BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR #138, June 1966 "Pay Dates Incorporated"

1966 was a great year! So much pop culture! The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" and the Beatles' "Revolver" albums debuted, as did TV shows like STAR TREK and BATMAN. Also, BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR #138, June 1966 (which is copyright Archie Publications) was on the comic book spinner racks.

This was a more innocent time and a story like "Pay Dates Incorporated" (see below) simply did not resonate the way that it does today. It all starts with a typical teen problem in these Archie books: how do I get some money to buy some cool stuff? 

Sidebar:

I was fortunate enough to hear the story of Archie from Joe Edwards himself. Joe was there, in the MLJ offices, with Bob Montana and John Goldwater, as they were hashing out ideas. Publisher Goldwater (whose first name was the "J" part of the "MLJ" publishing acronym) wanted a new comic book story, maybe something like the Andy Hardy series of movies. But what would it be? What do teenagers want? How do you appeal to them? 

He turned to the then-twenty year old Joseph Edwards. 

"Joe, you're a young guy. What do you want?" asked Goldwater. 

"Three things," said Joe, counting on his fingers. "Girls, of course -- money, so I can take girls out -- and a job, so I can make the money to take out the girls." 

Bob Montana created the initial look of Archie Andrews, Jughead and Betty Cooper for Pep Comics #22, December 1941. By the next year, Archie had his own title.

Okay, so let's go 25 years in the future from 1941 -- to BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR #138.

How do the girls make money?

The answer is peddling flesh. Yes. Really. In an Archie book. But, hey, it was approved by the Comics Code Authority, so it's alright. Read on!

The art is by the incomparable Harry Lucey. 

(EDIT: Probably not. This blog entry was originally titled "BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR #138, June 1966 "Pay Dates Incorporated" Art by Harry Lucey" but Rodrigo Baeza tweeted that it looked like Dan DeCarlo's art to him, and a friend of mine concurred that it didn't look like Lucey. Since I'm not sure, I'll keep the are credit off for now. Sorry about the mistake!)

-- Edited from a June 24, 2015 blog post.