Archie Andrews

Archie Andrews is now over 65 years old, but he's still around, still stuck in his own version of Groundhog Day where he can't figure out who he likes better, Betty Cooper or Veronica Lodge [ed: It's Betty you moron!]. Vanity Fair explains the appeal throughout all the years.

Like I said before, Archie was the first comic book I collected. What I liked about his was the multiple stories in a single magazine, the soap opera of Riverdale High, the friendships, of course the romance (I think I really did fall in love with Betty Cooper - it was the first time I actually loved a fictional character. It would happen again, years later, with Ivy Rowe), and sometimes, the mystery and intrigue. It had a mix of Scooby Doo in some episodes, and I was still at an age where a diverse crew of friends solving some crime that the adults had ignored was still incredibly exciting, and served as the fodder for countless afternoons and sleepovers with MoLT and others. I guess I always wanted to be Archie, too. Anyway, it was for me a character and a set of stories which I could easily get lost in, but which as stupid as it sounds probably gave me some of the skills I needed to anticipate high school, friendships, dating, love, parental conflict, and good times in general.

Theologians sometimes say that stories aren't just for entertainment, but that they're also providing us with skills and vision we desperately need to navigate our social existence. When you see the market providing the same kinds of stories over and over again, even if they are being repackaged into some slightly different form, you're watching a monopolistically competitive market providing us with new stories which we may need for some reason to do these very kinds of calculations in our lives. It's interesting to think about, even if I can't quite figure out what I'm saying in this post...