Every time I open up an Archie Comic, I can hear the telltale pop of a needle hitting vinyl. More often than not, it’s just the sound and nothing more: the airy silence before music emerges from the crackles. If the story I’m reading has that certain swinging aesthetic, sometimes non-existant wayback era music starts to play. It’s an involuntary reaction, one borne out of a nostalgia that I don’t quite have - longing for a simpler time that I was never a part of, with music I’ve never really heard, in a country that is literally foreign to me. If it were actual nostalgia, I would more accurately hear the click of a cassette tape being pushed inside a tape deck, followed by the smooth stylings of the Mini-Pops or Charlotte Diamond. I’d be a pizza. And yet.

There’s an intangible magic about Archie Comics. At a certain point during the human life span, that magic can be missed. Somewhere during the time when you want to be taken more seriously, where you believe that being treated like an adult would be the best thing in the world. The magic doesn’t seem to return until you actually start being treated like an adult, and have to deal with the complexities of life. Once you reach that place, you can look back at what Riverdale was like - what it’s still like, and you can find comfort in its comparative simplicity. It’s a place that has its troubles, sure, but troubles that can be solved with basic human kindness - the kind that doesn’t always solve the real world’s troubles. Riverdale is its own picturesque, Aaron Sorkin landscape, where the best human qualities are valued, where evil always finds a measure of comeuppance, and where the good path is always taken, despite there being easier, simpler options in place. At the end of the day, despite their many flaws, our heroes remain inherently good, and by gum, while we all know it Riverdale doesn’t exist, when we’re young and when we’re old, we know that we would absolutely love to live there.

Oh man.

01. WELCOME TO RIVERDALE

And welcome to The Blue and Gold, our slightly irregular Archie Comics column. Named after the prestigious Riverdale High newspaper, this column will be your source for all of my thoughts on Archie. Because let’s face it. There was a large gaping hole in your heart the exact size and shape of my ego, and you need that to be filled with my thoughts on Archie’s eyebrows. (Which, for the record, are OUT OF CONTROL.)

02. REFUGE

Riverdale. Within a modern context, it seems a little antiquated, an oasis in the the USA that seems untouched by all of the darkness that abounds. But if we’re being honest, darkness has always been lurking. Heck, Archie and Riverdale came into existence in 1941 as a distraction from all of the terrible things that were happening. The town and its residents were never an accurate representation of life, they merely existed to provide a nation with a bit of mirth and a place to run to when things were feeling a bit dire.

Riverdale has been, and always will be a place of refuge from reality, masking itself with harmless simplicity in order to throw the enemy off its scent. Its endurance comes down to the fact that we all crave some peace and quiet. We yearn for the kind of life you can have in Riverdale - one that’s not so much blissfully unaware of the darkness, but rather a life that doesn’t recognize darkness as an option. Darkness is absolutely incapable at getting a foothold within the town limits, because the people there will not stand for it. And really, could you just imagine a place like that? Where you wouldn’t have to worry about your job, or your personal life, because any kind of creeping darkness would be confronted by everyone - not because it would benefit them, but because it would be the right thing to do. A place like that would be wonderful, don’t you think?

03. FOUR COLOUR FANTASIES

While at first blush they seem like completely separate entities, Archie Comics and superhero comics have a lot in common. The genres are often completely different (although both have been known to run the gamut, in terms of genres), but the core ideas are exactly the same. In a Batman comic, Batman might be punching a dude in the face and in an Archie Comic, Archie might be… I don’t know, recycling, but when you boil down the concepts they all come down to one idea: being good is better than being bad.

It’s an idea that runs in direct contradiction to reality. For whatever reason, the human race has gotten to a point where rewards are often handed out to the worst among us. People caught doing highly illegal things are often paraded around television, where they rake in dollars for just… being terrible people. But in comic books, the opposite is true. In comics, Batman will always win. In comics, Archie will always save his day. Both will use a set of morals to achieve their goals, and both, in their own ways, are incorruptible. They are better than we are, and we aspire to be just a fraction of what they are - which is exactly why they are both still around today.

04. A WRAP UP, OF SORTS

Every time I open up an Archie Comic, I can hear the telltale pop of a needle hitting vinyl - the soundtrack of simplicity being mistaken for nostalgia.

As I turn the pages, I can feel myself smiling. I know that this place doesn’t exist. I know that these people couldn’t possibly be this good in real life. But… wouldn’t that be the best?

Oh man, that would be the best.