Nancy Woods

Nancy Woods

First appearance	Pep Comics #309 (January, 1976)
Hometown	Riverdale
School	Riverdale High School
Hobbies	Various sports, fashion, hair styling, journalism
Main love interest(s)	Chuck Clayton

Nancy Woods is a fictional character, an African American, who appears in the Archie Comic books. A friend of the whole gang, Woods dates Chuck Clayton, a football player at Riverdale High.

History

Initially a token character, Nancy has started appearing in the Archie books more frequently since the late 1990s. Unlike the rest of the gang, she did not appear in animated form before her appearance in Archie's Weird Mysteries. Unlike the other girls in Archie Comics, she has worn her hair in several different styles (in earlier appearances her hair was more often up). In the 2000s, she often wore glasses. Her last name was "Harris" when she first appeared, and has occasionally been "Baker" or "Jackson", but is now officially "Woods".

Nancy loves fashion, shopping, and having girls nights with her friends Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge and Midge Klump. She goes to Riverdale High. where she is a cheerleader and plays such sports as tennis and softball. She also works on the school newspaper, "The Blue and Gold", as both a reporter and editor. She is also known to be a talented artist, watercolor being her medium.

Relationship with Chuck

Unlike many of her friends, she and Chuck date appear to date exclusively with each other. In her early appearances, this was due to Archie Comics considering interracial dating controversial; a series of one-time African-American girls (Georgette, Liza, Gina, etc.), whom Chuck had a crush on, appeared before Nancy was officially his girlfriend's name. In later stories, their exclusive relationship has been mainly attributed to their preference to be devoted to each other.

Their relationship is not, however, entirely stable. A frequently-used story element is that Chuck pays so much attention to his cartooning that he forgets about Nancy or fails to notice her, thus angering her. Despite being critical of Chuck's obsession, she has an interest and talent in art herself.