Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett takes a look at the history of Archie, along with a couple of Marvel titles.

It probably came as something of a shock when in a previous column I actually threatened to buy an issue of Archie Comics since I've previously admitted to having been (like I'm guessing most of you) strictly superhero oriented in my comic reading growing up.  In my tireless quest to read every single comic book in existence I've been working my way through loads of the publisher's ancillary titles (Josie and the Pussycats, That Wilkin Boy, Cosmo the Merry Martian, Super Duck, etc) but somehow I'd never gotten around to read the actual article, Archie Comics.  I've only just begun and believe me, I've got a long way to go if I'm going to get through them all, so in no way should the following be considered an expert opinion.  However...

I can tell you that when you begin reading Archie Comics you probably shouldn't start at the very beginning because, to be extremely polite, they weren't very good even by the relaxed standards of the Golden Age.  But in spite of this there are numerous attempts at "good girl art" in the early issues, such as the page from Archie #27 where Betty and Veronica (who are drawn to look like middle aged burlesque dancers) are trying on swimsuits that they must have gotten from the Stripper's Warehouse.

Not only were early Archie Comics a lot sexier than you'd expect they were also remarkably violent.  Between 1950 and 1960 there were a remarkable number of Archie stories that ended with Archie about to beat or having just beaten the living hell out of someone, usually Reggie (which surprised me as I'd always kind of assumed that Reggie could take Archie without breaking a sweat), and sure, the actual violence takes place off panel, but it's still pretty rough stuff by modern Archie standards.

I was also surprised to discover not only that Jughead didn't always wear his beanie but during the 50's and much of the 60's the Archie/Betty/Veronica triangle that we think of as being eternal really didn't exist as such.  Archie pretty much exclusively dated Veronica and while Betty was interested in Archie he didn't reciprocate, thinking of her as only a buddy and shoulder to cry on when Veronica periodically dumped him.

But my biggest surprise came with the discovery of the work of an Archie artist I was woefully ignorant of:  Harry Lucey, who co-created both The Hangman and Sam Hill, Private Eye for the company.  He's featured in Dan Nadel's recent book Art In Time: Unknown Comic Book Adventures, 1940-1980 and it became quickly clear to me that here was yet another of the uncredited, incredibly versatile talents that worked for Archie whose name we all should know.

Which brings me to that issue of Archie Comics I got.  Upon learning that Mad Dr. Doom and zombies were going to show up in issue #613 I decided I should really start with #610, the first installment of the Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E. sequence by Tom DeFalco (the man who gave us 1994's Archie Meets The Punisher) and Fernando Ruiz.  As advertised it's a lot of fun and full of mad love for the 60's super-spy genre, but fans of old school Archie Comics will love "The Iron Curtain Caper," a lost 13-page adventure of Archie's foreign correspondent cousin Andrew.

For a while I had taken it upon myself to introduce some of Marvel's more obscure characters to the company's then new owner Disney; well over the weekend I found one they'd be better off not knowing about; Homer Hooper.  You wouldn't believe how many teen comics there have been, DC alone had Buzzy, Leave it To Binky, Here's Howie and Everything Happens To Harvey, but there's also Aggie Mack, Hector, Wilbur, Harvey (this one from Marvel) and literally too many more to mention.  Teen comics are almost always tarred as "Archie imitators" and of course most wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Archie, but I've found that's not always fair; some titles created decent variations on familiar themes and then there are little lost gems like Henry Brewster, written and drawn by Golden Age great Bob Powell.
 
But Homer Hooper is a complete Archie rip-off.

And on a completely unrelated note I never imagined Marvel would actually do a sequel to their wonderful Young Allies Comics: 70th Anniversary Special in the form of the four-part miniseries Captain America: Forever Allies.  Since it's also written by Roger Stern, the man who successfully rehabilitated the horrific racist stereotype that was Whitewash Jones I am of course all over it.  Now all he has to do to make me perfectly happy is to somehow shoehorn in Subby, the Sub-Mariner's forgotten teen doppleganger.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely  those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.