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A typical cover gag.
"Duh, stay outta Riverdale!"
Moose Mason's warning to Homer Simpson
Originally known as MLJ Comics (after its three founders), Archie Comics soon took the name of its most popular character, a teen named Archie Andrews, who debuted in 1939. A cast slowly grew around him and his buddies, and by the mid-1950s, the world had mostly normalized into the cast we'd now recognize. Preaching that Status Quo Is God, a countless array of stock plots and occurences (the Love Triangle of Archie, Betty & Veronica, Jughead conspiring against Reggie or women, Ethel chasing Jughead, Reggie chasing Midge and confounding Moose, Dilton being smart, Archie & Jughead running afoul of the teachers, etc.) have become among the longest-running themes in fiction. With the start of Dan DeCarlo as primary artist, Archie Comics created its "house style".
Though the eternal love triangle is the core of the strip, the recurring cast is actually quite huge, though only the Big Four (Archie, Jug, Ron & Betty) have any kind of long-running success in solo books. With romance so core to the books, its fanbase is inevitably mostly female (gazing at issues featuring 'dress up' and 'design outfits for the girls to wear', this should be unsurprising), a significant amount of men also grew up reading the books as boys. Archie Comics is also famous for keeping everyone the same age, and altering only the dress styles- making Archie Comics a very stereotype-laden snapshot for each decade, as bell-bottom jeans, Nehru jackets, citizens band radio, disco, etc. are all debuted as new fads and then slowly dropped as new fads come in.
Well known for being available in newsstands and grocery store checkout magazine racks everywhere (partly due to it also being one of the only comic books that still publish digest-sized issues, perfect for stocking near the checkouts), Archie Comics come and have come in MANY titles, including Archie, Archie Digest, Archie Double Digest, Betty, Veronica, Betty and Veronica, Jughead, Jughead with Archie, Archie's Pals and Gals, Tales From Riverdale High... It's still meant for kids, but (as this article proves) there's a large number of adults who still read and enjoy them out there.
Also available in Newspaper Comics form, courtesy of Creators Syndicate.
More information and activities: http://www.archiecomics.com/
Media associated with Archie Comics:
This company's works provide examples of:
- The Alleged Car: A running joke on Archie's jalopy.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: Believe it or not, arguments have popped up surrounding Betty- is she a Yamato Nadeshiko in waiting (pro) or a Yandere in waiting (con)? Opinions on Veronica generally surround which part of Rich Bitch or Jerk With A Heart Of Gold she fits the most.
- Anime Anatomy: Because the comics are aimed toward children, it would obviously be psychologically damaging to children to learn that men have nipples.
- Art Evolution: There was a massive one in the late 1950s, coinciding with Dan DeCarlo's introduction as the mainline Archie artist. Soon, all the other artists were mimicking his style as the 'base' Archie. It was enough that the clothing styles are all that can define most stories from the 1960s until now, when a few more "out there" artists like Fernando Ruiz have put their own stamp on the "DeCarlo Style".
- Then there's the "Dynamic New Look" art style, which goes for a more realistic approach. It's only used for specific story arcs, though.
- Sabrina The Teenage Witch has gone "manga-style".
- Berserk Button: Jughead kicks ass on a pair of robbers when they try to steal the Chocklit Shoppe's hamburger supply.
- A much more prevalent example is the extremely jealous Moose, who gets very angry whenever anyone hits on his girlfriend Midge, leading him to usually hit them as punishment. Ironically, this also applies to Midge herself, who becomes just as livid whenever another girl hits on Moose.
- Betty And Veronica (The Trope Namer)
- Big Eater: Jughead is pretty much the biggest example of this in all fiction.
- Blonde Brunette Redhead: Betty, Veronica and Cheryl, since the latter's debut. Or Melody, Valerie and Josie.
- Brand X: Done frequently, except...
- Brats With Slingshots: Veronica's (seemingly forgotten) cousin Leeroy, also frequently used by kids in general
- Breaking The Fourth Wall: Frequently used — characters will "talk to the audience", and several #100 issues will have the characters deciding exactly how to celebrate their "100th issue".
