Who is that Betty person, anyway?

Anyway, I promised I’d talk to you about Betty and Veronica. Recently I’ve been obsessing over Archie comics. A new comic shop has opened up in Townsville (I’ll post about it in a couple of weeks time, until then hit me on Twitter or in the comments if you want more details, I can’t be bothered to look them up right now) and thanks to it I’ve been acquiring a collection of Archie digests.

Archie digests are how I first started reading Archie when I was a kid, but they were always really disposable things, so this is the first time that I’ve really had what one might call a collection of them.

I’ve been reading about Archie online, too, and learning a bit more about the artists I grew up with.

It’s interesting to read other people’s thoughts on the character dynamics in Archie, but you always encounter the one big problem with talking about Archie comics. There’s simply no way to draw concrete conclusions about them. You can’t talk about Archie comics in terms of absolutes. (And yes, I know that’s an absolute statement.) People like to write about who is better (most people choose Betty), and to ruminate on why changing the formula at all is WRONG. One claim I’ve read that’s especially ridiculous is that you can’t draw Betty and Veronica with different facial features. The claim goes that they look identical deliberately so that the choice Archie makes is an emotional one, not one based on shallow things like physical appearance.

Boy is that a load of horse shit.

The reason that Betty and Veronica are drawn the same, just with different hair is that the artists have to draw hundreds and hundreds of these strips — and drawing them like that is easy. In fact, it’s not just Betty and Veronica. Every single pretty teen girl in Riverdale looks indentical. The only people with unique features are the older women (and generally what makes them unique is whether they’re fat or not) and some of the uglier women. Even the men in the Archieverse don’t have particularly unique facial features.

When you look at the text, at how the stories actually read, it becomes clear that Veronica is simply meant to be the more attractive of the two, physically. When they’re both in bikinis, Veronica is the one getting ogled, when they show up in the same dress, Veronica is the one men chase after. Veronica is, simply put, prettier than Betty.

Except when she isn’t.

You see this is where the problem with talking about Archie in absolute terms come in. I might claim that in the stories Betty is uglier than Veronica… but that’s not always true. There are stories which hi-light that the main difference is in the clothing they choose to (or can afford to) wear. There’s other stories that deliberately play on the fact that they’re drawn identically (including a story where they swap hair colours and confuse the hell out of everyone). There’s also stories where Betty turns out to be the more attractive girl. Archie comics simply don’t have any hard and fast rules about the way these things work.

Most stories are written as vignettes, without any references to other stories. There’s exceptions to that too — and there are Archie books that try to build a continuity. However those books generally only try to build an internal continuity, rather than trying to create a world consistent with other Archie comics published concurrently.  Because of this, there isn’t much consistency in the geography of Riverdale, in the cast of minor 3rd tier characters, or in the actual personalities of the major characters.

Betty, Veronica, Archie, Reggie and Jughead basically have a couple of consistent traits each, and the rest of their personalities are moulded to suit whatever story the writer wants to tell with them. Let’s take a look at Betty, to see what we’re talking about.

Betty is usually the sporty, athletic tomboy of the group. She’s the girl who’s just one of the guys. She is absolutely obsessed with Archie, but she’s also fast friends with her rival for his affection, Veronica. Betty is smart, competent and loving. Only… that’s not always true, is it?

Betty has two absolute traits that are always true, no matter what the story is. 1) Betty is obsessed with Archie. 2) Betty is poorer than Veronica. (Exactly HOW poor she is definitely varies, ranging from lower-middle-class to dirt-poor.)

So let’s take a look at three Betty stories to see what I’m talking about. The first is a story which hi-lights Betty’s abilities in both the domestic realm, and as a tomboy. It also hi-lights the conflict between her and Veronica and tries to paint Betty as a really sympathetic character. It’s also basically the saddest Archie story I’ve ever read. You will be depressed after reading it. You have been warned.

So as you can see, Betty is a naive girl, who would do anything for Archie, even if it meant sacrificing what she wants just so he can get what he wants. Right? Well sure, in this story she is. But what about the next story?

This next story casts Betty in a completely different light. In fact the story relies on the presumption that everyone knows that Betty is a manipulative bitch.

But surely there are some traits to Betty other than her obsession with Archie which are completely consistent. I mean she’s always the athletic, tomboy character, right? The one who’s good at sports and mechanical things, right?

Not always, no. Check out this story…

Betty’s so clumsy she can destroy trees. Holy crap, man! This isn’t the Betty we know and love! She might as well be a completely different character!!

And that’s really the point. When you read about Archie online and you see people talking in absolutes about the property, it’s probably time to call “Bullshit”. Archie comics don’t have an absolute or definitive take. In the end what this means is that the choice between Betty and Veronica is really an emotional choice — a choice based on one’s feelings about the characters, rather than anything concrete or definable.

It’s just that it’s a choice for the reader to make, not a choice for Archie. In the end, all you need to do to make your choice, though, is look at pages like this:

Now you can decide.

–Andrew S.
(In the end, I’m a Veronica man. She’s just a more sympathetic character.)