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THE LAW IS A ASS for 09/07/1999
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 9
Originally published in The Comics Buyer's Guide # 523
November 25, 1983 issue
This one's going to shock you, people. I know it did me, when I first read the story. After all, when I want sin and depravity, I go to Bourbon Street in New Orleans. I don't pick up a copy of ...
No, it's too painful, too shocking. You'll just have to read it for yourselves.
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment #9
by
Bob Ingersoll
After it was all over; after the cast iron cell doors slammed shut behind them with an echo that would reverberate far the next two to five years, others thought back on the events which had so shocked the country. It was not so much what they had done that was so shocking. Indeed, their crime was only one of theft, which, while a felony, is but a crime against property involving no harm to another. No, it was who they were, who exactly had committed the theft offense which so shocked, no outraged, society.
But outrage there was, outrage so widespread that both Adrian Chase and Blake Tower came out of retirement to prosecute jointly and insure a conviction. Sentiment against the defendants was strong. From across the country angry opinion was voiced demanding that an example be made of them. And the vox populi was obeyed, for when they were brought to trial, even though they were juveniles, they were prosecuted as adults.
The trial itself was swift but sure. The evidence from the third perpetrator, Reginald M., who had been promised both immunity and anonymity in return for his damning testimony against the principle offenders, provided all that was required for a conviction. The court, which concurred in the public outcry, sentenced immediately and imposed the maximum penalty prescribed by law, and the Parole Board secretly vowed that they would never receive an early release.
And after it was all over; after the cell doors were securely locked, no one wept for them. For they, Forsythe P. Jones, Ill, and Archibald Andrews, had brought their fate upon themselves.
******
What? Archie and Jughead convicted felons? Well actually they're not, but they should be. In Archie In Riverdale # 94 Archie, Jughead, and Reggie steal $200 from Mr. Lodge. Check out the aforementioned comic. It's all there in four color and white in the story, "Assignment: How I Spent My Summer Vacation ...!"
Jughead spent his summer vacation selling hot dogs on the beach. One day he felt a little peckish, in the same way a Frank Miller comic is a little violent. Juggle ate his entire stock of hot dogs instead of selling them. Realizing that he now owed his boss $20 (20 hot dogs at an inflationary $1.00 a piece) and realizing he didn't have $20, Jughead found himself surrounded by one rock and one very hard place.
Jughead knew only one person could help him, one Napoleon of Crime Jughead, himself, described as "one of the foremost, if unrecognized, minds of the 20th century:" Archie Andrews. Jughead told Archie of the problem and in twelve seconds, "a new record," Archie had a plan worthy of Jim Phelps and the Impossible Missions Force. (Okay, maybe only the movie version of the IMF, but a plan nonetheless. So, maestro, a little Lalo Schifrin traveling music, please.)
First Step: Archie and Jughead went to the Riverdale Bank to borrow $50. As neither qualified for a loan, they had to borrow the money from Veronica, who was working there as a teller.
Second Step: Archie took the $50 to a costume shop, where Betty worked. Here he rented a bear costume and some stage make-up.
Third Step: Archie secured the aid of Reggie by promising him he'd make a fast $100 for his part in the plan.
Fourth Step: Archie, Jughead, and Reggie went to the Philthy Riche Country Club. (Don't blame me, I didn't write the story I'm just reporting it.) Here the three conspirators convinced club handy man, Moose, to let then sneak onto the golf course
Fifth Step: Reggie put on the stage make-up. Then the disguised Reggie challenged Mr. Lodge to a golf match with an accompanying $200 bet.
Sixth Step: Archie and Jughead, dressed in the bear suit, planning to jump out onto the golf course. Reggie would "courageously" chase the "bear" away. But the experience would so upset Mr. Lodge that he would be unable to continue the match and forfeit the $200.
And, like the plan wanted, the bear appeared. Reggie chased it away. Mr. Lodge's nerves frazzled. He gave Reggie $200, which Archie. Jughead, and Reggie divided up. (S100 for Reggie, $50,00 for Veronica, $20 for Jughead, and Archie pocketed the extra $30 as "traveling expenses.")
That, ladies and gentlemen, is called grand theft.
Theft, among other possibilities, includes knowingly using deception to exert control over another's property with the intent of denying the owner of the property; a fourth-degree felony, when the value of said property is $150 or more. Hopefully I won't have to convince any of you that disguising yourself in a bear costume to fix a $200 bet on a golf game fits into the above description of felony theft. To those readers who aren't convinced this is theft, well, there's always the crime of cheating.
Yes, cheating isn't simply something one does at Solitaire, there's also a crime called cheating. Cheating, the crime, not what one does at Solitaire, is engaging in conduct designed to corrupt by fraud the outcome of a bet or a game of skill. Again if the potential loss to the victim is $150 or more, cheating is a fourth-degree felony. Certainly there can't be a reader who doubts that Archie, Jughead, and Reggie violated this law, when they fixed the golf match. If there is a doubter, I would advise him or her to look carefully over his or her shoulder. The Vigilante will probably be coming after said Doubting Thomas/Thomasina very soon. (There's my argument, decriminalize the universal masculine.)
