I'm probably setting myself up to be pilloried, but is anybody else reading this?
I picked up an issue of Life With Archie: The Married Life because I'm generally into comics and will try anything once. Now I'm slightly hooked. The plotlines are as preposterous as they are in an average Archie comic, but they're seriously preposterous!
Here's the deal: There are two main stories in each magazine that follow parallel lives for all the Archie characters based on whichever girlfriend Archie finally picks and marries, Betty or Veronica. The stories are utterly soap-opera-ish and bring a heavy heaping of drama to the town of Riverdale. In "Archie Loves Veronica," Archie and Veronica are working in Veronica's father's company. In "Archie Loves Betty," Archie and Betty try to make a go of it in New York City but live like starving artists until finally moving back to Riverdale. Around the two pairings the rest of the characters face all manner of BSG-like tragedy and hardship (or at least as much as the comics' publishers can stomach). Hiram Lodge is cast as the main villain in both storylines, though it's more pronounced in ALV for obvious reasons.
So what keeps me hunting for these magazines? Stuff like this:
-In both storylines, Jughead and Midge are a couple and trying to make a go of owning the Chok'lit Shoppe after Pop retires.
-In ALB, Miss Grundy (now Mrs. Weatherbee), succumbs to Cancer.
-In ALV, Moose, having learned to control his anger with the help of his new girlfriend and being dismayed at the changes happening in his town, ran for mayor AND WON!
(Go back and read that line again. It bears repeating.)
While none of the storylines are terribly original in terms of drama, they put the Archie Gang in situations you'd never see them in anywhere else ('cept maybe for fanfic, and I think the publishers are strict about forbidding that). For the curiosity factor alone, you should at least skim through an issue of this if you run across one.
I picked up an issue of Life With Archie: The Married Life because I'm generally into comics and will try anything once. Now I'm slightly hooked. The plotlines are as preposterous as they are in an average Archie comic, but they're seriously preposterous!
Here's the deal: There are two main stories in each magazine that follow parallel lives for all the Archie characters based on whichever girlfriend Archie finally picks and marries, Betty or Veronica. The stories are utterly soap-opera-ish and bring a heavy heaping of drama to the town of Riverdale. In "Archie Loves Veronica," Archie and Veronica are working in Veronica's father's company. In "Archie Loves Betty," Archie and Betty try to make a go of it in New York City but live like starving artists until finally moving back to Riverdale. Around the two pairings the rest of the characters face all manner of BSG-like tragedy and hardship (or at least as much as the comics' publishers can stomach). Hiram Lodge is cast as the main villain in both storylines, though it's more pronounced in ALV for obvious reasons.
So what keeps me hunting for these magazines? Stuff like this:
-In both storylines, Jughead and Midge are a couple and trying to make a go of owning the Chok'lit Shoppe after Pop retires.
-In ALB, Miss Grundy (now Mrs. Weatherbee), succumbs to Cancer.
-In ALV, Moose, having learned to control his anger with the help of his new girlfriend and being dismayed at the changes happening in his town, ran for mayor AND WON!
(Go back and read that line again. It bears repeating.)
While none of the storylines are terribly original in terms of drama, they put the Archie Gang in situations you'd never see them in anywhere else ('cept maybe for fanfic, and I think the publishers are strict about forbidding that). For the curiosity factor alone, you should at least skim through an issue of this if you run across one.
