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

Bentley Storteboom: Dutch, 25 years old, or gay? Or all of the above? With KJ Apa's d*ck, Karl Urban's backside, and Gavin Munn

  

Link to the n*de photos

When I saw this photo of someone named Bentley Storteboom (censored for reasons that will become apparent), I concluded that he was obviously Dutch, about 25 years old, and gay.  Turns out that I was wrong about two of the three conclusions.

1. Is he Dutch?   Storteboom means "Fallen Tree" in Frisian, spoken by 400,000 people in the northern regions of the Netherlands, like these musclemen on the beach.

No, he's Canadian.

2. Is he 25?

No, according to the IMDB, as of this writing he's 13 1/2! 

  

He may look 25 in the top photo (especially the censored part), but here he looks like 16-year old Gavin Munn of The Righteous Gemstones.

Bentley was born in August 2012, in Maple Ridge, a suburb of Vancouver.  According to his mom, “He wasn’t your typical boy that wanted to play soccer or sports,” but he was interested in movies and the theater, and started asking about how kids got on tv.  His parents had no experience in performing arts, and had no idea.  Kudos for not trying to push him into sports, Mom and Dad.  My parents never let up.  "You're a boy!  Boys like sports!  Try out for football!"

They did some research, enrolled Bentley in the LeClerc School of Acting, and found him an agent, and he started auditioning at age six.  Soon he was appearing in commercials, and got the starring role in the student film Small Boy (2020): "After getting left out during a hide and seek game, a small boy realizes what he wants is different than what he was seeking from others."  So, different from the others?  Gotcha. 

That fall he won two Joey Awards (for Canadian youth): best actor in a commercial and best actor in a student film. 

In 2020 he won an iconic role in the series finale of Supernatural (2020).  As Dean is dying, he tells his gay-subtext partner Sam that he must "carry on."  The time for the "manly love of comrades" is over; it's time to accept his heterosexual destiny.  A few years later, Dean looks down from heaven and sees that Sam has acquiesced: he's got a wife and kid (Bentley). And the kicker: they're playing ball!  Bentley might not be "like the other boys," but his son is.  We hear the Kansas song:

Carry on, my wayward son. There'll be peace when you are done.
Lay your weary head to rest.  Don't you cry no more.

Funny, I feel like crying at this negation of the gay experience. 

Episodes of Nancy Drew (2021) and YoShowBiz (2021) followed, but Bentley's big break  (at age eight) came with what the local papers breathlessly praised as "a recurring role on a hit tv show!"  It was Riverdale (2017-2023), the campy, over-the-top, NSFW adaption of the Archie comics world. 

KJ Apa, formerly Archie, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

More after the break

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

Link to the n*de dudes

Having found success with one Riverdale hunk, I thought I'd check on the others.  How about Cody Kearsley, who played one of Kevin Keller's boyfriends: Moose Mason.

You remember Moose from the comics: stupid and muscular (the two usually went together in the media of the day), and so insanely jealous of his girlfriend Midge that he pulverized any guy who even glanced at her. 

In the kinder, gentler 1990s, he was modified to be less violent, and his "stupidity" was explained as undiagnosed dyslexia.  

On Riverdale, the Moose-Midge relationship is troubled by mutual cheating, Moose with Kevin and Midge with Fangs Fogarty of the Southside Serpents.  After Midge is murdered, Moose dates Kevin for awhile, but is afraid to be outed as bisexual.  Eventually he leaves town, and Kevin moves on to the also-bisexual Fangs before getting dumped for Toni, Cheryl's ex girlfriend, and Moose come back to town...well, basically everyone hooks up with everyone.   It's a soap opera, after all.

Let's go back to Cody Kearsley.

Cody belongs to the Métis people, descendants of First Nations members and French settlers from the early days of European colonization.  There are 587,000 Métis in Canada, and a smaller number in the U.S..  Like many First Nation people, they have a tradition of Two-Spirits, adding 2S to LGBTQ and celebrating Gay Pride.

There are three Métis languages, with only a few thousand native speakers but many more learning them to embrace their cultural heritage.  Cody is learning Heritage Michif, spoken primarily in southern Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Montana, and North Dakota.  It is a French-Cree hybrid, with some vocabulary from English and Western Ojibwa.

