Archie's Girls Betty & Veronica #234

Archie’s Girls Betty & Veronica #234

Archie Comics 1975

By Various

Betty & Veronica star in their first comic book series! Take a trip back to the earliest days of Archie Comics as Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge show the town of Riverdale who's really in charge! Prepare to experience the original Betty and Veronica with stories like "Bats Over Cats", "The Cut Up" and more!

I don’t know about you all but I’m a huge fan of Archie Comics and I have been for most of my life. I wish I still had those Archie Dolls I gave out as a Channukah gift but alas, so if anyone feels like finding those dolls from 1987 well I’m here. Now this I wanted to read and review because it is from 46 years ago and I always find it interesting to see what life was like then and how it was portrayed in the comics of the time and nothing was ever as relevant as the Archies were from decade to decade. Also it doesn’t hurt that regardless of the kind of day you are having there’s nothing that an Archie book won’t do to make it that much better, a good day or a bad one, sunny or rainy it doesn’t matter Archie makes the world a better place.

Now I absolutely love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. That we see each of these vignettes being a complete tale in such a short amount of space is absolutely phenomenal. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does wonders bringing us their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story the more we find ourselves lost in this world.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story open up avenues to complete the tale is a masterclass in storytelling. You just don’t see this level & quality of storytelling on such a regular scale outside of Archie they basically mastered the anthology series format. Also it’s great to see a Hostess ad and a Li’l Jinx story within these pages as well. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are impeccably achieved.

Another fact throughout the entire run, from its inception until now, is that the interiors remain pretty much uniformly the same. The style is easily aped and it takes some true master visual storytellers to be able to make it feel like there’s no transition between artists. The way we see the linework and how the varying weights are being utilised to create the detailed work is sublime to see. The colour work we see is fabulous. To see the various hues and tones within the colours being packed in like a tattoo is rendered exceptionally well. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show some remarkably talented eyes for storytelling. The way we see backgrounds judiciously utilised is fantastic and we see them a lot more than often times today.

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This just brightened up my night. The final panel of the issue with an exchange between Betty and Archie sums up Veronica’s life to a “T” and it couldn’t be any more apropos if you ask me. I love that even though this was written in the 70’s it is still so relevant today is just a testament to how the Archie books have been written over the years. Just update the fashions, though even those would be considered retro and wearable today, and viola you’ve got yourself a modern comic.