Reggie's Wise Guy Jokes #17
Reggie's Wise Guy Jokes #17 (August 1971) represents the mid-run of Archie Comics' dedicated solo showcase for Reggie Mantle, the only Riverdale character whose entire title was built around his defining trait — narcissistic wit at everyone else's expense. The series, running 55 issues from 1968 to 1980, gave Reggie a sustained comedic platform that no other Archie 'villain' received, cementing him as the franchise's most essential foil. What makes this particular issue notable from a character-index standpoint is its unusually wide roster: the simultaneous appearance of Clyde Diddit, Dan Didit, and Dippy Didit alongside the core Riverdale cast represents a crossover moment between two distinct corners of the Archie universe — the Riverdale gang and the Madhouse Glads/Ma-ads lineage. The issue also includes Vicky Mantle, a rare named appearance of Reggie's mother, who surfaces only occasionally across the entire Archie line.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Reggie's Wise Guy Jokes launched in August 1968 as part of Archie Comics' strategy of spinning supporting characters into their own gag-format titles. The series ran for 55 issues through September 1980, overlapping with Reggie and Me (which ran concurrently through issue #126). Dan DeCarlo — the artist most closely associated with defining the visual style of Riverdale — penciled multiple issues across the run, including issue #17, as confirmed by dealer and collector records. The format throughout the series was Archie's standard half-page and single-page gag strips, with rhyming story titles a recurring stylistic hallmark, set against the backdrop of Riverdale High.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published by Archie Comics (under the Close-Up Inc. imprint), cover-dated August 1971, as issue #17 in the Reggie's Wise Guy Jokes series (1968–1980, 55 issues total).
- Dan DeCarlo is credited as penciller on this issue, per collector and dealer records — consistent with his regular contribution to the series at this time.
- The series was one of several concurrent Reggie-headlined titles; it ran alongside Reggie and Me (issues #19–126, Aug. 1966–Sept. 1980), giving Archie Comics two simultaneous Reggie-centric publications throughout this period.
- The indexed character roster includes Clyde Diddit, Dan Didit, and Dippy Didit — characters who originated in Archie's Mad House as mascots and later fronted the Madhouse Glads band feature, making their appearance here a crossover between two separate Archie Comics sub-universes.
- Clyde Diddit (spelled both 'Didit' and 'Diddit' across Archie publications) was the drummer and leader of the Madhouse Glads, a teen band whose brothers Dippy (orange hair) and Dan (blonde hair) each played guitar — a group conceived in a style deliberately reminiscent of The Monkees.
- Vicky Mantle, Reggie's mother, is among the indexed characters — a rarely named family member whose appearances across the Archie line are infrequent, making her presence in any issue worth noting for completionists tracking the Mantle family tree.
- The standard gag-strip format of the series featured short, punchy multi-panel jokes built around Reggie's vanity, his rivalry with Archie, his pursuit of Midge (and Moose's inevitable retribution), and his attempts to charm Veronica — all recurrent comedic engines across the title's 55-issue run.
- Reggie Mantle himself first appeared in Jackpot Comics #5 (Spring 1942), introduced by Bob Montana and John L. Goldwater; this 1971 issue sits in the mature Bronze Age phase of the character's publishing history, well after his animated debut in Filmation's The Archie Show (1968).
Cast · 18 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
Reggie mocks Archie when Archie's snowmobile stalls, but then his own snowmobile heads down the hill without him.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).