Can you see the French origin of the days of the week? (Hint: lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi, samedi, dimanche)

Cody actually grew up in Oliver, British Columbia, in the Sylix Okangan Nation that comprises seven communities on the Canadian-U.S. border.  He attended the Southern Okangan Secondary School, then moved to Vancouver to complete his senior year.

He was active in community and school theater, starring as Bobby Child in Crazy for You and Danny Zuko in Grease.

More after the break

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

 Link to the n*de dudes

In another instance of seeing the n*de photos and then researching the actor, I found the adult video of someone named Jordan Calloway, then googled his name and "gay."  There were references to his "gay kiss" and "captivating gay scenes."

Next, his Wikipedia article, where I saw that he was on Riverdale, the campy, over-the-top adaption of the venerable Archie comics.  He played Clay Walker, Kevin Keller's boyfriend during the last season, when the gang was zapped into the 1950s.

By the way, Kevin also dated Joaquin DeSanto (Rob Raco), Moose Mason (Cody Kearsley), and Fangs Fogarty (Drew Ray Tanner, left)

Wait -- Jordan graduated from the fundamentalist Maranatha High School in 2009 and the extremely homophobic Azusa Pacific University in 2013.  How is he playing a gay character a few years later? 

Jordan's first major role was in Unfabulous (2004-07), a Nickelodeon teencom featuring a middle school girl (Emma Roberts) who has a crush on, dates, breaks up with, and reunites with a boy named Jake (Raja Fenske).  Wait -- are all of the boyfriends of teencom girls named Jake?  

Her two friends, girly girl Geena and jock Zach (Jordan), eventually fall in love with each other, so everything is tied up in a neat little heteronormative package.

Next Jordan had guest roles on Reckless, Recovery Road, House of Lies, Beyond, and Pure Genius.

Nine episodes of Freakish (2017), as Zane, who was working at the Keller Chemical Plant the day a toxic fog started hurting everyone -- which happened to be the same day that he dumped his girlfriend for cheating on him.  A straight guy.

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

"Nancy Drew": Riverdale Rip-Off without the Underwear Shots

Nancy Drew, the girl detective who sleuths out The Secret of the Old Clock, The Message in the Hollow Oak, The Clue in the Crumbling Wall, and so on, has been in print constantly since 1930, and on tv twice, most notably when she shared the spotlight with the Hardy Boys (1977-79).  Until now, she has been an old-fashioned "good girl," solving mysteries that require brain power, not fisticuffs. No bloodshed, no deaths, and certainly no sex.

But then Archie comics used to be about "who should I invite to the big dance?"

The new Nancy Drew series goes all Riverdale on the girl detective, casting actors with Greek-god physiques, getting them out of their clothes a lot. and spinning a complex, ludricrous plotline in which everybody has a hidden agenda, secrets abound, and the adults are always evil.

Prologue: a montage of a teenage girl being pushed or jumping off a cliff, four teenagers playing in the cemetery, a young Nancy Drew watching her parents bury a body, and Nancy tanking on her college apps.

She hears about her mother's terminal illness.  True to the Riverdale practice of casting former teen idols as the adults, Dad is played by Party of Five alumnus Scott Wolf (top photo).  Mom's grave.

Scene 1: Nancy wakes up in the bed of her boyfriend, Nick Nickerso (Tunji Kasim, the bottom), who is already up, working at the auto shop..  He was a college football star in the books -- apparently dreams fade quickly in Horseshoe Bay, Maine, and he's doing the whole Goodbye, Columbus bit

















Scene 2: Nancy runs across a crowded exterior shot -- lighthouse, boats, teens photographing each other -- to The Claw, the diner where she works as a waitress (what, not the Crusty Crab?).  Her boss, a pigtailed Asian girl named George (Leah Lewis), bitches at her.  She starts dishing uot the chowder (wait -- isn't it early in the morning? Shouldn't that order be Adam and Eve on a raft?).

Her other coworkers are the "Zen and the Art of Dishwashing" Ace  (Alex Saxon, left) and the rich ditz Bess (Maddison Raijani).

Why is a rich girl working in a diner?  Why did Blair on The Facts of Life work in the school cafeteria?

Scene 3: Closing time. The parade and fireworks are going on outside.  George decides to stay open for the demanding, imperious "affluent socialite" Ryan Hudson and his cronies, who want to have a sinister "private conversation."

