I picked up this issue because it features a new story drawn by Holly G! aka Holly Golightly, the letterer and producer of the adult comic-book series, Jim Balent’s Tarot, who wrote and illustrated a new story in B&V Friends Forever: Rock N Roll #1.

Written by Ian Flynn, this 5-page story is called Solar Panic and features a new character named Darkling. This is a new character to me, although I’m unsure if she has appeared in any Archie Comics before, or if this issue is her first appearance. She’s described as “Darla Lang was born with the ability to star into the abyss and command cursed powers! She is the thing that goes “bump” in the night!” So she’s a supernatural character, which sounds like she’d fit in more with Sabrina The Teenage Witch and her stories, than with the traditional Archie gang.

The story takes place at the beach, Darla is there with Archie, who invited her. She appears to be an ordinary White girl, albeit maybe a bit “goth” in her style of dress. The premise is that Archie invited her to go to the beach with him, but now that they’re there, she just wants to sit on a blanket underneath a large umbrella for shade and read a book, while Archie tries to convince her to actually go out on the beach. Archie’s attempts to show her how much fun she’s missing go hilariously wrong, and then out of nowhere a “solar fiend,” which is basically a mini-sun with boxing gloves, swoops down from the sky and attacks Archie. Darla then transforms into her Darkling persona in which she has purple skin and uses magic to defeat the fiend.

What’s funny is how all of this is presented as perfectly normal. As if getting attacked by a mini-sun and Darla showing off her powers, is the kind of thing Archie sees every day and isn’t phased by. It’s crazy, but it works.

The other new story in this digest is written and illustrated by Dan Parent, and it’s a 5-page Big Ethel story titled Just Beach-y! Ethel and a girl named Cassie are on the beach playing volleyball against Betty and Veronica. The girls each notice some boys on the beach that they’re interested in, and Ethel comes up with the idea of deliberately hitting each boy with the volleyball and pretending it’s an accident, so the girls will have an excuse to talk to them. Veronica and Cassie aren’t so good with the ball, so it’s up to Ethel to do the job, hitting the ball to a boy named Tony, who Veronica is interested in, and then to a boy named Brad, who Cassie is interested in. Then it’s Ethel’s turn to hit a boy named Kai, whom she’s interested in. But Ethel’s strength makes it not so easy.

The story also features Archie, who is at the beach with Cheryl Blossom, and a girl named Eliza. Another classic story, it’s interesting to me to see all of these newer characters that I’m unfamiliar with, it’s cool that over the years since I was a teen the Archie line has added more diverse kids (Eliza is Black, Kai is Asian, and Tony has light brown skin, so I assume he’s Hispanic).

These two original stories are enough to make this digest worthwhile, in my opinion. I enjoyed them both. But it also features a bunch of older stories reprinted here, but I hadn’t read them before so they’re new to me too.

In Makeover Mixup (written by Barbara Slate, illustrated by Jeff Shultz) a girl named Brandy wants to start selling cosmetics and convinces Betty and Veronica to let her practice giving them facials. But Veronica’s jealousy causes her to make a stupid mistake.

In Quality Time (written by George Gladir, illustrated by Jeff Shultz), after seeing Betty, Archie, and Jughead each out having fun with their fathers, Veronica convinces her father that the two of them should try spending the day together having fun. Of course, it doesn’t turn out the way they planned.

Grease Monkey (written by Rich Margopoulos and illustrated by Dan DeCarlo) has Betty apply for a job as a mechanic, and she turns out to be a natural at it. Veronica mocks Betty for taking such a job, but then later when Betty is on a date with a boy named Lance and his car breaks down, it’s Betty who shows up in the tow truck to help him, much to Betty’s chagrin.

In Top Executive (also by Slate and Shultz), Betty and Veronica are at the beach, but Veronica overdoes it and gets a painful sunburn all over her body. This makes her unable to meet with an important business executive that her father wanted her to show around Riverdale, so she asks Betty to pretend to be her and do it for her. Betty does a good job, but this still doesn’t turn out the way Veronica hoped.

Frank Doyle writes and Stan Goldberg illustrates a Sabrina The Teenage Witch story called Carrying On, in which Sabrina goes to great lengths to hide the fact that she’s using magic to do her household chores, which isn’t easy as her nosey neighbor, a boy named Willie, keeps trying to help her.

The theme of housework continues in The Green Thumb, written and illustrated by Dick Malmgren, as Sabrina tries to convince her Aunt Hilda to help her and Harvey (Sabrina’s boyfriend) weed the garden. Hilda doesn’t want to, and tries to use her magic to get out of it.

Sabrina also appears in two really short stories (just 3 panels each, I suspect these may have originally been comic strips) called Cupid Caper and Alley Valley, neither of which have credits listed.

In Rude Awakening, written by Kathleen Webb and illustrated by Stan Goldberg, Betty suddenly finds herself the object of desire of not only Archie but apparently ever other boy in Riverdale.

Wet and Wild, written by George Gladir and illustrated by Bob Bolling, has Betty and Veronica surfing at the beach, but Veronica and Archie lose a chicken fight against Moose and Midge, and then Veronica’s attempt to teach Archie to water ski goes wrong, Veronica decides she’d rather just spend the day in her family’s pool instead of the beach.

And…you know what? I was planning to summarize every story in this book, but there are over 25 more, this is a 181-page digest. It’s big, and I don’t have all day. Let me just say that if you like Archie stories drawn in the classic style, with fun little twists at the end, you’re going to like what you read here, and you should buy it.

Chacebook rating: FIVE STARS

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