Archie 75 Series

If there's one thing the folks at Archie do better than any other company in comics, it's making their back catalog work for them. I mean, I realize that not everyone is the obsessive Archie fan that I am, but if you did want to jump right in and get a survey of the entire history of the company, it's actually pretty easy to do so, thanks to stuff like the Pep Digital collections and the Archie 75 Series. And this week, the spotlight has fallen on Veronica Lodge. In Archie 75 Series: Veronica, you can get a look at the high points of the Veronica's ongoing series, from her world-traveling first story arc to the debut of Kevin Keller --- and while it's not in the preview, there's also a rare appearance from Marcy, Veronica's nerdy cousin. Sadly, she's no Cricket O'Dell, The Girl Who Can Smell Money, but we'll take what we can get.

I like to think that I've got a pretty comprehensive knowledge of some of the more obscure Archie characters, but I have to admit that I've never really read much of Ginger. To be honest, though, that's understandable. The series only had ten issues back in 1952, and just to put that into context, That Wilkin Boy, the series about Jughead's cousin Bingo Wilkin, somehow managed to run for 50. But fortunately, we now have the opportunity to get caught up thanks to the latest installment of the Archie 75 Series, which features a 75-page digital collection of Ginger's lovestruck adventures. Check out a preview below!

Okay, before we get into it, here are the basics. In the late '80s, Archie Comics published Betty's Diary for 40 issues, putting the spotlight on the kindhearted girl-next-door with a series of stories that were nominally intended to tell things from Betty's point of view in a way to balance out her status as Veronica's perpetual runner-up. Now, as part of the company's celebration of its 75th anniversary, Archie's putting out a digital collection of the best of the series, set to hit digital shelves this Friday. Now the part that you actually need to know: We have a preview below, and you are about to see Archie Andrews screw up his relationship with Betty as badly as possible, and not even know it.

Of all the changes that Archie Comics has made to Riverdale over the past few years --- you know, overrunning the town with zombies, doing a parallel universe marriage story and even rebooting the core continuity for the first time ever - I'm not sure that any of them have had the impact of Kevin Keller. Originally created by Dan Parent and introduced in Veronica #202 back in 2010, Kevin made headlines by being Riverdale High's first openly gay student, and even got his own ongoing series in the process. Now, as part of Archie's series of digital collections celebrating its 75th Anniversary, the publisher is putting Kevin back in the spotlight with 75 pages of his adventures, including the time that he hung out with Star Trek's own George Takei. Check out a preview!