As of the
most recent issue, which came out last week, Ryan North’s stint on Jughead is over. He’s passing the reins next to Mark Waid, who
also handles the current Archie
series. Since Jughead now has two writers under its belt, both of whom wrote a
couple of complete arcs, I wanted to take a minute to compare Chip Zdarsky and
Ryan North’s approaches to the comic.
I won’t
rehash the asexual stuff, since I’ve covered that extensively for both writers
(in summary, Zdarksy forever.) And
certainly, that got North off to a bad start with me. I take my gloriously-ace Jughead very seriously, and the whole Sabrina
arc had me alternately on edge, feeling bad for Jughead, and wondering when all
of Jughead’s heteronormative friends – even Kevin! (still bitter) – would get
schooled on what’s what (still waiting on that last one.) Still, I took North’s second arc as a chance
for a fresh start, preparing to attempt a more objective look when I wasn’t
freaked about him messing with the best representation I’ve ever found.
…And? Still not impressed. Which is disappointing for me, because there
are some really good bits in amongst his stuff.
Some great jokes, especially in signage – I loved “Josie and the Secret
Pussycats (the Other Pussycats Don’t Know About)” and the great Buzzfeed
send-up. I also like that North expands
on the thread Zdarsky had of showing that Jughead and Betty are really good
friends. It was a surprise to me to see
them hanging out alone together in issue #9, but by the tiem we got to the end
of #14, I could buy the big moment they were selling. Also, Derek Charm’s artwork is fantastic throughout. #7-8 are my favorite issues of Jughead for the story, but the winning
combo of Zdarsky’s writing and Charm’s artwork made it even better.
For the
most part, though, I don’t feel North’s Jughead
measures up to what came before. Apart
from the (again, extensively covered) handling of ace topics, there are two
main sticking points that come up for me.
The first is a tendency on North’s part to write the characters as
thumbnails, boiling them down to single traits that hammered home with most of
their lines/actions. Now, I get that
these are Archie characters we’re
talking about here, but still. A
significant portion of Betty’s dialogue feels copied from SJW Tumblr posts, and
most of Dilton’s lines use the lazy “brain” shorthand of just filling them with
big words. Not that people who are
passionate about social change don’t talk about it, and not that super-smart
people don’t use big words. But they
don’t exclusively do those
things. In Zdarsky’s Jughead, we see Betty petitioning to
save Fox Forest amongst various other things she does, and while Jughead
recruits Dilton to use his mad computer skills against Principal Stanger, we
also learn that Dilton is an amazing dancer (canon x infinity.) North’s
one-note approach to the characters even extends quite a bit to Jughead
himself. While it’s no secret that
Jughead’s one true love is hamburgers, his characterization under North feels
too “foodfoodomgilovefood,” even for him.
(Weirdly enough, the character that it seems North is most interested in
exploring is Reggie.)
My second
issue also applies to Jughead. Honestly,
for a lot of North’s run, Jughead is kind of useless. Issues #9-14 are marked by him getting
himself into stupid troubles and, by and large, flailing when it comes to
trying to get out of them. There’s a lot
of Jughead throwing his hands in the air in defeat, and even when he is trying
to solve the problems he created/fell into, they’re mostly bad ideas doomed to
laughable failure. In the end, things
tend to just work out, and not through any meaningful contribution on his part. And to me, that’s not Jughead at all. With the likes of Dilton and Betty around,
Jughead may not be the smartest guy in the room, but he’s always one of the savviest guys in the room. Although he may be a slacker, he’s still
really shrewd and can come up with great plans when he’s motivated to. He’s kind of the man throughout the Stanger
arc – super funny and totally Jughead, but the
man. His creative ways of avoiding
detention are, I think, one of the most quintessentially Jughead moments of the
series so far. And while he doesn’t have
such a well-positioned foe to fight against in the summer vacation arc and is
hilarious at being lost in the woods (I laughed so hard at him looking around
for food packets, like you’d find in a video game,) he’s way better at being
lost in the woods than Archie and continually manages to be quite proactive for
a lazy person. He makes mistakes, sure,
and the things he does can be harebrained, but he’s never inept and not one to
give in. These past six issues, I’ve
really missed that Jughead.
We’ll see
how Mark Waid does when he takes over. I
haven’t read his Archie stuff, but I
know the series is pretty well-regarded.
It also sounds like his first crack at the series, like North’s, will
feature a Big Ace Girl Problem (albeit in a different vein,) which worries me –
I’d prefer a little assurance that these writers can handle Jughead’s
asexuality in a low-key day-to-day way before they jump into a plot that
focuses extensively on it. Fingers
crossed that it at least goes okay, and that, if nothing else, Jughead’s
friends finally get their long-overdue talking-to.
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