Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: archie comics, MLJ Comics

Classic Archie Comics Covers with Betty & Veronica, Up for Auction

The now-legendary Archie/Betty/Veronica love triangle was most memorably established on early 1940s Archie Comics covers.

Archie Andrews and the Riverdale gang have been entertaining fans for over 80 years, and the first few years of the franchise's development saw the introduction of all the familiar elements that made the concept an enduring hit. Among these elements is the now-legendary Archie/Betty/Veronica love triangle, which took shape most memorably in the early days on the covers of Archie Comics.  The series had been introduced about a year after the character had debuted in Pep Comics #22, and artists such as Harry Sahle, Bill Vigoda, and Al Fagaly had been added to help execute Bob Montana's original artistic concepts.  There are some classic early Archie Comics covers featuring Betty & Veronica up for auction in the 2024 June 16-18 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122425.

Archie was created by Bob Montana, John L. Goldwater, and Vic Bloom for Pep Comics #22, just a year prior to the launch of the Archie Comics series.  Outside of also becoming a feature of Jackpot Comics about two months after his debut in Pep Comics, there was little visible indication of the character's rising popularity in that first year.  Typically, a break-out feature in an anthology might expect to hit that title's cover early on, start moving up to the front of the comic, or be the subject of reader polls that might indicate the concept's growing success.  None of that happened in the character's early months.  Even Pep Comics' inside front cover editorial, which often mentioned reader feedback about particular features, never mentioned Archie again within that first year, after noting his debut in Pep Comics #22 by commenting that people wanted some laughs in those grim, war-era times.

However it was that MLJ determined that Archie was destined for stardom, they certainly hit their mark, and renamed their entire company Archie Comics in 1946. By then, that series and Pep Comics had developed many of the formative elements that made the franchise great, and additional titles like Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica then served to expand on those concepts. There are some classic early Archie Comics covers featuring Betty & Veronica up for auction in the 2024 June 16-18 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122425.

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