Girls With Comics

Raise your hand if you were under the notion her strip ended a few decades ago.

After 85 years, her strip–which has only been in select newspapers for the past few years–is being pulled from the comic section. Instead she will be transformed into an internet comic strip, in hoped of alluring new fans! I do like Annie, but I simply don’t see her appeal to kids these days. I just don’t think she can hold up to say, Archie, who has proven to be able to maintain a steady readership for 60+ years.

However, I wish her all the best, and I hope that at some point in time she gets a set of pupils.

http://www.argus-press.com/news/national/article_e380da02-1741-5c79-ae67-090f7fd039a9.html

-Lauren

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/13/iron-man-2-continues-to-s_n_575503.html

-Lauren

I didn’t want to put “conservative”, but the two almost go hand in hand. 

Since Kevin, the new gay Archie character, is still a hot topic for fans, I sat and thought about how anyone could mistake Archie Comics as being conservative, or Christian based comics. And then I opened one of my long boxes, and pulled out a few Spire Comics featuring Archie and the gang. I remember when I bought these. Dad and I were at a shop an hour away from my house. I pulled out a comic from a rack that looked like Archie, flipped through it, saw him talking about Jesus, and promptly put it back. Now, for the record, I am Jewish. I never thought Archie was religious. I had never, in my young life, seen him mention any kind of God (well, he does celebrate Christmas) or act in any religious way.

Frankly, the comic shocked and even scared me. Archie was just a person, with no religion, nor was he liberal or conservative; Riverdale was just a magical place where everyone belonged. No one was nothing but a person with a name and a personality. Seeing Archie mention Jesus threw me for a loop. Needless to say, I bought the book for a buck, took it home, and read it front to back. The internet was still pretty new at the time, so Google didn’t exactly exist.

Eventually I asked the owner of my local comic shop. He told me about Spire, and how they were allowed to use the characters since Al Hartley, the Spire artist, also worked at Archie. I was still pretty upset, but since it wasn’t published by Archie, I got over it. However, this may have triggered the thought process–in many people–as to Archie being a good conservative/Christian comic. Simply put, they are not.

In an early Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica, there was a story where Betty, Veronica and Jughead go to eat at a Chinese restaurant. The waiter, who is inked with enough yellow ink to last a few years, asks them if they need more “lice”. That would not fly in today’s comics. I bet 10 to 1 that if you’re bitching about the gay character–who is not being stereotyped–saw that in today’s Archie comics, you would be offended. Well, so would I! However, given the time frame when that story was published, that was acceptable in society. Seeing as how Dan Parent is doing the whole Kevin thing, I’ll go out on a limb and say he will not be written or drawn in a rude, stereotypical way. He will simply exist in Riverdale, where everyone can be accepted as a human being. And really, isn’t that a beautiful thing we want to teach our kids?

-Lauren

Well, so far the ongoing blackest night saga has been pretty good. I’m still not sure how I feel about the ending of Blackest Night, but I certainly did enjoy it.

I like that DC somehow tied in Bruce Wayne’s “death”, by spinning it into him being lost, rather than dead. While it was a little predictable, I’m also glad Bruce Wayne is not dead. However, that being said, why the fuck did Aquaman come back. Mera was so much more interesting as an angry mermaid bitch then someone who actually loves that assclown Aquaman. They could have kept him dead. I really would have been a lot happier with Mera being miserable and taking it out on people. How cool would that have been!?

Oh, and Deadman coming back. That was also stupid. But he did bring a dead baby bird back to life, and that was kind of awesome. Aside from that, I have nothing else to say about Brightest Day. Hopefully it will be awesome and blow my mind.

-Lauren