10 Reasons why Penny & Aggie is BETTER THAN ARCHIE

[Papuasblya]

1) There are no dumb jock stereotypes tromping around and saying "duh". There aren't even any jocks.
2) Nobody is totally breezing through academically. Nobody even appears to be doing homework.
3) You can tell Penny & Aggie apart by more than hair color.
4) Nobody has a rock band. Nobody even plays an instrument.
5) We don't see them hanging out at a particular refreshment stand. We rarely even see them at the food court.
6) The adults' glasses don't fly off when they're flabbergasted.
7) Nobody has an impossible ability to metabolize hamburger meat.
8) Less than 30% of the community has a first and last name starting with the same letter.
9) Nobody is simultaneously a fairly gifted athlete and a total klutz.
10) Nobody wears sweaters with one big letter on them.

[Shadrach]

Great topic, Papuasblya. Let's see what we can add:

11) The principal isn't constantly caught off-guard by superintendent visits. (The Simpsons stole that bit from Archie.)
12) The characters are portrayed consistently. No one is a troublemaker in one storyline and a saviour of the school/town/universe/God in the next storyline.
13) None of the boys attempts to date two girls in the same evening.
14) The school chemistry lab never explodes.
15) No story has consisted entirely of the boys ogling their scantily-clad female classmates. Nor do the boys hold daily "beauty" or "girl-watching" contests.
16) No one has the ability to walk around with eyes shut and make it through the day uninjured.
17) The characters use reasonably up-to-date slang. None of that "Wow, dig that gnarly rad tomater" stuff.
18 ) No one drives a beat-up, oil-leaking car that Henry Ford would've considered obsolete.
19) The students never stage a rally to prevent a teacher from resigning. Not even Nick.
20) The students never have athletic events, or other run-ins, with a rival school consisting entirely of sneering, cheating delinquents.

[JackFairy]

Wait, are these supposed to be thing in FAVOR of "Penny & Aggie"?



But seriously, those things are all awesome, not bad.

[Shadrach]

Hehe. You have a point there. The stock situations we've mentioned are in fact what gives Archie its charm and familiarity. So, for example, the characterization is inconsistent, but it's consistently inconsistent.

I'm reminded of (what else) an Archie story in which the students in Archie's year successfully campaign to stop the school board from shutting down Miss Beazley's cafeteria. The story ends with a frosh overhearing Archie and Reggie making fun of the cafeteria food and asking why, considering they've just put in all that effort to save it. The answer? "That's why we did it. Half the fun here is knocking the food." And Miss Beazley adds, "If these jokers ever stopped knocking my cooking, I'd really be in trouble." So it's the same with reading Archie comics (something, actually, I haven't done since ninth grade or so): much of the fun comes from mocking the repeated stories, the physically identical girl characters, the plot holes, and such. That's why the publishers keep on doing it, I'm sure.

[Ollie]

Now that I read the list, I'm sort of disappointed the science lab hasn't been blown up yet.

[Jabroniville]

Indeed. I love Archie more than any 25-year old male should, and even *I* acknowledge the ridiculous plots.


21) The male characters are as capable of rendering the females as incapable of doing anything other than grovelling as the females are vice-versa, if not moreso.
22) The smart-mouthed smooth-talking ladies' man doesn't get his comeuppance in every story, so it means more when it finally happens.
23) The characters' lives aren't an endless line of jobs that are only there for the breadth of the immediate storyline.
24) More than three body types exist for women.
25) Ugly people actually appear to exist in numbers greater than two.

[Papuasblya]

26. Your socioeconomic status is not entombed in stone.
27. If you're not white, you don't look European with a different skin tone.
28. Practical jokes have actual consequences.
29. If you play your cards right you can get laid.
30. #29 applies even if you are an adult.

[sweep]

yet...

[daanton]

*sigh*

[Draggy]

#31) None of the characters are named 'Jughead'.

[daanton]

#31) None of the characters are named 'Jughead'.

Well, that at least is true...

[Shadrach]

To be fair to Archie Comics, there is to me a more substantial advantage that Penny and Aggie has: it's able to explore the area of teenage sexuality far more freely. Given that Archie's target audience is in fact not teens but preteens, the publisher has adopted a stringent content policy which, among other things, states that characters must "not be depicted in explicit activities inappropriate for a youthful audience" and "not be shown nude." Whereas T and Gisèle, aiming for an older target audience, are free to show teenagers talking about sex and (within limits of taste) engaging in sexual activities.

Furthermore, although there's no reference to homosexuality in their content policy, Archie titles (to the best of my knowledge) lack even a mention or hint of same-sex attraction, even in a purely romantic way. There's been speculation over the years that the reason Jughead had girlfriends for a brief period in the 1980s was to eliminate rumours that he was gay while there was an anti-gay backlash going on due to AIDS fears. However, it is just that--speculation. More likely, Archie Comics don't mention homosexuality for the same reason they don't mention other controversial social issues (apart from the occasional "Say No to Drugs" PSA): they want to reach as wide a preteen market as possible, which means they must take the sensibilities of parents (and many retailers) into consideration.

Again, T and Gisèle don't have this restriction, so they can freely have Sara speculate and Penny dream erotic dreams about Aggie.

Edited to add: As an unrelated aside, I do find it funny how Archie Comics policy states that characters must not be shown engaging in "violent or abusive behavior" when so many stories involve Moose pounding on Reggie for trying to score with Midge. Or when many "Little Archie" stories involve Fangs Fogarty beating the crap out of kids for...whatever reason.

[Papuasblya]

#31) None of the characters are named 'Jughead'.

No but off-frame I bet a lot of them get called something that sounds a lot like it.

[daanton]

To be fair to Archie Comics, there is to me a more substantial advantage that Penny and Aggie has: it's able to explore the area of teenage sexuality far more freely. Given that Archie's target audience is in fact not teens but preteens, the publisher has adopted a stringent content policy which, among other things, states that characters must "not be depicted in explicit activities inappropriate for a youthful audience" and "not be shown nude." Whereas T and Gisèle, aiming for an older target audience, are free to show teenagers talking about sex and (within limits of taste) engaging in sexual activities.

Furthermore, although there's no reference to homosexuality in their content policy, Archie titles (to the best of my knowledge) lack even a mention or hint of same-sex attraction, even in a purely romantic way. There's been speculation over the years that the reason Jughead had girlfriends for a brief period in the 1980s was to eliminate rumours that he was gay while there was an anti-gay backlash going on due to AIDS fears. However, it is just that--speculation. More likely, Archie Comics don't mention homosexuality for the same reason they don't mention other controversial social issues (apart from the occasional "Say No to Drugs" PSA): they want to reach as wide a preteen market as possible, which means they must take the sensibilities of parents (and many retailers) into consideration.

Again, T and Gisèle don't have this restriction, so they can freely have Sara speculate and Penny dream erotic dreams about Aggie.

Don't forget, the Comics Code Authority doesn't seem to apply anywhere anymore... except Archie Comics, for one.

[Kashi]

Er... technically, Jughead's name is Forsythe.
Jus' sayin'.