Going back to their adversarial roots

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on May 25, 2016, 09:02:17 PM
He probably tried to make her pick out a crown hat like the one he wears 

Yes 

Quote from: Chic Cooper on May 25, 2016, 08:04:06 PM
...and the moral is: Never lie to the girls, boys. Unless they ask if their butt looks big in this. Then run for the hills! 

Even being an accessory to lying will backfire

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 25, 2016, 01:11:30 PM

Quote from: Thrillho on May 25, 2016, 12:23:44 PM
I think Midge is the least interesting of all the characters, total MacGuffin.

The interesting thing about her is that guys seem to be interested in her. In the more modern stories, that seems to have been functionally reduced to just Reggie. She's pretty much a complete mystery and a blank slate as far as her internal character and motivations. What is it about her that makes her worth suffering beating after beating by Moose, to Reggie? I mean, it would be a lot easier and safer to pursue B&V or some other girl, so why live dangerously? Probably there were as many different takes on that as there were writers, but none of them really felt strongly enough about it to make her a major character in a story, or even to explain, exactly, how Reggie rationalizes it to himself. Depending on the writer, she seemed to be either seriously interested, or just mildly annoyed but slightly flattered at the same time by Reggie's attention. Since Midge never got more than the sketchiest of parts in the story, we'll never know.

When Pop Tate named menu items after his regulars, Midge was the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the most basic of sandwiches. That tells me all I need to know about Midge.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 25, 2016, 03:37:07 AM

Does anybody really like Archie that much except the publisher and editors of ACP? Apparently they must, since the digests are overwhelming Archie stories with Archie's name in big letters in the title...

...I guess somebody really should write an essay here somewhere extolling the virtues (as they see them) of Archie and why he's interesting. To me virtually every other character within his orbit (at least the teenagers) is more interesting than Archie himself (well, maybe not Moose or Ethel, but they're not that much less interesting either).

Hahaha, when we had the favorite character feature on our profiles, I never saw anyone put Archie.

I think Midge is the least interesting of all the characters, total MacGuffin.

Quote from: daren on May 25, 2016, 01:36:48 AM
I guess since Reggie said Jughead can have Veronica from now on and Archie seemed to feel the same way Jughead ended up being her boyfriend in this continuity, he didn't seem to mind!    But I like how he repeats the same words after Archie and Reggie lecture him about girls. Who drew this, it has "Ray Gill" and "Sam" in the first panel so one must have been the inker or something.

Since each story is it's own universe, I guess so! 

I don't know who drew it. It's from Archie #41, and both were credited for drawing this issue but weren't given credit for the specific stories.

Quote from: daren on May 25, 2016, 01:48:37 AM
I forgot I had this.











That's cold.

I can top that




Jughead ate the all treats for the orphans! 😱  He, of course, makes it right later.

The long awaited return of Afterlife With Archie is finally here!

Those of you who have read it, what did you think?

This is issue was a big game changer, and also quite sad. I guess we now know what Betty R.I.P. means, but will Reggie succeed?

I'm actually quite surprised by the way Reggie is portrayed in these comics, he's straight up awful but I did feel bad the way no one wanted to go after him, showing that Archie is the only decent one in this series. I don't think it's fair that Reggie should be blamed for the zombie apocalypse, it was huge a-hole move to deliberately hit Hot Dog but he could not have foreseen what it would lead to. Yeah, it was a horrible and inexcusable but he was not a threat to anyone, and didn't do anything after the group of survivors formed, well, that is, until now.

Quote from: daren on May 25, 2016, 02:27:24 AM
I knew it! Dan Parent's not so secret ship! I bet the other writers have them too. Where does the talk show page come from?

I remember years ago on the old official Archie comics website, late '90s, early 2000s, it mentioned Jughead/Betty was a favorite among some Archie comics writers.

The "Dates of Your Lives" story is in Betty and Veronica Digest #200

Quote from: Chic Cooper on May 24, 2016, 07:17:48 PM

Quote from: Thrillho on May 20, 2016, 10:27:08 PM

Oops, didn't realize you posted this one already. Have to find another to compensate...

