They have rarely made any mention of it in decades, but in the early stories Midge was supposed to be one of THE most attractive girls at Riverdale High, more so than even Betty and Veronica. If you look back to stories of the fifties even into the early sixties, not only Reggie, but Archie too will try to date Midge if either of them thinks they can get away with it and escape the wrath of Big Moose. A big reason that makes Midge even more attractive than she already is physically is the idea that she's the "forbidden fruit".

To answer Pennylane's question about the small-sized trade paperback vs. the deluxe slipcased hardcover...


These two books both collect the same original story that began in ARCHIE 600...
But ironically, the cheaper paperback is the more complete version!
Both collect ARCHIE 600-602 ("Archie Marries Veronica") and ARCHIE 603-605 ("Archie Marries Betty"), but...
There was an Epilogue to BOTH parallel timelines in ARCHIE 606, and that issue is ONLY reprinted in the small TP collection "Will You Marry Me?", not in the expensive hardcover!


And yes, as mentioned by Beatman10, the confusingly-titled Archie: The Married Life 10th Anniversary is a sequel to ARCHIE MARRIES... and was published 10 years after that storyline from ARCHIE 600-606. Why it is confusing is that it was NOT the 10th Anniversary of "THE MARRIED LIFE" -- which was an earlier sequel that ran in LIFE WITH ARCHIE MAGAZINE from 2010-2014 (and was later collected in six thick trade paperbacks).

The above book is a DIFFERENT sequel, which (again, as previously mentioned by Beatman10) picks up again after ARCHIE 600-605, ignoring the events of the earlier sequel "The Married Life". The above image is from the cover of the TP collection of that six-issue miniseries.

Hope that clears up everything.

The trouble is that with plots like those, I could have read one of those stories less than a month ago somewhere, and I still couldn't tell you exactly where, even if I was sure I read it. I've got boxes full of Archie Double Digests, Jumbo Comics Digests, Giant Comics Digests, and 1000-Page Comics Digests. Plus just about every classic Archie TP and HC collection, but none of those are indexed in any way that I could find something even if I was looking for it myself, unless I read it REALLY recently and was going strictly on hunches as to where.

Someone's got to have an absolutely phenomenal memory to be able to remember all the plots of the (probably hundreds, if not thousands) of Archie stories they've read, and then exactly where they read it. In fact I'd say that the main reason ACP gets away with reprinting so many stories over and over again ("Oh, this one I know I've read before.") is that you don't remember them until you actually start re-reading one again... THEN it rings a bell. But even then you probably won't remember exactly WHERE you read it before... just that you have read it.

When I see questions like this it always makes me wonder "WHY are THOSE stories important to someone?" They seem just like regular Archie story plots - it's not like Betty all of a sudden fell in love with Jughead or something really unusual. The answer is probably something simple like "Those are a couple of the first Archie stories I can ever remember reading." But it always leaves me feeling curious what it was about the story that motivated someone to try so hard to track it down.

For sure that's an Al Hartley-drawn story (probably early '70s), so a good guess might be to look for it in BETTY AND ME. Kind of hard to tell by only one page, though.

DAMN! 

Nope, it's only the first issues of the WORLD OF BETTY & VERONICA and ARCHIE 80th ANNIVERSARY digests that have the 10-page stories. After that it's back to the standard 5-pagers.

"Hundreds of Possibilities!" was a good story, but it could have been even better if it were 20 pages. Heck, the concept is strong enough that it could have been a whole miniseries. I was hoping for a glimpse of January McAndrews but no such luck.

... and hey, what do you know? "Editor's Notebook" is back after a decade or so MIA (now written by Mike Pellerito); He says (unless I misinterpreted) that both World of B&V Jumbo Digest and Archie 80th Anniversary Jumbo Digest will be featuring new 10-page lead stories. That's a good sign, as is the fact that they printed an address for letters and fan art -- almost as if they WANT to hear from readers all of a sudden.