- Brother Chuck: Used too frequently to even list all the victims. A comic with a fairly large base cast that constantly introduced new recurring characters in nearly every year, this happens a lot. Ask old-school fans about "Adam the Alien", Jinx Malloy, January McAndrews or Cricket O'Dell. Even Cheryl Blossom got this in the 80s. A few characters are actually shown moving away (Cheryl in the late 1990s), but most are just casually ignored with no mentions after a few years of appearances. We'll see where the new pair of Asian girls, Wendy Weatherbee, and others end up.
- Many characters (Jinx, Cricket…) simply got Demoted To Extra, while others, like Frankie Valdez, were shown having moved back to Riverdale. With Archie Comics, it's hard to tell if someone's really been dropped, as an occasional comic will have one of these minor age-old characters reappear as if nothing was different.
- Canon Foreigner: For "The New Archies", a version featuring the group set in their middle school era, the characters of Amani and Eugene were created. "Fangs" Fogarty and Ambrose appear in the elementary-setting "Little Archie". None of the four made it to the mainstream continuity in anything other than a one-shot or cameo.
- Celibate Hero: Jughead doesn't so much hate women anymore as he is simply not interested in romance. This doesn't keep girls from hitting on him, though. Big Ethel is usually the one who pursues him, although in one story all the girls in Riverdale pursued Jughead because he was the only guy not wearing an overpowering cologne at a school dance, much to his chagrin.
- He also has a magical hatpin at one point that attracts girls. In a subversion, the pin makes him want to be with girls.
- Character Blog
- Character Development: Betty was initially shown as a more typical "domestically talented" girl, and often rather ditzy. By the 1960s, the Women's Lib movement had converted her to the more familiar tomboyish/girly-girl mix, and boosted her intelligence by a great deal.
- Jughead has also gone through a transformation, from a one-note girl-hater into a character sometimes conflicted (the Joanie years, the recent "New Style" arc) about love for women, ultimately returning to the less complicated world of food.
- Cheryl Blossom (also the Trope Namer)
- Congruent Memory
- Cross Over: Most of the characters in Archie Comics are accepted to be set in the same universe, so it's reasonable for Sabrina to show up in an Archie story, or for The Archies to perform alongside Josie and the Pussycats. The biggest example is the Civil Chore(s) story, where the writers get as many characters as they can think of together for a single-page spread.
- The Ditz: Melody
- Dont Try This At Home: One story where Veronica directly addresses the reader has her cautioning them not to follow her example, saying that she's rich and spoiled and hatching evil schemes is "expected" of her.
- Dumb Blonde: Betty Cooper used to be this in some early stories, before Women's Lib put the kibosh on that. She was often confused, ditzy and a total loser compared to Veronica, rather than the smart, funny, athletic girl we all know today.
- Dumb Muscle: Moose
- Eyes Always Shut: Jughead, famously. He'll open them if shocked or surprised, and spent a good deal of the 1990s with them consistently as open as everyone else's, but usually it's his trademark along with the hat and sweater. Other characters often point this trait out, and it's usually seen as him being too lazy to open them all the way.
- Fail Polish: Jughead's mom, Big Ethel, and Archie's & Betty's mothers have all been altered into more attractive forms in the past couple decades. A few of the fathers (Betty's father, Hal, for one) have also lost their original white hair, being recoloured in collected digests.
- Fanservice: To an amazingly large extent, considering that Archie is mostly for girls. Artist Dan DeCarlo was a cheesecake art king, and featured the girls in the skimpiest bikinis allowed in any era, to say nothing of major sexpots like Melody (who suffered Clothing Damage at least once) and Cheryl.
- Five Man Band:
- Five Token Band: Sort of; while not meeting the numbers requirements, virtually all of the new class of characters (Raj, etc.) are of a non-white ethinicity, as if the Editors are deliberately building a "one of each type" mentality. Lightly subverted in that the new characters now include a rare two asians- one Chinese, one Japanese.
