Archie #600: The Proposal

May 27, 2009 8:12 PM

Archie Proposes!First he got a new look, now he's locking it down in a six-part series. What next -- with Riverdale's romantic redhead officially off the market, will "confirmed bachelor" Jughead be forced to start dating women again?
posted by hermitosis (78 comments total)

Alternate title: "Archie Finally Gives Up on Betty-Veronica Threeway Hopes."
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:19 PM on May 27 [8 favorites]

something you want to share Tomorrowful?
posted by edgeways at 8:21 PM on May 27

I still haven't gotten over the time Archie fought the mp3 pirates.
posted by destinyland at 8:22 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]

Wait a minute...he's marrying Veronica instead of Betty?!!
posted by destinyland at 8:26 PM on May 27 [10 favorites]

In the fourth cover down on that first link, Betty and Veronica's hair are blowing in different directions, away from each other. The only way that could happen is if something was blowing straight down between them, and the air was reflecting off the ground, blowing outward. What is about to land on the girls? A helicopter? A UFO? Archie with a jetpack? Will it crush them? Are they about to become horribly mangled as a result? What if it crushes one girl's left arm and one girl's right arm? Will Archie have a "side preference"? Will that determine who he ends up with? Is it all going to be just a dream sequence in the end, or will there be lasting repurcussions, with a spinoff of the girls in occupational therapy? With each missing an arm, will they become better friends, or will their rivalry only increase, as they grow to see each other as doppelganger mirror images of themselves?
posted by Greg Nog at 8:27 PM on May 27 [3 favorites]

Archie, Garfield, Ziggy, Bazooka Joe.

America just can't enough of bland, marketable characters that have no definable personality.
posted by Afroblanco at 8:27 PM on May 27 [4 favorites]

Whoops, that's the third link, not the first.
posted by Greg Nog at 8:27 PM on May 27

It's bad enough that Duo Damsel never gets to be with Superboy, but now Betty doesn't get to be with Archie?

WHAT KIND OF WORLD ARE WE LIVING IN?
posted by wittgenstein at 8:28 PM on May 27 [5 favorites]

Don't worry, they're just going to end up selling the marriage to Mephisto to save Miss Grundy.
posted by HostBryan at 8:28 PM on May 27 [9 favorites]

Oh calm down. He marries Veronica and Betty is his mistress.

Don't tell me you'd do it differently.
posted by mazola at 8:30 PM on May 27 [11 favorites]

mazola: " Betty is his mistress. Don't tell me you'd do it differently."

I'd ink it.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:31 PM on May 27 [4 favorites]

I still haven't gotten over the time Archie fought the mp3 pirates.

It's always awesome when Archie gets contemporary. I used to have this awesome Archie comic from the early 80s where Jughead becomes a punk rocker (no, seriously!) and shuns his old pals, and everyone laments how terrible this is until it's revealed that he was just pretending to be a punk in order to write a story on punk rock for the school paper. It was right up there with that one episode of Quincy ("why would you listen to music that makes you hate, when you could listen to music that makes you... love?"). Foolishly, I cut it up to make a flyer. It was an awesome flyer, though.
posted by DecemberBoy at 8:34 PM on May 27 [6 favorites]

I blame Proposition 8.

But seriously -- I bet Archie calls off the wedding in the sixth issue, and Veronica gets comically upset...and everything's back to normal before the next issue of "Jughead's Joke Digest."
posted by destinyland at 8:36 PM on May 27 [3 favorites]

Fuck yeah Arch. Shit yeah. Fuck that Veronica nasty raw dog style. Your awesome arch. married man now buy a big SUV...better watch out for getting hit with a frying pan like andy capp LOL. fuck that black haired goddess Arch and dont ever trust jughead dont believe his lies
posted by Damn That Television at 8:38 PM on May 27 [31 favorites]

You know you were typing that and not just thinking it, right DTT?
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:42 PM on May 27 [19 favorites]

dont ever trust jughead dont believe his lies

Words to live by.
posted by DecemberBoy at 8:43 PM on May 27

THANK YOU, PEANUT-BUTTER FLAVORED LIPSTICK!
posted by not_on_display at 8:48 PM on May 27

The Archie Comics website needs a little design help. Well, make that a lot of design help.
posted by brain_drain at 8:49 PM on May 27

THANK YOU, PEANUT-BUTTER FLAVORED LIPSTICK!