Huh. That was a surprise. Since it was 10 pages I thought they were going to do the version of B&V (by Rotante & Williams) that they've been pushing so hard with previews of the OGN in the back pages of both B&V digests for the last few months.

But no, this is just a regular "Archie classic"-style story written by Rotante and drawn by good 'ol reliable Bill Galvan. Nothing different about it except that it's 10 pages instead of the usual 5. But, you know... it wouldn't hurt to start making all the new lead stories in the digests 10 pages, since they're not really publishing much new in the floppy comics.

It's inconsistent, just like Pureheart the Powerful. As far as I know, the magic ponytail-twisting thing is only mentioned once, in the story "Superteen Strikes Again" from BETTY AND ME #3.

In the origin story "It All Began..." in that same issue, she doesn't need to twist her ponytail to first turn into Superteen. She's already trying to save Archie (and has her hands full trying to hold on to him) when her ponytail gets caught in a small bush, and it's the only thing keeping both her and Archie from plunging to their deaths on a teetering rock ledge sticking out from the face of a cliff. A caption in a panel where she strains to hold on to Archie suggests "Maybe it was the superhuman desire and determination to save the one she loved, ...but suddenly..." In fact, a close reading of that story seems to suggest that it's really Betty's purity of heart and unselfish desire to protect Archie that calls up superpower somewhere from deep within her. On page 2 it was mentioned in a caption that "The yearning to hold and protect kept building and building...'

In stories from before BETTY AND ME #3 like "Just Imagine" (B&V 118) and "The Consumer" (B&V 119) she just changes into Superteen without doing anything special, and the suggestion seems to be she just changes from her street clothes into her superhero costume, but "It All Began..." seems to be presented as a flashback story.

BUT will we ever see the Betty Cooper SUPERTEEN one-shot, the ARCHIE MEETS FLASH GORDON one-shot, or the conclusion to the all-new all-different SUPER DUCK miniseries? 

Somehow despite everything happening, that MADAM SATAN one-shot managed to squeak out (it was good). C'mon guys!! 

Would you trust Archie Andrews to be your guide to the world of dating? Let's face it, he's not exactly Jiminy Cricket.

Spoiler Alert: I already know The Secret of Betty's Ponytail.
(It's that little black ribbon she uses to tie around her hair.)

I was wondering why this was in such an odd size.



But then (despite it being only 256 pages) I realized it's claiming kinship with THE BEST OF ARCHIE COMICS trade paperbacks (which hasn't had a new volume in years, discounting those reworked Deluxe Edition HCs). That series were usually over 400 pages per volume. This book came out a few weeks ago, but this collection must have been back-burnered in production from last year or even earlier. It still lists Victor Gorelick as Co-President/Editor-In-Chief on the credits page.

The greatest joy was seeing not only each and every story with creator credits, but the source of the original printing of the story is cited along with the date of original publication. I sure wish they'd make that standard procedure on every trade collection they publish.

Quote from: ASS-P on January 13, 2019, 11:42:43 AM...Why are hot dog buns sold in packages of eight but hot dogs in packages of ten ?

So you'll have a couple of emergency stand-by hot dogs, in case of some untimely accident where your hot dog slipped out of the bun and fell on the floor (you mustard fans know what I'm talking about). No need to toss away a perfectly good bun, just replace the dog.

I could have lived without the Jamie Rotante/Brittney Williams double-length new story in favor of a Dan Parent double-length story, but I will be getting it.

I hope "Hundreds of Possibilities" finally does see print in the Archie 80th Anniversary digest.

February is a good month! When was the last time we saw nothing but classic Archie titles coming out? Still waiting for an ARCHIE SHOWCASE DIGEST #3.

I'm crazy about BATS!

Archie digests have been very annoying in 2020 with the content described in solicitations not being correct in the printed digests -- but then they had that problem sometimes even before the COVID situation.