Is it the same guy? Let's hope not.

Actually, I have something more to add about something. I'll have to do so later.

In the meantime this is a strangely fascinating bit. But, Jughead is largely the domain of Samm Schwartz (final panel an example)... a cartoonist I can actually pretty well dissect in a strangely formalistic way one of these blog-entries.

But back to Decarlo.

I have a couple covers that I have to wonder about.

This one. Someone posted this at the Comics Journal message board with a sort of befuddlement. What is this supposed to mean? Is this another variation of Archie accidentally dating both of them at the same time -- in this instance marrying them? What is Archie's expression of horror about? Did Archie knock up Betty, Veronica, or both of them? (Are Betty and Veronica getting married to each other? Who? What? Why? When? (This is, mind you, a paraphrase of the TCJ message boarder.)

And this one. Okay. It's a sort of cheesecakey cover you could have expected from about a quarter of Decarlo's covers, and the covers of whoever's drawing them now. But... as with this double-entendre... isn't this one a little too (creepily) suggestive? (I ask the same question with this one. But I guess "I Dream of Jeanie" was, in the end, a midrif-baring slave-girl.) (The cover was brought to my attention in a "Oddball Comics" message board thread started from that column entry, regarding "What Archie Comics Got Away With." (This story, incidentally, appears to be in a sort of heavy (print once every five years) rotation in their line of digests.) And... Somewhere in the land of blogs I find a panel from what seems to be a sort of cult sensation, the story where Archie, Betty, and Veronica visit (or rather look on over from a hill) a nudist beach. I just spent about 15 minutes looking for it in vein... if I find it I'll post a link to it.

Sheesh.