Moose Mason in "The Eyes Have It"

Archie comics have been making generations of kids and teens laugh for over three-quarters of a century.  And with tens of thousands of stories printed over that time period, you're never at a shortage for laughs.

However, there are some times in which Archie comics have tackled social issues as well.  And believe it or not, they have turned out to be some of my favourite stories.

I found that whenever Archie tackled social issues, they were well done, and not overly preachy.  Well, unless you count the various "Say No To Drugs" ads that appeared in Archie comics throughout the late 1980s, that is. 

Now while almost all the titles in the Archie universe focused on serious issues on an occasional basis, there were a couple of titles that seemed to touch on them at least every other issue.  One of those titles was "Archie at Riverdale High", a series which ran from 1972-1987, and was rebooted from 1990-1991.  It was sort of like the "Life With Archie" series, only every single story took place either at Riverdale High School, or featured a prominent member of Riverdale High's faculty, like Mr. Weatherbee, or Ms. Grundy.  In that series, Archie and the gang usually had to foil a Scooby-Doo type mystery where they had to figure out who was sabotaging the school newspaper, or who vandalized school property after hours.

By the time the early 1980s rolled around, the series started to tackle serious issues.  Issues such as peer pressure and smoking were touched upon and were added in with the more hilarious tales. 

But did you know that Archie comics also tackled the subject of learning disabilities?  It's true.  And how they handled this delicate subject was by having one of the secondary characters of the series come to terms with the fact that they have a learning disability, as well as explaining it to the reader in terminology that they could understand.

So, let's have a look at the story "The Eyes Have It", which was first printed in Archie at Riverdale High #98.  As you'll notice, I have already posted the cover of said book earlier in this blog.

Unfortunately, I actually don't have a copy of this book.  However, I do have the reprinted version of it.  It can also be found in Archie Digest #96.  And yes, my scanner is still broken, so you'll have to deal with my iPod camera for now.  Just note that this blog will contain spoilers for those of you who have not read this story.  Consider that your warning.

The story begins in Ms. Grundy's classroom where the entire Archie gang seems to be enrolled in her class.  And I bet that every single one of them were kind of wishing that they weren't.  Ms. Grundy loves to assign homework, and this assignment that she is giving them is a doozy.  Not only does she write so much information on the blackboard that it fills the entire surface area, but she gives them until noon tomorrow to finish it!  That is cruel and unusual punishment! 

And yes, I can say that because I had a teacher in high school that used to do the same thing to us!

Now while most of the students are stressed out over the assignment, in previous Archie tales we can count on a few things.  We can count on students like Dilton and Betty getting great marks.  We can count on Archie and Jughead being very average.  We can count on Reggie to try and copy off of Dilton's paper.

And we can sadly count on Moose flunking.

It's a common characteristic trait for Moose since he was first introduced to Archie comics in "Archie's Pal Jughead #1".  Marmaduke "Moose" Mason.  Brilliant football player, strongest man in the whole school, but dumb as a box of rocks.  Of course, Moose's way of looking at the world is seen differently by his peers.  In the eyes of Moose's best friend Dilton and his girlfriend Midge, it's delightful.  In the eyes of Moose's enemy Reggie, it's D-uh-lightful.

However, Moose has a fire and determination to do better in school, and by the time the 1980s rolls around, I feel that he's tired of being made fun of for his lack of intelligence.  He makes a conscious effort to try and get a great mark on Grundy's assignment even if he stays up all night to work on it.

That effort certainly seems to be noticed by Betty, who thinks that the rest of the class might be selling him short and that maybe they should all give him a chance.  But it seems as though everyone else has their minds made up about him. 

About a week passes, and Ms. Grundy has everybody's assignments graded and marked.  Unfortunately for Moose, it's not good news.  He failed the assignment miserably, and Moose is genuinely broken-hearted about it because he claims that he worked twice as hard to make his paper a success. 

However, the first sign that something might be wrong is seen when Moose provides Ms. Grundy with the notes he took the day she wrote the assignment.  Moose's notes didn't make any sense with words missing letters, and paragraphs written in the wrong order.  With notes like that, it was fairly easy to see how Moose's paper ended up being a mess.

Dilton helpfully suggests that maybe Moose has a vision problem and believes that he might just need some glasses to fix the issue, but Moose says that can't be the problem because he had an eye test recently and his vision was 20/20.  Unfortunately, Ms. Grundy is disappointed in Moose's latest assignment, and notes that up until this point his grades have been mediocre at best.  But after today, Ms. Grundy might not have any choice but to talk to Mr. Weatherbee and have Moose suspended from all sports events until his grades go up.

This probably leads to one of the saddest panels ever drawn in 1980s-era Archie.  A dejected Moose walking down the hallways not understanding what is going on, and why he continues to fail at school despite trying his hardest.

It's not until Moose goes through a series of tests with medical professionals that the truth is finally revealed.  Moose has dyslexia - a learning disability.  When Moose sees something written on the board, his eyes don't work together with the brain to transmit messages as they should be written.  Perhaps the best way to explain it is that if you write a word like "Hello" out, someone with dyslexia might read it as "Halo", or "Hlelo". 

Or as Moose himself explained in football terms, dyslexia is what happens when your signals get crossed in your brain and your eyes, and those crossed signals can cause your reading to fumble.  And you know, I have to give kudos to the writer of this story, Sam Kujava, for explaining dyslexia in a way that we could all understand what it was.  Even better, explaining it in a way that it didn't have to be seen as a detriment.  Because as Mr. Weatherbee and Ms. Grundy explained, dyslexia could easily be managed with a lot of hard work - hard work that we already knew Moose was capable of.

I think that this story really helped me see that Moose was more than just a character who was a dumb jock who beat up Reggie every time he tried to hit on Midge.  He was actually a very determined man who wouldn't be defined by a learning disability.  And over time, Moose became a more well-rounded character as a result.

He even ran for mayor of Riverdale in the Life With Archie reboot in 2010!  Of course, that was in an alternate universe where Archie ended up dead at the end of it all, but still...I'd consider that a success for Moose!