Miskatonic University PressIn “Family Tree Trials” Archie goes to the library to do some genealogy research for a school assignment. Before the web, this was naturally the first place to go when researching one’s family tree. It’s still a great resource. The Toronto Public Library’s genealogy research guide shows the special resources they provide and guides librarians have made. Your local library probably does the same. (Also: don’t give away your DNA.)
The librarian at the reference desk has white hair but seems otherwise vibrant and definitely not old. The assistant librarian, Elaine, is not only the expert on genealogy but also young and rather dishy. This is a rare story where we see two librarians at the Riverdale Public Library. (I think an “assistant librarian” would be a trained professional librarian, while a “library assistant” position would not require a library degree.)
This is one of a few stories where Archie is enraptured by an attractive young librarian or library assistant.
In the following panels we see Elaine and Archie sitting too close to each other at a table as they each hold one side of a book. Veronica dumps a pail of mop water over Archie’s head in petulant anger. Later Archie tells Midge they are distantly related but Moose doesn’t like that and beats up Archie.
“Family Tree Trials” first appeared in Archie #332 (November 1984) but I read it in Archie and Me (Jumbo) Comics Digest #16 (May 2019). It was written by George Gladir, pencilled and inked by Dan DeCarlo Jr., and lettered by Bill Yoshida. No colourist is credited. It is copyright Archie Comic Publications.