Archie Comics has launched Archie Digital Comics, an online subscription service to read back issues. From the press release:

Archie Digital Comics offers you HUNDREDS of Archie titles both past and present; from the 70s to the 90s, including the landmark Archie 200th and Archie 500th issues! You can read entire Archie & Friends runs including the complete “World Tour”, “Comic Con Caper” and the “Cartoon Life of Chuck Clayton” series. Plus, “Josie and the Pussycats”, “Jughead” from the 90s and today and Archie Classics like “Jughead’s Fantasy”, Archie as “Pureheart the Powerful”, the complete run of “Cosmo the Merry Martian”, “Archie’s Madhouse” and MANY MORE! Young Salem, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Betty, Veronica, “Betty & Veronica” are all available online from Archie Digital Comics! And more comics will be added EVERY MONTH!

Subscriptions are $9.95 a month. If you sign up for a year, it’s $49.95, or less than half that price. (Be aware: they will automatically keep billing you until you cancel, once you sign up.) Readers who subscribe now, “during the beta launch period”, will also get the printed copies of the much-discussed “Archie Marries Veronica” storyline included for free. At six issues, $2.50 a pop, that covers a month and a half of the subscription, a pretty good deal.

I find it odd that none of the site links — Questions, Contacts, Links — work without a subscription. You also can’t see how many or which titles are included without signing up. Maybe that will all be corrected once the site is out of beta. They have posted four sample issues on their signup page if you want to check the quality.