I've always loved reading Archie comics.

Archie's the typical teenager, rather good-looking: red-headed, tall, acceptable physique, with freckles that endear him even more to readers. He's an all-rounder, but a jack of all trades and a master of none: he's in many sports teams but does not captain any; his grades fluctuate up and down and he often has to cram for a test till late at night but still manages to do well for it; and a major characteristic of him is his clumsiness - exploding lab experiments, crashing into people in the hallway, falling off stepladders.

Jughead's the best friend and the eternal loafer, with a bottomless stomach to boot. He'll eat anything, from normal foods like pizzas, burgers, fried chicken, to foods that would put off even those with a totally non-selective palate - such as footlong subs that include anchovies, salami, peanut butter, and tuna. He's a happy-go-lucky type of person, and isn't really bothered by what people say about him or the fact that he doesn't excel in sports. Always there to provide a smattering of dry wit but also always there whenever his friends need him, Jug's just about the truest friend of the group.

Betty and Veronica - seemingly polar opposites of each other: even their hair colours' the stereotypical opposites, blonde versus brunette. One's rich, spoilt, pampered, but not without her good points. The other's sporty, outgoing, cheery, helpful, tomboyish at times, but an extremely wholesome person in general. Both have the same tastes in clothes and in boys (or rather, boy) as well, although Veronica doesn't keep her options limited to just Archie, like any self-respecting heiress to the Lodge family fortune would.

The list goes on, from Reggie to Midge to Moose to Dilton to Chuck to Nancy and the rest of the 'gang' as the characters often refer to their friends as, all too similar to the respective cliques that we have in school, and there are even the occasional characters such as Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Cheryl Blossom, and everyone else.

I guess why I like to read them so much is because it's not hard to understand some of the issues they point out and at the same time, laugh at the various gags and jokes that they offer (afterall, it is a magazine read for leisure). Although it gets a little exaggerated and even futuristic at times (Archie 3000!), the comics are more or less tailored to teens and it's so easy to relate to them.

Stories being stories however, they all end in happy endings. It's only in a fantasy world where one guy could constantly be the center of attention of two girls and be able to hang out with both of them simultaneously, where the two girls are the best of friends themselves. Anyone with a working brain and being grounded in reality would know that this is impossible, but go figure.

The most obvious central theme in the comiics would be romance, but more important than that, friendship. The most recent issue I read had a story where Jug broke Arch's camera lens by accident, resulting in a souring of their friendship mainly because of Archie's displeasure. But Betty soon gave him a good talking-to, reminding him of the times where Jughead took over his paper route when he got sick and asked for nothing in return; when he helped him with his odd jobs when he was swamped with work, when he took the rap and served detention for Archie so he could play in the big baseball game, and eventually the story ended in Jughead not having the time to make up with Archie because he had been busy working odd jobs everyday to buy a new lens for Archie.

These are the lengths that friends can go to, and would go to, for those that they love. Actions speak louder than words of course, as Jughead demonstrated, but sometimes mere words are enough to be the affirmation to keep each other in place throughout these trying times. Else we're left with naught but ourselves and our thoughts to occupy us. And when we've all gone, over the hills and far away to the UK, US, and wherever may take our fancy, the distance will be more than enough to kill us. Not murder us and take our lives, but to kill the people that we once were to each other.

And to phrase a quote from Betty differently, all I want is to look up the word 'friends' in the dictionary and see a photograph of us together there.

My mom always said, that nothing would break me, or lead me astray
who would've guessed, I'd let my mind drift, so far away

You always said, I was a dreamer, now instead;
I'm dreaming of things - that's makin' my mind go crazy

When I lie, in my bed, with the thoughts in my head,
When we danced, and we sang, and we laughed all night

Nobody said, this stop that I've taken, was a stop too late.
Now I'm alone, I'm thinkin' of stupid, hurtful, small things like -

When I lie, in my bed, with the thoughts in my head,
When we danced, and we sang, and we laughed all night

Maybe it's time to say goodbye, maybe it's time to let this lie -
This is when we must set things right.

Now that we've gone our separate ways, I just can't live these desperate days,
This is what I've been trying to say...

Don't let me go, can't live my life this way
Just let me know, and put my mind at ease for sure