I know we had a thread on the old site where we were discussing the practice of reprinted stories altering characters' race. I weighed in with the opinion that it didn't bother me in principle (as long as the reprint isn't an archival type collection, like a trade paperback... regular digests, it doesn't bother me) -- BUT what I DO find offensive is that it's so often done so poorly, in terms of choosing the character -- thus making the race change stick out like a sore thumb. It's like flashing a neon sign advertising with a big arrow "FAKE BLACK PERSON".

The most recent Archie digest, JUGHEAD AND ARCHIE JUMBO COMICS #21, contains the most ridiculous example of this race-changing practice that I've ever seen, proving that the colorists are so bored that they can't even be bothered to read the story which they're coloring, and are choosing which characters to race-swap on an entirely random basis, as long as they're not reoccurring characters. Well, this time the colorist goofed big time.

In the reprint of the classic Craig Boldman/Rex Lindsey Jughead story "LEMON Harangue" in this issue, LEROY LODGE has all of a sudden become black. Now granted, Leroy only appears in three or four panels in this story, and is only referred to by name in one of them -- although in the panel prior to that one, Jughead thinks "Oh great, here comes Veronica's bratty cousin!" But here's the thing... this story has SEVERAL incidental characters who appear in as many panels as Leroy, any one of whom would have made a suitable candidate for race-changing.

Leroy, on the other hand -- apart from being a fairly well-known (except to the colorist, apparently) character, has spiky hair, and freckles, and is accompanied in the story by an unnamed friend in all of the panels in which he appears -- why not the friend?!  Or the reporter who, walking by, observes Jughead attempting to charge Veronica $20 for a glass of lemonade, and thinks it would make an interesting human interest piece for the paper. Or the kid named Billy who asked Jughead to watch his lemonade stand for him while he took a break for lunch, or the entrepreneur who offers to buy Jughead's formula for lemonade thinking it must be the greatest lemonade ever created, if Jughead can get away with charging $20 a glass for it (Veronica bought 2 glasses), or the little girl who Jughead convinces that the lemonade must be terrible if Billy made it with his "grubby little hands" -- the whole point being that Jughead has only agreed to watch the stand because Billy agreed to let him have all the lemonade he wants for free, and Jughead wants to keep it all for himself, which is why he tries to charge Leroy $5 a glass for it, but Leroy passes, and then complains about Jughead's prices to Veronica.

The point is, there were at least four other incidental characters in this story that the colorist could have chosen to race-swap, but didn't.

Instead, he chose to race-swap Leroy Lodge, who is not only a reoccurring character, but Veronica's cousin who has appeared many times, and has always been Caucasian. UNBELIEVABLE. 

I loved his character in Life With Archie. He was male version of Veronica when entered Riverdale High. He was spoiled & he was a brat. Mr. Andrews put him in his place. Since Archie & Betty were new teachers.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 01, 2016, 01:42:09 AM
I know we had a thread on the old site where we were discussing the practice of reprinted stories altering characters' race. I weighed in with the opinion that it didn't bother me in principle (as long as the reprint isn't an archival type collection, like a trade paperback... regular digests, it doesn't bother me) -- BUT what I DO find offensive is that it's so often done so poorly, in terms of choosing the character -- thus making the race change stick out like a sore thumb. It's like flashing a neon sign advertising with a big arrow "FAKE BLACK PERSON".

The most recent Archie digest, JUGHEAD AND ARCHIE JUMBO COMICS #21, contains the most ridiculous example of this race-changing practice that I've ever seen, proving that the colorists are so bored that they can't even be bothered to read the story which they're coloring, and are choosing which characters to race-swap on an entirely random basis, as long as they're not reoccurring characters. Well, this time the colorist goofed big time.

In the reprint of the classic Craig Boldman/Rex Lindsey Jughead story "LEMON Harangue" in this issue, LEROY LODGE has all of a sudden become black. Now granted, Leroy only appears in three or four panels in this story, and is only referred to by name in one of them -- although in the panel prior to that one, Jughead thinks "Oh great, here comes Veronica's bratty cousin!" But here's the thing... this story has SEVERAL incidental characters who appear in as many panels as Leroy, any one of whom would have made a suitable candidate for race-changing.

Leroy, on the other hand -- apart from being a fairly well-known (except to the colorist, apparently) character, has spiky hair, and freckles, and is accompanied in the story by an unnamed friend in all of the panels in which he appears -- why not the friend?!  Or the reporter who, walking by, observes Jughead attempting to charge Veronica $20 for a glass of lemonade, and thinks it would make an interesting human interest piece for the paper. Or the kid named Billy who asked Jughead to watch his lemonade stand for him while he took a break for lunch, or the entrepreneur who offers to buy Jughead's formula for lemonade thinking it must be the greatest lemonade ever created, if Jughead can get away with charging $20 a glass for it (Veronica bought 2 glasses), or the little girl who Jughead convinces that the lemonade must be terrible if Billy made it with his "grubby little hands" -- the whole point being that Jughead has only agreed to watch the stand because Billy agreed to let him have all the lemonade he wants for free, and Jughead wants to keep it all for himself, which is why he tries to charge Leroy $5 a glass for it, but Leroy passes, and then complains about Jughead's prices to Veronica.

