Betty and Veronica

The Leading Ladies of Riverdale

Tim Hanley

We think we know Betty and Veronica, but we don’t. Far more than just Archie’s girlfriends, the girls have grown beyond simple archetypes to become compelling, relevant characters for each new generation over the past eighty years.

Betty, Veronica, and the rest of the Riverdale gang appear to be frozen in time in Archie comic books. They are perpetual high schoolers, recycling the same basic plotlines over and over in their wholesome, small-town American world. However, there is much more to Betty and Veronica than the broad stereotypes and clichéd storytelling suggests.

In Betty and Veronica: The Leading Ladies of Riverdale, Tim Hanley explores the complexity behind these two iconic characters. We know Betty and Veronica as Archie's girlfriends, but that's just the beginning—they are their own women with evolving motivations and aims. From fighting over Archie to tackling women’s lib to chasing down serial killers on Riverdale, their friendship has endured and grown through decades of shifting characterizations and social change. Exploring their past offers unique insights into the ways life has progressed for young women over the past eighty years, and shows us the hidden strengths and secret depths of these pop culture icons.

Featuring full-color comic book cover art that spans nearly eight decades of publishing—along with behind-the-scenes accounts of creative decisions and historical insights into their many incarnations across various media—this book provides a vibrant exploration of Betty and Veronica’s many adventures throughout their long, intriguing journey in popular culture.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 240 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-5381-2973-9 • Hardback • July 2020 • $34.00 • (£26.00)

978-1-5381-2974-6 • eBook • July 2020 • $32.00 • (£25.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Comics & Graphic Novels, Social Science / Popular Culture, Social Science / Women's Studies, Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Women

Betty and Veronica

The Leading Ladies of Riverdale

Hardback

eBook

Summary

We think we know Betty and Veronica, but we don’t. Far more than just Archie’s girlfriends, the girls have grown beyond simple archetypes to become compelling, relevant characters for each new generation over the past eighty years.

Betty, Veronica, and the rest of the Riverdale gang appear to be frozen in time in Archie comic books. They are perpetual high schoolers, recycling the same basic plotlines over and over in their wholesome, small-town American world. However, there is much more to Betty and Veronica than the broad stereotypes and clichéd storytelling suggests.

In Betty and Veronica: The Leading Ladies of Riverdale, Tim Hanley explores the complexity behind these two iconic characters. We know Betty and Veronica as Archie's girlfriends, but that's just the beginning—they are their own women with evolving motivations and aims. From fighting over Archie to tackling women’s lib to chasing down serial killers on Riverdale, their friendship has endured and grown through decades of shifting characterizations and social change. Exploring their past offers unique insights into the ways life has progressed for young women over the past eighty years, and shows us the hidden strengths and secret depths of these pop culture icons.

Featuring full-color comic book cover art that spans nearly eight decades of publishing—along with behind-the-scenes accounts of creative decisions and historical insights into their many incarnations across various media—this book provides a vibrant exploration of Betty and Veronica’s many adventures throughout their long, intriguing journey in popular culture.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 240 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-5381-2973-9 • Hardback • July 2020 • $34.00 • (£26.00)

978-1-5381-2974-6 • eBook • July 2020 • $32.00 • (£25.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Comics & Graphic Novels, Social Science / Popular Culture, Social Science / Women's Studies, Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Women

Author

Tim Hanley is a comic book historian and the author of Wonder Woman Unbound (2014), Investigating Lois Lane (2016), and The Many Lives of Catwoman (2017). His work has also appeared in the Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Comics Journal. As a boy, he had a stack of Archie Comics digests taller than he was, and this remains the case today even though he is considerably taller now. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Men behind the Girls
2. New in Town
3. On the Airwaves
4. Solo Shenanigans
5. Archie’s Girls
6. Sad Sack
7. Curtailed by the Code
8. Friendly Competition
9. Spies and Superteens
10. The Clone Wars
11. Candy Girls
12. Getting Real
13. Female Power
14. The Ladies and the Lord
15. Heel Turn
16. Digestible Fun
17. Small-Screen Experimentation
18. Course Correction
19. Eventualities
20. A Troubling Decade
21. Under New Management
22. Reboot and Regress
23. Small-Town Girls
24. The Adventurous Blonde
25. High Society
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Reviews

Hanley takes a deep, well-researched dive into the history of Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge, analyzing their original appearances and exploring their many iterations since. He contextualizes their characters’ evolution within the cultural shifts of each decade (1950s domesticity, 1970s feminism) and shows how, in the publisher’s effort to tweak their formulaic high jinks, the girls both followed and subverted gender roles.

— Booklist

Hanley surveys the history of the two BFFs, beginning with Betty’s first appearance in Pep #22 (December 1941) and following through to the third season of Riverdale on the CW. Not only does the book give the reader a good sense of Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge’s evolving place in pop culture over the decades, including their appearances beyond the comic book page, but it also offers illuminating insight into the crystallization of the pairs’ personalities.

— ComicsBeat

"Chapter by chapter, Hanley relates the history of the company from the perspective of Betty and Veronica being its major characters rather than Archie. It’s a fascinating way to look at things. While they remain essentially the same in the comics until recent years, the text follows their variations on radio, in TV pilots, on records, in Al Hartley’s parallel world Christian Archieverse, and in animated cartoons, all with details and trivia likely to be new to even the most hardcore Riverdale buff. Yes, the current TV teen super-soap is covered as well."

— Forces of Geek

Tim Hanley has delivered another engaging comic book history filled with insider stories, cultural context, and a massive serving of nostalgia. Betty and Veronica is easy reading and it's lots of fun. This is a book nearly any comic fan will enjoy. . . This is a great book for Archie fans, of course. But it’s also a nice option for anyone looking for an entertaining and accessible piece of comic book history.

— The Comic Book Yeti

Tim Hanley has this gift to dive deep into the history and legacy of pop culture creations you think you know. Betty and Veronica is his best example of that yet: informative, funny, and fascinating, Tim Hanley is one of the best pop culture writers working today.
— Maria Lewis, journalist, author

If you want to know about the female comics characters who have captivated readers from the Golden Age forward, Tim Hanley is your guy. His book Betty and Veronica moves these characters out of Archie’s shadow to shine a spotlight on their development in comics, radio, and television over the past nearly 80 years. Hanley’s thoughtful analysis provides insights for fans of the Archie mediaverse as well as pop culture scholars, as he shares how creative forces (sometimes) worked in conjunction with broader social phenomena to shape their representation. Betty and Veronica have been part of my life for nearly 50 years (I’m a Betty by the way), and Hanley’s book let me know I still have much to learn.
— Carol Tilley, comics historian and 2016 Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards judge