Archive | March, 2012

The Saturday Comics: Archie by Spire Christian Comics

3 Mar

March 3, 2012

A few weeks ago I chronicled the newspaper adventures of Archie Andrews, all-American teen. Along with Jughead, Reggie, Betty, and Veronica, the Riverdale gang have been entertaining the country for decades. From the fifties through today, their stories have never really changed but have never gotten boring. In a sense, they are timeless. Like Peanuts, they have an inner morality that never gets preachy and never favors any one group or creed over another.

Except during the 1970’s.

Here is a portion of a comment posted on my previous blog by master commentator Daniel, to whom this post is dedicated:

I VAGUELY, nebulously remember when Spire Comics ( ? ) picked up the rights to the Archie characters, & their adventures / misadventures, etc., also had candy – coated religious & moral lessons inside the comic coating. Like a Jack Chick religious tract w / out all the anti – Catholic, anti – Jewish / pro – Protestant sentiment, or the invitation to make a ” decision ” inside.

I had to know more. Here is what wiki has to say:

Spire Christian Comics was a line of comic books published by Fleming H. Revell starting in 1972. In 1981 Hugh Revell Barbour started his own company, Book Bargains, which soon became Barbour & Company. Barbour acquired the rights to republish many of the titles in the Spire Christian Comics line under the NEW Barbour Christian Comics imprint, keeping the comics in print until 1988.

Most of the Spire Comics were written and drawn by Al Hartley, who was working for Archie Comics at the time. Due to this connection, he was able to get permission to use the Archie characters in many of the comics.

What you are about to see is scary. These are Archie comic books that look and read exactly like regular Archie comic books, drawn and written by a regular Archie comic book creator, but instead of the wholesome Archie hijinks they are full of Archie hijinks with a pro-Christian bias. I am not against Christianity or religion, but I am against this sneaky method of proselytizing. Imagine a Superman Comic drawn by George Perez in which Superman extolls the virtues of Scientology and you’ll see what I mean.

Got to love the bearded stranger.

You can find many more scans of complete issues right here.

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Imponderable #38: Greece (AKA We Are All Disabled)

2 Mar

March 2, 2012

I am not here to denigrate Greece.  After all, Greece is the ancient land of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle Onasis. Greece has brought us classical mythology, the Doric column, and 2/3 of the diners in New York City. Greece has nearly toppled the EU with its crippling economic woes, but to be fair, if it wasn’t Greece it would be some other country. Hey, who didn’t see the end of the Euro coming, right?

OK, there is a lot of Imponderable here, not the least of which is where Greece thinks it will get enough money to pay for any of that. (Memo to Greece: Zeus cares more for turning himself into a swan and impregnating Leda than printing any money for you. From wikipedia, which deserves a week of Imponderables itself:

On 15 November 2010 the EU’s statistics body Eurostat revised the public finance and debt figure for Greece following an excessive deficit procedure methodological mission in Athens, and put Greece’s 2009 government deficit at 15.4% of GDP and public debt at 126.8% of GDP making it the biggest deficit (as a percentage of GDP) amongst the EU member nations (although some have speculated that Ireland’s in 2010 may prove to be worse).

WTF???? Mr. Blog is no economist, but that sounds bad. Pair big enough numbers with some random letters and it always sounds bad. For example, “President Obama’s EVQ went up 134.71% last month, the first and only month for which data was available.” OHHHHH! I bet Newt Gingrich is salivating over that one!

Anyway, none of that is the Imponderable. Here is the Imponderable, right smack in the center of the post instead of the end because hey, I’m worth it. Or something like that.

In what sane country is an exhibitionist considered disabled?

Frankly you need pretty good physical capabilites to whip that trench coat open in the subway without getting caught. I remember one time…

But I digress.

Seriously, an arsonist is disabled? A gambler? Some dude with a foot fetish? If that’s true then we are all disabled. Men who wear bad toupees. Women with too much eye makeup. Snooki. Everyone in the world has something that makes them unique. OK, I realize that “unique” is not the typical way to describe an arsonist, but get the point? Where do you draw the line?

And I am sorry, but no way should a pedophile be in line for a payment from the government.

Why are they getting payments to begin with? A sadomasochist can’t work? Really? You ever see who works at the DMV? A pyromanic isn’t capable of holding down a job? Assuming he doesn’t burn the place down, why not? and I have to pay a kleptomaniac not to steal? I’m sorry, but that is stealing! Straight from my wallet.

More proof of the nanny-state, everyone is a victim, everyone is entitled mentality.

Hey exhibitionists, get out of the welfare line, pull up your pants, and get a job!

(Just don’t work in a restaurant, I don’t want you handling my food.)

See my point? In Greece, who isn’t disabled?

The question is Imponderable.

I give them about 36 more hours before the wolves take over the cities.

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