Dear Diary… Archie’s dead

And Veronica’s jumped on the first flight out to Paris for the latest in funeral chic. Okay, maybe not. Last week, when I heard that Riverdale’s freckle-faced, carrot-topped, love-struck Archie Andrews is going to be killed off, I was perplexed. The publishers have said that his death will be “heroic”, and that Life With Archie series will continue to chronicle the lives of the rest of the gang — Betty, Ronnie, Reggie, Jughead and even Moose and Midge and Chuck and Nancy. Why would they do this? Does this also signal the end of the longest running love triangle? Does he finally choose? Is that the only solution they had? Yes, we’re pretending that the stories on Archie’s many weddings never happened. Now Ronnie, then Betty… then Valerie! He should’ve picked!

I can’t quite recall when I first started reading Archie comics. But every summer vacation, on board the Rajkot-Secunderabad Express, my backpack would be stuffed with Archie double digests, Nagraj comics and Cadbury’s 5 stars. We would arrive early at the station to scour for Wheelers and snag as many double digests as our holiday bounty would allow. At stations where the train would halt for more than five minutes, we would sprint along the length of the platform to look for Archies. Finding Betty and Veronica digests was tough, Jughead even tougher. Even when I grew older, when I carefully packed Murakamis and Vonneguts, the thrill of hunting down BV double digests always remained. I never liked Archie, although I was as much of a klutz as he was. It was the expectation that he would pick, that the BV feud would have a winner that has kept me hooked to this day.

The love triangle was the only thing that really mattered in the Archie universe. Jughead’s spaghetti-and-meatball escapades were legendary (Famous Five gave me the love for bacon and Juggie, the love for spaghetti and meatballs), Reggie’s evil plans were a scream, even Dilton and his crazy inventions were a precursor to Dexter’s lab. But the juiciest stories were when Betty and Ronnie headed for their epic showdowns at Pop Tate’s, at proms, at their homes. Theirs was the first love triangle I remember.

I have always openly rooted for Betty. She was the do-gooder. Whenever Archie’s battered old jalopy broke down, en route to a date with Ronnie, it was Betty who fixed his ride. If Archie had spent all his pocket money on fancy dates with Ronnie, Betty was content with snuggling next to him on her couch, watching a rented film, eating popcorn she had made. But in later years, I secretly crushed on Ronnie’s shopping trips, the indoor pool parties she threw in the cruellest of winters (seasons never mattered in the Lodge world), her cunning schemes, her jealousy and her extraordinary ability to keep both Archie and Reggie on a tight leash. Betty was the quintessential girl next door, much like I was, but Ronnie was a fascinating study in high maintenance.

If Archie has to be the biggest sacrifice on the altar of sales and “edgy storytelling”, so be it. Even if Betty ends up with Veronica, so be it. If both turn out to be figments of Mr Weatherbee’s terrible imagination, that’s fine too. But give us a finale we’ll remember and then shut down the Life With Archie series. For life without “dear Archiekins” will be simply pointless.

A heartbroken fangirl

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