Don't Let Riverdale Girls Set Your Clocks!!

It's 1965--the height of Beatlemania!!

Let's see how that's impacting the teenage ladies of Riverdale...

See, if we call them Beetles instead of Beatles, well...say, why the hell are we doing this, guys?

Anyway, the gals' obsession goes well beyond slang:

Look, Pops, I know you're sequestered in your nice, safe Archie-verse...but really, that's not too bad a manifestation of Beatle Beetlemania!

But...

But...but...wait....if you're setting your watches 5 hours ahead...at 11AM Riverdale time it would be 4PM Liverpool time! If you set your watches to 6AM Liverpool time, it would be 1AM Riverdale time!!

This makes no sense (unless, of course, Riverdale is in Kazakhstan)!! You're doing it backwards!!!!!

Still at least we can now confirm that Riverdale is in the eastern portion of the USA, at least by what the joke intended to say, right?. Tough luck, California...

The moral: Never let the ladies of Riverdale (or the authors & editors of Archie Comics) set your clocks or make your travel plans!

From Pep #181 (1965)

This Is Why Amtrak Is Bankrupt

Little Archie and office boy/aspiring cub reporter Jimmy Olsen Jimmy Lee have been trying to track down reclusive billionaire/adventurer Caleb Warfield. Warfield has been turning Riverdale upside down looking for some treasure maps left by a pirate ancestor. But our heroes track him down, and...






OK, wait...so Riverdale has an express train to New York City? Riverdale??

Now, Riverdale's "true location" has always been shadowed in mystery and riddle. Clearly, continuity's not Archie's bag, but "canonical" sources have placed it anywhere from Massachusetts to Mississippi to Iowa to California. For what it's worth, one story has Riverdale High taking a field trip to the Gulf Of Mexico. Once an editor, when asked where Riverdale was, opined,

Riverdale is more of a state of mind than an actual physical location. It could be anywhere that kind people live and just have fun, like Archie and his friends. It could be in the Midwest, or along the Eastern Seaboard, or even a town in Canada, Mexico, or England.

Yeah, right. Me, I think it's just sent inside a holodeck, part of some Marvelman-like psychological experiment on a bunch of kidnapped teens (who are now doubtless in the 90s...)

Still, we can't say for certain that Riverdale isn't somewhat close to the Big Apple, justifying an express train.

I'm still doubting, though...

From Archie Annual Digest #29 (1976-1977). Yes, I spent time scanning and uploading a whole lotta panels that weren't really relevant just so I could discuss the hypothetical geography of a fictional comic book universe, and make a lame joke about Amtrak. My life--whatta waste...