jhsharman

[jhsharman]

teenage witches

See here on the first one.

[jhsharman]

"Four is a Crowd"

The pink (acrylic?) fingernails are new and not seen anywhere else in the story.

One thing that kind of bugs me with this story. Betty's bikini top changes. There is a knot in the front on page two. And then there isn't. It is not clear which on page one.

Indeed, it is a different color (purpley) in that top tier of page one, but the color gets coordinated in the reprints.

[jhsharman]

"spat chat"

[jhsharman]

"gets the bird", "accept no substitutes", "Love Hurts"

Maybe you want some explanation for Archie's dress?

Did they really need to do the Betty thought balloon?

Now, Betty seems to deserve the misidentifying problem. On two occasions at least, taking to a black wig or dye explicitly stated for Archie's affection -- and then there is this third huh?

In this instance Betty was unconcerned if Archie mistook her for Veronica. But the time we see Archie misnaming her, the hair colouring comes in as an accident.

"Betty will play"?

[jhsharman]

Vengeance of the Ancients

[jhsharman]

"weighty problems", "jughead learns about life", "silent knight", "dish-orderly conduct", "date's the limit"

A recurring situation. Archie and Reggie behave like yahoos, and most commonly off of a turn to fighting, Betty and Veronica end up heading off with Jughead. Or maybe just Veronica. There you see it is with reluctance, but Little Betty and Little Veronica go more full bore --

-- though this does read like it has a 50s mainline antecedent. In this next one Archie and Reggie get their comeuppance for trying to enforce a heteronormative standard on Jughead-- having spent an hour insisting he needs to date girls.

Another recurrent plot element: Jughead writes others' love poems. And profits. Though the common occurrence has him entangled with Moose, and that is more tgreat.

Funny here -- the line "you may be a character, but" seems to be kicking about the writers' heads.

Jughead carried around a Slinkee?

[jhsharman]

"Reconsider Kidder", "Strange Exchange"

One background detail on this one intrigues me. Second panel --

Nudity!

The page is one of a recurrent premise. Fill in the last panel yourself, and the only question is -- Betty alone, on the rebound, or Betty with a group?

[jhsharman]

fab finish

[jhsharman]

pie class

I am not sure how to account for Miss Grundy's differing expressions. I note we get more pie at the bottom in the dummy copy. Funny the chalkboard writing of "Class Assignment", but it kinda tracks.

[jhsharman]

"the home run queen", "gum bye forever"

And time for cross-dressing baseball action to save the seasons. For her part, Betty has been here before in a different sport.

I am more confused by Betty getting in as the game is going than Ferdie getting into the championship right before, though that hardly makes sense either. Don't these leagues have team membership rules? Betty's pitching performance win clearly happened before the banning of stickum and such foreign substance aides -- this chewing gum cheat would not stand these days.

[jhsharman]

"The Mad Hatter"

He bought the hat eight years ago, five years ago, and three years ago. Running into the story's premise -- that would be a big hat for a small Jughead, moreso version 1 over 2 and 3, moreso version 2 over 3.

[jhsharman]

Okay, fine, you freaks. Correction: Archie finds Jughead's erotic experience funny, and Veronica is startled.

This is one of a number of pages at the time where Jughead tries to sneak into the drive-in with no payment. Somewhat surprising, maybe, as it is a duplicatable action -- give the kids ideas on circumventing the system, and hiding in the back trunk is dangerous, ain't it? This one may be a warning: don't steal a free movie, or you might get your groin pounded at the carwash. Oh, wait --

wet fret

No longer like them dashes.

Veronica is concerned where Archie finds Jughead's pain funny.

[jhsharman]

browsing

The second guy is on a first name basis with Jughead. Veronica disappears after the first one. Kids scamper on in then and kid in her lingers in the third. I am kinda curious on Betty's outfit in the second.

[jhsharman]

"wheel deal"

This gets slotted in as the first story of a digest, which cuts the splash panel of the first page. The next reprint extends the bottom tier -- note that Archie loses his extra pockets in the third panel, flashes out of cargo pants.

[jhsharman]

"The Book Keeper"

They decided to change the dialogue, thus removing the Red Skelton allusion. Were they aware of the reason it was "I dood it"? I do not know. To be sure, I myself am just humming changed lines on Britney Spears.

[jhsharman]

"I Talk to the Trees"

Sticking advertising on every nook and cranny they could find – eventually that meant the phone booth. Though this is not an advertisement. It is needing to assert what it is, as public phone booths get displaced – giant letters spell it out: phone – fifty cents anywhere. Can’t pull out your cell phone, you got this!

[jhsharman]

"Blank Prose", "Watered Down"

I had it somewhere a curious happenstance in Betty and Veronica around the turn of the century -- so often they seem to have just moved in together. Domestic situations giving no backstory of why they spent that night together. But it does seem to be a feeling in gag pages of the 50s as well.