Archie debuted in Pep Comics #22. For some reason, in the beginning, he hated being called either Archibald or Archie and instead preferred to be called "Chick". He was also a big troublemaker in the beginning, although sometimes these follies occurred on accident, due to carelessness. In his first appearance, he met Betty Cooper, who was just moving to the neighborhood with her dad, who was super old then but now isn't, so maybe he's like Benjamin Button or something. Archie's best friend Jughead Jones was also introduced in that issue; Jughead is best known for his crown-looking hat, which kind of seems ridiculous now but back then kids would carve them up out of their dad's old, worn-out fedoras, which is way more creativity than anybody alive today.
Archie's tagline in the early days was "The Mirth of a Nation", which is a seriously godawful pun, but odds are back in the 40's that shit was totally fly. Despite retaining popularity for well over 50 years, Archie's comics are sometimes looked upon as being silly and outdated, but seriously, he and his friends are the only people ever to meet both The Punisher and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, except maybe Daredevil. He also made an openly gay friend named Kevin Keller in 2010 and the issues focusing on him sold out faster than most of DC and Marvel's comics in the past gazillion years, so we're pretty sure that's saying something. The official website for the comics also gets somewhere around 40 million hits a month.
Most of Archie's "adventures" revolve around typical teenager issues like juggling two or more girls and parents who just don't understand.
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