Veronica and Betty are Going Steady, and Other Gay Hints in Classic Archie Comics

Long before Kevin Keller came out in Veronica #202 (2010) and on tv in Riverdale (2017), you could find many references to gay men and lesbians in Archie comics.

And you didn't even have to take panels out of context.  Story after story hinted about the existence of same-sex desire.

For instance, Betty finds a little black book in Betty’s Diary 34 (1990), believes it is a boy’s date book, and is surprised to find that her name is not in it. “There’s no accounting for tastes,” she muses. “I’m a much better date than Tom Cameron or Ron Cook.”  

So this boy is dating boys, and it's an everyday occurence -- Betty is not the least surprised. 

A moment later, she realizes that it is actually Veronica’s book. But for a moment, there were gay students at Riverdale High.   

It's even easier to find explicit references to female same-sex desire. In “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (2000), the boys abandon the girls for the basketball playoffs, so the girls plan a series of “all girl nights.” Afterwards, when the boys are available for dates again, they refuse, explaining that “We discovered how much fun it was to hang out with just the girls.”

More after the break

80 Years of Archie Beefcake, Part 2: The Comics

Archie Andrews was introduced in Pep Comics 22 (December 1941), and practically invented the image of the American teenager, with countless thousands of comic book stories, plus cartoons, tv series, radio series, movies, and songs.  Preteens look to Archie for a glimpse of their future, and adults, for a nostalgic look at their past.  And gay boys can find in Archie Comics more shirtless and swimsuit-clad hunks than anywhere else on the comic rack.

Archie and his pals change year by year to keep up with contemporaryh fashions, slang, and pop culture, and so has the beefcake.  In swimsuit and locker-room shots, the guys  become more or less buffed, defined, depending on the interest of the comic artist and the changing expectations of masculine beauty.

1948.

Archie is thin, even underdeveloped, with little attention to realism in his arms and shoulders.  In the 1940s, svelte men like Cary Grant were iconic.

1959.

Archie and Jughead appear in the Dan Montana house style, with some indication of pecs and maybe a line down the stomach to indicate abs.

1973.

When I was reading Archie comics as a kid, there was a lot more attention to the detail of pecs, shoulders, and biceps, particularly in the "muscle bound" Big Moose.

1989

The guy's got a chest and well defined abs, in keeping with the muscleman craze defined by Schwarzenneger and Stallone.

More after the break

The Top 10 Hunks of "The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina"

I'm about halfway through The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the Netflix series revamping Sabrina the Teenage Witch from Archie Comics, although I must admit to fast-forwarding past the many smarmy scenes where Sabrina and her boyfriend Harvey discuss how much they love each other, care about each other, can't live without each other, would die for each other, etc., etc., etc.

The setting is beautifully realized.  Everybody in town lives in a creepy old house; teachers have offices full of heavy furniture and antique books; it's an antique horror movie bathed in sepia light.

I like the witches' religion, an over-the-top Satanism complete with Black Masses, names signed in blood, cannibalism, human sacrifices, and a grunting, goat-hoofed Dark Lord.  But it comes with many realistic, mundane touches, like casually saying "Praise Satan" the way fundamentalist Christians say "Praise the Lord."

I like the over-the-top acting, especially Sabrina's aunts, the dour "what will the other witches think?" Zelda and the cheery "have a cuppa" Hilda, who seems too nice to be evil.  I guess that's the point? 

Sabrina's Scoobies are also drawn with a very broad brush. There's Roz, the freethinking intellectual, who happens to be the daughter of the town minister (except everybody is Catholic); Suzie, the gender-fluid women's rights activist, who happens to be the daughter of a conservative farmer; and Harvey, a working-class jock whose father is downright abusive.  Daddy issues, anyone?

