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[[File:archiedraw.jpg|frame|A typical cover gag. Note the [[Male Gaze]].]]
Originally known as ''MLJ Comics'' (after its three founders), ''[[Archie Comics]]'' soon took the name of its most popular character, a teen named Archie Andrews, who debuted in ''Pep Comics'' #22, 1941 in a story drawn by Bob Montana. A cast slowly grew around him and his buddies, and by the mid-1950s, the world had mostly normalized into the cast we'd now recognize. Preaching that [[Status Quo Is God]], a large array of stock plots and occurrences (the [[Love Triangle]] of Archie, Betty, and Veronica; Jughead conspiring against Reggie or women; Ethel chasing Jughead; Reggie chasing Midge and confounding Moose; Dilton being smart; Chuck obsessing over comic books; Archie and Jughead running afoul of the teachers, etc.) have become among the longest-running themes in fiction. With the start of Dan DeCarlo as primary artist in the '60s, ''Archie Comics'' created its "house style".
Though the eternal love triangle is the core of the strip, and only the Big Four (Archie, Jug, Ron & Betty) have any kind of long-running success in solo books, the recurring cast is actually huge. With romance so core to the books, its fanbase is inevitably mostly female (gazing at issues featuring 'dress up' and 'design outfits for the girls to wear', this should be unsurprising). But many men also grew up reading the books as boys. Archie Comics is also famous for keeping everyone the same age, and altering only the dress styles - making Archie Comics a stereotype-laden snapshot of each decade. Bell-bottom jeans, Nehru jackets, citizens band radio, disco, etc. are all brought in as new fads and then slowly dropped as new fads come in.
Well known for being available in newsstands and grocery store checkout magazine racks everywhere (partly due to it also being one of the only comic books that still publish digest-sized issues, perfect for stocking near the checkouts), ''Archie Comics'' come and have come in
While ''Archie Comics'' is best known for its comic books featuring Archie and/or other "Riverdale" characters, their output has never been limited to those characters. Archie published stories with a number of superhero characters, including the Shield, a patriotic hero who actually predated the more popular [[Captain America (comics)]], the Hangman, the Fly, the Jaguar, and others. Starting in the early 1970s, these and other "non-Riverdale" titles have often been published under the "Red Circle" imprint. Archie has also published a number of licensed titles over the years, such as ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' and ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures]]''.
Archie Comics pushed for the creation of the [[Comics Code]], and more or less ran it. Archie was the last publisher adhering to the Code when it ceased to exist in early 2011.
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* ''[[Afterlife With Archie]]''
In
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{{tropenamer}}
{{creatortropes}}
* [[Abhorrent Admirer]]: Big Ethel for Jughead.
* [[The Alleged Car]]: A running joke on Archie's jalopy.
* [[Alliterative Name]]: Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Chuck Clayton, Dilton Doiley, Coach Clayton, Trula Twyst, Evelyn Evernever, and a few others. Some are nicknames or titles, but it still fits. And possibly the [[Most Triumphant Example]] in this group: Marmaduke Merton Matowski "Moose" Mason.
* [[Aluminum Christmas Trees]]: Surprisingly, Jughead's trademark beanie was once a ''real'' fashion accessory of 1940s teenagers called a "Whoopee Cap": the teens would cut their father's old fedoras into the jagged-edge rim shape, pin buttons on it, and wear them as a fashion statement. Long before that, this style of hat was popular among adult factory workers and mechanics. Nowadays, it has mutated into a form unique in itself, no longer much resembling the real-life version, and just makes Jughead look like a [https://web.archive.org/web/20131022204816/http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/12/18/comic-book-legends-revealed-186/ kook].
* [[Art Evolution]]: There was a massive one in the late 1960s, coinciding with Dan DeCarlo's promotion to the artist for nearly all Archie comic covers. Soon, all the new artists were mimicking his style as the 'base' Archie, though a few older artists continued to draw their own way. It was enough that the clothing styles are all that can define most stories from the 1960s until now, when a few more "out there" artists like Fernando Ruiz have put their own stamp on the "DeCarlo Style".
** Then there's the "Dynamic New Look" art style, which goes for a more realistic approach. It's only used for specific story arcs, though.
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* [[Berserk Button]]: Jughead kicks ass on a pair of robbers when they try to steal the Chocklit Shoppe's hamburger supply.
** A much more prevalent example is the ''extremely'' jealous Moose, who gets very angry whenever anyone hits on his girlfriend Midge, leading him to usually hit them as punishment. This also applies to Midge herself, who becomes just as livid whenever another girl hits on Moose.
* [[Betty, Veronica and Archie Switcheroo]]: Betty and Veronica are more likely to be friends than rivals. They enjoy doing shopping dates together and will call out Reggie and Archie for spying on other girls, like when they couldn't figure out why a rich girl was dating Jughead.
▲* [[Betty and Veronica]]: The [[Trope Namer]].
