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Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
April 12, 2014
You cannot kill Archie. We grew up on these comics. No one wants to read about Betty and Veronica fighting over a guy who isn’t there. And Reggie hasn’t got a foe-friend anymore and what is wrong with everyone. What will Mr. Weatherbee do and who will Big Moose beat up?
This 70-year-old (created in 1941) character has been ageless and the stories easy to read, clean fun. Obviously, killing Archie is a one shot deal at making pots of money on the sale till the novelty wears off and Archie comic spinoffs replace the original.
Already, there are Betty and Veronica specials and Jughead specials and the creators of Archie Comics seem to find refuge in the belief that this is reality. Oh, stop it. If someone had knocked off Phoebe or Monica or Joey it would have tanked in that year. Can you see Sesame Street without Big Bird or The Muppets without Kermit. Could you have Peanuts without Linus or Charlie Brown himself? For a bit of lucre why bring death to young children in a series that has been popular because it reflected good values even as it gently introduced elements of the changing social order. But it was always nice and ‘escapist’ and no one wants to go to Archie’s funeral.
Little Lulu never died, she faded away. Beetle Bailey has been a Private for decades, you cannot have him shot? You cannot have Hagar being hit by an arrow… it would be just horrible.
Life is hard enough and young children today know too much about the seamy side of life. They know about violence and they know about rape and they know about bombs and they know about the global blood spill so let them get lost now and again in a world where the ‘plot’ is simply Veronica trying to con Betty out of meeting Archie… that is happy sinister.
From the stuff I’ve read about why no one really knows why this macabre decision has been taken. Perhaps it is just a trial balloon intended to ignite interest and spike sales and that is all. Because it makes no sense to actually come out end of June with the set of comics that start with a valiant death or this hero… do we really need such a reality check?
Leave us our illusions of childhood and happy hours spent at Riverdale High, which was so much like ours.
Remember Popeye would survive even if we ran out of spinach.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
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