Free Comic Book Day

May 7, 2024, at home

May 4, 2024 (the first Saturday in May every year) was National Free Comic Book Day.

I became a big fan of Jughead comic books (digests) in the early 1990s, when I was in my early 30s. During that time, I was a reporter, writer, editor, and researcher for a weekly, international magazine on the financial and technical aspects of the chemical industry, and I needed to read something simplistic for a change, so I chose Jughead.

Jughead Jones and I are very much alike. He's lazy, awkward, clumsy, and a free spirit, plus he likes to eat, especially hamburgers, and is not popular with the ladies. He is just kind of ... "there," being somewhat superfluous.

I have been a fan of Jughead since I was a kid in the 1960s. I enjoyed the comic strips, which I still do, and The Archies Show cartoon TV series that aired for one season in 1968, when I was seven years old.