It’s no secret to fans of vintage Archie comics that Frank Doyle and the Archie artists enjoyed smuggling past the comics code such things as risque dialogue and pictures (see part I of this series for a start by clicking inside these parentheses), or even Satan, an infamous story which was probably best covered by Chris Sims in his article “Bizarro Back Issues: Betty Cooper Sells Her Soul To The Devil To Make Out With Archie (1962),” which you can read by clicking on the link embedded in the preceding title.
The sophisticated and alert reader will discover in 1960s to 1980s Archie Comics an adult humor that went over the heads of the kids that were these books’ primary audience. For instance, take the story “The Helmet.” In this story Archie decides to wear a pith helmet of the sort popularized in the colonial period, and probably most identified with Europeans and Americans in the tropics and sub-tropics, such as those on a safari.
Archie feels a strong sense of power and doesn’t want to take the helmet off, and he seems vindicated in his belief as he gathers some groupies that are mesmerized by his macho. Veronica is at first taken in by the hat as well, but when her boyfriend is propositioned by a Harry Lucey original that saunters over and says “how about a safari into my back yard, handsome,” Veronica hurls the hat away.
Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang notes that backyard has been slang for the posterior since the early 1960s. Perhaps you are skeptical, but Frank Doyle’s choice of the preposition into rather than in is very telling in this situation, as the former enhances the suggestiveness of the line. Plus, the woman is leaning against Archie and presenting her backside to him. So just what is she asking Archie for here? It’s a classic example of Doyle’s ability to get things past the comics code and the intellectually asleep with a little bit of double entendre, so that it looks on the face of it that she’s merely asking Archie to come over and show off his safari hat in her back yard.
What is a little rarer are the occasions in which Frank Doyle was able to get an entire story past the comics code, not just a panel, such as the aforementioned story in which it is revealed that Betty and Veronica sold their souls to Satan, and in the less well known story, Frank Doyle and Dan DeCarlo Jr’s “An Eye For–Fashion?” from Archie 309 (October, 1981), in which it is revealed that Archie has the sixth sense of recognizing women by the bottom parts of their anatomy. No doubt many parents read this story in a nighttime fog to their children without questioning the title of the story, despite the fact that the title of the story is questioning itself with a question mark at the end of the title.
The story invites the reader to look at it for a second time, to see what is really going on. Is it fashion, or does Archie have an eye for something else?
Starting in panel 2, Archie waves to Beverly’s buttocks, saying “Good to see you!”
Then, in panel 3, he says “What’s new, Angela?” while gazing at the back of her bikini.
Archie’s eyes continue to track what they truly appreciate, even as he’s giving well-meaning advice. “Watch that sun, Lola! You’ve got sensitive skin!”
“Hi, Kitty!”
Dan DeCarlo Jr. gives Veronica’s entry into this story some majesty, as on page 4, Archie’s gaze and outflung arms direct the reader’s attention squarely to Veronica’s derriere, which is in the foreground of the panel and eclipses most of Jughead.
He goes on to spot Betty and Alice by their posteriors, and when Jughead raises the question of Archie’s knack for swimsuit fashion, Veronica sees the outrageous lie for what it is, and uses the infinite resourcefulness that cartoon characters have to find some blinders on the beach to punish her boyfriend.
Thus endeth the adventures of Archie the derriere hunter, although he has continued to chase tail through the last thirty-four years of Archie Comics.
A Bibliographical Note:
The Archie Digital store stops at Archie #243 and picks up again at #473, and “An Eye For—Fashion?” is not available digitally, and as the Grand Comic Database project, which is usually a strong resource for comics scholars, is weak in their indexing of Archie reprints, I do not know if it has been reprinted. “The Helmet” does not appear to be available digitally, and I have not found its first appearance in print, either, but it has been reprinted in Archie Annual Digest #27 (1975), and Betty and Veronica Double Digest #8 (1987), and probably originates from the 1960s, which was the heyday of the Frank Doyle and Harry Lucey collaborations.
