Archie, Vol. 2 (2016)

I’m still a little mixed on Archie.  There’s some good, fun stuff here, but it’s very triangle-heavy, which gets grating.  For now, it’s still worth reading.  But long-term?  Not sure.

Archie’s relationship with Veronica hits a snag when her father takes a vehement dislike to him.  It’s tough to combat the scheming of an angry millionaire, and as Archie tries to avoid the wrath of Mr. Lodge, Betty struggles to help her friend amid her lingering feelings of jealousy.

A lot of this is very predictable, which I suppose should be within reason for Archie.  The only problem is, my recent reacquaintance with that world has featured the nefarious principal conspiracies of Jughead and the maple-syrup blood feuds (it can never be said enough) of Riverdale, so “standard-issue Archie” doesn’t work quite as well for me.  I’m not all that interested in Archie fretting over whether or not he’s sophisticated enough for Veronica or Betty’s preoccupation with Archie getting in the way of her relationship.  It’s so “typical teen drama,” and while I’ve admittedly watched my share of teen dramas, those kinds of plots aren’t the reason why I watch them.

Which isn’t to say that there’s nothing worthwhile here.  On the contrary, there’s good stuff to like.  I enjoy an early scheme by Archie and Jughead in which they realize that Pops is the real Master of Whispers in Riverdale.  There’s also the continuing story of Veronica having trouble navigating the new middle-class world that’s brushing up against hers; her confusion at the Andrews’ lack of extravagance is fun, but this plot additionally provides some personal drama for Veronica as she struggles to fit in with Archie’s family.  While I prefer the Riverdale version of Veronica above any other, I do like that this one has some shades to her.  Does it all get a bit “poor little rich girl?”  Absolutely, but I appreciate seeing Veronica’s insecurities that come from only having experienced life in such a rarefied atmosphere.

Some of the plots in this volume get a little ridiculous, but not really in a fun way.  Jughead can be awesomely silly, and Riverdale can be balls-to-the-wall insane, but Archie seems to hit more on “implausible, but without the same level of heightened reality that can make it really pop.”  It’s not that I’m setting out to compare this comic unfavorably with other versions of these characters and this world – goodness knows Riverdale has its problems, and Jughead has yet to recapture the magic of its first eight issues.  However, for me, Archie doesn’t quite stand out, not yet.  It feels more standard-fare to me, and I’m still waiting for it to really pull me in.

Warnings

Some teen recklessness.

Thoughts on Jughead #15-16

As I’ve mentioned before, Mark Waid decided to kick things off his time on Jughead with a Big Ace Girl Problem, much like Ryan North did with his first Jughead story.  Things were just getting started at the end of the arc’s first issue, so there wasn’t much to say then, but now that the second part is out, I wanted to take a look at what we’ve got (some spoilers for issues #15 and 16.)

Once again, Sabrina is central to the proceedings, but this time around, her involvement in the aforementioned girl problem is strictly magical, not personal.  When Jughead suffers an unfortunate mishap with a punch card and finds himself unable to score the Josie and the Pussycats concert tickets he wanted (just go with it,) Sabrina’s efforts to help him out go awry.  Through a combination of magic hijinks/getting a little overambitious with what she’s setting out to do, the spell gets turbo charged and winds up making every non-Sabrina girl in Riverdale (including the Pussycats) fall madly in love with him.

So, bog-standard love-spell-goes-haywire plot (even though, in this case, the whole “love spell” thing was a mistake to start with – love was never actually part of Sabrina’s plan,) with the added wrinkle of a central character who doesn’t want any girl drooling over him, let alone all of Riverdale.  Overall, I’d say the story is kind of a mixed bag, although I’d put it way ahead of North’s Sabrina arc.

We’ll start with the negatives.  As with the other Sabrina story, a big part of the problem here is that it sets up a disconcerting personal issue for Jughead but then spends most of the time dealing with the magical aspects of it than Jughead’s reaction to what’s going on.  Jughead’s instant horror at seeing an army of gaga-eyed girls (and his awesome accompanying zombie fantasy) shows that Waid gets why this is a bad thing for Jughead, but very little time is actually spent on it.  It again becomes a story that’s less about Jughead and more about Sabrina, how she manages to undo the spell without Jughead or any of the rest of the gang seeing what she’s up to.  If writers keep coming up with these stories for Jughead, can we at least make sure they’re definitely about him?  Another problem, non-ace-related, is the return of passive Jughead in the first part of the story.  I know what this kid is capable of when he puts his mind to it, so it annoys me to see him throw up his hands in despair and not try to fix things.

