Attacking Mister Rogers? Seriously. Mister Rogers, for crissake.

It’s rare that I would quote a Youtube comment as eloquent, but:

Even 4chan doesn’t talk shit about Mr. Rogers. That’s how low Fox news has become.

So the Modesty Survey is starting to make its way around the internet, and for me this is a totally alien subculture. I mean, I was raised Catholic, but being raised Catholic in Toronto is not exactly the strictest form of Christian upbringing, to say the least; the only thing you’re guaranteed to have is a relatively worldly guilt complex and an appreciation of fish on Fridays. Compared to that, this is… really, really weird.

58 percent of them (and bear in mind the “Christian boys” range from 16 to 35, which is pushing it at the upper end, but whatevs) say that a skirt that falls above the knee is immodest! “That’s getting into dangerous territory, especially when they sit down, since it slides up even further.” DANGEROUS TERRITORY! Needless to say, 93 percent have a problem with miniskirts. 84 percent say that a bikini is immodest. “If you understood the purpose of publications like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue…”¹ 62 percent aren’t even satisfied if girls wear a tankini instead; 55 percent can’t even handle a one-piece halter-top suit. A thirteen-year-old writes: “They tend to show cleavage and your back is too much of a distraction.”²

66 percent say that a shirt with a “lacy, lingerie look” is immodest. 62 percent worry about girls who wear a transparent shirt over a tank top. 76 percent say that “even an inch” of skin between pants and bottom of shirt is a “stumbling block.” 65 percent have a problem with girls who have to adjust a bra strap in public. 56 percent have a problem with halter-top bras, which is probably the same people who complained about halter-top swimsuits. “This sounds stupid, but I’ll be honest: The strings invite a tug.” You heard that guy, ladies! You shouldn’t wear a halter-top lest he be tempted to assault you!³

But hey, it’s not just clothes the Christian boys are concerned with. 75 percent say that “the way a girl walks” can be a stumbling block. 57 percent are worried about when girls stretch their arms because their chests stick out. 63 percent get tense when a girl bends over and exposes her lower back. 61 percent feel sinful when a girl bends over with her ass towards them, and 76 percent can’t handle breasts bobbling up and down when a girl walks or runs.

Really, I know one should feel contempt for the overt misogyny on display here, but really I can’t be bothered to feel anything other than pity. These “Christian boys”⁴ are just so goddamn pathetic, a scream in the night of “I am powerless over my dick”:

Sisters in Christ, you really have no concept of the struggles that guys face on a daily basis. Please, please, please take a higher standard in the ways you dress. True, we men are responsible for our thoughts and actions before the Lord, but it is such a blessing when we know that we can spend time with our sisters in Christ, enjoying their fellowship without having to constantly be on guard against ungodly thoughts brought about by the inappropriate ways they sometimes dress.

This sentiment is of course the prevailing one. Sometimes it gets justified in weird ways.

A girl has been given something for which she is responsible. That gift is a beautiful body and mystique which has power over a man, and so in being responsible with that gift, a girl must give thought to men. This is just like how men have been given bodies with a different power – physical strength. A man is responsible for that strength and must not abuse it or be careless with it – be that in the context of other men and children, or with women.

“See, men are big and strong, and we shouldn’t hit people. And women aren’t big and strong, but they are pretty, so they shouldn’t hit people metaphorically with their choice of clothing.”

In fairness, when asked what their responsibility is, most of the Christian boys say straight up that it’s first and foremost their job to treat women respectfully and not lust in their hearts and do all the things they believe God wants them to do. But that adult sentiment is choked off when you read their scorn for women who “flaunt their bodies”:

Yes, you can turn me on, but don’t expect me to respect you. Yes, I might find you attractive on the outside, but that won’t make me think of you as attractive on the inside. Sure you might get my attention, but it will be negative attention.