Also words to live by...
posted by destinyland at 8:50 PM on May 27

I have a coffee mug with Archie looking frantically left and right at Betty and Veronica with the caption "Decisions, Decisions." I always thought he would choose Betty, if he was forced to.

This is a bad move. Mr. Lodge will never respect him--hell, Veronica doesn't really respect him. Archie's gonna come home one day to find her and Reggie doing it. And they will laugh at him.

I can't even imagine what Betty will do. Poor thing.

I have two boxes full of old Double Digests, so I feel qualified to register this opinion.

Some days I wish Riverdale had just been flooded to build a reservoir and I wouldn't have to deal with this perverting of my childhood.
posted by sciatica at 8:52 PM on May 27 [5 favorites]

Yeah, I don't understand the whole Veronica thing. I'm a Betty fan.
posted by faintly macabre at 8:52 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]

Wait - - Archie is straight?
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 8:55 PM on May 27 [6 favorites]

Here I thought Veronica was just using Archie to make Reggie jealous. Or was it the other way around?
posted by frobozz at 8:56 PM on May 27

These kids are still in high school, right?
posted by naoko at 8:57 PM on May 27 [4 favorites]

This is a bad move. Mr. Lodge will never respect him--hell, Veronica doesn't really respect him. Archie's gonna come home one day to find her and Reggie doing it. And they will laugh at him.

I can't even imagine what Betty will do. Poor thing.

David Lynch needs to get on this movie adaptation, RIGHT NOW.
posted by hermitosis at 8:57 PM on May 27 [14 favorites]

Having not read an Archie comic in about fifteen years, I can still confidently say there has to be at least 3 or 4 "Archie proposes to/marries ________" stories over the 65 year history of the comic.

Why does news media cover comic book storylines as if they'll ever actually be permanently significant? They did this when Superman and Captain America died, when Batman was crippled, when Judd Winick gave AIDS to whichever character he gave AIDS to that month, and so on.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 8:58 PM on May 27

WTF? Please tell me that this was an artists rendition of what Archie comics would look like if the Japanese won WW2.
posted by dr_dank at 8:58 PM on May 27 [3 favorites]

Tomorrowful: Alternate title: "Archie Finally Gives Up on Betty-Veronica Threeway Hopes."

Or rather: “Archie finally puts masterful three-way plan into action by marrying the rich bad girl, who is more predisposed to a three-way in the first place, thus crushing the good-girl-from-next-door with jealousy until she realizes that all she really wanted was Archie, and that she doesn't mind sharing him with Veronica, and from there, it's just a hop, skip and a jump to realizing that she's actually also attracted to women, too, and that sex is a beautiful thing for human beings to share no matter how many human beings share it, and since we're all here, why not…?”

The whole run of Archie Comics has been one long wet dream of Archie's anyway, right?
posted by koeselitz at 9:00 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]

He's been stringing those two girls along for almost seventy fucking years and now he thinks Betty will give up without locking Veronica in Dilton Doiley's rape basement and pulling her teeth out with Mr. Weatherbee's old rusty 'detention' pliers? You think can just ignore Archie like Jughead ignores Big Ethel? In the memorable words of Moose, D-uh. There's a reckoning coming. Oh, Betty.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:00 PM on May 27 [10 favorites]

Also, of all the childhood books/comics I've given away or otherwise disposed of, the only ones I keep wishing I could get back are the Archies. I had shelves of them. I wonder how they would hold up, entertainment-wise, after a break of 15 years or so.
posted by frobozz at 9:00 PM on May 27

Betty's not going to be ignored, shakespeherian....
posted by hermitosis at 9:04 PM on May 27 [2 favorites]

mazola: Oh calm down. He marries Veronica and Betty is his mistress.

Don't tell me you'd do it differently.

It's like you've read my mind: that's exactly what I'd do.

I'd keep up the good-girl act and let the guy marry the rich chick, knowing that I can still fuck him any time she's away for the weekend and nobody'll be the wiser.
posted by koeselitz at 9:05 PM on May 27

shakespeherian: In the memorable words of Moose, D-uh. There's a reckoning coming. Oh, Betty.

