Even as a little kid in the 1970s, I thought the Archie comics were really low-brow. I never actually bought any of them, but I’d thumb through them on the magazine rack, and they all seemed so hare-brained. The characters themselves were completely one-dimensional:
- Archie, the good son, honest, popular, but an innocent dork;
- Betty, the hot blonde who was inexplicably attracted to Archie. She seemed more wholesome and sweet-natured than……
- Veronica, the hot brunette, who likewise was attracted to Archie (even in my prepubescent years, I think the vague notion of menage-a-trois was planted in my head, and I’m surely not the only one)
- Jughead, the not-that-bright friend of Archie’s with a bizarre eating disorder in which he was ravenous and yet stayed rail-thin;
- Reggie, who was kind of a prick and, even though more rugged-looking, always seemed like the second choice for the aforementioned hot babes
There were other characters, of course, like the token ugly girl, Big Ethel, and Mr. Weatherby, the bald, fat principal, and so on.
