Josie #40

I am a fan of pre-"Josie and the Pussycat" Josie comics. Pencilled by Dan Decarlo. Written by Frank Doyle. Lighter and fluffier than air, the plots tend to... sort of... go nowhere in particular...

So I bought a copy of "Josie" issue #40, circa February 1969. (The Pussycats would be introduced two issues later. #41 kind of seems to prepare for this, and the new inker kind of wrecks the whole feeling of the comic... and longer sideburns kind of make me welch.) I have a few things to point out about the comic... and all within the first four pages.

There's a situation, with various variations, that the writer and artist have a fairly odd tendency to go toward. And this one strikes me as a bit... nonsensical.

Josie, Melody, and Clyde Didit are in the hall-ways, at their lockers, right before classes. Clyde Didit, a character in the late 1960s who had a few hippy attributes (and an afro), decides he wants to walk around the school barefoot. Melody is inspired by this... enough so that she decides she wants to walk around barefoot and she wants to change into a flowing flowery hippy dress...

And here's the odd situation that Doyle and Decarlo are drawn to: she starts undressing right there in the hall... some guys run up to view the spectacle of Melody undressing... Josie is agasp, and shields her from the view of all the guys, saying "Change if you must, but I'll guard the wolves." To which, all the guys grumble "Spoilsport!" (And, I assume, disperse.)

Some observations: #1: Josie is not big enough to block the view of Melody changing her clothes from the guys... in the real world, they'd still be watching her. Unless she can get pushed into her locker. #2: A better, and more sensical (though it would ruin this plot point which Doyle and Decarlo seem to be drawn to) situation would be to ... have Melody dress in the bathroom or gym locker room?

Next we have Melody and Clyde Diddit walking around barefoot, with the principal watching from out of view. Melody asks "What if the principal stops us?" Clyde Diddit says "Aha!", and then we get a panel with him shouting out "Bill of Rights! Strike! Constitution! Sit-In!" The principal gasps and thinks "Well, he sure knows all the phrases." -- before giving the janitor a break so that large pebbles would remain in the hallway.

This brings to mind the Dan Decarlo Comics Journal interview, and the fading away of the character of Pepper, described by Decarlo as "the original protest girl". The powers that be at Archie Comics objected, saying (from Decarlo's perspective) "We don't let kids like that in Riverdale!" (Didn't know that they lived in Riverdale... which, at that time, they didn't.)

Not that you'd expect the company to be anything but... shall we say... small c conservative in its politics (aside from Al Hartley's Evangelical outlook)... though, I don't think the Supreme Court decision that allowed kids to pretty much wear whatever they want in public schools (in the case before the courts, it was a student wearing a black arm-band to protest the Vietnam War) frowned upon disallowing kids from wandering the halls in bare feet...