This story belongs in both threads 

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 24, 2016, 03:36:11 PM
Jughead's actions don't have the effect of condoning Archie's behavior though. He's resigned to the idea of "Archie's going to do what Archie's going to do", so really the only thing that concerns him is his own motivation. That might just be some small enjoyment he gets from seeing Veronica get irritated, or protecting his own interests by helping Archie (because he needs to depend on Archie to borrow money from him, etc.) -- or just that by default he's got a closer connection to Archie than he does to any of the girls Archie dates. Besides which, if he doesn't at least make some comment or observation about the situation, he might as well not be there. There's no point in him being in any story (or gag panel) if he's just going to stand there and do or say nothing. I guess they could have a story where Jughead gets all morally upright on Archie and puts him down for his jerkwad behavior with girls, but like you say -- reset button.

If Jughead is agreeing to help Archie pull the wool over someone's eyes, I think that is condoning his behavior, but I also think we're reading too much into this, as the Archie gang acts on the writers' whims. Jughead's involvement is part of the joke, otherwise, like you said, he might as well not be there.

Ultimately, I think Archie is responsible for his bad behavior. I don't think it matters if Betty and Veronica still want to date him regardless of his behavior. Archie isn't a dog (debatable, I know), he's capable of thinking and reason, and should be a better person when it comes to dating, he's pretty decent otherwise.



I think this is Jughead's main agenda, get Archie away from girls.

Quote from: daren on May 20, 2016, 10:51:55 PM
Jughead ends up walking off with Veronica at the end of a lot of Archie vs. Reggie stories, doesn't he?

The older ones especially

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 24, 2016, 10:20:55 AM

Quote from: daren on May 24, 2016, 02:13:22 AM

Quote from: Thrillho on May 23, 2016, 10:57:33 PM


Jughead is more of an enabler than Betty and Veronica since he tries to help Archie get away with his shenanigans.

In fact I'm almost posting this in the wrong thread.

JUGHEAD has to take it on the chin for being responsible? He's not directly involved, so he can only try to influence. When he tries to give Archie good advice, he usually ignores it, so all he can do is try to help him out of the messes he knows he's going to get himself in. Just because he gets some small enjoyment out of watching Veronica do a slow burn, realizing that she could just walk out of Archie's life but doesn't... he's just finding the humor in the situation where he can. He's got no control over what any of them choose to do or to put up with. Betty could end the shenanigans. So could Veronica. Not to mention Archie. This is a case of "it takes three to tango", and any one of them could decide to end the situation at any time simply by voluntarily quitting. Jughead can't do a thing to change anything, since appealing to logic or reason on anyone's part isn't going to work and he knows it.

Jughead may not be able to influence their actions but he does go out of his way to help Archie get away with just about anything, sometimes out of loyalty or for a price. There's the Gaslight story where Jughead helps Archie to convince Veronica she's crazy so Archie can get away with something, I don't remember what he did. The onus obviously isn't on him but he isn't uninvolved either.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 24, 2016, 10:20:55 AM
No, if we're talking about Archie's bad behavior, Betty and Veronica can be and are both enablers and victims of the bad behavior at the same time. They could walk away if Archie refused to clean up his act, but they don't.

Examples were posted of them dumping Archie, it just has no effect since there's a reset button for almost every story.

Quote from: daren on May 24, 2016, 02:54:32 AM
The page is blank.

FAIL

This link should work 

Quote from: daren on May 24, 2016, 02:36:29 AM
If Dan Parent isn't a Jughead/Veronica shipper I'll eat my own shoe.

It's pretty obvious that he is. A lot of the stuff on the old thread was written and drawn by him.



He made Jughead Veronica's first crush



I mean he has them sharing their first kiss together.



Has them going on dates



A lot of accidental kisses

and then there's this



His hand probably isn't up her skirt but it looks that way. 

