Archie's 80th anniversary: Debut of Cheryl and Jason Blossom

[alicemacher]

Long before Cheryl and Jason Blossom were the victim and victimizer within a taboo relationship in Afterlife with Archie, or respectively mentally disturbed and dead in the Riverdale TV series, they were more lighthearted elitist troublemakers in the old Archie Comics continuity. That doesn't mean what they got up to wasn't envelope-pushing in its own way for the relatively family-friendly venue. Especially in this, their first appearance, 1982.


From "Dare to Be Bare," Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica #320 (Oct. 1982). Story by Frank Doyle, art by Dan and Jim DeCarlo.





Exit Cheryl. Enter Jason, who shows Betty and Veronica how to get around the "no beer on the beach" rule.








I'd be willing to bet that was the one and only time anyone described one of the Blossom siblings as a "liberal."

Anyway, this was pretty daring stuff for the company's output at the time. Of course, it helped that the story treats the implied public nudity and drinking as The Wrong Thing to Do, thus satisfying both the Comics Code Authority and Archie Comics' internal standards. That said, although Cheryl and Jason were regular characters for awhile, they were abruptly dropped two years later. Rumour has it that the publisher decided Cheryl was too racy for kids, but I've also seen the claim that neither she nor Jason were popular with readers at the time.

In any case, they wouldn't return until the nineties, when Cheryl appeared as the surprise "third girl" ending option for Archie, who'd been pressured to choose between Betty and Veronica once and for all in the four-part 1994 Love Showdown arc. It seems that appearance did the trick, as both Cheryl and Jason have been fixtures of Archie Comics ever since, Cheryl even getting a series and a few minis of her own.

Comments

[leahandillyana]

^^^