Given that we’ve established that a simple bikini or an inch of skin between shirt and pant gets “negative attention,” this guy needs his head adjusted. What really gets to me is that these dipshits put everything in their own context. A girl wearing revealing clothing doesn’t get respect because of how she makes the guy feel. These guys keep talking about how they want girls of substance and then demand that “substance” cannot wear sexy clothes; they complain about how hard it is for them not to sin and then request that girls self-police their clothing and behaviour as if the two required equivalent effort.

It’s just sad.

1. Wait, do people actually still whack it to the Swimsuit Issue? I mean, seriously, porn is so easy to get now. What’s the point of the Swimsuit Issue? Or maybe we’re dealing with people here for whom the Swimsuit Issue is as close as they ever get to porn? Not that they don’t have access to porn, but that the Swimsuit Issue is the most they can conceive of porn actually being? Like, they look at the cover of a Vivid Video flick and think “I bet that sinful video has simply TONS of girls in swimsuits lounging around.” [↩]
2. I suppose we should applaud that thirteen-year-old for being able to appreciate the beauty of a woman’s back at such a young age. When I was thirteen, I think I would have preferred it if girls were made entirely of tits. Like, foot-to-head. All tits. [↩]
3. TUG TUG TUG! [↩]
4. Up to age 35! Forever young! [↩]

The one thing Archie Andrews can be thankful for is that Betty Cooper doesn’t (usually) have god-like magical powers that allow her to kill or maim other people on a whim. Harvey… er… No-Last-Name is not so lucky. As revealed in this story from Sabrina # 21 (September 1974), written by Frank Doyle and drawn by Stan Goldberg before his characters’ faces started melting, Sabrina has adopted a policy of talking nice to her boyfriend while quietly using her Satanic powers to wreak destruction on any girl who even looks his way.

The violence begins in the splash panel, as Sabrina congratulates herself on her own lack of jealousy while literally raining thunder and lightning down on this poor girl whose only crime was to be (inexplicably) interested in Harvey. The whole thing has a “why don’t you stop drenching and electrocuting yourself” feel too it.

Then, after the girl has made it clear that she’s been thoroughly scared away, Sabrina tries to murder her by making a heavy sign fall on top of her. Just for the hell (again, literally) of it. Also, “Eeyipe!” was clearly a favourite Frank Doyle word along with “EEP!” “Urk!” and “W-ell.”

The freckled hell-spawn then returns to telling her poor sap of a boyfriend how wonderful he is, but senses danger when a stranger winks at him. So of course she does what anyone would do in a situation like that: causes her to have an entire supply of garbage poured onto her. I guess she was allowed to escape without any permanent scars only because she didn’t actually talk to him.

And, as the story ends, we see Sabrina casually destroying the lives, bodies and futures of literally every other young woman in sight, because it’s better to turn them into reptiles amphibians or cast them down to the centre of the Earth rather than risk having them talk to a guy who would later be played by Nate Richert. (Whatever happened to Nate Richert anyway?) I think my favourite image is of the girl being pulled into a mysterious building with a “girls wanted” sign. Apparently Sabrina is also using her witchcraft to sell women into prostitution.

I just wonder what Betty Cooper would do if she had supernatural powers. How could she ever top Sabrina’s combination of cruelty, viciousness and pathology?

I’m sorry I asked.

Is it okay that I am kinda skeeved out by this?

I mean I been busy the last few weeks because I was in America and all and I’m totally gonna talk about that later when I’m not busy being me, but… ewwwwww, Kevin Church! Ewwwwww!

You may or may not have heard about what has recently happened to Constance McMillen. For those who haven’t, she’s an out lesbian who’s graduating from high school this year, and wanted to go to prom. When the school banned her from prom, she sued for the right to attend, so they cancelled the prom. Then the school was legally forced to have a prom, so their response was to throw two proms: one for Constance and her date and a handful of other students (including two kids with learning disabilities – STAY CLASSY, ITAWAMBA COUNTY), and one for everybody else which they kept secret. (Admittedly, the secret prom kind of looks like it sucked, but I think that has more to do with it being Bumfuck Wherever, Missisippi than any sort of guilty.)