I hear they're bringing Frank Miller on to do the first issue after the wedding.
posted by koeselitz at 9:06 PM on May 27 [2 favorites]

Veronica is a bitch. She deserves Reggie. As for Jughead, you needn't worry about him! He's boning Reggie on a regular basis. Didn't you know? Reggie hit on Moose one day, and was about to be pulpified, when Jughead came along. Jughead persuaded to leave Reggie to him, and they've been a secret item, ever since. Why else do you think Jughead manages to remains Archie's friend, while not having Archie? Like, duh!
posted by Goofyy at 9:07 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]

mazola: "He marries Veronica and Betty is his mistress. "

Of course I'd do it differently. I remember Cheryl Blossom.
posted by boo_radley at 9:10 PM on May 27 [6 favorites]

Poor Betty. First she misses out on being the name of an obsolete search engine and now THIS?
posted by Talez at 9:10 PM on May 27 [6 favorites]

Also, none of it will matter after Archie makes a deal with the devil to bring Jughead back to life.
posted by boo_radley at 9:11 PM on May 27

Time for a reboot like everything else. Well, after the six part Archie Crisis in Infinite Riverdales.
posted by ALongDecember at 9:14 PM on May 27 [11 favorites]

If only there was some kind of fiction that could be written by fans, to encompass all the little scenarios above. And if such a fiction was sexual, it would be quite titillating!
posted by deliquescent at 9:17 PM on May 27 [8 favorites]

Goofyy, next you'll be telling us that Reggie gave him the affectionate nickname "Jughead" after using his ears as handles.
posted by hermitosis at 9:17 PM on May 27 [13 favorites]

I hear they're bringing Frank Miller on to do the first issue after the wedding.

Funny you should mention that...
posted by Rangeboy at 9:28 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]

INT BAR - NIGHT Holden, Banky, Alyssa and Hooper sir around a table drinking, talking, and smoking.

BANKY: Archie, alright! Archie and the Riverdale gang were a pure and fun-lovin' bunch. You can't find dysfunction in those comics, because they were just flat out wholesome.

HOOPER: Archie and Jughead were lovers. (sips his drink)

BANKY: Shut the fuck up.

HOOPER: It's true. Archie was the bitch and Jughead was the butch - that's why Jughead wears that crown-looking hat all the time: he the king, of queen Archie's world.

BANKY: Man, I feel a hate-crime coming on.

HOLDEN: He's got a point. Archie never did settle on Betty or Veronica.

BANKY: Because he wanted them both at the same time, you assholes! He never chose one because he was trying to get both of them into a three-way!
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 9:29 PM on May 27 [2 favorites]

Dilton Doiley's rape basement

Now I know what to name my noise band.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:31 PM on May 27 [11 favorites]

Next up: Gilligan proposes to Ginger. Mary Ann reportedly distraught.

Therapists across the Western World are poised to re-evaluate the girl-next-door phenomenon; evolutionists propose new ratios vis-a-vis sexual selection in terms of "hotness" rather than likely child-rearing capabilities.

In related news, the BJP is disappointed by the latest election results in India. Is Hindu fundamentalism as doomed on the Asian subcontinent as Christian fundamentalism is in America?
posted by kozad at 9:34 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]

CAPTAIN THRASH doesn't give a fuck
don't call me jughead back off
posted by Hammond Rye at 9:43 PM on May 27 [4 favorites]

Duh. Engaged is not married. So let's just relax and see what happens.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:51 PM on May 27

CAPTAIN THRASH doesn't give a fuck

Holy crap! That's the comic I was talking about! Wow, the Internet really does have everything.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:51 PM on May 27

Does anybody else miss the artwork of Samm Schwartz?
posted by evilcolonel at 9:51 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]

This thread scares and enthralls me.
posted by mazola at 9:54 PM on May 27

dont ever trust jughead dont believe his lies.

The June MeFi Music challenge should be a song with that in the chorus.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:56 PM on May 27 [7 favorites]

These kids are still in high school, right?

They've been the 69 best years of Archie's life.
posted by lukemeister at 10:45 PM on May 27

This one time we took a trip out to Cannon Beach, and I bought a couple of Archie comics from the store there that sold magazines. Wasn't until I got back to our place that I discovered they were actually bastardized "Spire Christian Comic" versions of Archie. Each story within, basically some variant of

"Hey Arch, you wanna go for some malts?"
"Heck no Jug, I'm off to CHURCH!"

Boring'est Archies ever.
I can only compare this bait-and-switch to the time as a kid that I bought a bag of chocolate malt balls that, once I was on the bus home, discovered were actually carob malt balls. Worst spent allowance ever. If only there were a way to carve a statue of Archie-Andrews-on-a-crucifix entirely out a block of carob—perhaps only then would my childhood disappointment be surpassed.
posted by blueberry at 11:30 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]

The first article makes it pretty clear that the Archie Proposes storyline takes place in the future, after the gang has graduated from college. In other words: it's an imaginary story. (Aren't they all?)
posted by Ian A.T. at 11:36 PM on May 27

I remember a Little Archie Christmas Carol-esque strip that had Archie in the Future married to Veronica and parent of many kids. WHY ARCHIE WHY
posted by divabat at 12:09 AM on May 28

Afroblanco: "Archie, Garfield, Ziggy, Bazooka Joe.

