In anticipation of next week’s festivities, I present Nothing To Hide, a five-pager that sees Archie, Betty and Veronica uncovering the mystery surrounding Driftwood Island.

The gang have noticed an unusual amount of traffic to and from the secluded island which, with the exception of seagulls, is normally uninhabited. Having dealt with his fair share of crime rings and saboteurs, Archie’s innocent inquisitiveness turns into raging paranoia as he suspects a secret society has set up camp on the island. He leaves the girls behind to investigate. They disregard his warnings, and that which has been seen can never be unseen.

Betty and Veronica don’t seem particularly fazed by seeing Mr. Weatherbee, Miss Grundy and Cheryl Blossom in the buff. I can only suspect that their indifference has to do with Betty spending time on a farm somewhere, and Veronica’s father being the leader of the Riverdale chapter of the Hellfire club.

Speaking of which, I love how the worldly Mr. Lodge shrugs the whole thing off. The filthy rich have secret cravings that you or I will never fully comprehend.

Archie lets Betty, Veronica and Midge know he’s available for the Switch Dance, expecting only one of them to take him out.

You wouldn’t think it at first glance, but this six-pager is almost subversive in the way it upends Archie tradition, and not just because Archie is dating one more girl then usual. Not only do they acknowledge Archie’s strange predilection for double-booking, but in this case Archie has an out. He can gracefully decline two of the offers without trouble. Yet he’s overcome with a destructive compulsion to up his game.

The other truly strange aspect of Three Queens And A Joker is its structure. The reason I chose this story at all was because it reminded me of what Grant Morrison attempted to achieve with Final Crisis, of all things. The dance is represented by a rapid succession of panels that only show a fragment of what’s going on at any given time, as if every other panel went missing.

Typically, this kind of story gets the set-up out of the way quickly in order to shift into the slapstick, that is, Archie’s attempts to juggle multiple dates at once. Here, we don’t even get into the dance until page five, and Betty, Veronica and Midge only appear in two panels apiece. The story trades on our anticipation of the girls’ reaction to Archie’s womanizing without actually showing it.

Despite an emphasis on the insanity that is teenage dating, Archie comics are rarely romantic. Their truncated length usually demands that only one mood can be explored at a time. Happily, there are stories where the slapstick is dialed down and romance is allowed to blossom.

In The Last Kiss, Betty is convinced that Archie has dropped her off at home only to immediately step out with Veronica, all of which is par for the course for a guy who double-books on what seems like a weekly basis. Still, this is the limit for Betty, who finally breaks down upon the mistaken realization that she will always be second best.

Mr. Cooper storms over to the Andrews residence to tear Archie to pieces, and they sort out that what Betty thought was a date was really only Archie and Veronica chatting as he made his way home. The menfolk are afraid Betty will become even more upset when she realizes that she jumped to conclusions, so Archie concocts a plan, one that involves a toll booth the Coopers will be traveling through on their way to a family vacation.

I think what I like best about this story is the attention to detail that goes into Archie’s surprise. Normally he would just show up at the appointed spot without explanation, but The Last Kiss specifies the favours Archie has to call in, the distance he has to travel, and when he has to leave Riverdale in order to intersect with the Coopers. It’s a nice reminder of the unsung effort that often goes on behind the scenes to make even the simplest gesture work, from a candlelight dinner to a thoughtful gift to an unexpected kiss.

If you read enough Archie stories, patterns emerge. Not just the obvious things like Archie mistakenly taking both Betty and Veronica on dates on the same night or Hiram Lodge getting Smithers to kick Archie to the curb, but lesser-known sub-categories like Jughead’s effortless mastery of various sports, Archie accidentally pulling women out of the water with a fishing line and the Riverdale gang’s obsession with Real Dolls.

One of my favourite types is the prop gag, where an incongruous object is introduced to Riverdale, like a giant baloon or, in this case, a birdcage strapped to Archie’s head. Lullaby Of Birdbrain, a five-pager drawn by Harry Lucey (?), is one of the more surprising examples of this story, if only because it plays against expectations.

It’s as if everyone has grown so used to Archie wandering around with something attached to his head that it isn’t even a thing anymore. Mr. Weatherbee finally gives up. Archie has enough savvy to use the birdcage against Reggie. And in a surprising finale, Reggie comes out on top.

It’s always nice to see a story that doesn’t involve any of the usual Archie tropes. In Sticks and Stones, Archie and Jughead relive their youth slugging baseballs through neighbourhood windows. Being the responsible teens that they are, Archie and Jughead fight down the urge to avoid facing the music.

It may just be my appreciation of the art, or that most of the dialogue comes from the mouths pf no-name characters that wouldn’t have the same restrictions as Archie and his pals, but this one seems to be above average in the writing department. I especially like the asides from the two kids.

Lucey was one of the most stripped down of the Archie artists. When I was working in traditional animation I used to bring Lucey’s Archies into work and everyone would pass them around. Animating from Lucey panels would be a joy. The weight and motion he gave characters with so little detail is amazing. He’s a textbook example of clear staging without sacrificing character.

I don’t know if Lucey inked his own work or not, but those thick outlines really differentiated Lucey’s art from someone like Decarlo, who usually employed a thinner line with more interior detail. I could look at his stuff all day long.