 | Twelve-Cent Archie Subjects: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture.; LITERARY CRITICISM / Comics & Graphic Novels.; Comic books strips etc.; Andrews Archie (Fictitious character); For over seventy-five years,nbsp;Archienbsp;and the gang at Riverdale High have been America's most iconic teenagers, delighting generations of readers with their never-ending exploits. But despite their ubiquity,nbsp; Archienbsp; comics have been relatively ignored by scholars--until now.nbsp; Twelve-Cent Archie nbsp;is not only the first scholarly study of thenbsp; Archienbsp; comic, it is an innovative creative work in its own right. Inspired bynbsp; Archie'snbsp; own concise storytelling format, renowned comics scholar Bart Beaty divides the book into a hundred short chapters, each devoted to a different aspect of thenbsp; Archienbsp; comics. Fans of the comics will be thrilled to read in-depth examinations of their favorite characters and motifs, including individual chapters devoted to Jughead's hat and Archie's sweater-vest. But the book also has plenty to interest newcomers to Riverdale, as it recounts the behind-the-scenes history of the comics and analyzes hownbsp; Archienbsp; helped shape our images of the American teenager.nbsp; As he employs a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches, Beaty reveals that thenbsp; Archienbsp; comics themselves were far more eclectic, creative, and self-aware than most critics recognize. Equally comfortable considering everything from the representation of racial diversity to the semiotics of Veronica's haircut,nbsp; Twelve-Cent Archie nbsp;gives a fresh appreciation for America's most endearing group of teenagers.nbsp; BART BEATY is a professor at the University of Calgary, where he heads the department of English. He has written several books, including Fredric Wertham and Critique of Mass Culture, Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s, and Comics Versus Art .nbsp; |