It honestly just staggers me that people could be so hateful and petty. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, these shits were lying to her face for what must have been weeks, and for what? Because Constance seems like a pretty awesome person, all things considered. Are these people just trying to confirm everybody’s hunches about what Missisippi is like? Is that the plan? Because it’s fucking working like gangbusters.

I thought for a second that I should be all sanctimonious and write an open letter to Constance about how life’s going to get ten billion times better the moment she gets the fuck out of there and moves somewhere where gays aren’t considered third-class citizens – you know, like Iowa – but then thought better of it, because it’s pretty obvious from all these stories that, as said, she’s an awesome person and she knows pretty well that once she gets the fuck out of there things are going to get better anyway. But it also occurs to me for every Constance out there, there’s got to be a hundred other desperately unhappy gay teenagers, closeted or not, in exactly the same situation as her: having it reinforced, every day of their lives, that they are lesser.

So, to all of them: it’s not your fault. Yes, it is entirely possible to live in a town where everybody else is an asshole. And yes, when you leave, it will get endlessly better in more ways than you could ever believe. If you choose to stay and try and change minds, my heart’s out to you. But if you want to leave and just be happy, then do it; it’ll work out, believe me.

(yes I am still on hiatus shut up)

So a few people emailed me asking me to say something about Warner Todd Huston’s screed about the issue of Captain America where the tea partiers are shown in a less than sympathetic light. Individuals unfamiliar with Warner Todd Huston may need to know that this instance probably represents the apex of his influence as a professional complainant, as Warner Todd has previously complained about all sorts of other things and nobody has ever taken him seriously. However, Marvel Comics is now owned by Disney, which means that Joe Quesada – never exactly one to court the dislike of anybody other than the dedicated fanboys who will buy comics regardless of how many times he makes Spider-Man sell his soul to save an old lady – apologized immediately, because maybe Disney would fire him or something.

(I jest, of course. Let’s be honest: it makes sense for Marvel to apologize because it’s not worth the hassle of Sean Hannity crusading against them. It likewise makes sense for Ed Brubaker to apologize, because regardless of his personal beliefs he’s got a family to feed and there are more important things to go to bat over than a page out of a licensed character comic book that got some cretins’ undies up in a twist.)

This is a multipart saga, so let us begin.

1.) Warner Todd Huston Is Angry About Captain America #602

Warner Todd was very angry about this issue, and the reason he is angry is this:

In it the current Captain (there have been a few of them, apparently) is on the trail of a faux Captain America that is mentally deranged and getting chummy with some white supremacist, anti-government, survivalists types going by the name of “the Watchdogs.”

That “white supremacist” thing is a sticking point for Warner Todd, and it’s part of the reason he’s an idiot. Here are all the quotes from Captain America #602 wherein the Watchdogs are referred to as white supremacists:

(sound of tumbleweed drifting through empty town)

…oh wait, there aren’t any. Now, granted, the Watchdogs were introduced in 1987, a year after Warner “I Know All About Comics, Dammit” Todd says he quit reading them, so maybe he’s not aware that the Watchdogs, while always overtly right-wing and “traditional values”-y, were never actually portrayed as racists. (Mark Gruenwald, as I recall, wasn’t comfortable portraying them as such.) Similarly, in this issue, there is not one mention of the Watchdogs’ attitudes towards race.

Werner Todd is inferring motivation, plain and simple. He sees a mythical organization of baddies modeled after right-wing extremist militias and assumes they must be racist. There is literally not one thing in the entire comic where you can assume anything about the Watchdogs’ or protestors’ racial beliefs based on their actions. You have to want to see it.¹

But there is more:

The Captain tells him, “no it’s perfect… this all fits right into my plan.” After this we find that the Captain’s plan is to send the black man into a redneck bar to pretend to be a black man working for the IRS and to get everyone all mad… because… well, you know that every white person is a racist that hates black civil servants, right?

