I was shopping at Tates Comic Store in Lauderhill and ran across this Archie comic book. Judging by the cover, this is nothing like the ones I grew up with.

It seems like the writers have gone out of their way to break as many barriers as possible in just one issue. For example, in the picture above, you have a gay and interracial couple getting married. One of them is in the military, no less.

Back in the day, Archie’s comics would have never had these type of taboo plots in their pages. Comics with interracial and same sex marriage would have been banned, at least in the buckle of the bible belt, known as Texas, where I grew up.

What’s so amazing is younger generations of readers won’t even think twice about Archie issues like this. They are more tolerant of things that took our generation decades to learn to accept.

Clearly, these newer comics are a sign of the times.

Now that Archie has decided to live in the real world, I can’t wait for the “Jughead the Pothead” and “Moose’s Roid Rage” issues.