For ten or fifteen minutes there in the late 1970s and early 1980s, punk rock was the in vogue Shocking Youth Movement freaking out parents and authority figures everywhere. The "punk movement" got a lot of attention but failed to make any meaningful societal changes, because, let's face it, a movement made up of broke 19 year olds sitting around complaining about how there's nothing to do is only going to get so far. Also, being furiously repressed by the cops and the record labels didn't help. But if there's any field in which punk can claim victory, it's in giving movies, TV shows, and comic books a brand new crazy fad to worry about "the kids" getting into! TV shows like CHiPS, Quincy, and CPO Sharkey, TV movies like "The Day My Kid Went Punk" and films like "Suburbia" all fearmongered their way towards making punk rock the cartoon threat it always wanted to be but was too broke and/or lazy to be. And comic books weren't about to be left out!


Which Jughead will prevail - the punk rock Jughead, or the one that's the opposite of punk, which according to this cover is "funk?" Unsure what Sly & The Family Stone or Bootsy Collins have to do with all this, but I guess we'll find out!


DEFINITELY going to take hairstyle advice from these two, who haven't updated their look since 1958. Just add some tattoos and they could practically be members of the Stray Cats! That's kind of punk, I guess.


Here we see the proper use of the mohawk haircut, which is to shock the hell out of your friends and teachers. This takes two or three days, and then either you get a job as an extra in that Quincy episode, or you let it grow back out.


Betty, we HAVE to save Jughead from buying import EPs and bootleg copies of the Sex Pistols movie that was never released because it's awful! He'll be forcing us to listen to every Ramones album! Granted, they're all only seventeen minutes long each, but they add up!


No one is safe from the insidious "punk movement" and its far-reaching alternative tentacles (that's a punk record label reference, kids).


Ah yes, the rainbow color motif, well known as a signifier of punk rock dogs.


Archie is really worried about Jughead abandoning his 1940s "goofy teen" persona in favor of a 1980s "goofy teen" persona, not because of the violent nature of punk rock, but because this new incarnation apparently involves Jughead being friendly with girls. THIS WILL NOT STAND!


Look Archie, he's going to get **food**. Jughead is going to be all right!


We all remember the well known punk rocker fetish for open-air hamburger stands, where sage fashion advice is dispensed by the counter help. Don't worry about Archie, all he needs are some horn-rimmed glasses and he'll fit neatly into the Elvis Costello side of the "new music revolution."


Okay first off it's called "slam dancing", not "the slam", and secondly it doesn't involve punching people, and... well, I don't want to nitpick the accuracy of this story. I'm sure Stan Goldberg spent a lot of time in the pit at CBGB's researching this.


That's how you get people into the punk scene, you don't let them borrow your Clash LPs or take them to a Black Flag show, you just talk them into it, like you're selling them a timeshare. Maybe Jughead IS trying to sell Betty a timeshare! STOP HIM ARCHIE!!


Well, it turns out Jughead was just posing as a punk to write an article about the punk scene "from the inside". You might think this is deceptive, but let's face it, every punk scene has its posers and its tourists and its wanna-bes. Jughead just cycled through the phase a little faster than most.


Hey gang, we can defeat the negativity of punk rock by convincing punkers that things aren't so hopeless! And then they'll turn on top 40 radio, and go right back to listening to punk... or what's left of it in 1983, anyway. Maybe things really ARE hopeless.


One thing's for sure, Dingy's Burgers are the tops! Slamdance your way down to Dingy's today, tell them Captain Thrash sent ya!

And that's punk rock kids, a footnote, a punchline, a convenient youth-culture scapegoat for grownups to sneer at until grunge and hip-hop came along. Don't believe me? Check out this issue of "Madhouse" from around this time.


We've smashed through the time barrier and travelled all the way to prehistoric stone-age times, just so Archie Comics writers can recycle gags from "The Flintstones."


This gag was old even in cavemen times!!


And here's the punk rock joke, if you didn't see this one coming ten or twenty thousand years away, well, that's OK, it didn't catch on.

But what was "punk" before Lenny Kaye decided to apply the term to the fuzzy slam-bang one hit garage rock wonders he turned us all onto? Well, before that it was just a word. Let's see how this word was used in the common parlance of the day.


Original riot grrls Dot and Lotta are taking it to the streets to corner the market in the lemonade game!


Great minds think alike, and hey, competition keeps everybody honest. It's the American way!


Off-brand Little Audrey and her pal here are giving away paperback Peanuts collections free with lemonade? Sign me up!


And these two goofs find out they're on the cutting edge of the new music explosion! Punk Lemonade - it's not for drinking, it's for spitting - at the band! Shoplift some today.

But there's only one comic character that clearly serves as the inspiration for all the Johnny Rottens, Johnny Ramones, Lee Vings, Jello Biafras, Rodney Anonymouses, Poly Styrenes, Richard Hells, Rat Scabieses, Billy Zooms, Darby Crashes, Siouxsie Sues, Cheetah Chromes, and Lux Interiors out there.


The crazy hair, the don't give a crap attitude, the poor hygiene, the saggy diapers, the entire punk rock scene erupts fully realized in the character of Punky.


You can tell he's a REAL punker because the COPS are always on his case! Cops, man! Why don't they leave us alone?! Now let's go do some crimes, Otto. Let's go get sushi, and not pay.

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