Fortunately, he’s a little more proactive in the second half – even better, his friends are instantly all about helping him.  Upon seeing the army of girls, Archie and Reggie join Sabrina in trying to help Jughead and reverse whatever’s happened.  Again, the story winds up focusing a lot more on the magic so neither guy comes out and says this, but it’s at least implied that both of them know Jughead doesn’t want this and they have his back.  After the gross, gross crap they pulled in the first Sabrina arc, it doesn’t exactly smooth things over for me, but I’ll take it.

While it looks like there might be one more part for this story, it also looks like the ace-related part is over.  At least, the spell, or that aspect of it, is over (issue 16 ends with a different magical conundrum fro Jughead.)  It remains to be seen whether Jughead or any of his friends – including Betty and/or Veronica, who had magically-induced crushes on him for a hot second – will have anything more to say about it, or if we’ll just be moving on to the next problem.

More generally, Waid’s take on the characters feels pretty right all-around (which, given his experience writing Archie, makes sense.)  His humor is also excellently on-point.  I especially love Jughead’s zombie fantasy – not only is it a hilarious representation of how he reacts to a gaggle of lovestruck girls, but Waid also sticks in jokes about Zdarsky, North, Afterlife with Archie, Achie Digest, and zombie tropes, all in the space of a few pages.  I’m still a little wary of him on the asexual front, but I feel confident that Waid can handle all the other aspects of the comic.

A Few Thoughts on Chip Zdarsky vs. Ryan North as Jughead Writers

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.

Jughead #11: Here's How It All Shakes Out

Ryan North just wrapped up his first mini-arc on Jughead, and it’s no secret that I have a lot of feelings about it – in particular, the not-especially-reassuring way North has been handling Jughead’s asexuality.  The third and final issue of the “Sabrina” arc just ended, and unsurprisingly, I have more feelings (spoilers for Jughead issues #9-11.)

Let’s get this out of the way first.  A big part of my aggravation with this storyline is that all of Jughead’s friends, whether they mean to be or not, have been acting like heteronormative dicks to Jughead throughout this whole Sabrina thing.  Not one of them – including Kevin – has made any attempt to listen when Jughead explains what his actual concerns are or understand that Jughead’s aromantic ace lens is different than their perspective as sexuals/romantics.  I’ve said more than once that I really need to see Jughead taking them to task for being so dismissive of his identity, along with them realizing how badly they screwed this up.

…Aaaannnddd?  Nothing.  Not a word.  In fact, apart from Reggie getting caught up in a few magical hijinks and toolishly hitting on Sabrina at the start of the issue, none of Jughead’s friends even make an appeaerance.  Which, if they would’ve just kept being lame and dismissive, they’re better off not being around, but I can’t believe there wasn’t a single “not cool, guys” moment in any of these three issues.  Most people know very little about aceness, and if attitudes like that are gonna be thrown at one of my (few) beloved ace characters, I need it to be made clear that stuff like that isn’t okay.

But how about the Jughead-and-Sabrina stuff itself?  How did that go?  Well… on the plus side, Jughead does come clean with Sabrina about what’s going on with him, and she appears to be basically okay with it (she agrees that they’re still friends, and even though it’s kind of gross, their burger high-five is pretty awesome.)  However, my main issue here is that we get so little resolution on Jughead’s worries.

The whole conversation they have about this covers about half of one page.  Jughead apologizes for acting twitchy on their date, explains why, and admits that it wasn’t fair to Sabrina and he should’ve been upfront with her from the start.  I don’t know if I’d quite say he comes out to her, if only because I’m still not convinced Sabrina knows that’s what he was doing.  Jughead never uses the word “asexual.”  What he says is, “I don’t go on dates, Sabrina.  I don’t like people that way, you know?  And when you asked me out, I didn’t realize it was a date until it was too late.”  Now, in my experience, that’s not really enough for a sexual to go on.  I’ve made peace with the fact that, whenever I come out to someone, I’m most likely going to have to define the word “asexuality” and what it is an an orientation (along with aromanticism.)  If all I said was, “I don’t like people that way, you know?” I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t know.  Odds are that, after a major “huh?!”, they’d be trying to figure out what makes me “choose” not to go on dates.

