In case anyone's interested, here's some information on George Frese.
George Frese was a key artist and writer for Archie Comics in the first years of the 1950s.
Who's Who has a year of death as 1956. (I'm guessing that would make him 36 or 37.)
He did a lot of the artwork, including covers, on the earliest issues of Betty and Veronica,
Jughead, and Reggie include the first issues of each (c1950).
Per Joe Edwards, from Alter Ego #83, Jan 2009:
George Frese worked for Grumman Aircraft. George was on their art staff, and he used to send in
artwork to Archie. One day he came up, and Harry Shorten took a look at his work. He looked at
me, asked me what I thought.