Betty & Veronica in Wheel Zeal Redux
Longtime astute readers of S&A might remember seeing a previous version of Betty & Veronica in a Wheel Zeal story in a Betty & Veronica comic from 1976. Archie series reuses stories and story titles all over the place. Heck, they even reuse comic book titles. The series from the 1976 issue is called “Archie’s Girls – Betty & Veronica.” This story appeared in issue of just plain old “Betty & Veronica” #138 from 1999. It is indeed a separate series because the numbering sequence is different. I’m not an expert on the Archie series by any means, in fact I’ve always loathed it, even as a kid. Digging into these skateboarding appearances in the Archie series has made me way more informed than I’d like to be. However, just because I hate Archie doesn’t mean I didn’t buy this comic book! In my online archeological dig I also managed to find an expired auction for the “original art” for this story.
Here’s the rundown on the 2 different Betty and Veronica series from Wikipedia.
Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica was first published on March 1950 and ran for 347 issues before ending in April 1987. The run additionally included eight annuals published from 1953 to 1980. A new Betty and Veronica series launched with a #1 on June 1987. This volume ended in late 2015 with 278 issues (625 overall issues if you count volume one). Stories from previous issues of Betty and Veronica have been reprinted in Archie Comics Digest size digest series starring the two.
The cover of #138
It’s the age old story of “Girl tutors famous skateboarder and is secretly good enough be a pro herself. The Amazing Donald is such a great guy that he gives Betty a maple skateboard with urethane trucks! Wait… What? Urethane trucks? Yikes! He also taught her how to ollie and gave her a guest slot at his pro demo, so maybe we can forgive him for the urethane trucks. The 1999 version of Wheel Zeal bears little resemblance to the 1976 version. They both have skateboarding driving the storyline, with Betty as the main skater, but that’s about it. In Wheel Zeal 2 there is a foreshadowing of modern skate-girl-power in the storyline. Donald is asked what he thinks about the “sudden interest of girls in skateboarding.” Donald is all for it!
These are pages of “original art” from Heritage Auctions. If you look closely you can see some variations in the black density as well as notes in cyan made by who? The editor? The colorists? If there’s a comic book aficionado out there who can give me correct terminology, please let me know. The notes are made in light blue because that color disappears under B&W photography, although I’d be surprised if they were still using stat cameras in 1999 instead of scanners. Maybe they were. Maybe they still do… Comic book people, help me out here. There’s nothing super interesting in the notes except for the fact that at least some of them were ignored. The middle panel of page 4 calls for adding elbow pads for Donald, but the finished version still lacks them. This 6 page set sold for $131 $which seems kind of high for a mediocre late 90’s comic book, but I guess it is original art.