I'm not a big fan of Sabrina,  however: 16 years old, half mortal, half witch, torn between two worlds, gleefully using her magic to right the wrongs of her high school, while scheming to take down the Dark Lord himself.   Really?  Granted, she is the prophesied Chosen One.  Everyone has a vested interest her witchcraft success; Madame Satan, an Archie comics character from the 1950s, returns from oblivion to guide her; but still, that's a staggering amount of hubris.  Even Luke Skywalker waited until he was old enough to vote.

I really disliked a homophobic scene in which Sabrina and her allies get revenge on some bullying jocks (led by Ty Wood, left) by casting a spell to make them hug and kiss each other, then blackmailing them with the photographs.  Threatening to reveal that someone is gay?  Is being gay that shameful?

But, on the plus side, Cousin Ambrose gets a boyfriend, not a girlfriend.

And there's nearly as much beefcake as on Sabrina's sister show, Riverdale.

1. Longtime shirtless aficionado Ross Lynch as Harvey (top photo, right)

2. Ty Wood as the bully.

3. Chance Perdomo as Cousin Ambrose.

4. Darren Mann (left) as the boyfriend.







More after the break

Luke Perry: From Teen Idol to Hot Gay Nerd to Riverdale Dad

Viewers of the prison drama Oz in the spring of 2001 were treated to the sight of disgraced evangelical preacher Jeremiah Cloutier (Luke Perry) having his towel stolen as he leaves the shower, forcing him to walk back to his cell naked and swinging.

Male frontal nudity was commonplace on Oz, but this was Dylan McKay!

His character was homophobic, but what do you expect from an evangelical preacher?

Luke Perry got some teen idol attention while he was playing troubled Dylan on Beverly Hills 90210 (1990-2000), but not a lot of beefcake shots, so even seeing his tight, hairy chest was a big deal.

The versatile actor has been in several other gay-subtext vehicles:

The Triangle (2001): Two buddies (Luke, Dan Cortese) and a third guy get trapped in the Bermuda Triangle.

 Jeremiah (2002-2005) about two buddies (Luke, Malcolm Jamal Warner) wandering around in a postapocalyptic world.

And he's played gay characters:

Family Guy (2000): When Peter "accuses" Luke Perry of being gay in Meg's school newspaper, he sues them for slander. But he turns out to be gay after all.

Will and Grace (2005): he plays a "hot gay nerd" who Jack dates.

Later he played Archie Andrews' dad, Fred Andrews, on Riverdale, the teen angst revamp of the comic book series.

He died on March 4, 2019, at the age of 52.

Archie Comics Queer Hint: My Date Must Be a Boy

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, heterosexual desire was assumed a constant, a universal of human experience.  Same-sex desire was not only never mentioned, it could not be mentioned.

It not only didn't exist, it could not be conceived of.

It wasn't just a certainty that no boy on Earth had ever longed for the touch of another boy, not once in the history of the world.

We were unable to even imagine the possibility.

Boys who obviously longed for boys?

They were looking for a buddy or a role model.

Boys who obviously didn't care for girls?

They were shy, or immature, or hadn't found the right girl yet.

Boys who were derided as "fairies" and "fags"?

Their interest in art and ballet, their inability to catch a ball, obviously represented deficient masculinity, but they desired girls as heartily as every other boy.

Desire for the same sex was simply beyond the boundaries of our imagination.

It was easier to conceive of hobbits.


But there were hints, mysteries to mull over, to contemplate like zen koans, to puzzle out like cryptograms.

Men on tv or in movies who cared for each other, fought for each other, and walked side by side into the future.

Men who didn't marry, who lived alone or with other men.

Boys smiled at me, or touched me on the shoulder.

The sight of a muscular frame that filled me with inexplicable joy.

Small subtle signs.

With a bit of a mind flip, you're into the time slip.

It's not raining upstairs.

Sometime in junior high, I read an one-page story in an Archie comic book.  Big Ethel's friends criticize her for being indiscriminate, accuse her of accepting dates with anyone, anytime, anywhere.