The point is, there were at least four other incidental characters in this story that the colorist could have chosen to race-swap, but didn't.

Instead, he chose to race-swap Leroy Lodge, who is not only a reoccurring character, but Veronica's cousin who has appeared many times, and has always been Caucasian. UNBELIEVABLE. 

Most likely the colourist (or whoever made the decision) barely read any Archie stories, skimmed this one and thought ''Leroy is a stereotypical black name" and away you go ...

Quote from: invisifan on June 01, 2016, 08:23:59 AM
Most likely the colourist (or whoever made the decision) barely read any Archie stories, skimmed this one and thought ''Leroy is a stereotypical black name" and away you go ...

No, I don't think the colorists are even looking at the names. Even if he/she failed to recognize Leroy as Veronica's cousin, it's part of the plot of the story that Veronica is willing to pay $20 for a cup of lemonade from Jughead, because she's been alerted to his exorbitant prices by her cousin. Of course she's sure he's up to something and just wants to ruin it for him. The reader isn't expected to recognize Leroy by sight either (he's wearing a skateboarding helmet), so he's introduced in the panel before he shows up by Jughead thinking "Oh great, here comes Veronica's bratty cousin", then Jughead addresses him by name in the next panel.


I don't think the colorist is reading these stories AT ALL, never mind skimming them.


I mean, what's next? Some colorist is going to fail to visually identify Fred Andrews in some scene where he's not in the usual context of the Andrews home or with Mary or Archie, perhaps dressed a little differently than usual, and wearing a hat and sunglasses, for instance... and decide to make him the "person of color" in that particular story?

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 01, 2016, 09:01:59 AM

Quote from: invisifan on June 01, 2016, 08:23:59 AM
Most likely the colourist (or whoever made the decision) barely read any Archie stories, skimmed this one and thought ''Leroy is a stereotypical black name" and away you go ...

No, I don't think the colorists are even looking at the names. Even if he/she failed to recognize Leroy as Veronica's cousin, it's part of the plot of the story that Veronica is willing to pay $20 for a cup of lemonade from Jughead, because she's been alerted to his exorbitant prices by her cousin. Of course she's sure he's up to something and just wants to ruin it for him. The reader isn't expected to recognize Leroy by sight either (he's wearing a skateboarding helmet), so he's introduced in the panel before he shows up by Jughead thinking "Oh great, here comes Veronica's bratty cousin", then Jughead addresses him by name in the next panel.

But just because Leroy's Ronnie's cousin doesn't mean he'd automatically be white, look at Harper. The only thing that should keep him white is that he's been drawn that way 70 years and it's too late to racechange him (yes it is, ACP, I bet this wasn't accidental at all).

Quote from: daren on June 06, 2016, 01:14:35 AM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 01, 2016, 09:01:59 AM

Quote from: invisifan on June 01, 2016, 08:23:59 AM
Most likely the colourist (or whoever made the decision) barely read any Archie stories, skimmed this one and thought ''Leroy is a stereotypical black name" and away you go ...

No, I don't think the colorists are even looking at the names. Even if he/she failed to recognize Leroy as Veronica's cousin, it's part of the plot of the story that Veronica is willing to pay $20 for a cup of lemonade from Jughead, because she's been alerted to his exorbitant prices by her cousin. Of course she's sure he's up to something and just wants to ruin it for him. The reader isn't expected to recognize Leroy by sight either (he's wearing a skateboarding helmet), so he's introduced in the panel before he shows up by Jughead thinking "Oh great, here comes Veronica's bratty cousin", then Jughead addresses him by name in the next panel.

But just because Leroy's Ronnie's cousin doesn't mean he'd automatically be white, look at Harper. The only thing that should keep him white is that he's been drawn that way 70 years and it's too late to racechange him (yes it is, ACP, I bet this wasn't accidental at all).

No, I just honestly think they've got this mandate to pick out a character with a speaking role in the story and make him/her a person of color. If I had to guess, Leroy got picked because he's the only character in the story besides Ronnie and Juggie that has black hair (although not having black hair hasn't stopped them from race-changing characters in the past). What's really ironic is that, like I said, Leroy is in only 3 panels in that story (which is the same number of panels as Leroy's unnamed friend, but he gets only 2 words of dialogue) -- but the the little girl that Jughead convinces not to buy any lemonade is in as many panels as Leroy & friend, and has just as much dialogue. The reporter "Scoop" has even more panels, and so does the entrepreneur who wants to purchase the recipe for this $20-a-glass lemonade. Billy the owner of the lemonade stand who goes home for lunch leaving Jughead in charge has an even bigger part and more dialogue. I REALLY REALLY don't think that the colorists are even reading the stories, apart for scanning for words referring to colors like "blue", "red" etc. that might relate to their job.

Maybe but it wouldnt' surprise me if this was on purpose.