Welcome to Archieness & Riverdalers Presents: Archie at Riverdale High (Vol. 1), Issue #7!

Archie at Riverdale High (Vol. 1), Issue #7 [June, 1973]

”Ghosts”

According to the SUSPENSEFUL cover art, the Andrews family is moving! And Archie will never see his vapid friends at Riverdale High again? And he’s going to have to say goodbye to all of them? LOL!

But apparently we’re not getting that, because this story is called “GHOSTS” which couldn’t further from the idea of mov… WAIT A MINUTE! ARE THERE GHOSTS IN ARCHIE’S HOUSE? IT’S STARTING TO ALL MAKE SENSE!

A bucktoothed Archie is thumbing through one of his yearbooks. The narration gets excited! “Hey! Anyone remember the ‘Patch Hop’? Talk about action! Wonder why they don’t revive that one?” Here’s what the patch hop is: any girl who can jump on you and break your back irrevocably long enough to sew a patch on the back of your shirt while you’re kicking a screaming bloody murder is forced to go on a date with her to the dance. Archie wants the right girl to jump his bones and not Ugly Hortense, the Mule of Town. Or Ophelia Gluetenschnable, who actually looks like she smells like fart vaginas. She jumps Reggie, who is able to get out of harm’s way just in time.

Archie rolls by in his decrepit jalopy that’s all chugging and popping and Reggie hops in quickly. The car is going so slow that Ophelia is still kinda able to catch up, and even though it’s plugging along at 1.25 miles per hour they lose Opehlia in the dust. Fuck her! Right fellas? Ugly girls are no use to anybody!

Things are about to get sexy here at Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe!

Pop’s is the place to be! Reggie notices that Archie has been patched. Yep, by Veronica! “That Ronnie makes my socks roll up and down!” Archie says bewilderingly. Suddenly, Veronica and Betty burst into the diner. “Forget the fun and games, guys! We’ve got troubles!”

Oh yeah? Did Electric Light Orchestra release another album? Heh heh. Nope, Mr. Weatherbee is quitting his job as principal. Their general is deserting his troops to go sew wallets in Vietnam. We see him try to empty his desk while his secretary, Miss Grundy, doesn’t want anything to do with it. She calls his plan “dumb” and, what’s more, she kicks him right in the balls! And then Mr. Weatherbee pukes up his balls and then he commits seppuku.

After all that, Weatherbee exits the school while passing by a throng of unhappy-looking students. “Speechless with joy, probably,” Weatherbee grumbles in his mind. When he actually leaves through the front doors he is met with a rallying cry of “DON’T GO! STAY! RICKI TICKI TACKI TEE! WHAT’LL THE NEW MAN NEVER BE? HE’LL NEVER BE A WEATHERBEE!”

“WE WANT OUR LEADER!”

Well, sir, this effusive display of saccharine affection did the job! Weatherbee does an about face, marches right up to his desk, and tells off his brand new boss! “Get yourself another boy!” he says, feet up on the desk. The student body is thrilled for some reason.

All the while this is just Archie dreaming. Dreaming about getting patched by the hottest girl in school and then rallying to get his stinky principal to stay.

This had nothing at all to do with ghosts! I was hoping for some bustin’.

”The Hard Ones”

Archie and pals are laughing at a notice on the school bulletin board. Student volunteers to work on a Sunday?!?! HA HA HA HAAAA HAA HEHE HHEHEH HHHEEEE HEHEH HO HAHAHA HOO HEE HOO HOO HOO HA HA HAAA HAAAAAA!!! HEE EHAHEHAH HEHOAHEOAHEHOA!!! EHAOHEOJAIWIHI!!!

Weatherbee told Miss Grundy this was a bad idea! Who the FUCK is going to want to come into school on a Sunday to chisel gum off of Mr. Weatherbee’s nutsack?

Maybe you should sweeten the deal with free little fun packets of nose candy, Principal.

“If the whole thing wasn’t so ridiculous, I’d get mad!” cries Archie, getting mad anyway.

“Yeah!” agrees Jughead. You get ‘em, Jughead.

Betty and Veronica come into the hallway to wag their fingers at the boys. Maintaining the school is noble work, and they’re dropping their underoos and taking giant craps all over everything!

Well, it would be noble if the school board didn’t slash the budget recently. They can’t even afford janitors anymore! Or pencils or books or teachers or dirty looks. “Plaster cracking – paint peeling!” Weatherbee moans while pulling bits of plaster off the walls.

“We could always just let it run down, until the taxpayers were shamed into approving a larger budget!” Miss Grundy suggests. At this point we see Archhead, Reghead, and Juggs overhearing the conversation with shameful looks. But then they’re like “bah!” and “pah!” about it. Stupid building! It’s for the birds!

I like the way Snrub thinks!

Come Sunday, Weatherbee and Grundy are working on the building along with fresh-faced volunteers Betty and Veronica… and three altruistic strangers off the street.

“Er — No sign of Archie, Jughead, or Reggie, eh?” Mr. Weatherbee asks, simultaneously expecting the three boys to be there despite their very public denouncement of the very idea AND unable to notice a fake black mustache on a redhead when he sees one.

Miss Grundy calls the three boys unsentimental slobs.

Then I think Weatherbee catches on, because he starts crying and blowing his nose into his handkerchief, and we all are supposed to find this funny because it’s 1973 and the criteria for humor was “whatever Boomers thought was funny when they were 13 years old.”

The end.

