Archie, Veronica, Betty & Jughead


With all the wonderful books to read way back when, including the Nancy Drew Mysteries, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott books as well as the Bobbsey Twins, a favorite source of reading was not a book. It was the monthly comic book titled Archie. 

I have no clue where my cousin and I bought our copies. Maybe we had a subscription. Maybe they were for sale in Woolworths or Newberry's located in the downtown where we lived. Quite possibly we bought them at what was called The Busy Corner in that downtown-a combination smoke shop, ice cream parlor complete with ceiling fans and small round tables with wrought iron chairs and a checkered linoleum floor. Besides tobacco products, the smoke shop carried numerous newspapers and magazines. I'm sure they must have carried comic books.

The backdrop to the Archie comic book series was a high school like most high schools of that era with students like most students of that era. Red-haired Archie was the main character. Jughead was his best friend. He always wore a funny-looking hat and always seemed to me to be lazy. Betty, the pretty blonde was like the girl next door. Very sweet with her eye on Archie. But the problem was Veronica who was Betty's best friend as well as rival for Archie's attention. Veronica was  attractive with her long, black hair. I remember there was a boy named Reggie but that's about all I remember about him. He wasn't a main character.

I can't remember any of the storylines. More often than not, it had to do with Betty and Veronica vying for Archie's affections. But none of that stuff caught my interest. I didn't care who ended up with Archie. I guess I realized that could change in the next issue. Rather, I was more interested in what Betty and Veronica were wearing and how their hair was styled. Their outfits reminded me of outfits a few of my pretty aunts would wear to work. Betty and Veronica didn't look like high school girls. At least not the girls where I went to school. They were quite curvy if you know what I mean and the outfits were beyond stylish. And the best part of that was the fact that, besides the comic books, we could buy paper dolls of all the Archie characters and along with those dolls came all of those wonderful outfits including bathing suits, skirts, pedal pushers, blouses, dresses, coats, pjs, and accessories. It was fun putting Veronica's outfits on Betty or vice versa and they never fought over who was wearing what. Not once. Maybe they were too busy fighting over Archie!

Comments

  1. lil red henAugust 5, 2020 at 11:28 AM

    Yes, I remember those comic books; however, we called them "funny books". The ones I had were given to me I'm sure. I kept them in an old trunk inside our "smoke" house, a building used to hang hams and other pork portions in the winter. I even have a dresser scarf with the characters fabric painted on them. Really I don't believe I was too impressed with these books.

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    1. Barbara Briggs WardAugust 7, 2020 at 10:23 PM

      As I wrote I was more into the outfits that Betty and Veronica were wearing. My mother

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  2. mandiAugust 15, 2020 at 10:52 AM

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