Quote from: SAGG on May 23, 2016, 10:28:34 PM
But, just wondering: Doesn't Betty and Ronica enable Archie to do his dirt by quite frankly overlooking his behavior as they continue to forgive his transgressions? Plus, Ronica cheats as much on Archie as he does her. I've always suspected that Betty would drop any boy she was going with in a New York Second if Archie suddenly asked her to go steady. I think Betty only goes out with other boys because she eventually believes Archie will someday come to his senses and see she's the only girl for him, and then she'll quit them. In the meantime, Betty refuses to be a girl that hopelessly pines for Archie by waiting by the phone while missing out on dating boys. What do you guys think?

I'm a bit more upset by the way he tends to treat Betty. It's played for laughs of course but it's easy to sympathize with her when he sweet talks her into fixing his car and then at the last minute drives off to Veronica's house. It was understandable in early stories since Betty was crazy but now that they've dialed her down from 11 to 2, it's like he's kicking kitten.

Because classic Archie lacks continuity, it's not universal, but Archie tends to be possessive of both Betty and Veronica. Sometimes he has the attitude that they should both be exclusively available to him while he can date whomever he wants. Other times he can be cool about. Modern stories pre-reboot have it so it's an agreement between the three of them that they can date but there is no exclusivity between them. Regardless of that, Archie is usually the one who flakes.

Jughead is more of an enabler than Betty and Veronica since he tries to help Archie get away with his shenanigans. There are also stories where Betty and Veronica (and Cheryl and Valerie) won't put up with it but of course each story is set in its own universe so nothing sticks, and no one ever learns anything. 

Quote from: daren on May 21, 2016, 07:17:45 PM

Quote from: Thrillho on May 21, 2016, 01:58:37 AM

Quote from: daren on May 20, 2016, 11:12:38 PM
But he overcame it just like she will.    And yeah, no evidence Veronica could rebuild a fortune like that since a lot depends on luck but I think she would TRY and under all her problems she has a lot of will and brains.

I agree. Even if Veronica matured and became less materialistic, she's still accustomed to a certain lifestyle and there's no way you could take it away from her without her kicking and screaming.

Quote from: daren on May 20, 2016, 11:12:38 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 20, 2016, 05:47:58 AM
On the other hand, if some twist of fate were to reduce Veronica to working for a living, there's no real evidence that she could make a fortune starting from scratch. We're not even entirely sure that Hiram Lodge didn't start out with certain benefits and advantages to get the snowball of his vast fortune rolling.

Yeah most stories that go there say he did.



The idea Bob Montana started out with was that the Lodges were "Bostom Brahmins" and most writers keep on with the old money idea. The way I like to see it, Mr. Lodge was probably spoiled and irresponsible like Veronica when he was her age.

While I do prefer old money Lodges, some modern stories have Hiram working his way up from nothing. Then there was this gag I really liked from one story where Archie asked Mr. Lodge where he got all his money, and Veronica chimes in to say he married her mom who had $40 million.

Story title?? I don't think I read that and it sounds excellent.

😬 I don't know, sorry. Someone might have posted it on the old site or I read it in a digest.

Quote from: daren on May 21, 2016, 07:14:28 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 21, 2016, 02:22:07 AM
She just doesn't have the kind of drive and empire building skills that her father has to amass fortunes.

That reminds me of the awesome AWM episode where Hiram reverts back to his teenage self and challenges Weatherbee to drag race to the death around Dead Man's Curve just for the hell of it! Thanks, I forgot to post this yesterday!


Yeah I don't think he was always an empire building genius, maybe the Lodges are late bloomers. Anyway a spoiled undisciplined girl becoming a master businesswoman makes a more dynamic story arc than if she just kept racking up credit card debt her whole life so even for that alone I'd believe in her.

I agree.  Though a Riverdale-esque storyline where she loses everything but continues to spend, spend, spend driving her to commit heinous acts in order to repay her creditors might work too.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 23, 2016, 09:32:37 PM

Quote from: Thrillho on May 23, 2016, 08:46:15 PM
Dan Parent has a theory



I can definitely get behind this

NOOOO!!!  I WANT TO READ THE REST OF IT!!!

It was in a Veronica floppy but I sold off my collection, and I don't remember the specific issue but it's reprinted in World of Archie Digest #12, Veronica's Wonderful Life.