Scans_Daily

Do you just happen to have a copy of ARCHIE# 1, from Winter 1942? If so, skim through it and see where Bob Montana established the three-sided hopeless romance that is still going on sixty-odd years later, driving both the characters and the readers to distraction.In suburban Riverdale, the pleasant all-American hometown, teenage Archie Andrews has a date with his semi-steady girlfriend Betty Cooper for the prom. Despite this, he is crushing mightily on Boston debutante Veronica Lodge. Archie writes her love letters of that embarassing adolescent fervor, which he tears up without ever sending. HowEVER... just being helpful, his pal Jughead sees one letter and thoughtfully mails it.



With a mixture of condescension and a jaded yearning for amusement, the spoiled young heiress actually goes to Riverdale, "slumming" amidst the proletariat. And this being the comics, Archie can't make a decision, tries to get both girls to the prom by manipulating Jughead into escorting Veronica while Archie tries to get Betty out of sight long enough.. well, you just know it's going to be a multiple car pile-up on an icy road. Archie will have both girls furious at him (by no means for the last time) and half the town ticked as well. Because, to save a few dollars for Veronica's corsage, Jughead went out to the cemetary and prepared a nice little spring of what he doesn't realize is poison ivy.

Here's where things get sort of mystic and fateful. Veronica remains in town for a few days to have the poison ivy treated and she decides to stay in Riverdale. She likes toying with the smitten Archie the way a cat teases a mouse. And yet.. there's some inexplicable attraction there, even fondness. Eventually, her parents move to Riverdale as well to keep an eye on her willful child. So the cycle is set in motion. Archie neglects Betty to pursue Veronica in vain. It's as endless and as unfathomable as Offisa Pup jailing Ignatz for beaning Krazy Kat with a brick, which she sees as true love.