Wow!!! This makes me SO excited!!!!






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Betty's hair is all wrong. Where are the bangs? The ponytail?

I might have considered watching RIVERDALE if it had looked like that.

Quote from: kassandralove on March 09, 2017, 04:48:49 PM



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I was very excited when the episode opened with this, it was a great (however short) homage to the old comics. 

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 09, 2017, 08:43:07 PM
Betty's hair is all wrong. Where are the bangs? The ponytail?

I don't think Betty had bangs or a ponytail in the 1950s, which is what this is supposed to look like (that or 1940s).

1st cover appearance of Betty's ponytail - B&V 29 (March 1957)

And it's consistent thereafter.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 10, 2017, 04:24:51 PM
And it's consistent thereafter.

Not really. She seemed to switch between that and pigtails around the late 1990s / early 2000s (and maybe earlier; not sure) and also sometimes just plain wore her hair down (albeit rarely).

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 09, 2017, 08:43:07 PM
Betty's hair is all wrong. Where are the bangs? The ponytail?

She wears a ponytail all the time on the show.

Quote from: irishmoxie on March 10, 2017, 08:45:38 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 09, 2017, 08:43:07 PM
Betty's hair is all wrong. Where are the bangs? The ponytail?

She wears a ponytail all the time on the show.

I know, but I was talking about these vintage pics.

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 10, 2017, 03:29:23 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 09, 2017, 08:43:07 PM
Betty's hair is all wrong. Where are the bangs? The ponytail?

I don't think Betty had bangs or a ponytail in the 1950s, which is what this is supposed to look like (that or 1940s).

Seriously, I could go on and on.....

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 10, 2017, 05:04:41 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 10, 2017, 04:24:51 PM
And it's consistent thereafter.

Not really. She seemed to switch between that and pigtails around the late 1990s / early 2000s (and maybe earlier; not sure) and also sometimes just plain wore her hair down (albeit rarely).

I meant for the 1950s, which seemed to be the point about which people were confused here. So in answer to the question "True or False: Betty had a ponytail in the 1950s"?, the correct answer is both True (she had a ponytail from 1957-1959), and False (she did not have a ponytail from 1950-1956).

I don't know when the scenes in the photos are imagined to be taking place, but I can assure you it's not the 1940s. The answer to whether the photos are accurate to the fashion of pre-1957 or 1957-onwards would be dependent on a single key visual clue in the photos -- Jughead's sneakers, which are Converse All-Stars. If he's wearing low-cut Oxford style Converse All-Stars, that would place the photos as from 1957 or later, because 1957 was the first year in which Converse manufactured the low-cut version of those sneakers. Prior to that all Converse All-Stars were hi-tops. I honestly can't tell from the photos, as it seems like Jughead's pants are obscuring a view of where the shoes are cut at the ankle.

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 10, 2017, 11:43:27 PM

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 10, 2017, 03:29:23 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 09, 2017, 08:43:07 PM
Betty's hair is all wrong. Where are the bangs? The ponytail?

I don't think Betty had bangs or a ponytail in the 1950s, which is what this is supposed to look like (that or 1940s).

Seriously, I could go on and on.....

Betty's hair has nearly always been tied in back with a black ribbon, going back the the 1940s. As to whether you can actually describe this as a ponytail, I have my doubts. Since Betty's hair as viewed from the front spreads out to the left and right of both sides of her neck, I'd say no... that is not a ponytail, not as I understand it. Women's hair can be tied or ribboned in many ways, but "ponytail" seems far more specific than that basic requirement.

Visually, the pre-1957 stories present a more-or-less consistent Betty hairstyle that is distinct from the Harry Lucey hairstyle which appears more-or-less consistently from 1957 onwards, which is the one that I identify as Betty's first ponytail. Of course there are many modifications to her hairstyle from the 1960s onwards, but we needn't be concerned with those here. The real point is that there is a demarcation between her pre-1957 hairstyle and how it appeared thereafter. In pre-1957 stories Betty's hair appears perm'ed, but from 1957 the ponytail appears to be brushed out straight below where it's tied off, and it's tied off at the top of the back of her head, as opposed to the earlier look, which was tied off at the base of the skull. At any rate, having wavy or curly fuller hair in the pre-1957 stories makes Betty's hair (regardless of whether it's tied off with a ribbon) NOT look like the tail of a horse or pony, where the later style clearly DOES look like a pony's tail.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word ponytail as meaning: "a hairstyle in which the hair is pulled together and banded usually at the back of the head so as to resemble a pony's tail" -- therefore, I'm going to say if the hairstyle in question doesn't resemble a pony's tail, then it isn't. Sorry, but the pre-1957 version of Betty's hairstyle just doesn't resemble a pony's tail.

