#Prof Flutesnoot

[jhsharman]

Science Trouble

I think they should have kept "scarey".

From two different strands of a plot premise -- Prof Flutesnoot speculates on what Earth's atmosphere would do to space bacteria he somehow has whilst Jughead and Archie try to find a science fair exhibit acceptable to Mr. Weatherbee, the story veers into a reprise of the Frese to Schwartz tale.

The Little Archie version loses the script a tad and switches from Martian to monster. And one subtle difference for Little Archie as against Jughead in reaction to Miss Grundy.

"You two girls" is only used in version one, after which Mr. Weatherbee drops it to "you too". "Kiddies" is dropped with the Little Archie version.

Reggie's 1953 stint as alien creature was more purposeful and, frankly, less hidden. Really -- how do you not see that is Reggie?

Over in Tppy Teen, Samm Schwartz's knock-off Archie project with Tower Comics in the mid to late 60s, their principal is in the green costume doing the scaring.

[fereality-indy]

An Idea: The Rest Of Riverdale High

It would be a Riverdale High series that didn't star any of the main cast (Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie, Jughead, Moose, Midge, Cheryl, Dilton, Chuck, Nancy, etc.). I mean they could show up in a panel or a background, but the focus would be on the other students of Riverdale.  

People like Cricket O'dell,  Frankie Valdez, Maria Rodriguez, Brigette Reilly, Alison Adams, Akira Yoshida, Tomoko Yoshida, Randolph (maybe starting to hang out/date Tomoko based around their shared love of manga), Kim Wong, Toño Díaz, Googie Gilmore, Pencil Neck G, Sassy Thrasher, Jeffrey & his dog Spike, Anita Chavita, Kumi Tanura, Angel Angelino, Jinx Malloy, Lucky Penny, Debbie Dalton, Dilly Dalton, Charley Hawse (teenage version), Lil' Jinx Holliday (teenage version), Marcy McDermott,  Danni Malloy (she needs to come back bad), Bingo Wilkins, Samantha Smythe, Eugene (maybe he went to Central High or Southside High and is now transfering back to Riverdale High or something, but he would be great to see come back), Amani (See Eugene), Fangs Fogerty (See Eugene), Ambrose Pipps (See Eugene), Sue Stringly (See Eugene), Wendy Weatherbee (have her move back to town), Joani Jumpp (moves back/visits Jughead, throws a wrench into JUST/UGAJ plans), Sayid Jamall Ali, Charlie ‘Chunk’ Charlston, Danny D’Angelo. Lawrence ‘Lonnie’ Renwood, Victor ‘Big Vic’ Johnson, Chloe Mancuso, Rob Mantaukett, Prankenstein, Avalon ‘Shrill’ Prisston, Simon Silverstein, Bobbi Suarez, Carla Teal, Sherry Thyme, Sheila Wu, The Twitters (Mina Martin, Nina Nelson, & Tina Thomas), etc

And faculty could be some of the focus too. Mr Weatherbee, Ms Grundy, Miss Haggly, Prof Flutesnoot, Coach Clayton, Coach Kleats, Coach Pacer, Coach Grappler, Ms Ganesh, Mr Fine, Ms Ashton, & maybe add Sara Bellum (as the shool's new councilor).

Sheesh, I just realized Riverdale is big enough for 4 (formerly 5 until Pine Point High closed) high schools (Riverdale High, Central High, & Southside High, & Pembrooke Academy). 

[jhsharman]

chemistry grades

The only scenario we see Prof Flutesnoot shirtless.

[jhsharman]

extinction events

[jhsharman]

Notes to You

One more "endevor to get detention on purpose" story, this one on behalf of Veronica though only after Betty fell on the sword. Interesting, if Mr. Weatherbee is really interested in playing cupid, as seen in 1994, freeing them from detention seems the way to go.

I am a little puzzled by the time lapse -- consider that the girl you see lying in the courtyard with boy in lap was in the opening panel. At least in the reprise... In the initial one she would have had to have dyed her hair.

[jhsharman]

chem

[jhsharman]

peace and all that

So. Secular versus Religious variant of this story. Maybe a subtle dialogue change in Weatherbee's last line -- "the world is due" is more predetermined than "probably going to have". Reshuffle the overheating engine and shaking and add a new float falling apart sequence. It would be a little amusing if Betty were wearing her hot pants on the Bible Club Float.

[jhsharman]

the bad penny

I would skip the added signature, except that the story gets preceded by the this:

And the art is from Bill Vigoda, so this is fraudulent history anyways. But not only this, we wipe out the historical fumbling for a name.

AND

They do revert past the earlier reprinting of the story -- background color shifted to highlight how much these teachers hate Jughead --

And there Jughead is saying "Flutesnute", but kept is Coach's "Flootsnoot" -- apparently Coach Kleats had his name either wrong or right the whole time.

And we blur the choir.

[jhsharman]

one extra squeak

An added exclamation. The lady in the hallway has motion lines around her head. I guess it makes sense to spotlight Jughead's shoes, as it is the focus of the story to come. They need to make sure he is making squeaking noises, so comes two extra squeaks.

Things emitting about Mr. Weatherbee's face in th at first panel. A new squeak is added for the indicia replacement.

Fifty percent more exclamatory droppings for Weatherbe. And watch Jughead run!