- Flash Forward: Archie Marries Veronica, which is set after the gang has graduated from college.
- Follow The Leader: The Archie series was meant to capitalize on many of the "Andy Hardy" features of the era. Its own popularity soared enough that near-countless rip-offs were created, some by Archie Comics itself. "That Wilkin Boy", "Josie" and "Wilbur" were all Archie-made blatant rip-offs (though Josie got re-tooled).
- Four Temperament Ensemble: Archie is Sanguine, Veronica is Choleric, Betty is Melancholic and Jughead is Phlegmatic.
- Form Fitting Wardrobe: Much of the clothing the girls wear.
- Fur Bikini: Josie and the Pussycats in the comics wear them occasionally, particularly Melody compared to the others' typical one-pieces. Betty and Veronica tended to wear them in "Archie 1" Caveman-era stories.
- Geographic Flexibility: Riverdale has been shown having a local beach, a mountain range, a river, a lake, several ponds, cold winters and hot summers; and has been described as either a tiny one-school town or a fairly large city, with an airport, a stock exchange, large businesses and TV studios... basically anything any story could need, ever, just for the sake of convenience.
- Getting Crap Past The Radar: In a 1959 Christmas story, when Veronica asks Archie what he's going to give her dad for Christmas, he simply responds, "The bird!" Veronica is understandably offended until Archie shows her the canary he intends to present to Mr. Lodge. Another story featured Mr. Cooper trying to force Archie to marry Betty after catching them in what appeared to be a semi-nude state.
- Another instance: The boys plot a "Save Our Beazly" campaign upon learning that the school chef will be downsized. One boy prompts that they should make bumper stickers, just using the initials. The others quickly hush him up. Wonder how that one skipped the censors.
- A recent story has Archie as a news reporter. After Jughead mixes up the cue cards, he begins the news with "It looks like that jackass is up to his old tricks again!" with a picture of Mr. Lodge in the background. Veronica is upset until the mistake is corrected, the news story was referring to an actual jackass, not Mr. Lodge.
- Hello Nurse: Various characters nearly always draw this reaction — Cheryl Blossom and Melody Valentine, most often. Veronica tends to do so on bikini covers. Betty usually only does if and when she dresses up for an occasion to one-up Ronnie.
- Heterosexual Life Partners: Archie and Jughead, obviously. More so in Juggie's case than Archie's, since Archie's shown hitting on anything in a skirt, and will readily bail on his best friend.
- Hot Mom: In the "Little Archie" stories, Little Archie's mom is depicted with a thin, bodacious body and long hair, much different from her pudgy, older self in the regular stories.
- Informed Attractiveness: Veronica is usually treated in-story (more commonly early on) as more attractive than Betty, despite being famously the same face & body with new hair. It's excuseable when one considers that Ronnie dresses much better, often showing more skin, and Betty can compete on an even keel whenever she stoops to Ronnie's level (ie. dressing in skimpy gowns/bikinis).
- Intercontinuity Crossover: Archie Meets The Punisher
- Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Reggie Mantle is a mean-spirited prankster much of the time, but he takes steps to prevent anyone actually being seriously hurt either by his pranks or anyone else. Veronica functions as the female equivalent.
- Lethal Chef: A recurring component of Ronnie's character, and something Betty has over her. One particular issue had Ronnie demanding to cook a meal for Archie (to one-up Betty, of course), and such was the tragedy that a line of sympathetic boys said their goodbyes to poor Arch, including Reggie.
- Long Runner: Famously so- Archie should be in his 80s by now. It predates nearly every comic book superhero but the very originals, and 99% of any "Teen" genres.
- Loser Gets The Girl: Archie's not a good student, not exactly handsome or well-built, and is usually a clumsy, poor athlete. Yet Ron & Betty fight over him, and he has no problems getting dates with any other random girl in Riverdale.
- Malt Shop: Famously, Pop Tate's. Almost as famous as Arnold's on Happy Days.