”The Last Farewell”

Ah, now here’s the story promised on the cover! Archie’s gettin’ the boot out of Riverdale and no one’s going to be able to help him! Let’s observe…

“Riverdale High means a lot to your boy!” says Mr. Weatherbee.

“He’ll get over it!” says Archie’s dad.

Then it’s settled! Archie’s gonna get over it. Bye bye, Riverdale! Hello East Harlem, New York City, baby!

“This new contract I got means a better job and a lot more money!” says Mr. Andrews. “I’ll be able to support my family better!”

Weatherbee thinks this is a bad idea, and he should know! He tried to quit himself two stories ago! “I’m going to miss that boy of yours something fierce!” says Weatherbee, betraying a smidgen of his pedophilic urges.

Kids keep walking by in the halls dressed like early ‘70s clowns. It’s a really blast from the past! This one kid has polkadots and stripes! It’s a sight to behold!

Miss Grundy yells to Mr. Andrews as he leaves that Archie won’t take this lightly. He’s going to cry and pout and throw pans at your head and kick and scream and fly airplanes into government buildings, but Mr. Andrews ain’t worried one iota. Why?… … … …oh yes, Archie’s “obedient”. Well, that makes me feel better.

But, son! B-b-b-b-b-but the obedience!

“Archie! This isn’t like you!” Mr. Andrews looks out of his element. “You’ve never contradicted me before!”

“Sorry, Pop! Anything, Pop! Ask me anything! For you and Mom there’s nothing I wouldn’t do! But please – not this!! Not leave Riverdale High!!”

Oh, calm down. I’m sure you’ll become fast friends with kids in the neighboring town like Itchy Randall, Mabel the Stable, and Poop Ron.

Archie is making quite a loud scene, and Mr. Andrews is starting to get a bit angry. “To bed, Archie! The subject is closed!”

So, obedient Archie retires to bed at 4:45pm. And, in the middle of the night, Mother Andrews has discovered that their little boy has disappeared! Run away! Flew the coop! Probably dead in a ditch, we hope! “What’s this world coming to? When even the good ones, like Archie, turn on their parents and run away!!!” Mr. Andrews growls as he puts on his best drivin’ hat and scours the neighborhood looking for his lost son as if he were a runaway dog or a grandfather with Alzheimer’s.

Or even some sort of nasty little valedictorian!

Mr. Andrews discovers a light on in the school and prays to his Horse God that Archie didn’t break into the building at 3am. And yes, he finds his little wuss of a son crying at his desk in his homeroom. “Gulp!” says Mr. Andrews. Well, let me tell you something friends. Mr. Andrews’ heart grew three sizes that day. And after he returned from the hospital for this abnormal cardiomegaly, he tears up his contract for his new employment and sends the shredded up paper to Mr. Weatherbee.

And, of course, thinking it’s anthrax, Mr. Weatherbee leaps out of the second story window and lands on his fat head, killing him instantly.

And Archie stays at Riverdale. What a completely underwhelming story that barely involved anything about a farewell whatsoever. At least Weatherbee was killed!

”The Rewards”

“Oh, man! Am I in trouble!” Archie is sprinting down the school hallway, nearly stampeding right over a girl in an ugly black and yellow plaid dress. “When you’re meeting Veronica and you’re late – What are you in? — Altogether now! — TROUBLE!”

He runs by Weatherbee’s office where he discovers Miss Grundy sniffing as if she’s been [snorting cocaine] crying. Archie stops in his tracks and checks the old woman out as she pulls a handkerchief out of her purse. “The old girl’s pretty broken up! I can’t just ignore it!” he thinks, ignoring the TROUBLE! that he’s assuredly going to be in if he misses his zit-popping appointment with Veronica.

Archie quietly tries to get Miss Grundy’s attention.

“EEP!” she bellows. Then she quickly shuffles around her purse as awkwardly as a boy like Archie would scramble closing a laptop playing Hella Porno.

Archie points out to the woman that, yes, he noticed her crying. What the crap is wrong with you, lady?

Your misery is my fucking business now, honey.

Archie rudely forces Miss Grundy to relay her personal private business to him, some 17-year-old little pukeface. She insists that she’s actually happy, not sad. “Sometimes people cry with joy!” she says unconvincingly. “Happiness as well as tragedy can bring tears!”

Well, she seems to be able to back up her story. She was sent a letter from a former student who sent her a picture of a baby.

This is all very cunting sentimental. Archie agrees that it’s a nice thing to receive letters from former students. Maybe Archie will send Miss Grundy a letter someday that will say “EAT SHIT, YOU OLD HAG!” and then signed on the bottom with a drawing of Archie wearing sunglasses.

So Archie gives the old woman a kiss on the cheek and tells her that being a student can be rewarding too if they have great teachers! HA HA HAHA! Archie comics sure are funny!

Archie runs back out to the hallway where Veronica looks pretty dang upset at issues related to punctuality. Archie is 15 minutes late and these zits won’t pop themselves!

Archie tells her that another woman was holding him up. An older woman. Veronica freaks out to the point of a goddamn heart attack while Archie and Miss Grundy wink at each other.

Veronica dies in the hospital. The end.

Final Thoughts

Didn’t we have fun, kids? Archie didn’t have to move away! Too bad, I was really rooting for Mr. Andrews to drag his delinquent son to North Korea as he works in his job as tour guide for the Dear Leader Museum. Maybe in a future issue! You never really know what you’ll stumble upon in Archie’s world!