America just can't enough of bland, marketable characters that have no definable personality."

Bazooka Joe Movie in the Works
posted by Rhaomi at 12:35 AM on May 28

Boring'est Archies ever.

I'm not sure if the Spire Archie comic are the "most boring", because, on the whole, Archie comics are pretty goddman boring. I remember reading the Spire comics as a kid and kind of enjoying them because they were different and actually a little more intelligent than the regular Archies. Growing up in a secular household I thought a lot about religion, and those comics helped.

The Spire comics also featured stories about "real" Christians, such as the girl who grew up in Nazi Germany, etc. I remember one Spire comic about a man in South Africa who was brutally whipped across the face as a child, and he was disfigured for life. That story, with its graphic detail, really disturbed me (also because the friend who had brought it over for a sleepover ended up giving me pinkeye, and also - he was an odd fellow - surreptitiously placed a gigantic bloody booger on my pillow when I wasn't looking... "I didn't do that," he said. His parents wouldn't let him listen to rock and roll, and it was said in the neighbourhood that he tried to burn his house down).

Anyway, the facially disfigured Spire comic really fucked me up when I was a kid.

And the writing for "Little Archie" was always, always first rate.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:35 AM on May 28

Anyone else rembeber this: Archie: To Riverdale and Back? Archie is engaged to Pam(?), Veronicas a quadruple divorcee and Betty is dating a douche. Here's a clip.
posted by PenDevil at 12:52 AM on May 28

I am perennially astounded that Archie is still around in 2009, but then I was astounded they were still around in 1989.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:23 AM on May 28 [2 favorites]

Anyone else rembeber this: Archie: To Riverdale and Back? Archie is engaged to Pam(?), Veronicas a quadruple divorcee and Betty is dating a douche. Here's a clip .

Dear god that's horrifying.
posted by delmoi at 1:32 AM on May 28 [1 favorite]

For motherfuck's sake; gobs of things don't need to be a cue for a pronouncement about a country, its perceived shortcomings.

Ya know which other countries have "bland, marketable characters that have no definable personality?" Oh, pretty much all of them.
posted by ambient2 at 1:47 AM on May 28 [2 favorites]

I'm calling Identiy Crisis on this one, followed shortly by some other crises.

I believe Midge will be the torched. Moose will be troubled by this. Betty will be insane, just trying to get Archie back. She then will become magical for no reason. Then, a year later, Reggie will punch the universe somehow, thereby explaining everything unexplainable before. Dilton will have encouraged him to do this. Reggie will punch Chuck's face off and yell something ridiculous. We will read a few years of unintelligible nonsense. And then, Jughead will heroically kill Mr. Weatherbee, but die, die, die.

And, then, I guess, there'll be a battle for his pointy hat.
posted by converge at 4:23 AM on May 28 [1 favorite]

Frankly, I always liked Veronica over Betty, and secretly wanted her to come out on top. Veronica was huffy and pampered, but at least she wasn't accommodating and bland like Betty. I hated all the issues when the girls would fight and Betty's sunny disposition held out over Veronica's imperiousness, because we girls consumed enough pop culture that elevated niceness and accommodation. All the bossy female characters we saw growing up--Veronica, Lucy van Pelt, Miss Piggy, Angelica from "Rug Rats"--wound up getting their comeuppance for being too demanding. It's about time one of those bossy girls finally gets what she wants.

And Ironmouth is totally right in pointing out that engaged doesn't mean married and I'll bet my next paycheck that Archie goes back to double-timing both girls in a matter of three issues.
posted by zoomorphic at 4:38 AM on May 28 [6 favorites]

This seems like an appropriate place to repost my alternative spellings/definitions of the word "dude" using Archie characters.
posted by SpiffyRob at 5:01 AM on May 28

I'm still bitter about what Archie Comics did to Dan DeCarlo. They are dead to me.
posted by MegoSteve at 5:17 AM on May 28 [1 favorite]

