Posted in: Comics, Review | Tagged: archie, archie comics, Betty and Veronica, Dan Parent, Digest, jughead, stan goldberg

B&V Friends Jumbo Comics Digest 252: Friendship Never Ends

Published Wed, 11 Jan 2017 07:00:33 -0600

by Baltimore Lauren

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B & V Friends Jumbo Comics Digest 252: Friendship Never Ends

Everyone loves Betty and Veronica. The iconic gal pal duo has been charming audiences since the 1950's, and in this issue of B & V Friends Jumbo Comics Digest 252 the same charm still runs deep.

Dan Parent takes charge with the cover and opening story, but out of the two the opening story is the winner. In "Owl Be Seeing You", Betty and Veronica are putting up window decorations around Lodge manner in an attempt to stop birds from flying into the windows. Mr. Lodge finds this preposterous, and demands that the girls take them down. One thing leads to another, and owls start flying into the windows…and eventually the home itself. I found this story to be surprisingly relatable, as I've had birds fly into my window more times than I can count. Of course I don't get the happy Archie ending, instead I just have a couple of dead birds lying around the outside of my home.

Subsequent stories are all over the place, focusing on mostly Betty and Veronica, but with a fair share of ensemble stories as well. There's even a comic in there showing readers how the staff at Archie comes up with ideas for stories. For young readers (and any age, really) this is fantastic. As a child I always wanted to know how comics were made, and at the time, Google wasn't a thing. The rest of the book contains mostly reprints, which isn't a bad thing. The only thing I wish they would do, is add more variety with stories by Rex W. Lindsay, Dan Parent, and Fernando Ruiz. All in all though, this is a good read.

gang