Surprised they didn't have the lines over his finger.

Now they do. And halt line --

jagged, jagged

[jhsharman]

Camp Camp again

If we are going to go all generic, I wonder if just simply "Camp" wouldn't be better.

[jhsharman]

The new kid

Sure. Anxiety manifesting itself as dreams of Satan getting you. But look -- you need to understand Riverdale High at this time and place. Biker gang the Hell's Angels has the run of the place.

What is weird is we will never see or hear of this Hell's Angels crew again. Like, even if this is indeed a sanctioned school club, driving the motorcycles in the hallway are demanding of a reprimand of some sort. But I guess the Hell's Angels are just a herald for the new character -- or, here a reintroduction of a new character. In the world of students wandering the halls of Riverdale High, hippy demon Legion is too easily overlooked. And lest you think this is just Al Hartley with Spire Christian, no -- he made his initial appearance in Reggie and Me number 55.

Mr. Weatherbee does not meet him until Spire.

It is a little bit weird that the more overt biblical reference -- "for we are many" -- is in the secular version of this story. Legion, via wikipedia:

The earliest version of this story exists in the Gospel of Mark, described as taking place in "the country of the Gerasenes". Jesus encounters a possessed man and calls on the demon to emerge, demanding to know its name – an important element of traditional exorcism practice.[1] He finds the man is possessed by a multitude of demons who give the collective name of "Legion". Fearing that Jesus will drive them out of the world and into the abyss, they beg him instead to send them into a herd of pigs, which he does. The pigs then rush into the sea and are drowned (Mark 5:1–5:13). Or, your basic metaphor for Roman soldiers -- message: Jesus is more powerful than the Roman army.

His ideas interest me and I would like to subscribe to his newsletter. Or, hear his spoken word poetry maybe? "Life is a Squirrel Cage" shows real promise. Despite all his rage he's still just a squirrel in a cage. He knows why the caged squirrel sings. Stuff like that.

Yeah! Show us your perverts! Like, get to the bottom of the cosplay going on in the story just before the secular Legion story.:

Is this allowed on campus? I mean, Mr. Weatherbee appeared so he must approve somewhere. As for radicals, well there is this --

Probably some reasonable if not wholly formed insights from him. Unfortunately Ethel gets to him and sells him on, depending on which copy we have, general love and empathy or Jesus.

I would say -- Hey! Give me the danged back story -- but there is probably not much. A dime a dozen drug addiction story that in order to make interesting gets peppered with exaggerations and falsehoods and so you have the next A Million Little Pieces. Or if he has decided to make money on the Evangelical circuit, he can claim to have experienced a vast national Occult network -- make him a mint.

Someone let me know if he gets referenced in the present "Archie Horror" line of comics.

[jhsharman]

Electronic Brains

They do tend to just red splash those old pre-pc Macro-computers into a uniform gray.

From wikipedia: The earliest known reference to a vending machine is in the work of Hero of Alexandria, an engineer, and mathematician in first-century Roman Egypt. His machine accepted a coin and then dispensed holy water. When the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever. The lever opened a valve which let some water flow out. The pan continued to tilt with the weight of the coin until it fell off, at which point a counterweight snapped the lever up and turned off the valve.

Odd refurbish which alters a meaning. Originally Jughead was embarking on subterfuge in circumventing the technology's purpose, now he just wrecked its delicate inside workings by accident. And I don't know that a "walk in vending machine" doesn't defeat some of the purpose.

[jhsharman]

Prayers

Yeah! Take that Madeline O'hare! Mr. Weatherbee wants to lead this group of students on an impromptu road trip to the forest -- to bask in wonder at God's creation -- in prayer, he's going to do that, and if you don't like it you can lump it!

Question: the 76 bus number. Where did it go and why?

Jughead likes to pray, so shouldn't you?

John Goldwater takes a deep breath, picks up the phone, and calls Al Hartley. "Didn't I already tell you to knock this off?"

[jhsharman]

Flutesnoot

[jhsharman]

Svenson's mustache

Okay. I get why they drag a pre- codified Svenson into a new beard and shave his wild hair off. But then, why do they leave Flutesnoot with a dumped oval shape face?

[jhsharman]

Orson Welles reprise

In the last years of the 1950s and into 1960, Archie Comics took a good handful of stories from the first half of the 1950s and redid them, script kept identical. There may be something to suggest on the one minor dialogue drop in this revision -- Archie's reference to "3D" suggests either the movie fad had run its course or the editor decided it was kind of dumb suggestion -- though it does as a spitball lend itself on to Jughead's suggestion and the "hi-jinx" which "ensues".

In terms of reprintings and digests, the earlier ones get dropped in favor of the reprised version. This is probably fair -- Samm Schwartz's version is superior to George Frese's -- though it is a shame that Frese gets bumped as much as he does from generations of Archie digest readers. By definition, they are an assortment of the best material -- why they were redone in the first place, to slide into a newly adopted artistic framework.

There also end up being a small handful of characters on the periphery of the "Riverdale" gang who are drawn out of the reprised version -- forever running around in the background of 1950s comics and shut out of the reprints. Here the case holds for the particular design on Miss Haggly -- who, as this particular grotesque even then Samm Schwartz does not want to touch.