I've never read a single Archie comic (that I haven't repressed, anyway), but even I can see this is big news. Veronica has dark hair. That means she's the bad one! But Archie has freckles and that means he's good (unless it's on twilight zone, in which case happy thoughts happy thoughts). So this is clearly a setup for a divorce issue or alternative timelines.
posted by DU at 5:32 AM on May 28

Of course, whoever he gets engaged to will call it off when she finds out what Cherry Poptart did at the bachelor party.
posted by Cookiebastard at 5:36 AM on May 28 [3 favorites]

Betty & Veronica's competition over Archie has more to do with their sublimated desire for each other than any actual attraction to Archie "I'm really lame" Andrews.
posted by nooneyouknow at 7:06 AM on May 28 [3 favorites]

I used to read a lot of Archie Double Digests back when I worked at the grocery store, one of the most interesting aspects of it was Jughead's pointed asexuality. There were actual storylines drawn around the fact Jughead wasn't interested in women the way he was in food.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:38 AM on May 28

Archie, Garfield, Ziggy, Bazooka Joe.
America just can't enough of bland, marketable characters that have no definable personality.

Au contraire:

Archie loves jalopies and hates stuffy suits.
Garfield loves lasagna and hates Mondays.
Ziggy loves animals and hates pants.
Bazooka Joe loves knock-knock jokes and hates 3D movies.

Now, if you want a bland, marketable character with no personality whatsoever, you need look no further than Richie Rich.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:01 AM on May 28 [4 favorites]

Man, I have a feeling this is gonna end up being some straight up "Dallas" shit. They're gonna string us along with all this marriage drama, actually GO THROUGH WITH IT, and we'll get up to the point where Archie's having doubts about his marriage to Veronica, so he starts sneaking around on her with Betty and they plot an "accidental" gas leak explosion at the house, killing both Mr. Lodge and Veronica, so that they can run off with the Lodge millions. Several people will die because "they knew too much." Like there'll be a heartbreaking scene in the rain between Jughead and Archie, where Jughead confronts Archie and how money's changed him, and it will be tense, there will be a struggle, but both will walk away, only to have Archie turn around and shoot Jughead in the back. Archie will run to dying Jughead's side, and as Archie cradles Jughead's head, crying, for once Jughead will open his eyes and say, "They were always closed to everything you did. But not this time...not this time." And just as the whole thing goes "Kaboom!" Mr. Lodge will wake up all "Oh, shit!!" in his couch where he's dozed off, and Veronica, who's been watching a Dallas-ish soap opera with a similar plotline tv with Archie all along, will ask "What's wrong daddykins?" and we find out this whole goddamn thing was a fucking nightmare Mr. Lodge was having.
posted by kkokkodalk at 9:07 AM on May 28 [9 favorites]

Man, I have a feeling this is gonna end up being some straight up "Dallas" shit.

I wish I had a million favorites, and I'd spend them all right here.
posted by ColdChef at 9:20 AM on May 28

Thanks to Metafilter, I now know more about Archie comics and Lysol douching than I ever thought possible.

And knowing is half the battle...
posted by JoanArkham at 10:24 AM on May 28

And knowing is half the battle...
Yooo, Joe!

posted by nooneyouknow at 11:03 AM on May 28

Now, if you want a bland, marketable character with no personality whatsoever, you need look no further than Richie Rich.

Possibly, but I think my lifelong fascination with the occult is directly attributable to Li'l Dot's beatnik uncle. That dude was invoking nth-dimensional Lovecraftian horrors long before it became fashionable.
posted by malocchio at 11:04 AM on May 28 [1 favorite]

oops - technically, those were evocations, not invocations.
posted by malocchio at 11:05 AM on May 28

Two unrelated things, one of which may have already been mentioned:

1. Archie & Goatse
2. I am the only person I have ever seen buy one of those Archie Double Digests at the grocery store and I only bought it to see if anything would happen. No one ever buys them yet they're always there, fully stocked. My suspicion is these publications, rather than being bland, repackagings of old jokes about a character no one has cared about since entertainment was invented in 1959, are a print version of Numbers Stations. Be careful next time you start paging through one of those.
posted by yerfatma at 11:31 AM on May 28 [9 favorites]

All I have to say is, I love reading these Archie threads because outside of my family, no one in my life read or gave two shits about Archie. So if I draw an analogy between some meathead and Big Moose pummeling Reggie for hitting on Midge again, no one gets it. So sad.

Also, Prefossor Flutesnoot was a great name.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 4:06 PM on May 28

Dammit why don't I ever see typos until after I hit Post Comment? Don't ever hire me as a proofreader.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 4:08 PM on May 28