It feels a bit oversimplistic to point out that Bucky’s plan is actually to draw the attention of traveling Watchdog recruiters by pretending to beat up a civil servant and be all “I hate the gubmint” while they’re watching – because the Watchdogs hate the federal government, you see – but amazingly, Warner Todd was unable to figure out this actually pretty simple bit of plot. Now, granted, Ed Brubaker didn’t write in some expository thought balloons saying things like “Must make this look good… so the Watchdogs notice me and ask me to join them!” but then again I guess he made the mistake of writing above a sixth-grade reading level.

So, there you have it, America. Tea Party protesters just “hate the government,” they are racists, they are all white folks, they are angry, and they associate with secretive white supremacist groups that want to over throw the U.S. government.

My word, why would anybody ever associate tea partiers with racism? Why would anybody dare suggest that extremists might try to infiltrate the tea party movement for the purposes of recruitment? (I’m not even gonna bother collecting hyperlinks about tea partiers being “angry” or mostly white, because seriously now, come on.)

2.) Carla Hoffman Decides To Be Reasonable With A Jackass

In response to Marvel’s nigh-immediate capitulation to Warner Todd’s offense that a portrayal of a tea party rally would even dare hint at tea partiers being slightly racist rather than upstanding moral whatevers, Carla Hoffman wrote a response, to which Warner Todd immediately wrote both a patronizing comment wherein he was offended that Carla hadn’t heard of him and he did too know about these here comical books, and then, not satisfied with that, an additional blog entry, because he decided that Carla was a stupidhead.

This is mostly Carla’s fault for treating Warner Todd as someone interested in discourse. She made this mistake because Carla, at root, is a nice person who wants to get along with everybody. I, however, am not a nice person and I do not give a tinker’s cuss if I get along with Warner Todd or not. The man is a pustule on public discourse and should be treated as such.²

3.) Warner Todd Escalates

Anyway. After Warner Todd complains about how liberals are stupid and self-righteous and don’t understand complex concepts – and how come they don’t just talk politely to old Warner Todd anyhow? – for a few paragraphs, he gets into the meat of his diatribe.

I should start this discussion by saying that there isn’t anything wrong with enjoying comic books, even as an adult. They can be fun, for sure. But to imagine that comic books offer anything other than lowgrade entertainment is laughable. Comics are not high art (in fact, most of them are horrible even as graphic art) and they most certainly do not equal anything of the sort of deep, consequential literature. Comics are a childish, formulaic, lowest common denominator form of entertainment. It doesn’t make them evil or useless or bad necessarily. It just makes them low-end, fun. They are nothing to be taken seriously. If you are someone that lives for your next comic, or you want to claim that comic books are “art” worthy of serious consideration… you need to get out of your parent’s basement a little more often.

First off, the incidence of a “parents’ basement” joke (with improper use of an apostrophe, way to go you professional writer you!) should be the first and most obvious sign that Warner Todd is a hack of the first degree and that this moment of accidental relevance is indeed the pinnacle of his professional life, and that should make you feel sad if you are a good person. I am not an especially good person, so it makes me feel dark and demonic glee.

Secondly, the fact that Warner Todd declaims comics as “horrible even as graphic art” just goes to show you that he’s an ignoramus who doesn’t know anything about the form generally. But maybe you want specific proof that he’s an idiot in this regard? Here you go:

Let’s start with the visual. Graphically, it isn’t very well drafted. It does have the benefit of being created in the semi-realist style that began to be popular in the 1980s, though, which instantly makes it better than today’s comics drawn in that horrible Japanese Anime/Manga style that has so pervaded the comic book industry of late.

Overcapitalized and barely coherent attack on manga aside, this is excerpted from Warner Todd’s very very long and very very stupid review of Watchmen. Yes, folks. You got that right. Warner Todd thinks that Dave Gibbons’ art on Watchmen “isn’t very well drafted.”