- Ms Fanservice: Cheryl Blossom defines this trope, being too sexy for 1980s comics (allegedly the reason why she was written-out), and then coming back in the 90s as basically Pamela Anderson with red hair. Melody qualifies for the Josie-verse characters.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed and Lawyer Friendly Cameo: Pretty much every real-life celebrity, TV show, company, movie or comic book company has some kind of mock name attached to it — e.g., Bruce Sprongsteen, Montana Jones and the Final Adventure, etc.
- Only Six Faces: The entirety of the teenage female cast possesses the exact same frame and facial make-up, to the point that Betty and Veronica can switch identities with wigs. Only intentionally "busty" or "curvy" girls, like Cheryl Blossom and Melody Valentine, are different.
- Overprotective Dad: Mr. Lodge isn't very fond of Archie dating Veronica, mostly because accident-prone Archie typically destroys something valuable whenever he visits the Lodge mansion. Other stories avert this trope when Archie and his friends rescue Mr. Lodge from crooked thieves, blackmailers or business rivals.
- Pimped Out Car
- Pretty In Mink: Veronica has loads of furs, but other characters wear fur occasionally.
- Put On A Bus: Cheryl Blossom, just gradually vanishing in the 1980s, had this done to her once her re-introduction in the 1990s wore out its welcome, and she moved away. They brought her back within a couple of years, this time without her own series.
- Recycled Script: Used often and unabashedly, due to the incredible amount of stories already in existence and the short timeframe of an Archie Comics reader. And, of course, no one would notice because they were for kids.
- This Troper in particular was obsessed with Archie in his youth, and can flip through a new digest, and find that only the cover story is new to him.
- This Troper worked in a comic book shop in April 2009. The same Jughead gag showed up in two different digests released in the same week of that month.
- This was (possibly) lampshaded on one of the covers. Archie mentions that the comics will now be printed on recycled paper. Either Jughead or Reggie responds, "Your jokes have been recycled for years!"
- A big, current example: several of the "New Look" stories have just been taken (characters, whole sections of dialogue, etc.) from the "Archie Novels" series from the early 1990s. Moose & Midge's break-up, Ron & Betty fighting about Nick St. Claire, and Archie moving away were all topics taken.
- Re Tool: "It's Josie!" was a fairly simple series, featuring Josie as a red-haired everygirl who had a snarky, odd-dressing best friend, a nice blonde and a nasty brunette fighting over her, a rich rival, etc. Basically a girl Archie. When the cartoon studios asked the Archie company for another group to mimic the success of "The Archies", Josie suddenly shifted into being defined by their existence as a band. Best friend Pepper was dropped, Black Best Friend Valerie was added, and the whole comic was now a "travelling band" one instead of a regular teen book. Opinions varied, but guess which version is the most famous?
- Rich Bitch, Spoiled Brat and The Libby, sometimes: Veronica defines all of these, but she's often shown with the "secret heart of gold" routine as well. Cheryl Blossom is a more authentically bad version (though still has her nice moments, because she had her own series for a while). Libby Chessler, seemingly a creation of the Sabrina The Teenage Witch TV series, is both and the Trope Namer for the latter.
- Rule Thirty Four: The company is known for coming down hard on Slash Fics featuring its characters, to the point where Fanfiction.net will no longer accept any kind of Archie-related fanfiction.
- They don't look too kindly on parodies either; Robot Chicken's got pulled.
- Skimpy Holiday Dress: Betty, Veronica, Sabrina and other girls would wear them quite frequently during Christmas issues, at least on the covers.
- Shipping: A common Fan Fic concept features Jughead paired up with someone, usually Betty. Some writers themselves have commented that they'd like to see the two put together, but ultimately can't break up the ultimate Love Triangle at the heart of the stories.
- Single Target Sexuality: Big Ethel focuses like a laser on Jughead.
- Smart People Play Chess: Dilton.