On the contrary, Ethel says, she has very exacting standards.
1. Her date must be a boy.
2. He must be breathing.
3. He must be a slow runner (so she can catch him as he's fleeing in terror).

It was just a throwaway joke with the punch line of "slow runner."  But I was mesmerized.  There was something -- a logical fallacy -- a paradox -- a hint.

Slowly it dawned on me: Ethel has a rule about dating only boys.

Such a rule is necessary only if there are other groups of people whom she could date.

Does she only date teenage boys, and not adult men?
Or only date boys, and not girls?

Could a girl date a girl?
Could a boy date a boy?

It's not raining upstairs.

More Riverdale Beefcake

The second season of Riverdale has a convoluted plotline about a serial killer named the Black Hood, a sort of Zodiac stalking the town's "sinners," who has a special bond with Betty Cooper.

Plus a drug named Jingle Jangle, which, like all drugs on tv, is the brainchild of a single archvillain, the mysterious Sugarman.

Plus there are increasing tensions with the Southside, which is full of drugs and crime, but not because of economic deprivation (in Riverdale the two social classes are upper-middle and rich).  Because of the machinations of two gangs, the rowdy Southside Serpents and the uber-evil Ghoulies.

Kevin Keller's plot arc involves going cruising at night in the park, in spite of the dangers.  Why doesn't he just go on Grindr?  "Because the guys there aren't real," he explains.  Then he rejects a three-way relationship with Moose and Midge, and starts dating a bad boy, Betty's long-lost brother Chic.

But, like Season 1, the cast is full of beefcake actors who aren't shy about hanging out shirtless.

1. Jordon Connor as a baby-faced Southside Serpent with the unlikely name of Sweet Pea (the Popeye character was actually Swee Pea).

2. Model Tommy Martinez as Malachi, leader or at least spokesman of the Ghoulies.

3. Graham Phillips as Nick St. Clair, one of Veronica's New York buddies -- they used to go clubbing.  Wait, she's 16.  Where were all these clubs she was getting into?

Anyway, he comes for an extended visit,  gets a suite at the Five Seasons, and uses a date rape drug to incapacitate Cheryl Blossom after she's been throwing herself at him all night.  Couldn't he just ask?

4. Mark Brandon as Nick's dad has been a very busy character actor since the 1980s (his first credited role is on Mama's Family in 1983), and wrote a book on Winning Auditions.   He looks very much like the Mark Brandon who posed nude in Advocate Men in 1990.

5. Drew Ray Tanner as Fangs Fogarty, a member of the Southside Serpents (he appears as a bully in the Little Archie series).  He starts dating Kevin.

6. Moses Thiessen (left) as Ben, Miss Grundy's newest jailbait conquest.  They make out during a piano lesson, and then the Black Hood kills her.

7. Spanish actor Stephan Miers as Andre, the Lodges' personal assistant.













8. Hart Denton as Chic, Alice Cooper's long-lost son (maybe), who breezes into town with blackmail on his mind (Betty Cooper's mother is not named in the comics.)  He starts dating Kevin, too.

See also: Riverdale: Archie's Pals and Gals.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Sabrina the Teenage Witch first appeared in the anthology series Archie's Madhouse in 1962, as a glamorous although rather malevolent witch perhaps inspired by the movie Bell, Book, and Candle (1958). 

During the last fifty years, she has appeared occasionally in the Archie universe as a student at Riverdale High, generally in stories where she tries to use her magic to help one of the gang, with disastrous consequences.  But magic doesn't fit in well with the usual naturalistic Riverdale, so Sabrina appears most often in completely separate stories, living in an unnamed town (later called Greendale) with her own supporting cast: her aunts Hilda and Zelda, an older cousin Ambrose, and her doofus boyfriend Harvey.  Her cat Salem is sometimes just a cat, sometimes a familiar with magical powers of his own.

Sabrina has had four comic book series:

1. From 1971 to 1983, in conjuction with the tv cartoon Sabrina and the Groovy Ghoulies (a pack of Universal Studios monsters)

2. From 1997 to 1999, in conjunction with the TGIF tv series starring Melissa Joan Hart (who appeared on several covers).

