imaginary “real” friends

 

When I held it in hands I could not believe it nor could the fuzzy, funny feeling in the pit of the stomach stop and as I opened it a familiar air engulfed me …a feeling of warmth tugged my heart in this brutal winter air. Long-lost friends met again, going together on an old route of laughter.

That’s how I felt when I read Archie’s comics after a gap of more than a decade. Not exactly the feeling I experienced because for some time I could not believe that a simple comic could give so much joy and I have to think it’s because of the memories attached.

I was in class 1 when I was first introduced to it that was of course “Little Archie” it had all the little characters; as the name suggests. So there was little Archie, little Betty, little Veronica, little Jug head his dog hot dog; little Reggie and of course Mr. Weather bee was the same old bald man the principle of  Riverdale High School, miss Grundy, the cafeteria lady, Pop Tate etc. Archie always somehow managed to get into trouble.

With time I graduated to reading the “high school” Archie “version”. I loved it so much maybe because it provided me an image of a ‘cool’ school, and fun times I never had; maybe it was the happy, fun way of falling in love with a foreign language and the begging of the journey to literary books; I don’t know the reason for sure.

I sopped reading it as I entered my teen years where my peers were the circle that influenced a lot of my choices I remember they called it stupid and so did i. Nonetheless after all this time here’s a Salute to my Narnia of happy times and as the years pass by may I never be guilty of calling it stupid.

pic credit; header image credit-archie-comics-mlj-comics.jpg