To
be completely clear: I am English, so Archie Comic aren't a big
cultural touchstone for me. I know the basics (Archie the everyman,
Jughead the comedy bestie, Betty the girl next door, Veronica the
rich girl, Reggie the sleaze, Kevin the gay one...) because they are
a big cultural touchstone in the US. Penny & Aggie,
one of my favourite webcomics ever, is massively influenced by Archie
Comics, by Dan deCarlo's art in particular; there are endless jokes
about the central love triangle in US sitcoms, which growing up in
the nineties were the only sitcoms worth watching; and, of course, I
remember a few years ago when the internet exploded in all directions
at once when a gay character was introduced.
So
I don't have a very deep understanding of these characters. I love
that Betty Cooper is good with cars and “smells of flowers and
motor oil” but for all I know that's just how she's always been. It
feels new but that
might just be me falling into a trap of seeing these comics as
old-fashioned.
This
doesn't mean nostalgia plays no part in me liking this comic. We open
with a full page of Archie Andrews standing in front of Riverdale
High introducing himself to the audience, who he'll talk to on and
off for the rest of the comic. You know what that reminds me of?
Saved by the Bell. The
original, proper Saved by the Bell
and Zack Morris explaining the episode's plot to the audience.
I
loved Saved by the Bell
as a kid. It has aged phenomenally badly but I have very fond
memories. Student Bodies
was better, anyway.
Anyway,
Archie #1: opening
situation is that Archie and Betty have been a couple forever and for
some mysterious reason known only as The Lipstick Incident they have
broken up. Everyone is gossiping and the romantics, here represented
by Kevin Keller and two random girls, are in a dead panic because
this completely implodes their views of the world and romance.
Through it all Archie displays this somehow charming mixture of
knowing he 's being talked about but being completely oblivious to
how much and why it's happening.
And particular praise has to go to Mark Waid's Jughead.
My view of the character from that one old Jughead Double Digest I
read was of a harmless, burger obsessed goofball but here he's
presented as the most emotionally intelligent person in the group.
He's the lone voice of sanity urging people to let Archie and Betty
hash things out themselves instead of pursuing a semi-zany and mildly
convoluted scheme to force them back together. Of course, stopping
that plot involves his own zany and convoluted scheme which is all to
the good. Good, traditional hi-jinx.
Which I suppose brings us to the elephant in the room:
what has been modernised and how? The art. The art has been
modernised, the script has not. Waid's script, unaltered, could have
easily run in this series decades ago. A break-up, school gossip, a
homecoming dance, a scheme involving the homecoming couple vote and
some crazy glue. One smartphone gag aside, this is not a 2015 plot,
it isn't a specific year's plot at all, so long as teenage drama has
been something people write this could have been published any year.
Fiona Staples, meanwhile, modernises the hell out of Riverdale.
She doesn't change everything, most of the characters
are on-model to a greater or lesser extent. Principle Weatherbee and
Mister Lodge (in a stunningly well-framed cameo if I remember his
relationship to Archie correctly) are almost perfectly their old
selves moderated through Staples' style. Jughead's inexplicable crown
survives intact because some signifiers are too important to jettison
just because they make no sense. Staples modernises a lot of other
things, though: the halls of Riverdale High are crowded with teens
dressed in modern clothes and (I'm just going to say this) if there
was a perception of the series being old-fashioned then it was a
smart move for Staples and colourist Andre Szymanowicz to make such a
big visual thing of the school's ethnic diversity. Whether or not it
was a hugely whitewashed environment before, which I doubt but I know
how perception trumps reality, this was a smart move.
And, my goodness, but Staples is great at facial
expression. There's a lot of the script that's left for her to sell
through artwork rather than dialogue and she knocks every emotional
shift the characters undergo right on the head.
Not only am I looking forward to the next issue, which
promises the introduction of Veronica Lodge, but I'm looking forward
to the Jughead series advertised at the end of the issue.
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