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Collector backs Betty, sheds Archie

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By JAMIE STENGLE

The Associated Press

Published: August 15, 2009

DALLAS - When comic book store owner Dave Luebke heard that after 67 years, the carrot-topped everyman of the comic world, Archie, was proposing to va-va-voomy rich girl Veronica instead of girl-next-door Betty, he decided to protest by selling his copy of the series' rare first issue.

Luebke's Archie Comics No. 1 sold for $38,837 when Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas offered it Friday. Heritage spokesman Noah Fleisher said the buyer was a Virginia longtime Archie reader and collector who did not want to be identified.

"Betty is it. Not Veronica," said Luebke, whose Richmond store has more than 1 million comics in stock. "This is serious."

And 99 percent of his customers agree, he said, that Betty is the clear choice over Veronica in the seemingly never-ending love triangle.

The Archie Comics Web site shows Archie proposing to Veronica on bended knee on the cover of issue No. 600, which hits comic book stores Wednesday. That begins a six-issue story arc that takes place in the future - when the perpetual high-schoolers have graduated from college, said Victor Gorelick, editor in chief of Archie Comics.

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