Ryan is played by Riley Smith, former teen idol and underwear model.

His wife, Tiffany, is waiting in the car.  Nancy brings her some food.  And then has a glass of wine!That's like Archie having sex with...oh, right, Riverdale.

Scene 4: Even more closing time.  Suddenly the power goes out to the whole marina.  Nancy investigates, and finds Tiffany dead beside her car!

Scene 5: Sheriff McGinnis (former teen idol Adam Beach) interrogates the crew.  He dislikes all of them.  Nancy discovers that her boyfriend Nick is an ex-con.

"You never told me that!" Nancy exclaims.
"One of many things you never asked me about."
Who asks about criminal records on the first date?

The Sheriff wants to pin the murder on Nancy, so she has to act fast so solve it.

Dad arives.  Nancy yells at him for being neglectful.  Apparently they're estranged.  What adult-child isn't on Riverdale...um, I mean Nancy Drew?

Scene  6: Out on the street, Nancy is horrified by the sight of a dress in a shop window.  I don't understand why.  She goes home and looks at photos of her dying mother.

Scene 7: The next day, at the diner.  Nancy believes that Tiffany was murdered by the ghost of Lucy Sable, the girl who jumped or was pushed off the cliff in the year 2000.  I don't understand her deduction.

I know it's 2020, but I was still shocked to hear "the year 2000" expressed as long-ago history.  For most of my life it was a far future science-fiction date:  "We'll have flying cars and colonies on the moon in the year....2000!"

Scene 8: Looking for clues, Nancy breaks into the home of grieving socialite husband Ryan  She finds a secret drawer containing a locket, a note: "For your protection. H. G.", and an address.

She also hears a ghost voice -- the supernatural is real!  Better not tell Shaggy and Scooby!

Scene 9:  The address on Gallows Lane (how cheery!) is the home of a medium (Pamela Sue Anderson, the original tv Nancy Drew).  She conducts a seance, where the spirit of Tiffany says "Find the dress."  Wow, this is getting convoluted.

Scene 10:  Nancy discovers that Dad is dating Karen the Cop.  I don't know why she should care, but she's upset.

Scene 11:  Dad discovers that Nancy is dating Nick Nickerson (dumb name).  I don't know why he should care, but he's upset,and says "keep away from that kid."   He won't say why, so Nancy snoops around and discovers that he was Nick's lawyer during his trial for manslaughter, during which he was convicted due to the testimony of Tiffany the Dead Socialite.  Nick has a motive!

Scene 12: So does everybody else.  George is having an affair with Ryan the Husband.  A montage of scenes I don't understand: a lady leaves a trailer and puts on Dead Tiffany's ring.  Nick finds a brick or box in a car he's repairing.

The lights go out, so Nancy climbs into the attic, rips open the wallpaper, and finds a note: "Lucy Sable, be careful that the killer doesn't get you." And an old trunk containing the bloody dress that Lucy was apparently wearing that night.

So Dad killed Lucy 20 years ago?  And took off her dress? I'm lost.

Gay characters:  If you read ahead, you find that Bess is a lesbian, and starts dating someone.

Beefcake:  No.  Nick wears a muscle shirt in one scene.

Other Interesting Sights:  Not except for the establishing shot of Horseshoe Cove. It's all intereiors or dark streets.

Plot:  I got tired of people not telling each other things so they could  find out and be upset.  Too many secret, hidden connections. And it gets worse:if you read ahead, you find more ghosts, spirit possession, curses, a trip to the spirit world, secret identities, and "The Seawater Festival," in which a bucket of seawater is used to determine if somebody will die in the coming year.

What about clever Sherlock Holmes-style sleuthing?

And where are all the underwear scenes?

Will I keep watching? No.

See also: Alex Saxon: From fundamentalist Missouri to ace and trans characters to androgynous teen angst hunk.

"The A-List": Bingeworthy "Lost" Meets "Riverdale"

I sat down to watch The A-List at 12:30, planning on watching one episode before going to work.  Two hours later, I said "Well, maybe one more episode."  And another.  And another.

It begins as Riverdale on an island.  Some British teens show up on Peregrine Island for a summer holiday:

1. Rich bitch Mia (Lisa Ambalavanar)

2. It-boy Dev (Jacob Dudman, whom no one can look at without imagining taking him to senior prom)

3. Heterosexual life partners Brendan and Zac (Micheal Ward, Jack Kane), who can bench press 100 kg (220 pounds).  Big deal; I do 300, and I'm twice their age.