This is the point where you have to just kind of stare. It’s like somebody professing to know a lot about literature and saying something like “Dostoyevsky, he wasn’t really much of a writer” or how they’re very knowledgeable about classical music and saying “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony? Nothing really special about it.” It’s not that they’re advancing a contrarian opinion, because there are a number of very reasonable critiques one can make of Watchmen – it relies too heavily on a knowledge of the form and is self-referential, Alan Moore is sometimes too self-indulgent in his asides, the pirate story as allegory is forced – but saying that Dave Gibbons’ art and layouts are bad is just so fucking ignorant of the form itself that you have to immediately disqualify the speaker as knowing a damn thing about comics generally, no matter how many comics he collected back before 1986 when he quit collecting.³

(ASIDE: Other things Warner Todd does not like about Watchmen include: Nite Owl not being able to get it up initially for Silk Spectre, Ozymandias winning, the comic’s underlying belief that in order to be a superhero there has to be something more or less wrong with you, and the two Bernies being “unlikeable characters” because they’re Americans being written by an Englishman. No, really. He says all of this. Really, if you want to see the most trite, lazy comics “analysis” I’ve read in quite some time, do yourself a favour and click the link. We could totally have a contest! “Stupidest Thing Warner Todd Huston Says About Watchmen.“)

Anyway. Enough about Warner Todd and Watchmen, the point of which is merely to illustrate the depths of his know-nothingness. Let us continue. After Warner Todd complains at length about Carla saying “welcome to comics” and how he had tons and tons of comics back in the day (which was twenty-five years ago)

The “letter” was written by one Carla Hoffman and is replete with uninformed assumptions, hackneyed pop psychology, all wrapped up in a total failure to observe the first tenet in journalism: contact your subject before you write anything.

I can’t think of anything I’d want to do more than contact an over-ripe douchebag like this guy!

Again, Warner Todd is taking offense that Carla didn’t bother to do her research and find out that he used to read comic books twenty-five years ago so of course he knows everything there is to know about comics. Instead, Carla merely assumed that Warner Todd’s inability to actually discuss the comic in question, combined with his show of naivete over there being multiple Captain Americas, meant that he was unfamiliar with the current state of comics and comic storytelling. I wonder why she thought such a thing!

Of course, this uninformed assumption shows her arrogance. You see, because I criticized the comic book she assumed that I couldn’t possibly have ever liked comics.

No, Warner Todd. She wrote that because she’s polite, and because your argument was whining bullshit with little to no basis in reality dependent on your projection. Carla, being nice, made the assumption that you were ignorant rather than stupid and/or intellectually dishonest.

Unintentionally funny was her prosaic proclamation that the Internet spawns “strong opinion” as if my piece was merely that, yet her’s isn’t.

DEAR “PROFESSIONAL WRITER” WARNER TODD HUSTON: Please learn how to use a fucking apostrophe.

Also, Carla’s piece might be opinion – sure it is – but “strong?” She used very mild language. She didn’t use any invective or make a single personal attack – you finding ways to be insulted by her essay doesn’t count, Warner Todd – or indeed do anything other than say “you took it one way, but isn’t it also possible to read it this way?” That’s not “strong.” That’s mild. You know how I know it’s mild? Because she didn’t start making fun of your name and calling you “Weiner Todd,” which I am certain happened to you in high school in between vigorous masturbation sessions over a copy of Vampirella, wherein you had two, count ‘em TWO, letters to the editor published.

Or, in other words: stop being a whiny-ass titty-baby, Warner Todd.

Apparently someone forgot to alert little Miss Hoffman that there haven’t been any “Pro-Bush rallies” since about 2003 when he last ran for president. Further, Miss Hoffman obviously has no clue that the Tea Party movement is just as mad at Bush as they are Clinton and Obama.