- Spinoff Babies: "Little Archie" was one of the earliest (the 1960s), taking place in the gang's elementary school years. For some reason, Mr. Weatherbee and Miss Grundy were working at their school. "The New Archies" (an Animated Series and a comic, both short-lived) came in the 1980s, and was based around their pre-teen years in middle school. The former appears to actually be in continuity (told nowadays as flashbacks), but the latter, with several replacement characters (Eugene for Dilton, among others), is mostly forgotten.
- Spy Catsuit: Agents B & V.
- Status Quo Is God: Is it EVER. No matter how big a story, or how glorious a cover, things will revert back to normal by the end of the storyline. Ethel still chases Jughead, Archie still can't decide between Betty & Ronnie, Reggie still plays pranks, all the relationships are the same, etc. When there's 60 years of stories, and Digests re-using old stories, that tends to happen. Even newly-introduced characters are 99% likely to be doomed to the C-List and Trivia questions within a few years (Cricket O'Dell, Ginger Lopez, Marie & Frankie, etc.).
- The only exceptions seem to be Cheryl Blossom's re-introduction in the 1990s, and successful newcomers Chuck & Nancy in the 1970s, alongside a few gradual shifts in characterization between the 1950s and now.
- Subliminal Advertising: This troper remembers a story published in 1992 in which Archie talks the gang into going to have a picnic in the woods so they enjoy nature, but they all bring along electronic devices to distract themselves with. Throughout the story, all sorts of real life products pop up in the artwork - Veronica's eating a Fruit Roll-Up in the first panel, Archie's sipping from a pack of Capri Sun (and from when it was doing a promotion for Yo Yogi!, no less) when he notices Jughead's playing a handheld electronic game, Jughead pulls out a box of Cap'n Crunch when Archie falls in the river... I think they actually justified this by the fact that these products were all being given out in baskets to kids who joined the Archie Fan Club at the time.
- Another story from 1992 opened with Archie and Jughead playing Super Nintendo. Boxes for actual Super Nintendo games were all on the floor in front of them.
- Sweater Girl: The girls really fit into their sweaters.
- They Fight Crime: "The Man From R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E." in the 1960s and "Archie's Explorers of the Unknown" in the 1980s.
- Teen Genius: Dilton Doiley has served in this role for decades.
- Teen Superspy: At the height of the spy craze during the 1960s, Archie Comics did a series called "The Man From R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E." that featured the Archie gang as secret agents.
- More recently, Betty and Veronica have appeared as 'Agents B & V'.
- Through His Stomach
- Token Minority: Valerie, arguably one of the first in all of comics, debuting in 1969, followed by Chuck and his girlfriend Nancy in the 1970s, and Frankie & Maria, a Latino pairing also debuting then, but not catching on as well.
- Other black and Hispanic characters have shown up with lower degrees of success, like Ginger Lopez, and in the early 1990s, very short-lived characters with disabilities (Anita and Jeff).
- It took a little longer for the Asian characters to catch on. But instead of one character to represent all of Asia, they've had a number of Asian girls (Tomoko, Kim, Kumi…). To say nothing of the Indian boy Raj.
- Unfortunate Implications: Super Dickery (the website) shows a cover in which Archie motions toward the bar and says, "We serve anyone!" (in response to Mr. Weatherbee whether he serves crabs). The awkward part? He appears to be pointing at Chuck, his black friend! Come again?
- We're Still Relevant, Dammit:And how! (the trope was originally YKTTW'd as Emo Jughead. Despite the fact that Jughead is usually the most unique and non-conformist of the group, he was always the one shown experimenting with new fads or subcultures of fashion.
- Where The Hell Is Springfield: Either that or "Riverdale" would have been perfectly accurate; they're the two most famous examples of this trope ever.
- Wolverine Publicity: Cheryl Blossom exploded onto the Archie scene on her 1990s return, quickly getting one limited series after another. Finally, she got her own series and was a constant feature. Eventually, backlash set in, and she was actually written out of the books again before the decade was over, and is now a mere extra.
- Women Drivers: Played straight before the 60s, usually subverted anytime after that
- Wrench Wench: Betty is absurdly talented with auto repair and other forms of masculine expertise. This makes her either more or less attractive to the boys, depending on the story.
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