Archie - You Friggin' Perv!

Generic Teen

Smoke In. Sleep In. Bed In. Love In. Be In. Sit In. What could be left?




Teen In 1968 - a weird sort of a rock magazine and comic that featured characters that were of that generic Archie clone look. US manga, huh? But overall intended for chicks. That's right I said it - I said "Chicks". Chicks chicks chicks.

A lot of the regular schtick......(rhymes with chick, no?)



also a romance story that was in B&W - why? Was it to save money? After all the publisher was Tower Comics



There was a story featuring this half-wit proto-Moose....get this, named "Animal" ... I guess the publisher didn't have to pay full rate to the artist if not all the characters had eyes.....



Here's that embiggenable-by-clicking tale:






Dig the cool 1940's onomatopoeia noise drawings - very Alley Oop or Buz Sawyer, dontcha think? Incongruous-ish.









Notice how I didn't de-yellow 'em this time? I felt the warmth helped...

But my favorite parts were the interstitial rock articles featuring prominent musicians of the day.

Like this one about what pisses off the Cowsills (link at pic) especially tragic in the light of such bad ends some of them came to- not very Partridge Family at all...



and the Music Explosion (Lil' Bit O' Soul) with much sartorial descriptiveness:



and...and... "The Girl That I Marry" featuring Jim Morrison - heart throb. Haha... these girls don't know he's a raging drunk with an Oedipus complex!! Just get on the blue bus, Susie and Tammy! The west is the best!

Also I always thought it was "Cream" not "The Cream" I guess I stand corrected!







lastly, Miss Nelson was definitely trying to make sure no one stole this from her - I hope it wasn't her only possession......

Archie Zeitgeist, Because I Have Learned to Share

This post is for my daughters, but it also has a connection to the vibrant, witty, and copiously post-laden I'm Learning to Share! hosted by The In Crowd. He bought some old Archies and immediately saw the value in their reflection of the culture of the times. My daughters, by contrast, just wanted the clothes. Having said that, instead of me scanning page after page in order to reassure myself that no matter how rich the content is, no one is reading this, I propose as an alternative that you scroll down 7,000 pixels or so, and check out these covers. They are, in fact, groovy. If you are jonesing for more, I suggest you go to Mr. In Crowd's rich and deep Flick'r set His thoughts on the whole subject can be found here

One final note, and I'll keep it short because too many words turn things off, is that mine were given to me free, by Bill of Frankenstein Comics. Frankenstein Comics is the best comic store in the world. While it caters expertly to jagovs who have to have the new X-Men, it also has piles and piles of crap comics that contain long lost advertising, themes that reflect forgotten morality, odd publishers long out of business, and more. Bill knows that this is my sole interest, and handed me a box saying, "Here, these are for you, they are missing covers, have pages torn out, are falling apart, and have been cut up, so don't complain, but they are my gift to you." That's where the covers come from. The last thing I'll say about Bill is he knows the history of comics, and not your garden variety Siegel and Shuster, Stan Lee, Bob Kane BS, but how one publisher started from a prison cell, artists who drank themselves to death, who is still drawing at 114 years old, why Gold Key had no ads, and every 1/4 cover seller's location on the Eastern Seaboard since 1967. Therefore, I could never give a dollar to a Member's Only jacketed douche with a copy of Previews in his face - only Bill.

All pics link to embiggened versions.