Life with Archie #254

The perils of the VHS age come hilariously home in this 1986 issue of Life with Archie, with cover pencils by Dan DeCarlo. The cover captures a perfectly awkward moment: a video playback on a TV screen catches Archie kissing Karen at a party — just as a furious Veronica, holding a video camera, confronts him in the foreground while a sheepish Archie raises his hands in protest. As one bystander wryly notes in the corner, "Darn these video playbacks! They ruin more romances!" — and it's hard to argue with that. A fun snapshot of Riverdale's romantic chaos, with the then-cutting-edge technology of home video making everyone's worst moments permanent.