The Archie Comic Book Series

As a teenager I remember reading my namesake’s adventures in a different teenage world, one of a white American teenage male. I substituted him for an Aboriginal male (myself) and depicted actual events from my teenage years. This provided a stark contrast between the world I knew (growing up relatively poor in a white Christian male small town) to the world of the ever insidious American world (affluent, successful, happy, popular, acceptance). It also mirrors the American cultural domination in Australia and loss of identity (or confusion of identity as there are too many identities to choose from) for a young Aborigine. Whereas the Archie comic always ended in a punchline or a predicament being tidily resolved, mine had an opposing punchline – one that really punches. The final frame of each strip is like a reconfirmation of my (imposed) status of a poor, black, loveless, alienated individual in a dysfunctional, contradictory, violent and hegemonic world. This disarray stems from the black and the white; my family who had previously experienced the same, and the white community who want to maintain themselves as the predominant influence.

Archie Moore, 2006