Greetings all, when I was growing up, the main comic I read was Archie and friends. This is a comic about a small town in America where 1950s Americana is revered and straight men are not vilified. The comics center around Archie, a good looking popular kid in school who is also a nice guy (we can argue if Archie is a bit blue pill later, but we can undoubtedly say that he exemplifies many of the qualities a good man should have like honesty, athleticism, and more).

Archie's main girl is Veronica Lodge, a rich black haired daddy's girl whose father constantly makes fun of Archie for not being of the same stock (i.e. Archie comes from a middle class family), kind of like how Lois Griffin's dad treats Peter on Family Guy. Archie is also constantly torn between the sweet, middle class blondie in town (the hottest one I saw in Riverdale might I add) Bettie, and Bettie does not win the time and presence of Archie as much as Veronica does, but she does now and then, and it shows you how men are men (down to spread the seed) while women are down to share the best man around.

We also have a dark triad alpha in the comic, Reggie, who is the only other real contender for Veronica Lodge throughout the comic due to his wealth and bad boy looks (where have we seen that theme before?). This dynamic of these main characters is what powers the comics, the sexual conquests of Archie so to speak, and these comics revolve around Archie just being Archie (i.e. a good looking, affable pimp in town who makes goofy mistakes now and then).

Let's contrast this with every dork.ly comic I've seen since being introduced to reddit, using this one as an example; here we have a comic about the progression of video games from one player on the couch to four players on the couch to just you and your online friends to you watching people play on a chat room, and the person gets more depressed looking throughout the comic. Putting aside the fact that this "protagonist" is not finding happiness in constantly playing video games, how are these characters drawn?

The "One Player Age" strip has a beta whose mom dressed him sitting next to a chubby half-dike with a questionably short braid for her age (looks like the braid for Charlie Sheen's housekeeper on Two and a Half Men) with the "guy" saying "let's switch off!" and the half-dike already questioning his decision making powers as a man with her glance.

The "Two Player Age" has a slightly more grown beta and half-dike with the beta looking so excited to still be in the presence of his friend girl and the girl looking completely disinterested in the guy or what he has to say.

The "Four Player Age" - wouldn't be a proper cartoon for sensitive faggots if we didn't accurately represent all people of color in this one - it would be so racist if we ever had a comic of people with generally the same skin tone, because there's no way to make a comic without underlying racial tensions pronounced as well. Here we have even more grown versions of our young beta and half dike, they're still sitting next to each other, but you can tell that the young beta is feeling threatened by the new guy on the couch choosing to sit in between him and his gaming partner, albeit on a row behind them. This again is a nice friendly group where the men will never speak freely as men so as not to offend "the female" in the group (yes, the female, not the woman, because men and women are to be referred to like plants nowadays). Notice how the half-dike gets "sexier" throughout the comics, and she has some cleavage now, but the young beta would never dare offend her by saying that he thinks they look nice or that they turn him on.

The rest of the comic is about the young beta playing online games by himself at home and becoming depressed by the loneliness. I don't need to explain that one. But it's funny how comics change, from openly embracing the sexuality of young men and women to being about sexless losers who sit at home and are afraid to hit on women.