Honesty forces me to admit one thing. Well, to be truthful, honesty and the fact that those who have read the story in question are going to accuse me of telling a half truth are what's forcing me to admit the one thing: I told a half truth. I implied that Archie and Jughead dressed up in a bear costume and scared Mr. Lodge into forfeiting the match. They didn't. They were going to, but in classic TV situation comedy clich fashion, the costume's zipper got stuck. By chance a real bear happened to jump out onto the golf course and scared Mr. Lodge. Got that, a real bear, not the disguised Archie and Jughead. (Yes a real bear. Don't you know that every golf course has a resident bear which prowls the woods. It keeps the golfers from going after the balls they slice into the woods. That way the course keeps all those lost halls and makes a small fortune selling them.) It was a real bear that Reggie chased, and a real bear that unnerved Mr Lodge. (Admit it now, haven't we all seen the exact same plot device on (A) I Love Lucy; B) Gilligan's Island; (C) Laverne & Shirley; (D) All of the above; (E) All of the above plus many other sit- cons too numerous to mention?)
I can just hear my critics now. "Aha, Ingersoll, you sleazeball shyster, you're resorting to perjury to win your case. Archie didn't defraud Mr. Lodge with a phony bear. It was a real bear, so Archie isn't guilty of anything!"
Wrong again, technicality breath!
Archie planned to defraud Mr. Lodge in exactly the manner I described. He even completed five steps of his six step plan toward achieving his illicit end. Only Dame Misfortune in the guise of a stuck zipper prevented Archie from appearing in the bear costume and completing his nefarious deed. In other words Archie, Jughead and Reggie purposely engaged in conduct which, if successful, would have resulted in the commission of a felony, either theft or cheating.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is called attempted theft or attempted cheating, take your pick.
Attempt is a crime. In the case of attempted grand theft or attempted cheating, it is a misdemeanor of the first degree But why, one might ask, am I so concerned with a mundane misdemeanor? After all, isn't Mr. Lodge rich enough to take a $200 loss out of petty cash? And hasn't he treated Archie shabbily over the decades, so maybe deserved what he got? Well yes, except for the part about Lodge deserving what he got. Still, the fact that Archie, Jughead, and Reggie committed the crime, committed any theft offense bothered me for several reasons.
First of all the theft was totally unnecessary. Remember Archie had borrowed $50 from Veronica. Well correct my math if it's wrong, but isn't $50 more than $20, even under the New Math? Why didn't Archie simply use the $50 to pay Jughead's boss, then have Jughead pay Veronica back, when he got paid on his hotdog gig? Why did Archie have to take the $50 and use it as seed money in a scheme that's being considered for the plot of The Sting III? No real explanation for Archie's behavior is given, except that he kept $30 of the stolen $200 as "traveling expenses." It seems Archie simply wanted to clear a fast $30 for himself out of the deal.
The second thing that bothered me was that Archie, Jughead, and Reggie all acted out of character. True all of them have been rather self-centered throughout their careers, but to this point none of them had ever shown any criminal proclivities. Despite Jughead's statement that Archie was a "master" at this sort of thing, which implies that Archie had done it before, Archie has always been honest. I categorically reject the image of Archie rifling the till at Pop's Chok'lit Shoppe for parking meter money
It probably shouldn't have surprised me that Archie Andrews et. al. acted out of character and illogically. The writer of this particular story cut his creative eye teeth crafting works for a now defunct company which published some one thousand nine hundred ninety-four stories which purported to be creepy but were, in actuality, gross, illogical, racist, disgusting, obscene, violent, peppered with gratuitous profanity, poorly written, and generally rotten to the core. After working on one such "Warren piece" after another, it is not surprising that the writer would have difficulty getting right the character of a character who has existed virtually unchanged since 1942.
What upsets me most of all is that the writer and the editors of this story had Archie, Jughead, and Reggie commit a crime. Any crime. Archie may have been dull for the last forty-one hears; he has all the personality of a coat of latex paintAiwhite latex pain; but during those forty-one years Archie has always stood for something. He has always been a symbol of morality and honesty, a positive role model for those who read his exploits. Now he commits a crime and, worse yet, gets away with it. What message does that have for his young readers in their formative years? The rose of crime hears sweet fruit. Crime does pay. The Shadow don't know jack. So go out and have fun, kids.
It's kind of like finding out that Beaver Cleaver pushed heroin on Lumpy Rutherford or that Timmy and Lassie engaged in bestiality. Better such characters remain dull but honest roll models. (If the children of today want a negative role model, they can read The Vigilante. But please not Archie.)
Two more points. First: I would like to thank Mitch Wenzel, a good guy and friend, for originally pointing this story out to me. I don't read Archie comics anymore. They're too painful. You see, like so many others, I, too, am a closet Betty Cooper fan, and frankly I can no longer stomach Archie's callous treatment of the ever-faithful Betty, while he pursues the prototypical rich bitch, Veronica Lodge.
Second: to Fred Hembeck and all the other admitted or closet Betty Cooper fans, how are we going to break the news of Archie's crime to Betty. She's too fine a person to squander her time consorting with a criminal.
BOB INGERSOLL
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