They were so mad at him that they sat on their asses for eight years until President Blacky McBlackerton got elected! That sure showed him. Of course, Carla wasn’t attempting to suggest that Tea Party rallies were explicitly pro-Bush rallies – why would anybody think that – but instead that the Tea Partiers, rather than being apolitical as per their claim, were merely an extension of Republican activism. Of course, reading that would require the ability to understand subtlety and nuance, which Weiner Todd isn’t good at except for when he’s trying to find proof that Ed Brubaker thinks tea partiers are racists.

Uh, no. Sam Wilson is not his “real name.” Sam Wilson is a character’s name. It isn’t a real person we’re talking about here. This poor young lady cannot tell reality from fiction, apparently.

Weiner Todd here feels the need to take a cheap shot at Carla, who was honestly nothing but pleasant to him. “Real name,” in this instance, of course refers to “Sam Wilson’s personal name, as opposed to calling him ‘the Falcon.’” I assume that Weiner Todd knows this, and had to sit back and have a good giggle in his study – fondly remembering his erotic adventures with Vampirella, who whispered in his ear that he was a true comics fan.

Anyway, there’s an awful lot more in this poor girl’s “open letter” that puts her in a pretty bad light for logic, intelligence, and delusion.

“…which I’m not gonna get into. No reason!”

Since right after her letter to me I replied. (You can see my reply here, too), let’s get to the unhinged, hatemongers that chose to reply to my posting after Hoffman’s.

DEAR “PROFESSIONAL WRITER” WERNER TODD HUSTON: Learn how to not splice a fucking comma.

But anyway, the rest of his article is just Weiner Todd whining endlessly about how commenters at Robot 6 weren’t nice to him after he shat copious and unearned condescension on Carla:

There were, of course, all sorts of distempered name calling and obscene language, the sort we’ve come to expect from the left. There was the ever common “asshole,” the varied spellings of “douche bag,” an occasional “jerk,” and “Nazi.” Even at least one “fucking clown” was thrown in for good measure. But remember, each and every one of these poor youngsters assumed that they were more open minded, nicer, more tolerant than that mean old Warner Todd Huston.

This is one of my least favorite tactics: the “barbarians at the gate” argument, ever beloved of conservative writers on the internet. “Oh my heavens! You have said a swear! That completely invalidates every single one of your points because you are clearly no gentleman, sir! Good day! I must exit before I come down with a case of the vapours!”

For the sake of illumination, let me present how Weiner Todd opened his essay attacking Carla:

These emails and replies to my comic book analysis really brought it home that to be a liberal you must make assumptions of your enemy so that they fit neatly into your preconceived notions of the world and you must never try to ask them any questions to determine if they really do fit into the box you’ve constructed for them. You must assume you are more grown up than those you attack. You must assume that you are more intelligent. You also must assume that people that like the same sort of things that you like must think just like you do. In other words, to be a liberal you must begin every discussion, every consideration of ideological premises, with the base assumption that all good people are just like you. Everyone else is venal, mean, stupid or low. Not just wrong, but evil.

I’m not sure what’s more impressive here: the sheer volume of projection on Weiner Todd’s part, or the fact that this is just a long series of personal attacks largely unjustified by the rest of his column where he then complains about other people’s personal attacks. For people like Warner Todd, “civility” isn’t anything to do with attitude or manners; it’s to do with specific words. It’s a set of rules – don’t say this, don’t say that, but this and the other are permissible – rather than a sense of respecting other people. When you understand that attitude, you understand a lot about Weiner Todd.⁴

