Archie's 80th anniversary: Truth and Consequences

[alicemacher]

In this story from the fifties, town troll Reggie uses the "just telling the truth" loophole as a way to ruin things for his peers while avoiding reprisals. But watch out, Reg: more than one can play that game!


From Pep Comics #122 (July 1957). Story and art credits unavailable, as is sadly common with Golden Age comics.


Reggie, with a thin veil of innocence, goes around spilling the beans on his classmates and thereby either causing them to fight with each other or get in trouble with Weatherbee. For example, he suggests, in "the Bee's" hearing, that Jughead has a job in the school cafeteria. When Jug denies this, Reggie says, "Well, you spent all yesterday afternoon up there, so naturally I assumed...". The principal accordingly assigns Jughead extra work as punishment for cutting classes.

Later that day, Archie and Jughead encounter Betty on the way to the Chock'lit Shoppe and grouse about Reggie's latest misdeeds. They plan on giving him a beatdown when they see him next. Betty, ever the goody-two-shoes, insists that regardless of Reggie's motivations, they've no right to lay a finger on him because everything he's said has been completely true. Reggie then "rewards" Betty's defence of him by mentioning to Pop Tate that her dad had recently cut off her allowance for a month, thus quashing her attempt to buy a soda on credit. Although pissed off, Betty still refuses to let Arch and Jug lower the boom because Reg's only telling the truth.







Good thing the shop window is, like windows in TV and film, apparently made of sugar, right? ;-)

Comments

[melplayspersonal]

I thought they'd go the whole "insults under the veil of truth" way, so this was actually pretty funny.

Man, when I was younger, I was obsessed with the Betty and Veronica comics, always buying the digests, before I hit my manga craze. Looking back, I think I was wayyy more interested in the girls than anything about Archie. Not quite baby's first girl-crushes, but close.

[tinygaylaura]

That's really adorable :)

[tripodeca113]

Oh detention, right after being thrown through a window. That cannot be fun.

Also note how the tears on Reggie's clothing, changes from panel to panel. Man that bugs me.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Funny stuff, except that next-to-last panel is slightly unnerving.

[alicemacher]

You mean "Do you still beat your dog?" That's a variation on "Do you still beat your wife?" (since Reggie of course wouldn't be married). In any case, it's not meant to be a real accusation of abuse. Rather, in order to mock Reggie even more, Archie's invoking a standard example of the fallacy known as the loaded question, i.e. a question which already assumes the responder's guilt and supposedly traps the responder into admitting that guilt. Which it would, if the only possible answers were yes or no -- a point which Reggie thrice tries to make, but neither Pop nor Moose nor the Bee will let him.

[zachbeacon]

Sometimes I wonder why Jughead puts up with these people.

[tinygaylaura]

They support his burger addiction financially 0_0