3. From 2003 to 2009, in conjunction with a new animated series.

4. Her most recent comic book series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2014-), is set in the 1960s, with witches as Satan-worshipping cannibals.  But you're also born a witch; there are strict rules about witch-mortal "miscegenation" to "protect the blood line."

So is being a witch a religion or an ethnicity?

Heterosexual romances abound, but there are no gay characters -- although Cousin Ambrose comes across as a bit fey, and head witch Aleister Crowley is criticized for breaking the Satanic Bible's rule against men lying with men.

Nor is there any beefcake.  There are nude females everywhere in boob-heavy detail, but no men with their shirts off, ever.  Not even Harvey, who in this rendition is a football-captain-mega-hunk rather than a nebbish.

So I don't hold out a lot of hope for the Chilling Adventures tv series premiering in 2018.  It will be set in modern times, a cognate to Riverdale.

Ross Lynch (top photo) has signed on to play Harvey.  He always looks good naked, but will he be allowed to fumble with a button on the show?

Chance Perdomo, who will be playing Cousin Ambrose, looks like Diana Ross.  One article says that he'll be making his character pansexual, so he'll be like the gay best buddy of the female lead stereotype.  But Ambrose is "under house arrest," forbidden from leaving Sabrina's house, so he won't be doing much dating.

Other beefcake possibilities include Richard Coyle as Father Blackwood, who I assume is the head of Sabrina's coven.

And maybe some of the boys at the school.


See also: Riverdale

80 Years of Archie Beefcake, Part 1: The Movies and TV Shows

Riverdale (2017-23) starred K. J. Apa as an especially buffed version of Archie Andrews, but the iconic American teenager and his pals, comic book staples since 1941, have been portrayed by live actors many times.

Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again (1990) starred Christopher Rich as an adult Archie returning to Riverdale for his high school reunion.

It also featured Sam Whipple as Jughead and Gary Kroeger (left) as Reggie.

The Archie Situation Comedy Musical Variety Show (1978), a tv pilot based on the 1976 Saturday morning special Archie (1976), starred Dennis Bowen as Archie and Jim Boelsen as dimwitted athlete Moose.

They look like Richie and Potsie of Happy Days, don't they?

Here's a shirtless Dennis Bowen from Caddyshack II

A 1964 tv movie, Archie, starred John Simpson as Archie and Wayne Adams as Reggie.

Life with Archie (1962) featured Fred Bank.

And don't forget Archie on radio (1943-53) played by Bob Hastings (also known as Captain Video's teenage sidekick), and the many animated cartoons, with Archie voiced by Dal McKennon and J. Michael Roncetti.

See also: 70 Years of Archie Beefcake, Par t 2: The Comics 

Cody Kearsley: Metis actor with two gay roles, Moose Mason and a post-Apocalyptic zombie. Plus Cody and another Metis guy n*de

Jordan Calloway: "Unfabulous" hunk, "Riverdale" jerk, supervillain, firefighter, fundamentalist. With an adult video

"That Wilkin Boy" and Other Beefcake Wonders of the Archie Universe

Riverdale: Archie's Pals and Gals Face Angst and Dark Secrets

You remember bucolic small-town Riverdale?  It's been a wholesome, innocent childhood haven for generations.  You can return after a year, or two years, or a decade, and still find Archie Andrews and his pals and gals (Betty, Veronica, Reggie, Jughead) failing algebra, hanging out at the soda shop, deciding who to ask to the big dance, with only occasional references to contemporary teen fads, and virtually no incursions of the angst, heartache, and turmoil of real teen life.

Recently there have been some experiments with adult themes, like a zombie apocalypse in Riverdale, or an adult Archie killed while saving his friend Kevin from an assassination attempt.  But the new Riverdale TV series.  WTF?

