Archie, in "Final Exam"

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

This is from Archie's Clean Slate, written and illustrated by Al Hartley.

Comments

[brilliantnova.insanejournal.com]

I never knew Archies use to be so preachy. that must have changed in the late 80's 90's when I started to read them. I don't even recall the reprints being so preachy.

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

From Wikipedia:

Spire Christian Comics was a line of comic books published by Fleming H. Revell starting in 1972. In 1981 Hugh Revell Barbour started his own company, Book Bargains, which soon became Barbour & Company. Barbour acquired the rights to republish many of the titles in the Spire Christian Comics line under the "NEW Barbour Christian Comics" imprint, keeping the comics in print until 1988.

Most of the Spire Comics were written and drawn by Al Hartley, who was working for Archie Comics at the time. Due to this connection, he was able to get permission to use the Archie characters in many of the comics.

The regular Archie comics were never this preachy.

[besamim.insanejournal.com]

A few of the less preachy Spire Archie stories did make their way into the regular Archie digests. I remember one, for example, where Archie enrolls in summer school not because he failed, but because he wants to learn more so he can make the world a better place. Weatherbee tells him that you don't make the world better by studying, but by doing. So he and Archie volunteer helping inner city kids while talking about how many of them grow up with neglect and violence, and need love. At the end they all sing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," the only explicit nod to Christianity.

There was another I remember which starts out as a geographical piece about the Gulf Stream (with "the gang" at the beach), then suddenly veers into a sermon about how God created such a beautiful world and we humans have polluted it. But that's as preachy as it gets. I doubt very much the mainstream Archie digests ever reprinted the ones where the characters complain about busing and schools teaching we evolved "from monkeys" and such. I hope not.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

The regular Archie comics had no message at all. That's what makes these so weird, like all Riverdale was taken over by a cult. (And you can bet Betty was first)

Consider too that one of Archie's most profitable and popular comics stars a teenage witch living in a house with other witches. Nothing like having friends on both sides.