The Archie Experiment: Spire Christian Comics.

Oooo! Take that,, uhhh... unnamed girl.

So, a few posts back I told you about the late 1980s, early 1990s Archie experiment. It wasn't, however, the first. Not by a long shot. Hell, Archie's been experimenting since the 1940s. But today I want to tell you about something that's from the 1970s (And into the 1980s), Archie's experiment into Christian comics publications.

Yup, that's right, the super-secular comic company, run by a dynasty of Jewish publishers, decided to license their characters for use in Christian comics! How the hell does that happen?

As promised.

Geez Dan Decarlo, you do make it hard to choose!

This one's for Monzo and Walky!

--Andrew S.

Archie Metaphors: Kissing = Sex.

Best guess at the artist? Dan DeCarlo

When reading Archie comics it's important to remember that they were written and drawn (for the most part) by a bunch of dirty old men.

They're comics aimed at pre-teens, with stories about teenagers, written by men in their 30s and 40s. As such there tends to be a surprising amount of layers to the stories. They can't, for example, show full-on sexual relationships in these comics. On the other hand, it would be pretty realistic for Archie, Betty, Veronica and the gang to be sexually active, right?

So Archie comics get around this using a really simple metaphoric formula.

KISSING = SEX.

Now as always (and as we discussed when talking about Jughead's sexuality) it's basically impossible to talk in absolutes about Archie comics. The degree to which kissing = sex therefore changes from story to story. In some stories kissing is a straight up substitute for sex. For example in the strip we're sharing today.

Jughead and Sexuality: The Brain Campaign.

I hate those damned menaces to romance!

If you've ever watched Chasing Amy -- and if you're a geek you probably have -- then you've seen that scene where a gay guy tries to convince a guy of ambiguous sexuality that Archie comics are gay. He chooses Jughead as the main thrust of his argument -- clearly Jughead is the dom and Archie is his bitch.

Okay, that's utter bull crap, and the movie even admits it's utter bullcrap. Archie is, at its heart, a story about straight sexual relationships. Highly disturbing straight sexual relationships a lot of the time. Except... there's Jughead.

Jughead is a self-avowed "woman-hater". He has no interest in girls whatsoever. So, what is his sexuality then? Is he gay? Is he straight, but he just hasn't discovered women yet? Well, honestly... answering that question fairly is nearly impossible to do with Archie comics. You see, Archie comics aren't really into continuity like super hero comics. Rather, Archie characters are like actors cast in different roles according to the needs of the story.