If you never, ever checked out ComicBook+, you should! It contains 1000s of public-domain comics from the Golden Age and up through the Silver Age. It is also a fantastic place to go deep-diving into comic lore and check out some characters you have come to know when they first appeared.
Archie Comics has been archiving (creating digital editions) of Pep Comics for over a year and is into the Silver Age of comics. However, there are some Pep Comics over on ComicBook+, because for whatever reason—those titles are considered public domain comics. There are several hundred comics from when Archie was originally called MLJ.
Tucked within that MLJ section is Jackpot Comics, which ran for only nine issues, from 1941 to 1943. Like many comics of the time, those early issues featured the adventures of MLJ’s heroes—like the Black Hood and Steel Sterling. It wasn’t until issue four that… well, like in Pep Comics, the citizens of Riverdale started to show up.
Archie appeared in Jackpot 4 and stayed right through issue nine. Depending on how you do the math—this was only his third appearance. He was in Pep Comics 22 & 23, and right around this issue, the first issue of Archie’s solo series came out—which we know lasted for decades! It was almost a blink, and
you miss it, because he appeared in a little blurb titled: New feature Archie.
Right on the heels of that issue, Reggie makes his first appearance in Jackpot 5—sort of. Tucked in nearly halfway through the book is an Archie tale. Here, Reggie is known as “Scotty,” and it wouldn’t be until the next issue that he’d get the name change to Reggie. As far as I can tell, there was no precise reason why his name was changed. Besides Reggie, two characters who would soon be known as Mr. Weatherbee and Pop Tate also got their start here.
Besides Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead all appeared in the last issue of Jackpot. And, like all Golden Age comics—they do read differently, of course, than today’s comics. But not only are their stories pretty good all these years later, but the series also gives old fans a look at the early years of Archie and Riverdale.
However, that was not the end of Jackpot Comic! The title would change several times over the years and run for almost 300 issues, ending in 1982. However, as they say, that is a tale for another day.
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