I think it’s going to be awhile before I can find a suitable candidate for Greatest Living Writer.

It’s been nearly five years since I retired my weekly look at Archie comics. Every once in a while I’d get the itch to start it up again, but it took Jughead’s sweater to finally reel me back in.

One of Gary’s favourite comic websites is Comic Book Legends Revealed. The latest installment caught my eye with its explanation on the real-world origin of the ‘S’ on Jughead’s sweater. The author of the piece prefaces this discovery with this statement.

“Just the other week, in this very column, I proclaimed that there has never been an explanation for the S that Jughead wears on his shirt. And as far as the comics themselves go, that is accurate.”

Jughead’s wikipedia entry also doesn’t have the answer.

Another mystery is the meaning of the “S” on his sweatshirt, which has still not been revealed to this day, though many stories have come close.

The 5-page Jughead story “Holey Error”, as drawn by Samm Schwartz, has that explanation.

As you can probably gather from the panels shown, Jughead believes a moth has made a snack of his sweater. In the end, Professor Flutesnoot chastises Jughead for failing to wear an apron in chemistry class to prevent acid from ruining his clothes. It’s not a particularly funny reveal, but it seems obvious that the entire thing was just a vehicle for solving the mystery of Jughead’s sweater, once and for all.

On a side note, I will attempt whenever possible to credit the various Archie artists of the stories I cover here. If I’m incorrect in identifying anyone, and you know the answer, please leave a comment.

Lying In The Gutters has posted a few pages from a script written by Grant Morrison with accompanying doodles by Brendan McCarthy for an unpublished Doom Patrol story starring everyone’s favourite sentient, transvestite street.

Reason enough for me to finally put up these images by Tom Taggart from the Danny The Street portion of the “mature”, pre-Veritgo supplement of Who’s Who.

Where did this come from? The Forbidden Planet blog has posted an interview with Neil Gaiman in which he states that he believes Mick Anglo, the original artist on Marvelman, is now the sole copyright holder of that much-contested property. (via Journalista).

“Currently Todd McFarlane is suing me, claiming he owns all of Miracleman, and I am going, “You are mad, because as far as I can tell right now, neither of us owns anything of Miracleman, it is actually still owned completely by Mick Anglo, who is still alive, and who has asserted his copyright on it, and everything that Dez Skinn said back in Warrior days was apparently a lie, and this thing is Mick’s, so I don’t really see why, why are you suing me now, Todd?””

The mystery surrounding Marvelman’s ownership was something I was heavily invested in when I first began comic blogging over six years ago. I had tons of notes on the subject and had gone so far as to email Neil Gaiman about it, to which he sent a very pleasant reply. Nothing ever came of it, but I always hoped that Mick Anglo would eventually receive the credit he deserved.

Is this recent news, or did I miss it the first time around? It seems to me that the potential resolution to one of the more publicized comic legal battles of this decade would be bigger news.

The small handful of you who read I Was Ben on a regular basis may be wondering what happened to us over the past few weeks. Gary and I only see one another once a year, if that, and since I Was Ben is at least partly a desire for us to swap stories despite living a world apart from one another, it makes sense that the site would go on hiatus while we were in close proximity. In a way, with all the Hulk comics, Hong Kong action movies and Battle Fantasia tourneys, it’s like the last three weeks was I Was Ben come to glorious life.

Despite launching in March, I Was Ben was conceived a little over a year ago, the last time I saw Gary. We were in Vancouver, hiding from the rain playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance on our brother’s Xbox 360. Whatever flaws the game may have, and it has plenty, it papers over the cracks with tons of cameos and costuming options. For two guys who used to challenge one another to name various B-listers on the Marvel Universe poster, it was like a dream. We made teams comprised of such characters as 70s Luke Cage, the western version of Ghost Rider, and Beta Ray Bill, and played until the break of dawn.

We were about ready to call it quits for the night when we decided to play as the Fantastic Four, Kirby-style. Each character has multiple catchphrases. While “It’s Clobberin’ Time” is an obvious one, The Thing also wails the plaintive moan, “I was Ben…” It’s just about the saddest thing one can hear while punching AIM agents in the face at five in the morning.