Review--The Art of Betty and Veronica

THE ART OF BETTY AND VERONICA is a new book co-authored by Craig Yoe and Archie's Victor Gorelick and it is almost stunningly stylish and gorgeous! In a sense, it can be looked at as about 150 bonus pages to the Archie history I worked on with Craig a couple of years back, all of these dealing with Archie's legendary girlfriends.

You'll find the usual collection of essays and stories you expect from this type of book but, as the title gives away, this is an art book. As such, you get lots of examples, both from the comics themselves as well as from original art, of Good Girl Art. You get interpretations of Betty and Veronica by everyone from Irv Novick, Harry Lucey and Dan Parent but mainly and most importantly, Dan DeCarlo!

Dan DeCarlo wasn't the first good Archie artist and he certainly wasn't the last but for several generations of Riverdale fans, Dan DeCarlo was and remains the BEST Archie artist. THE ART OF BETTY AND VERONICA spotlights a lot of wonderful pages from him from several decades.

The book is, in fact, set up by decade, showcasing the changes in the girls over the years while highlighting the look and personalities that have made them last in popularity with boys, girls, men and women throughout the years since World War II.

Victor Gorelick, a veteran of more than fifty years at Archie in various capacities, offers reminiscences and his take on the continued popularity while Yoe offers historical and artistic insights.

Technically this is NOT a Yoe Book, seeing as how it's published by Archie directly but nonetheless Craig brings to it the award-winning design work for which his Yoe Books are known.

And while this is, as stated above, most definitely an art book, the stories are fun and nostalgic as well.

At the end of the day it's a fun and light-hearted look at two iconic fictional females who have dominated their corner of pop culture history for quite a bit more than half a century now...and they still don't look their age!