look at one example.  Jabroniville brought up the example of the blogger being against "panty shots" while he seems to have no problem with probably tens of thousands sexy Archie bikini shots.  If we are using an objective standard here, it should be exactly the same because most panties and most bikini bottoms cover up the same amount of skin.  However, being sexy and wearing almost nothing on the beach to entice people is considered permissible.  However, if Veronica did the same in her undies the editor would probably have issues with that. 

It is a double standard not based on anything really objective.  In fact, I'll go so far to say that people like DeCarlo are at least aware of this and used the beach as a huge excuse to draw women in sexy outfits as revealing as underwear as much as possible.  It's just plain obvious by reading it.

The kind of culturally conservative worldview that produced Archie and the Comics Code isn't against sexual desire (heterosexual sexual desire, anyway), as long as it doesn't lead to sex. These comics may not be so much trying to push the envelope as portraying a world where boys just harmlessly ogle girls rather than trying to get them into bed. There's a little of both -- it's sexy, but it's also sexless because kissing and wearing skimpy outfits is as far as anyone will ever go, and parents and kids are secure in knowing that.

The subtext that its about sex is there though.  I consider subtext to be a very important part of any work.  Archie doesn't have to say he wants to have sex with Betty or Veronica for it to be suggested.  Kids may be naive and not perceive things this way, but the text is there for people mature enough to "get it."

I think you're right that DeCarlo was probably closer to pushing the envelope and that he'd have pushed farther if he'd been asked. But drawing these sexy scenes doesn't necessarily mean the artist is trying to push the envelope. Al Hartley's Archie stuff is as full of skimpy outfits and sexual takes as DeCarlo's, and that was as far as he ever wanted to go.

I think Al Hartley is also not a good comparison to DeCarlo because he was obviously told to emulate what DeCarlo was doing.  So when Hartley was doing that stuff he was more or less doing his job.  The whole house style and even the storylines at that point were obviously based off of what DeCarlo had popularized.  So if DeCarlo did nothing but sexy beach stories during summer issues, of course the people under him like Hartley are going be going in that direction as well. 

Since Archie was mostly about DeCarlo at that point and he's the main creative force behind it, I'm mainly talking about what DeCarlo would have done.  I would probably agree Hartley wouldn't go sexier, but then again DeCarlo never regretted his "men's magazine" background like Hartley did later.

One other thing to note is that Archie comics were as much for girls as boys, and DeCarlo specialized in titles that had more girl readers (Millie the Model, Josie, Betty and Veronica). So this material may be as much for the girls as the boys: playing dress-up with Betty and Veronica, or fantasizing about having guys react the way guys react in the comics. They're a lot like Barbie dolls, even if they haven't been as controversial as Barbie for the messages they send to girls.

Sure you can interpret it from that sexless feminine point of view, but the opposite interpretation is still there and very valid just based on the source material.  I've seen some women justify the sexy artwork as being like Barbie changing their clothes, but that's completely ignoring the fact that DeCarlo obviously really loved his job of drawing the female body in a sexy way.  Over all, there's nothing wrong with sex and the human body, it's natural.  Some people should get over their hang-ups I guess if they're afraid of admitting there is anything sexual in Archie, because it's just kind of there.