In the panels you've shown above, I will admit that the one story where Betty's wearing the red polka-dot dress do appear to show Betty's hairstyle as closer to the ponytail style it eventually became -- but at best, it's a fluke, because it really fits more closely with the predominant depiction of Betty's hair pre-1957 than it does with Harry Lucey's later 1957 hairstyle, which is quite distinct. On covers, there's a sharp dividing line between Betty's hair as seen on the covers of issues #1-28, and how it appears on the covers of issues #29-50 (which was probably the last issue to be released in 1959).

It's a distinct change, not some gradual evolution, and issue #29 (dated as March 1957, but probably released in January) clearly marks the first appearance of the hairstyle which came to be Betty's new signature iconic look. That's the question we're really trying to answer here, isn't it?  In the parlance of comic book fandom, a 1940s comic book character who experiences a pinpoint-able redesign at some point in the 1950s can be said to have reached a turning point. Issues #1-28 of Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica (and all of their prior appearances from 1941 up until AGB&V#1) can be said to represent "Golden Age Betty and Veronica", while issues #29-50 (and beyond into the 1960s) can be said to represent "Silver Age Betty and Veronica". Now, why is that important? The Silver Age is the age of the Baby Boomers. The baby boom started in 1945 when American servicemen returned from WWII, bought houses, got married, studied under the G.I. Bill, and began raising families. One such individual who fit that description exactly was Dan DeCarlo, who after working for Atlas/Marvel in his early postwar career, finally began to give more time to Archie Comic Publications as a freelance employee in the late 50s when work from Atlas virtually dried up for him, and he'd go on to be the man who would define B&V for the Silver Age more than anyone (except possibly Frank Doyle). Then again, those babies born after all the servicemen came home from the war were turning 10 by the mid-1950s -- a good age for reading comic books. The comic book industry as a whole was in a revolutionary period, due to the institution of the Comics Code Authority in 1955. In the rest of the comics industry, the early-to-mid 1950s saw the demise of many formerly major publishers, with the last of them, Quality Comics, finally tossing in the towel at the end of 1956. So 1957 isn't a bad point to pick to start calling Archie comic books "Silver Age Archie". Archie Comic Publications didn't change much at first with the institution of the CCA. They only began to change in response to the readers born in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and 1957 was when those changes in the comics ACP published first began to become apparent. After's Atlas's drastic collapse in 1958, Dan DeCarlo came aboard at ACP full-time, and they began changing even more.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 11, 2017, 02:50:38 AM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 10, 2017, 11:43:27 PM

Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on March 10, 2017, 03:29:23 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 09, 2017, 08:43:07 PM
Betty's hair is all wrong. Where are the bangs? The ponytail?

I don't think Betty had bangs or a ponytail in the 1950s, which is what this is supposed to look like (that or 1940s).

Seriously, I could go on and on.....

Betty's hair has nearly always been tied in back with a black ribbon, going back the the 1940s. As to whether you can actually describe this as a ponytail, I have my doubts. Since Betty's hair as viewed from the front spreads out to the left and right of both sides of her neck, I'd say no... that is not a ponytail, not as I understand it. Women's hair can be tied or ribboned in many ways, but "ponytail" seems far more specific than that basic requirement.

Visually, the pre-1957 stories present a more-or-less consistent Betty hairstyle that is distinct from the Harry Lucey hairstyle which appears more-or-less consistently from 1957 onwards, which is the one that I identify as Betty's first ponytail. Of course there are many modifications to her hairstyle from the 1960s onwards, but we needn't be concerned with those here. The real point is that there is a demarcation between her pre-1957 hairstyle and how it appeared thereafter. In pre-1957 stories Betty's hair appears perm'ed, but from 1957 the ponytail appears to be brushed out straight below where it's tied off, and it's tied off at the top of the back of her head, as opposed to the earlier look, which was tied off at the base of the skull. At any rate, having wavy or curly fuller hair in the pre-1957 stories makes Betty's hair (regardless of whether it's tied off with a ribbon) NOT look like the tail of a horse or pony, where the later style clearly DOES look like a pony's tail.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word ponytail as meaning: "a hairstyle in which the hair is pulled together and banded usually at the back of the head so as to resemble a pony's tail" -- therefore, I'm going to say if the hairstyle in question doesn't resemble a pony's tail, then it isn't. Sorry, but the pre-1957 version of Betty's hairstyle just doesn't resemble a pony's tail.

