I can’t believe they made this joke twice in the same book. I love it so much.
Who’s gonna tell her?
Can you guys imagine? If you actually lived in the 70s or 80s, you’d all dress exactly like this every single day!
I think this is one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Thank you 2014 Archie comics.
Also this might be the coolest hairstyle Dilton has ever had:
Okay, my real question though: how did Archie and the other guys grow their hair out so quickly for 80s day?? Did Dilton concoct an instant-mullet potion or something?
Archie started sometime in the 40s, right? They juuuuust missed my favorite eras: the 30s, for their cartoons, and the roaring 20s, for their basically everything. I wish the Archie gang had been around in the 20s. (Just imagine the outfits, for starters.)
So it feels like this 2014 comic book is specifically targeted towards me, because they have TWO SEPARATE COMICS about swing dancing!
Just one would be crazy awesome to me. Two is kind of unbelievable.
That’s it, that’s the whole post. I really really like that they made two whole comics about swing dancing, and I’m sharing my excitement with the few people who will see this post.
So there’s this one comic where Dilton is absolutely FLIPPING OUT over how much Jughead annoys him. It’s really crazy. I’ve never seen him that emotional about ANYTHING. He looks like he’s going to murder someone. It’s one of my favorite comics.
I had wondered, before reading this, what a direct interaction between my two favorite characters would be like. This comic reveals the obvious fact that the two are polar opposites. The overachiever and the slacker. Of course they’d be at odds.
I’m going to completely overthink this comic, and write entirely too many paragraphs about my headcanons for it. You have been warned.
The first thing I glean from this comic is that Dilton has a serious control-freak streak. “Some people just aren’t happy unless everyone else is just the way they want ‘em to be.” I will Remember This Detail. I must collect characters’ flaws for future reference. Dilton gets pushy with other people when he thinks they should be different. It’s not enough for him to follow a strict set of rules, everyone else should too, or it irritates him to the point of cartoonish fury. (If anyone thinks they’re above the desire to change others, try being the only person in a group project who does any work, and see if you’re still willing to live and let live. I can definitely relate to Dilt here, to some degree.)
The second takeaway is that I headcanon exactly what led to the ending panel where Dilton’s been converted to Jughead’s way of life, instead of the other way around. I want to make a comic about it. Dilton’s been harassing Jughead for days about how he should change every aspect of his lifestyle. Jug asks why his lifestyle is so bad, and Dilt again lists off the things Jug does that he thinks are wrong. Jug then sort of disproves these claims, not denying them, but denying that they’re problems.
Sure he sleeps in class a lot, but that’s because class can be boring (surely gifted student Dilton understands this?). Jughead still gets mostly good grades, so he must be doing something right. He pays attention when he needs to. And maybe Dilton thinks his clothes are stupid, but who cares what he chooses to wear? How is that Dilton’s problem? And as far as “cluttering the landscape” by sleeping at the park, and eating a ton at the Chocklit Shoppe—seriously? He’s just existing in public places, doing completely legitimate things to do in those places. He’s minding his own business. Gluttony and sloth aren’t crimes unless they actually affect someone else’s life. And these actions shouldn’t be. So why are they affecting Dilton so much?
There are plenty of other reckless teenagers to try to reform, ones with way worse actions and way worse grades. So why Jughead? What makes him specifically the object of Dilton’s fury? Is it because he gets away with it all? Is it because—look, I’m gonna skip to my point. Dilton’s so bothered by Jughead specifically because he’s jealous of him.
He’s jealous that Jughead sleeps through boring classes because he already understands the material—Dilt is also sick of sitting through repetitive or easy lessons, but he wants to keep up appearances as the “responsible smart kid,” so he has to look alert even when he feels his time is being wasted. Dilton is jealous that Jughead finds it so easy to relax, napping in plain view of any passerby—Dilton cares too much about how other people see him, and he’s terribly afraid of appearing lazy or wasting time, and anyway he’s always too anxious to relax properly. Dilton is even sort of jealous of Jughead’s unabashed gluttony, because it displays a lack of shame that Dilton finds unattainable. Jughead doesn’t worry if the things he likes are “good” or “bad”, he just does what he wants. And it almost always works out for him.
