Betty & Veronica #1

[history79]

Writing and Art by Adam Hughes

9 pages of 29

Comments

[razsolo]

I was sold on Adam Hughes art - extra sold on Hot Dog narrating - extra EXTRA sold on Hot Dog being a high-brow intellectual! Adam Hughes taking the piss out of his own cheesecake and the corny situations Archie's pals constantly get themselves into is icing ^_^

[icon_uk]

This is delightful!

[wizardru]

I am of the opinion that far more comics need to be narrated by pipe-smoking dogs, now. I can't even fault the 'dog ate my comic page' and swimsuit exposition pages.

Seriously, how did Archie comics become so good?

[alicemacher]

I've been buying all the Archie Horror AND Archie Reboot series (except for the digital-first Life with Kevin, for logistical reasons) and have enjoyed them all. A lot. Betty & Veronica #1 is the one exception to that. Here's why:

-- Having Hot Dog as the narrator makes no sense. If he were narrating Jughead, it might, but he has no inherent connection to the girls.
-- Worse yet, Hot Dog seems to have swallowed a thesaurus. At times I wasn't sure whether I was reading B&V or Nine Chickweed Lane.
-- The swimsuit page. Look, I enjoy me some Archie-girls fanservice as much as the next bi woman does, but this interruption really had no point, except to be all "See how clever and self-referential we are , wink wink." And it's not even good fanservice; they're lying on their stomachs, legs up, so there's nothing to see.
-- So much time is taken up with "witty postmodern banter" on the boys', and the dog's, part that Bets and Ron seem at points like supporting characters in their own title.
-- Finally, the "Chock'lit Shoppe is going out of business, oh no!" plot has been done to death. It was old and tired decades ago, let alone now.

I don't at the moment have any issues beyond #2 on my pull list. Depending on how the next few issues go, that may or may not be for the best.

[burkeonthesly]

The swimsuit page felt to me like an "Adam Hughes can't get his art done on deadline" joke, painfully extended and at the cost of the story. Even the joke about "that's two pages of a four-dollar comic?" Yes, Adam, even when you make a joke about wasting our money and time, you're still wasting our money and time.

[kamino_neko]

I agree with pretty much all this (although I liked Hot Dog being loquacious...aside from the fact that he shouldn't be narrating in the first place).

[leoboiko]

I can't bring myself to hate the swimsuit page because I like the art too much.

[silverzeo]

... D-did Archie just took a stab at Marvel's Marville? ... and was it ACTUALLY funny? I am just asking because, you know, Marville kind had a LOT of interesting things... but were either stupid or boring with context...

[vagabondprince]

I must be missing it, what specifically is the dig at Marville here?

[silverzeo]

That two nothing page-intermission with nothing but dialogue balloons made me think of issue 3... where the had panels, but everything is written as a script in the book.... with some scenes being told rather than shown... that and how Betty and Ronnie were in swimsuits in that one page was kinda like those skimpy cover-girl covers the series had... and those brief scenes of random skimpy/sexy stuff that just sort of come and go through out the comic's run...

[bj_l]

It's bloody Archie, and by the look of it a parody/satire of classic Archie, why is the dog narrating problem, really?

[philippos42]

Oh, man, he did a John Byrne mostly-empty-page joke in his first issue? Bad sign.