TITLE: Date with Debbi Issue #16
YEAR: July/August 1971
COMPANY: DC Comics
Penciler/Inker: Stan Goldberg, Henry Scarpelli
Henry Scarpelli is best known for his work on the Archie Comics titles. The look and style that people who grew up reading in the ’80s, 90’s and 2000s were from Scarpelli but prior to that, in the ’60s and ’70s, Scarpelli’s work was known for his work on “Leave It to Binky” and “Date with Debbi”, a homage to the long-running DC Comic “A Date with Judy” (1947-1960).
Whereas Archie Comics tend to revolve around Archie, Jughead or Betty and Veronica. “A Date with Debbi” features Debbi and often stories featuring her girl-chasing boyfriend, Buddy. And as it paid homage to “A Date with Judy”, covers and plots from the early series were sometimes used for “Date with Debbi”.
And in addition to the mini-stories featuring Debbi, DC Comics featured one-page strips featuring African-American characters Li’l Leroy, Big Sonny and Ossie. Also, there was a “Dear Debbi Help!” letters section and sometimes a celebrity was featured.
And there was also a spin-off comic book series titled “Debbi’s Dates” which also lasted from 1969-1971.
For issue #16, stories included “Chick-Watcher” in which Debbi is upset at her boyfriend Buddy for being distracted each time he sees a beautiful girl.
In “All Wet!”, Debbi goes to meet rock star Jetro James but what happens when Buddy gets jealous that his girlfriend is hanging out with a rock star?
In “Equal Rights”, Mona wants to make a statement about girls being discriminated, the two see a sign of “Boy Wanted” for a delivery company. When Mona enlists Debbi for a delivery job, how will Debbi do?
In “Funny Feeling”, Buddy takes a job of delivering a cake for actor Dean Connery, but can Buddy succeed without any problems?
In “Raving Rivals”, Buddy and Red argue for Debbi’s affection.
And for “Great Roving Robots”, Professor Dumble makes a robot that looks exactly like Debbi.
Overall, for those who enjoy Archie Comics style of stories will like all the mini-stories featured in “Date with Debbi”.
And a one page feature on “Brady Bunch” actress Maureen McCormick.
It’s interesting to note that while the first three issues debuted at 12 cents, and 15 cents through issues 12, in 1971, “Date with Debbi” jumped to 25 cents but DC Comics would begin featuring 64-pages until dropping the page count to normal by issue #17 and reducing the price for its final 18th issue to 20 cents.
But I wonder if there was any proper sendoff for Debbi or they just ended it without any goodbye and DC Comics just focused on superhero comics from then on? Needless to say, “Date with Debbi” was a lot of fun and is very similar to the style from Archie Comics.