Comic books in Milwaukee. Photo courtesy of Lena Rose/Unsplash.
Good afternoon, faithful readers!
As you may well be aware, we received some serious criticism from our Milwaukee readers regarding last week’s “savage deconstruction” of the Angora rabbit. While we send our heartfelt apologies to those whom we may have offended, we cannot let our journalistic integrity take a backseat to petty emotionality.
This week, we’ll be comparing Comic Books!
Story: Watchmen, by Alan Moore, is a epic postmodern take on the grizzled world of the contemporary superhero; Archie and Friends, issue 111, by George Gladir (Segment: The Archies in “Makin’ it Big”), Mike Pellowski (segment: Jughead in “Cool Customers”) and Craig Boldman (segment: Nancy in “Ms. Match”) consists of the trials and tribulations of Archie and his tortured, teenage, suburban cohorts.
Watchmen broke new grounds in comic book story telling through layered flashbacks, fragmented narrative and elusive prose. This installment of Archie and Friends contributes three more vignettes to the Riverdale pastoral canon. Here we see Archie and the Archies gaining long deserved national attention, high school drama and loads of the gluttonous Jughead’s wacky actions!
EDGE: Archie and Friends
Paper Stock: Archie and Friends, a clear descendant of the classic yellow press tradition, is manufactured on a timeless and comforting newsprint, the tactile reader will be gingerly licking their fingers to turn these delicate pages. Watchmen, by contrast, utilizes a glossy, consumer-friendly paper stock, durable enough to sit alongside the galaxy of respectable coffee table literature.
EDGE: incalculable; this is neither the time nor place incite a class war.
Realism: With a take-no prisoners, psychoanalytical approach to dystopian metropolitan life, Watchmen’s characters are as conceivable and coherent as they are vitriolic, not to mention aerobic!
Except Jon Osterman a.k.a. Dr. Manhattan, the blue, nudist ubermensch. Neither columnist was able to comprehend the function of this highly problematic character. (He can fly? There can be three of him? And sometimes he’s dark blue? Our analytical minds reel in confusion.)
But have no fear! Archie and Friends, issue 111, is a refreshing exercise in visceral, uncompromising realism. From the sports cars to the surfboards to Jughead’s snack-hiding drums and Veronica’s fashionably tight blouses, there is little in Archie that we cannot relate to in our postmodern American milieu.
EDGE: Archie and Friends.
CONSENSUS: Though Watchmen receives high marks for imagination, you can’t ignore Archie’s inimitable blue-collar charm.
Bon Voyage and many happy returns! Be sure to read our column next time, when we’ll be discussing the similarities and differences between the South Beach Diet and The Communist Manifesto.
brilliant.