Alden Loveshade's Reviews
Betty and Veronica's
New Look
|
It amazes me how many people here make much ado about how they don't really care about
Archie or Jughead or Betty and Veronica, and yet take the time to make posts about them. As
Shakespeare wrote in "Hamlet," "The lady protests too much, methinks."
Archie first appeared in, ironically, December 1941, the same month that Japan attacked the
American Pearl Harbor. Archie and Betty were preteens or very young teens then (Veronica
didn't appear in the first story), but almost immediately were transformed into older teenagers.
Before the Comics Code Authority began in 1954, Archie and his high school friends were a
little risque--the girls' tight tops showed pointed breasts (hinting at nipples); Veronica
undressed and changed clothes in the back of a car while Archie was driving; a drawing of a
girl (I think Veronica) getting ready to dive showed the comic symbol that would mean her butt
was wiggling; etc.
After the code began, breasts got rounder, butts didn't wiggle, etc.
While fans of Archie and friends are now often thought to be preteens, especially preteen girls,
originally the characters were popular with service men fighting overseas in World War II. The
stories and characters reminded those in combat of their much safer lives back in high school,
when the worst problem they had to face was ending up with two dates for the same dance.
True, Riverdale doesn't truly represent anyone's home town or anyone's teenaged years now
or then. But, like Thornton Wilder's Our Town, it represented what those lonely servicemen
could imagine their hometown and teenaged life were like. Archie and friends remain high
school teenagers, just as those young servicemen who were lost in battle remain in memory.
By the way, I'm long past my preteen years, and still like Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica and,
to a lesser extent, the rest of the gang. And while I like Bob Montana's original published
drawings, I love Dan DeCarlo's transformation.
Whatever Betty and Veronica look like, there's one aspect of their appearance I wish to
remain: they look identical, other than their hair. The irony of Archie being torn between two
essentially identical twins with opposing personalities is, for me, a major part of the fun of the
eternal triangle.
From original Posted by: Alden Loveshade | Oct 10, 2007 11:18:44 PM
Copyright © 2007 byThe Loveshade Family.
The linked page is Copyright © 2007
CondéNet, Inc. All rights reserved.
Betty and Veronica are two famous characters in Archie Comics. The perpetual high school
students were given a new look in a limited series at the end of 2006/ beginning of 2007.
Throughout their incarnations, the characters always looked virtually identical except for
different hair colors and styles (Betty the sweet, innocent blond; Veronica the rich, scheming
brunette). In the new look, their faces are noticeably different.
Several people posted their opinions about the change at the site below. Many of them who
took the time to post a message said they didn't care.
This short piece appeared in a slightly different form on
http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2006/12/archie_comics_g.html