“Stay out of Riverdale!”
Sitting on the stands at your local Safeway and Borders bookstores right now (probably less so any comic book store) is a copy of an Archie Digest, of interest because it is a reprint of Archie #1 from 1942, as well the first Archie story from one year prior. (Oddly, the Joe Edwards funny animal stories were more amusing than Bob Montana’s Archie comics. An alternative route for the company, the path not taken, I suppose.)
Now, we all know Archie as roughly the most white-bread creation there is. They inserted a couple of black teenagers into Riverdale in the 1970s, which if one complains is a little token-ish, i would suggest that they would have been in a place rhetorically if they had not. One comment on the evolution of Chuck Clayton, though: the company appears to have evolved his main character trait from being a superstar basketball player to a prodigious Artist. I imagine a board meeting at some point pondering the issues of Racial stereotypes for their token black character.
Back to 1942, and you have this:
(Image lifted from here.)
I do not know quite what to say about the image, not the most egregious example from this comic book. Though, as somebody pointed out in the “Comics Journal” message board, he did get the best line in. But I’d think the editorial staff would be obligated to mention something about this. Save some of that space of company promotional material published at the top of this digest to make a somewhat bland historical point, on par with what I have seen in reprints of Basil Wolverton’s Space-hawk (when he was diverted from his science fiction soap opera to direct attention to the War effort) of Japanese caricatures, and I have seen for Carl Barks Donald Duck reprints toward American Indians (except the example I can think of off the top of my mind Disney actually awkwardly altered, “cleaning up” the racism.) [I don’t think the Tintin reprints have as much obligation to mention the problem.]
I know what I am seeing, but there are kids reading this, right?
August 14th, 2007 at 1:40 am
How wholesome. But I’m tempted to buy it just to find out what’s in that box.
Er, I suppose I should sort of intro myself. You quoted from my summary of Webster Tarpley’s recent Vancouver speech, and I was delighted to learn I’m not the only one who suspects Tarpley isn’t *really* an ex-LaRouchite.
By a very weird coincidence, I checked Dennis King’s “L.L. and the New American Fascism” out of the library about an hour before I found your post. Lately his name just keeps popping up in my “Satanic panic” research, in posts, even in casual conversation. I decided I must know more.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:44 am
From an ex-Larouche insider, posted at a later post:
Chaitkin never left the cult. There are people who claim to have left, but that is usually to hoodwink others. Security honcho Paul Goldstien claims to have left, but hosts soirries for the cult security chief and a guy code named Carpet who probably recieves more money in one week than the entire LYM payroll!
Maybe Lyn has franchised the cult as you can often see the raw material of the cult end up in Webster Tarpley’s material. I once received an email from a person who was in Leesburg as a guest and heard a talk by Lyn about how some of the members need to “go out and forageâ€. It is not uncommon for cults to send out their people to infiltrate or diseminate more lunacy written with out the cult leaders name attached. Mon has hundreds of front groups. Always keep in mond that spending years and years in a cult like this of endless hysteria will screw you up big time.
Actually there’s one more tid-bit from that board of relevance to this issue, but I would have to wade through a 700 post thread, and I don’t have the time or inclination.
A rough guide to what has happened in Larouche-land:
http://www.struat.com/justin/thelarouchestoryasitstandsrightnow.html
August 15th, 2007 at 1:46 am
The franchise concept is interesting. What I noticed most about Tarpley is that his 9/11 material is just enough in line with the 9/11 Truth movement to keep Truthers hooked, but he is otherwise on a whole different wavelength. He shocked the Vancouver conference-goers by rhapsodizing about Putin and dismissing Ron Paul, for instance.
From Jacques Vallee’s Revelations (an examination of UFO hoaxes and disinformation): “A disturbing fact discovered by French investigators seems to link some of the scientists of the UMMO group with the LaRouche extremist movement in Europe.” In other words, the movement could be infiltrating fringe groups… ufology, 9/11 truth, etc.
I’m still catching up on this stuff, so thanks for the link to the rough guide. I’ll be reading King’s book this week. I also came across some material on Jeremiah Duggan yesterday…unsettling stuff, to say the least.