1. Now, granted, the Falcon is leery of hanging out with the tea partiers in the book. But guess what: Sam Wilson is a black liberal. Do you think black liberals want to hang out with tea partiers generally? I’m sorry, but when did we get so, ahem, politically correct as to demand that tea partiers be perceived equally by citizens of all colours and creeds as upstanding and moral figures in a work of fiction, and even so by fictional figures who would reasonably be leery of them were they real people? Warner Todd, you big ol’ Tolerance Bear, you. [↩]
2. Also, he is the only guy I have ever seen who manages to look worse both with facial hair and without. If he is going to learn anything from comic books, it is the value of a mask. [↩]
3. “Hey, guys! I know a lot about music! I stopped buying albums back in 1986 but I still know lots about them! Do you guys like Duran Duran? They’re pretty awesome, right?” [↩]
4. And, one hopes, why I completely abandoned any attempt at civility after the first paragraph of this entry. [↩]

- The way that Green Arrow somehow shoots an entire flight of dagger-icicles with a single arrow

- When Hawkman is in his armor he totally has an armor potbelly

- The way that Stargirl was the most annoying character ever

- The fact that Geoff Johns’ dialogue is, what, maybe two steps above George Lucas’ dialogue when the former tries to get all Meaningful and Important and the orchestra rises up in the background

- The way Dr. Fate sounds kind of like a Muppet

- How the members of the JSA constantly refer to those not there by their full names, which makes one wonder if, when they have a barbecue, they say things like “Sorry I’m late – Al Pratt forgot to pick me up. Did we get the hamburger buns?” “No, Alan Scott is getting the buns, and Wesley Dodds is getting the beer”

- Actual line spoken by Hawkman: “Why what, Green Punching Bag?” No really somebody paid Geoff Johns to write that

- Being reminded of the fact that the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern would look incredibly dorky in real life

- How everybody’s attitude towards Clark is about one degree shy of actual outright cocksucking

- The constant carping by Hawkman (played by an actor who is 38) about how he and the Justice Society were fighting crime when Clark (played by an actor who is 31) and Oliver (played by an actor who is 33) were little kids, like having three days’ worth of stubble suddenly makes you super-old

- HEY EVERYBODY J’ONN SAID HOW HE LIKES COOKIES AND THEY NAMECHECKED MICHAEL HOLT SO THIS IS THE BEST SUPERHERO TV MOVIE THING EVER

- Hinting of “the coming apocalypse” by Amanda Waller to give hope to Smallville fans that maybe the Fourth World will be the one major story arc Smallville does not completely fuck up

- That I knew it was going to be this shitty in advance and I still watched it

Paul Giamatti voicing Asterix in the English-language version of Asterix and the Vikings.

Brad Garrett as Obelix works quite well, but every time I see Asterix open his mouth I now expect him to say “dubbayooENNNNNNNNbeesee!”

The year is 1958. The month is June. The teenagers of small-town America are filled with a nebulous sense of rebellion against repressive sexuality and social convention. It was inevitable that some business genius would make money off their forbidden longings. A proto-beatnik named Forsythe P. Jones opens his own “escort service,” which involves not only renting himself out to all the women of Riverdale, but wearing any disguise that suits their kinky fantasies. He even tries to expand the business by taking on Reginald Mantle as a sort of junior gigolo, to take up with women who are too scary for the boss to handle himself.

I’ve once again done the embeddable YouTube video thing, but some of the panels are hard to read in this format, so you can also click here to see the story with the original page layouts. (For those who care about such things, Archie comics had a lot more panels in the late ’50s and early ’60s than they had before or after. Sometime in the ’60s most of their artists switched to a rule whereby there couldn’t be more than six panels per page.)

Also, an important principle that Dan DeCarlo followed in his ’50s prime was that girls’ skirts must be flowing in the breeze whenever possible. Riverdale must have been some windy town.

One thing I’ve been wondering for years is whether “It sounds creamy!” was actually a slang phrase of the time or if it’s just a vaguely dirty-sounding substitute for “dreamy.”

Has there ever been a news story as anticlimatic as the revelation that prisoner “suicides” at Guantanamo Bay were probably actually murders? Seriously, is anybody surprised by the idea that Guantanamo Bay had torturing going on at this point? The BBC had a guard tearfully request forgiveness from his former captives just last week, for crissake. All this story does is confirm what most people already knew; you can practically hear Fox News anchors practicing their “you have to torture a few eggs to make an omelet” speeches already, maybe with a side of “and if it’s so bad why hasn’t Obama shut it down yet?”

