Featuring a brand new story with a brand new character, everyone meet Cassie Cloud! Taller than most of the teens in Riverdale with brightly-hued hair, Cassie is someone who can see past appearances and reputations as in the case of Rotante’s More Than Meets the Eye: Rise of the Short Kings!

It’s a cute story that manages to organically introduce this new character while bringing back some old ones like Simon (aka Reggie’s nightmare Prankenstein) and Toño. It’s been forveer since I’ve seen Toño! It also plays very straight to the title as the girls find out that even though Cassie is fun and cute and has the attention of all the guys, she prefers “the nerds” whose compact frames hide talents and skills all of their own. And make the girls appreciate them as well much to the Archie, Reggie and the other’s ire.

Holly G. also returns as it feels like it’s been forever since we’ve seen her cool art on Archie pages. So overall, very satisfying debut just for Valentine’s Day.

The other classic stories were well-chosen for the sweetheart’s day theme with a few I’ve never read before like Sweets to the Sweet which Jughead builds his own racket of chocolate gifts by reminding the girls of the fattening content and Out of Tune where Veronica’s romantic serenade turns out to be not so original after all.

Happy Feburary and I can’t wait for more romantic hijinks to come from Riverdale’s lovestruck teens.