In the panels you've shown above, I will admit that the one story where Betty's wearing the red polka-dot dress do appear to show Betty's hairstyle as closer to the ponytail style it eventually became -- but at best, it's a fluke, because it really fits more closely with the predominant depiction of Betty's hair pre-1957 than it does with Harry Lucey's later 1957 hairstyle, which is quite distinct. On covers, there's a sharp dividing line between Betty's hair as seen on the covers of issues #1-28, and how it appears on the covers of issues #29-50 (which was probably the last issue to be released in 1959).

It's a distinct change, not some gradual evolution, and issue #29 (dated as March 1957, but probably released in January) clearly marks the first appearance of the hairstyle which came to be Betty's new signature iconic look. That's the question we're really trying to answer here, isn't it?  In the parlance of comic book fandom, a 1940s comic book character who experiences a pinpoint-able redesign at some point in the 1950s can be said to have reached a turning point. Issues #1-28 of Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica (and all of their prior appearances from 1941 up until AGB&V#1) can be said to represent "Golden Age Betty and Veronica", while issues #29-50 (and beyond into the 1960s) can be said to represent "Silver Age Betty and Veronica". Now, why is that important? The Silver Age is the age of the Baby Boomers. The baby boom started in 1945 when American servicemen returned from WWII, bought houses, got married, studied under the G.I. Bill, and began raising families. One such individual who fit that description exactly was Dan DeCarlo, who after working for Atlas/Marvel in his early postwar career, finally began to give more time to Archie Comic Publications as a freelance employee in the late 50s when work from Atlas virtually dried up for him, and he'd go on to be the man who would define B&V for the Silver Age more than anyone (except possibly Frank Doyle). Then again, those babies born after all the servicemen came home from the war were turning 10 by the mid-1950s -- a good age for reading comic books. The comic book industry as a whole was in a revolutionary period, due to the institution of the Comics Code Authority in 1955. In the rest of the comics industry, the early-to-mid 1950s saw the demise of many formerly major publishers, with the last of them, Quality Comics, finally tossing in the towel at the end of 1956. So 1957 isn't a bad point to pick to start calling Archie comic books "Silver Age Archie". Archie Comic Publications didn't change much at first with the institution of the CCA. They only began to change in response to the readers born in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and 1957 was when those changes in the comics ACP published first began to become apparent. After's Atlas's drastic collapse in 1958, Dan DeCarlo came aboard at ACP full-time, and they began changing even more.

Trust me, those are ponytails, may not be high up but it is a ponytail nonetheless (there are many ponytail variations). And those are bangs. So yes, Betty has always been about bangs and ponytails! (And those panels btw, are from the early to mid 1950s)

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 11, 2017, 11:30:54 AM
Trust me, those are ponytails, may not be high up but it is a ponytail nonetheless (there are many ponytail variations). And those are bangs. So yes, Betty has always been about bangs and ponytails! (And those panels btw, are from the early to mid 1950s)

Rather than quibble with you about the finer technical distinctions of word definitions (since whether someone recognizes in a hairstyle a resemblance to a pony's tail is completely subjective), I urge you to examine all the covers of Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica at comics.org.

When you originally asked about Betty's hair in the photo, the sense of your question I'm getting is (paraphrasing here) "Why doesn't Betty in the photo look more recognizably like the iconic image of Betty from the 1950s?" And I submit to you that the iconic, recognizable Betty that we know today begins with the Silver Age Betty, on those Harry Lucey covers where he redesigned her hairstyle, beginning with issue #29 in 1957 -- that's where we really begin to see the image of Betty that is recognizable to most Archie readers today emerge. That Betty really doesn't look like the Betty from the 28 issues published beforehand, the earlier image being nearly identical to what we would today recognize as "1940s Betty" or "Golden Age Betty". Silver Age Betty didn't really evolve from Golden Age Betty so much as she was redesigned by Harry Lucey (in a more or less complete break from Bob Montana's Betty design, which was looking pretty dated by 1957) to appear more contemporary for the late 1950s, and the modern Betty did evolve (by way of Dan DeCarlo) from that 1957 version redesigned by Lucey. It's fair to say that that is the image of "1950s Betty" in most people's minds, thanks to the fact that the later 1950s stories were reprinted over the years much more frequently than the pre-1957 Betty stories. That's the only real point I'm trying to make here.

On a side note, there's an entire chapter in Bart Beatty's book Twelve Cent Archie, where he argues that the character of Betty as she is known today is pretty much inseparable from that Harry Lucey redesigned hairstyle.

Argument B : If I accept your definition of the 1950-1956 Betty as having a ponytail, then how do you know the Betty in the photo doesn't have one? You can't see the back of her head! I CAN however, see in the photo that the hair on the right side of her head is swept straight back, and that seems to me to strongly suggest that it's being held that way by some sort of tie, ribbon or scrunchie in back of her head that we can't see... so maybe she does have (by your definition) a ponytail!