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Have you ever heard of Betty and Veronica? Do you know who they were and are?
If these feel like questions that shouldn’t need to be asked, then I’m relieved to not be alone.
A few months ago, I mentioned something to my friend about “Betty and Veronica” who proceeded to look at me with square eyes. They had never heard of them before which shocked me to my core. I had been under the impression that everyone had not only heard of “Betty and Veronica” but grew up with their comics, like I had.
My friend and I were at a disagreement about how common “Betty and Veronica” were in our age group so we did an informal survey and asked our friends. None of the people either of us asked know what we were talking about. Talk about a point backfiring, am I right?
From this interaction, I realized that most people probably have never heard of “Betty and Veronica” or at least don’t know much about them. I have decided to educate my readers, with the assumption that most of you don’t know much about these 1950s comic book icons.
In 1941, “Archie Comics” debuted in New York from M.L.J. Magazine’s, Inc. The story was one that followed Archie Andrews in his day to day life with his friends as an average high school student. There were themes of humor and was this wholesome set of stories with his friends. His friends included Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge. This is where Betty and Veronica come into the picture.
Betty and Veronica got their own book in early 1950 following their growing popularity in the “Archie Comics.” The series was originally called “Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica” due to the consistent love triangle Archie found himself in between the sweet and innocent blonde neighbor girl, Betty, and the rich sophisticated and sassy brunette, Veronica. The idea was to highlight the “best frenemies” relationship the two high school girls had, as it was implied Archie was dating them both.
The first volume of “Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica” ran through 1987 with over 300 issues. In mid 1987, a new comic under the name “Betty and Veronica” debuted and ran until 2011. Betty and Veronica have been featured in many comics from the same company such as “Betty and Veronica Annual Digest Magazine,” “Betty and Veronica Comic Digest Magazine,” “Betty and Veronica Double Digest Magazine” and others.
Now these names might sound familiar to you if you were anywhere near CW or Netflix from 2017 to present. In 2017, a TV show called “Riverdale” aired. “Riverdale” was meant to be a reimagination of the beloved “Archie” characters. The show took many artistic liberties by turning it almost into a crime drama with these high school kids being involved with things I highly doubt is typical of high school kids. There was also an element of fantasy in parts. “Riverdale” as far as I have understood it is an “either you love it or you hate it” kind of show. In my personal opinion, I think that there was a good idea in there somewhere but the execution could have been better.
Additionally, after doing some of the research for this article, it seems that the show really strayed away from some of the hard and strict boundaries that the comic books worked hard to maintain. The emphasis originally had been on marketing these comic books to children, therefore any references to drinking, drugs, tobacco, nudity and sexual interactions and generally any more controversial actions were avoided. If I recall the show correctly, at one point or another every single one of these things happened. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that necessarily but I wonder how the people who grew up with “Betty and Veronica” and “Archie Comics” felt about this much more adult depiction.
I hope now that when I reference “Betty and Veronica” or “Archie Comics” less people will look at me like I’m from Mars after reading this. As someone who more or less grew up with these books, I would hate to see their legacy die away.
— dj dragonfly
