Pep #290

Riverdale's favorite gang crowds the masthead of this June 1974 Pep installment, but the real action unfolds in the two-panel cover scene below — a co-ed cooking class gone gloriously wrong, as Moose's enthusiastic salad-tossing sends greens flying while onlookers laugh, then escalates into Moose literally hurling Reggie through the air outside in the rain. Dan DeCarlo and Rudy Lapick deliver the slapstick with crisp, expressive charm, capturing that perfect blend of school-day chaos and broad physical comedy the series does so well. At a quarter a copy, this is Archie humor firing on all cylinders.