Miskatonic University Press

Two library mentions in Archie Jumbo Comics 285

archie libraries

Two stories in Archie Jumbo Comics Digest 285 (February 2018) mention libraries.

First, “Big Chief Motor Mouth,” which originally appeared in Archie 375 (March 1990). It was written by Frank Doyle, pencilled by Stan Goldberg, inked by Mike Esposito, coloured by Barry Grossman and lettered by Bill Yoshida. This story starts with Archie going to the library where he is going to do research for his “report on atomic energy,” which is due the next day. He passes Jughead, who was doing his report on French chefs, and didn’t need to do any research because he already had everything in his head.

Jughead’s approach is not a good research strategy. He may be an expert in the field, but in high school a teacher will expect to see sources used and properly cited. Jughead shouldn’t simply write an essay about his own opinions.

The library here looks like a fairly modern building with a simple entrance.

In the stacks, we see again that few, if any, books have shelf labels. The book that Archie finds turns out to have a been the first of a series of pranks set up by Reggie, which is what the rest of the story is about.

Second, “The Y & Z Games,” which originally appeared in Archie Comics Digest 215 (May 2005). In this story Betty and Archie propose a fundraiser to Mr. Weatherbee: a games competition that turns regular school doings into competitions. One of the events is shelving books in the library.

Here we see Dilton with what is described as a “cart of books,” though in my experience it would be called a “book truck.”

The range of books pictured covers the Dewey Decimal Classification from 299.3 (“Religions not provided for elsewhere”) to 485.5 (“Grammar of classical Greek”). I think it is very unlikely a high school library would divide ranges this way, though having a good collection of the 300s (social sciences) and 400s (languages) is quite proper.