Looking for some variety in my already fairly diverse reading pile, last night I sat down with some Archies — specifically, Archie #608-609, and the new collection Archie New Look Series Vol. 4: My Father’s Betrayal.

The floppy Archie issues comprise a two-part storyline about The Archies and Josie and the Pussycats getting together for a big tour. Each band hopes to expand their audience by exposing their music to fans of the other, and the members of each band also like each other’s music and are enthusiastic about jamming together.

Of course, The Pussycats’ scheming manager tries to pull a fast one and get his girls top billing, but that scheme quickly falls apart and the two bands embark on their tour. Along the way, Archie and Valerie collaborate on a new song and pretty convincingly fall in love. They decide it would be best to keep their nascent relationship secret for the sake of the tour and their bandmates’ (especially Betty and Veronica) feelings, but over time pretty much everybody (with one funny exception) figures out what is going on.

I really enjoyed these two issues, for the fairly realistic way Archie and Valerie get together, and more importantly for how the racial aspect of their romance isn’t even acknowledged, as if it’s just normal and okay for these two young people to have the feelings they do, and act on them. Contrast that with the big deal being made out of the upcoming new gay character being introduced into Archie’s universe — maybe in 25 or 50 years being gay in Archie’s world will be no more noteworthy than a white guy and an African-American gal going out. One can hope.

I was quite amazed by how the story ends — when I say the relationship is convincing, I mean convincing. Even Betty and Veronica seem to get that this love affair is different than any Archie has had in the past, and there’s a suggestion that it could be the real thing for both Archie and Valerie. It took at least a little bit of guts to go this far out on a limb with these characters, and of course the story might never be referenced again, but that would be a shame. I like the two of them together, and the possibilities for where their relationship could take them in the future.

My Father’s Betrayal is one of the new-look (read: slightly less cartoony, slightly more complex narrative) Archie stories, this time focusing on Veronica and the gang discovering that her dad is tearing down a beloved old-growth forest to build a new industrial park. The story is somewhat preachy in its environmental concerns, but does acknowledge the new jobs Mr. Lodge believes his project will create. Going mostly unacknowledged is the fact that many industrial parks cause more problems than they solve. Still, Archie (the company) is to be saluted for tackling the subject at all, and the story is visually stunning, with art by the gifted team of Rich Burchett and Terry Austin.

Not worth saluting is another Archie publication I sat down with last night, Archie Americana Series: The Seventies Book Two, which collects a good cross-section of wacky ’70s pieces featuring pet rocks and other ’70s conceits. Archie (the publisher) has stripped the original creator credits from these stories (despite listing original issue numbers and release dates), and shame on them for doing so. I might have actually read the book and even recommended it, if they hadn’t tried to hide the names of the actual human being who created the comics. Every other Archie I looked at had full creator credits, why not tell us who created these ’70s stories? If they’re good enough to be reprinted, surely their creators were and are worthy of being given credit for their creation.

— Alan David Doane