4. Genderqueer but female-presenting Alex (Rosie Dwyer)

5. Clutzy Harry (Benjamin Nugent)

And the rest, all led by over-chirpy counselors,Dave (Cian Barry) and Mags (Nneka Okoye).

Mia is quickly overshadowed by a new It-Girl, Amber (Ellie Duckles), who gathers a coterie of followers with her mind-control powers.

And the weird things keep happening:
1. A mysterious bunker in the woods, like the one on Lost.
2. A growling beast like the Smoke Monster on Lost.
3. A mysterious stalker.
4. A sobbing sound coming from nowhere.
5. Human teeth on a tree.
6. Memories of things that haven't happened.
7. An older photograph of the campers.  This has all happened before!

The mysterious stalker turns out to be Luka (Max Lohan) who has been living in the woods on his own since the camp closed down!

I didn't want to give away that spoiler, but I had to get in a picture of Max Lohan.  It's impossible to look at him without wanting to kiss him.

This actually isn't Lost.  The mysteries within mysteries are eventually resolved.  Well, maybe not the final WTF cliffhanger.

Nor is it Riverdale.  Not a lot of nudity: a shirt off here and there.  No one goes swimming (Peregrine Island is in the Scottish Highlands, where it's cold).

 But, on the bright side, no sex: the most these  teenagers do is kiss. 

No gay male characters, that I can tell; the Brendan-Zac pair is subverted by their hetero-horny exploits, and they don't even hug.

But the genderqueer Alex points out the heteronormative bias in selecting a Midsummer King and Queen, and gets a girlfriend, after struggling to come out. (A genderqueer person has a problem with being attracted to girls?).

The A-List certainly has got its share of "WTF!!!!" cliffhangers.  Don't start watching unless you have a free afternoon.

See also: The 9 Worst Finales in Tv History

Eli Goree Keeps His Shirt On

Eli Goree was on Riverdale, briefly.  He had a total of three scenes in three episodes, and about a dozen lines. Most viewers didn't hear any of those lines, because they had fainted at the sight of his perfect face and breathtaking physique.  Nobody can get a glimpse of a Greek god and remain unfazed.

After I watched his scenes a dozen or so times, the initial shock of seeing perfection diminished, and I could pay attention to the plot.  After rushing to the IMDB to see if he has appeared in anything else.

Surprise: Some 26 credits.

 Eli grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  While attending Dalhousie University, he hosted The Big Black Rap Show on the campus radio station. He transferred to the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, where he received his degree in Film and Television Acting.  Meanwhile he became a freelance journalist for Canada Now, hosted the Canadian teen talk show Street Cents, and started auditioning.

His most important roles are:

1. Da Kink in My Hair (2007-2009), a sitcom about Jamaican-Canadian women who run a hair salon, based on a play by Jamaican-Canadian queer playwright Trey Anthony. Eli played Malik.

2. Secrets of a Black Boy (2009) on stage.  Five friends meet in a Regents Park, Toronto recreation center to reveal their secrets.  Eli plays Jakes, whose secret is...wait for it...he's gay.

3. Pure Pwnage (2010), a mockumentary about a gamer. Eli had a six-episode run as Tyrel, a professional gamer who falls in love with a girl.







4. Race (2016), about Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics (even I know about that).   Eli played fellow athlete David Albritten, who was apparently straight.

5.Dead of Summer (2016 tv series), about "ancient evil" awakening at a summer camp in 1989.  Eli played Joel Goodson, who helps reveal the identity of the Tall Man.  The series features a trans character, Drew (Zelda Williams),who -- wait for it -- is not the killer.

6.  The 100 (2014-2017).  A space ship of teenagers try to settle on a desolate far-future Earth. Eli plays Wells Jaha, who is in love with Clarke (sorry, a girl) and appears to be at odds with every one of the male colonists. It has a gay male character.

I was disappointed to find no nude pictures, but then, if he's perfect beneath the belt, too, the effect might be overwhelming.  As it is, Eli rarely takes even his shirt off.  I guess he can't, or no one would be able to pay attention to ...um....to the...what was I talking about?

See also: Riverdale, Season 3

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.

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