** In a "Little Archie" one-shot, Betty tried to convince Moose that Veronica liked him so that she could have Archie. Moose remembered that Archie liked Veronica and went to beat him up; feeling guilty, Betty saved Archie and apologized.
▲** The interesting thing about them being that Betty and Veronica are ''inseperable best friends''. They have each other's backs 99% of the time, it's just that they both want the same guy (and he's head over heels in love with them both). Stranding the 3 of them on a deserted island would either lead to murder...or it might be their private idea of Heaven.
* [[Big Eater]]: Jughead is pretty much the biggest example of this in all fiction.
* [[Blonde, Brunette, Redhead]]: Betty, Veronica and Cheryl, since the latter's debut. Betty, Veronica, and Archie, of course. Or [[Josie and the Pussy Cats|Melody, Valerie and Josie]].
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* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: Frequently used -- characters will "talk to the audience", and several #100 issues will have the characters deciding exactly ''how'' to celebrate their "[[Milestone Celebration|100th issue]]".
* [[Broad Strokes]]: One theory about the comics is that they all take place in parallel universes, which would nicely take care of plenty of [[Canon]] problems, along with the many comics that seem to be almost [[Aesop Amnesia|complete duplicates of previous plots]].
** [[
** The first issue of ''[[Life With Archie: The Married Life]]'' actually includes a display of an ''Archie'' [[Multiverse]]. Dimensions include "The Happy Days of the 1940s-50s," "The Fantasy World of Little Archie," and "Archie's New Look," among others.
* [[Butter Face]]: Big Ethel, in her early days.
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* [[Celibate Hero]]: Jughead doesn't so much hate women anymore as he is simply not interested in romance, believing it complicates a guy's life and taxes his funds. This doesn't keep girls from hitting on him, though. Big Ethel is usually the one who pursues him, although in one story all the girls in Riverdale pursued Jughead because he was the only guy ''not'' wearing an overpowering cologne at a school dance, much to his chagrin. His blatant misogyny was altered by 1989 into being conflicted problems over women, as he had many romantic liaisons during the '90s: Joani Jummp, Debbie, January [McAndrews], Anita the crippled girl, etc.
** He also has a magical hatpin at one point that attracts girls. In a subversion, the pin [[Depending on the Writer|(sometimes)]] makes him want to be with girls.
*** In one story, he gets a date with a girl named Terri thanks to Reggie trying to make her think Jughead's the "Second-Best Romeo In Town" but with the pin drawing Terri to Jughead, Reggie gets thwarted--and the small-scale [[
{{quote|'''Archie:''' I wonder where he found Her?
'''Reggie:'' You wouldn't believe me even if I '''told''' you!! }}
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* [[The Gay Nineties]]: One writer, Al Hartley, did a few stories with the Archie gang in the 1890s: dedicated to telling everyone how much better things were back then. Weirdly, these were written in the 1970s, long after the craze for gay Nineties nostalgia had died. Check it out [http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics210.html here] (with added snark for your reading pleasure).
* [[Gender Incompetence]]: A 1950s storyline focused on the cluelessness of women. Archie's mom goes into a frenzy trying to find her purse, which Mr. Andrews exasperatedly reveals has been in front of her all along; Archie learns from this situation and later willfully ignores Veronica while she desperately searches for her own purse, until it is, again, found to be right in front of her. Mr. Lodge then compliments him on his understanding of females. These were surely standard fare in many media in those days.
** Another "classic" example of this got into a recent double digest about the ridiculousness of working professional women. The reader is invited to consider how silly it would be to have women in men's jobs with funny vignettes portraying women
* [[Geographic Flexibility]]: Riverdale has been shown having a local beach, a mountain range, a river, a lake, several ponds, cold winters and hot summers; and has been described as either a tiny one-school town or a fairly large city, with an airport, a stock exchange, large businesses and TV studios... basically anything any story could need, ever, just for the sake of convenience.
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: In a 1959 Christmas story, when Veronica asks Archie what he's going to give her dad for Christmas, he simply responds, "The bird!" Veronica is understandably offended until Archie shows her the canary he intends to present to Mr. Lodge. Another story featured Mr. Cooper trying to force Archie to marry Betty after catching them in what appeared to be a semi-nude state.
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* [[Ms. Fanservice]]: Cheryl Blossom defines this trope, being too sexy for 1980s comics (allegedly the reason why she was written-out), and then coming back in the 90s as basically Pamela Anderson with red hair. Melody qualifies for the Josie-verse characters.
* [[Narration Echo]]: A favorite gag of writer Frank Doyle.
{{quote|'''Caption''': One glance is enough to reveal the whole dirty plot to the astute [[Super-Powered Alter Ego|Captain Hero]]!
'''Jughead''': Aha! I can see the whole dirty plot on account of I am so astute! }}
* [[Never Bareheaded]]: Jughead is seldom seen without his signature crown-shaped hat.
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