Of course, this puts that whole “committing suicide was an act of war” rhetoric that was flying around at the time in proper context. At the time I thought it was just stupid. I should have recognized overcompensation when I saw it.

I don’t think any comic book of the ’70s had as much insane shit in it as Archie at Riverdale High. And that’s saying a lot, because we are talking about the ’70s here. But this title, launched in the early ’70s as a home for “serious” stories focusing on academic or athletic issues, packed an impressive number of WTF moments into its bi-monthly issues. You could pick up an issue at random and find: Archie beats up the members of a rival school when they “touch his body with a Central High towel”; a famous painter agrees to paint Mr. Weatherbee on condition that Archie will pose for him in the nude (which he does); Archie infiltrates another rival high school in drag; Archie uses special-effects technology to convince everyone that a kid is actually a superpowered alien named “Nazda.” Many of these stories were also full of floridly melodramatic captions, a possible throwback to Frank Doyle’s early days writing and drawing “Space Rangers” and “Wambi, the Jungle Boy”.

You can make an argument for the higher weirdness quotient of Life With Archie, where Archie spent the ’70s battling Satanic, child-murdering teddy bears, but that title always had fantasy/alternate-universe stuff. But what happens to a kid’s brain when he picks up a comic about high school adventures and is treated to a story like this one, where Betty loses her memory, wanders off and becomes a mud wrestler? And then the only way for Archie and Jughead to save her is for Jughead to disguise himself as a woman, and what is it with this title and men in drag, anyway?

I turned this into an embeddable YouTube video because it’s just easier to post that way. The Hector Berlioz music is just meant to speed the story along and the choice is not of any significance, though I take pride in the fact that the big cymbal crash coincides with the key moment in the whole story: Jughead’s realization that Archie wants him to make The Supreme Sacrifice. Which, as I mentioned, involves drag.

That story pretty much speaks for itself. I do want to point out one thing that has haunted me since young me encountered this in a digest. Understand, I don’t believe in nit-picking the plot holes in anything, let alone comic books. Pointing out every plot hole as if each one is some kind of crippling flaw is almost as bad as pointing out every continuity goof in a movie. All that said:

This previously-unknown kid who goes to the carnival — he has to be a new kid because they couldn’t let any of their regulars willingly go to such a “sleazy outfit” — sees a girl from his school who has been missing for days, maybe weeks. His first statement after recognizing her is “I’ve got to call Archie.” I’m just saying, if this guy thinks he should call Archie before notifying the police… or her parents… or even the principal… then he is so dumb that he probably walked into an open manhole as soon as this story was over. And that explains why we never saw him again.

The other important lesson from this comic is that you can learn a lot about characters from what they say when Jughead throws them Helluva Far™. Betty says “EEP!” like all good-hearted people. Stan Snavely exclaims “AIEEE!,” like some Jonny Quest villain. That’s how we know he’s evil.

For those interested, Yank and Doodle are the kid sidekicks of the Black Owl, a superhero who wears blue and red and therefore makes no sense. The Black Owl is a suburban family man and Yank and Doodle are his sons, but Yank and Doodle are not aware that the Black Owl is their father for some reason the Black Owl never adequately explains. This also makes no sense. In fact, the Black Owl is so concerned with keeping his identity a secret from his sons that he actually makes them meet him on the other side of town from their home in an abandoned lot. This continues to make no sense. Also, the Black Owl has a supercar that can transform into a plane, and is not somehow a millionaire of any type but instead basically Ward Cleaver in spandex, which makes the least sense of all.

Ah, Golden Age comics! Thank god Alex Ross was born so that you could be dug out of justifiable obscurity!

The remains of Underground New Beijing.