To put the situation simply, Jughead is like the kid who speed-writes his essay the class period before it’s due, and still somehow gets an A. To someone who spent a week researching and revising theirs, this is infuriating. It feels so unfair. Sure, Jughead’s metaphorical A doesn’t do anything to remove Dilton’s A. Whether or not Jug succeeds, it doesn’t affect Dilton. Except it does, because it doesn’t feel fair that Dilton spends so much time anxious and planning and monitoring his behavior in an attempt to be perfect, and Jughead can just skate on through life without worry and be doing basically just as well. Because if there aren’t serious consequences for laziness and indulgence and nonchalance, then that means Dilton’s been putting himself through all this stress for nothing. If Dilton’s way of life is equivalent but less efficient, then it’s wrong, and Dilton is not used to being wrong about anything. It’s not something he handles well.
So yes, he’s flipping out. Because he needs Jughead’s actions to be objectively wrong and in need of correction. Or else he’s got to reevaluate pretty much everything about himself.
Probably Dilton’s not even aware that all of this stems from jealousy. He won’t admit it to himself. He feels far too self-righteous to examine his motivations. But at some point while he’s chasing Jughead all over Riverdale, he’s going to slip up and yell something that reveals basically everything I just wrote up there (but more concisely). He’s going to reveal (and realize for the first time) that this whole thing is just a desperate attempt to justify his own anxieties. After two weeks of this “reform Jughead” nonsense, they say something like:
J: [at the end of his rope] “I just don’t get why you hate me so much!”
D: [also at the end of his rope] “Hate you? I WISH I could BE you! It’s not fair!”
Jughead is completely shocked by this, and Dilton starts rambling about how hard he tries to be perfect and how he wishes he didn’t care what people thought of him and how Jughead can relax but he just can’t and how Jug has to be doing something wrong because if he’s not than Dilton’s wrong and he’s failed at life and that’s literally the worst thing that can happen and—
And Jughead immediately responds by saying that’s waaaay too much to worry about. (Because it really is. That doesn’t make it easy to get rid of though.) Jughead says okay, if you’re so jealous of me, then let’s flip the script. You stop trying to turn me into a teacher’s pet, and I’ll start teaching you how to enjoy life a little more. How to care less about what people think of you. How to worry less, and know which things are actually worth worrying about. How to be a little lazy and waste a little time without feeling like you’re committing some sort of crime. I am going to teach you to be like me, for the sake of your sanity. Because if that stressed mess you just said is what the inside of your head looks like all the time, there’s no way you can keep going like that for long without imploding. (Boy, he thinks, I always thought the brainiac students had the least worries out of anyone. If being on top makes you this paranoid, then don’t sign me up.)
So that’s how you get from point A to Dilton wearing a matching sweater and whoopee cap and asking for burgers. He’s learning through imitation. (Probably too strictly exact of an imitation, but those instruction-following instincts get drilled in deep.) The original joke is that he just spent too long around Jug and sort of absorbed his vibes, I guess, instead of the other way around. But my explanation makes more sense to me. It’s not like Dilt’s being brainwashed, he’s making the choice to act like this. And why? Because he really needs to be less hard on himself, and he finally understands that. Look at him at the start of the comic: wound up and melting down over this tiny little issue that’s not even his problem. Look at him at the end: relaxed, hanging out with his friend, going to do something purely recreational. Sure it’s funny that he’s dressed like Jughead’s mirror image, but when you think about it, this is clearly a good change for him (in all ways but the twinning outfit).
I really do think Jughead needs to impart his wisdom onto Dilton. Needs to teach him to calm down and do things not for a grade or an award or a reputation, but just for his own well-being. To go out to restaurants. To take naps in the park. To worry less about school. To exist in the world outside of his strict framework of self-imposed rules. He needs to teach Dilton to choose imperfection, and to be proud of it.
Because I need him to teach me that.
As always, this entire thing is 100% completely projecting.
"The most smug and pretentious looking Dilton" like thank god we found him, my crops were dying (also Archie stop making fun of Dilton cos he wants to learn how to sew)
dilton’s smugness has changed so much over the years. like i’m still amazed by his evolution from Boy Genius to Boy Genius But With Human Emotions.
i sketched out a graph of his smugness as a function of time:
there's an organ harvesting cult that builds a rocket, to go into space
actually theres like 30 different cults and a dozen serial killers running around
the gang spends a season playing Satanic Panic!D&D, complete with an on-theme cult+serial killer
they go to a parallel universe where the town is called "rivervale"
archie is human sacrificed to the maple gods
archie enlists in the US military (they did this in the comics ages ago tbf) and adopts a dog that later develops steven universe powers
the dog got powers from getting exploded by a bomb. archie also gets exploded by that bomb and also develops Powers (this happens to several other characters)
cheryl is wandavision and gay
im not even going to describe what happened in the season 6 finale
romaincrisis
origamiaround
gummygunk
jbbartram-illu
theartofmadeline
2087
