Phantom at the Window -- The Thuggees.

If you were ever to try and study the core elements that make up a Phantom story, or at least an old Lee Falk/Wilson McCoy Phantom story, I don't think you'd ever need to go further than The Thuggees. It's a story from 1949/1950, when Falk had really gotten his writing down, and knew exactly what he was doing with the character.

The tension from strip to strip is amazing. The art is flying at an almost unreasonable pace, and the whole thing is... well... it's seriously worth reading.

I got my copy in Frew #1234, but it's since been reprinted in #1496. I might need to pick up that issue too, because I think there may be some stuff missing from the #1234 printing. Oh well, even with what I think is a slightly incomplete copy of the story, why don't we have ourselves a nice hard look at a classic long-running Phantom story?

Archie Metaphors: Sex and Al Hartley.

Steamy as always, Al!

Okay, so it's about time I came back to this subject. You know how in Archie comics kissing basically means the same thing as sex? Of course you do. I already did an article about it! If you haven't read that article go there, then come on back.

So kissing = sex in the universe of Archie comics. But what does that mean for the work of Al Hartley? As we know, Hartley wrote a series of official comics about Archie for Christian publisher Spire Comics... wait, why do we know? Well because I already told you. That's right, here at 80 Page Giant we believe in having continuity between our articles! We are a comics blog, after all.

So you've got those two elements. Wholesome Christian comics and kisses that are basically a metaphor for sex. How do you reconcile the two? Did Al Hartley realise that kissing was the same thing as sex? Maybe, in his ignorance he didn't realise about the metaphor, and there was some hilarious results?

Let's find out!

Let's talk about yuri: COME EMBRACE ME, SENPAI!

Remember, always read from right to left.

I was going to use this image instead,
but in the end, good taste prevailed. By
 which I mean wouldn't fit right.

If there's one thing that's really important to a compelling superhero origin story, it's having a good coming of age metaphor. Spider-Man is the most obvious (and also the most grossest). Sailor Moon was about the awesomeness of pre-arranged marriage learning to balance working and love. The X-Men are all about illustrating how homosexuality is exactly the same as shooting kinetic energy out of your eyes. And so forth.

A Lifeform in Puberty — Vega has a pretty similar setup, but a little less pretense about its own metaphor.

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.