It's Dawson's Creek, Pretty Little Liars, Revenge, Twin Peaks, Peyton Place, and a whole lot more.  Sex, sleaze, dark secrets, and a lot of angst.

Archie (KJ Apa, above) is juggling the affections of Betty and Veronica (Lili Reinhart, Camila Mendes), as usual, but he's also having a clandestine affair with his teacher, Ms. Grundy (Sarah Habel), who is not what she seems.

Chuck Clayton (Jordan Calloway, left) and his football-team friends slut-shame Veronica, so the girls torture him in a hot tub until he apologizes.

Meanwhile, Veronica's father is being indicted for embezzlement, and her mother is having an affair.

Jughead (Cole Sprouse) is estranged from his father, the leader of the Southside Serpents, a notorious motorcycle gang.  He's writing a turgid novel with lines like: "Innocent/guilty, good/ evil, life/ death."

Kevin (Casey Cott) is dating bad boy Joaquin (Rob Raco, left), a member of said motorcycle gang, plus fooling around with bisexual good guy Moose (Cody Kearsley), who has anger issues.  This won't end well.

And what about Archie's Mom, who returns after a long absence and has a mysterious meeting with her old friends, Veronica's mom and Mayor McCoy (Robin Givens), whose daughter is the lead singer of the pop group Josie and the Pussycats, who Archie...well, never mind.

And I haven't even gotten to Reggie (Ross Butler) and Dilton (Major Curda).

But the big mystery is the murder of Jason Blossom (Trevor Stines left), brother of It-Girl Cheryl Blossom.
Kevin and Moose discovered the body.

Archie, Ms. Grundy, and Dilton heard a gunshot.

Everyone seems to have a dark secret about what happened that night.  Everyone is a suspect.

Angst.

At least there's a lot of diversity.  Black, Hispanic, and Asian characters.  Gay and bisexual characters.  Jughead might even come out as asexual, as he does in the current comic version.

And there's a lot of beefcake.  The younger Riverdalians are played by the most buffed mega-hunks that can squeeze into tight jeans, and there are some recognizeable heartthrobs of yesteryear among the older generation (Luke Perry, Skeet Ulrich, Lochlyn Munro).  Even Mr. Weatherbee is played by the hunky Peter James Bryant.

But how does any of this relate to the Archie comics that we grew up with?

Where's bucolic, small-town Riverdale?

Where's the fun?

See also: More Riverdale Beefcake

Jinx's Mom Comes Out: The First Lesbian in Children's Comics

If you read Archie comics as a kid, you probably remember the backup feature Li'l Jinx, which first appeared in 1947 and continued through the 1980s.  A seven or eight year old with blond pigtails, L'il Jinx was a distaff Dennis the Menace who always caused catastrophes for her single Dad (I don't remember her Mom ever appearing).  She was a tomboy, strong and athletic, particularly interested in baseball.

Her coterie of friends included the fat Charlie Hawse, the nerdish Greg, the snobbish Gigi, and the token black kids Russ and Roz.

In 2011, the Life with Archie series, about young-adult versions of Archie and Company, printed a story about a teenage Jinx.  The teenage version spun-off into her own comic book series, reprinted as graphic novels by J. Torres and Terry Austin.  The first, Jinx, appeared in April 2012.

The second, Little Mis-Steps, came out this week.  It solves the problem of the missing Mother:

She's not missing, she's just not around a lot.  Jinx's parents are divorced.  Her Mom, Merry, is a Emergency Room nurse, always on call, so it seemed more practical for her to live with her Dad.  Oh, and she has something to tell Jinx:

She's a lesbian.

Jinx wonders: does that explain why I'm into boy stuff like baseball, not girly stuff like makeup and dresses?

No: liking baseball has nothing to do with liking boys.

Coming a couple of years after Kevin Keller became the first gay character in children's comics,  this is another breakthrough with only one misstep: Mom is portrayed as borderline neglectful, too busy with her career to spend time with Jinx.