And like I said, I can’t say for sure what Sabrina thinks Jughead is telling her, because her only reply is, “…Oh.”  That’s it.  Two-and-a-half issues of buildup, and this whole thing gets a few panels of dialogue of Jughead and an “…Oh,” from Sabrina.  After everything that preceded it, this didn’t feel like nearly enough.

What’s worse, this conversation leads directly to Sabrina (in a roundabout, semi-obscured way) admitting to Jughead that she’s a witch.  After the half-page devoted to Jughead’s sort-of coming-out, Sabrina’s confession gets a few pages with lots of artwork and a sincere, albeit confused, reaction from Jughead (she’s put a slight magic whammy on him so his doesn’t fully understand what she’s telling him – witch laws about not sharing magic secrets with Muggles and whatnot.)  He’s reassuring and nonjudgmental, and he in fact spends the rest of the issue helping Sabrina get her house in order after she confesses what a mess she feels she’s made of things in her personal life.

Which, yeah, it’s cool.  Even without having all the pertinent info, Jughead is a good listener and a great friend, going to bat for Sabrina and using his unexpected connections to pull assorted strings to help her out.  But see, this makes the entire rest of the issue about Sabrina, with Jughead’s admission about his aceness only serving as a springboard for her own confession.  And I get that Sabrina’s a shiny guest star and everything, so of course North is going to use her while she’s around, but she should still be there as a part of Jughead’s story rather than pushing his out of the way to make room for hers.

What kills me is that I think this could’ve been a lot better.  There could’ve been more balance between the Jughead and Sabrina side of things – she could’ve asked him what he meant, and I’m sure he could’ve given the ole Asexuality 101 shpiel in his goofy Jughead way.  Once they were both on the same page on that front, it could’ve still sparked Sabrina’s desire to tell him about being a witch, and they could’ve really connected as teens who are “different” such that it’s hard for others to really get them.  Hey, they could’ve agreed that they both mostly like being different, and that being ace and being a witch are usually pretty great – but in the moments when they’re not, it can be hard to deal with alone.  I feel like it would’ve been so easy to make this storyline about both of them instead of mostly about Sabrina, and I honestly think that incorporating Jughead’s experiences more would’ve elevated Sabrina’s part. 

Oh, and I still would’ve taken Jughead’s friends to task.  Because they were being dicks.

So… not a glowing conclusion to Ryan North’s first arc.  I’m going to keep reading the comic because a) I need my ace Jughead a lot and b) I’m holding out hope that it’ll get better.  Having a big guest star is always going to affect the writing to a degree, so we haven’t quite seen what North’s version of Jughead and the Riverdale gang look like yet without Sabrina there.  And while I think it was probably a mistake to have North’s first major arc be so girl- and dating-focused, especially when he doesn’t seem to have Chip Zdarsky’s clear vision of Jughead’s aceness, I’m willing give him another chance when it comes to representation.  Whether that means Jughead being ace will be handled more thoughtfully in the future, or it just becomes a “background” part of his characterization that doesn’t get a lot of attention but at least isn’t contradicted, I’ll wait to see what happens.

The Latest on This Jughead Situation

Jughead #10 is out now, and the second installment of the Sabrina arc – I think it’ll be wrapped up in the next issue – leaves me mixed on Ryan North’s writing re:  Jughead’s asexuality.  This doesn’t give me the same kind-of-sick feeling that #9 did, but North has yet to convince me that he’s equipped to write Jughead’s aceness in a respectful way (a few spoilers for issues #9-10.)

We pick up shortly after #9’s conclusion, with Jughead on his dreaded date with Sabrina and freaking out about it.  It goes terribly, as expected, and when Jughead’s avoidance/obliviousness to all things romantic feels to Sabrina like Jughead is just leading her on, she takes revenge of the magical variety.  Very little of the issue is devoted to the date or Jughead’s reaction to the fallout thereof.  After the date implodes, the rest of the pages are devoted to Sabrina’s revenge attempts (and her aggravation at Jughead’s seeming imperviousness to whatever she throws at him.)

It’s not cool that, after all of Jughead’s (very) valid worrying about the date – not knowing how to keep things platonic with Sabrina without hurting her feelings – we don’t check in with how Jughead feels about Sabrina being mad at him.  Going in, he was scared of a) getting into a situation more romantic than he was comfortable with and b) damaging his burgeoning friendship with Sabrina.  Well, on the latter front, his fears came true, but he doesn’t seem to care about that anymore.  I won’t deny that it’s funny to watch him blithely sidestep all of Sabrina’s spells, but it doesn’t feel fair to lose his perspective on this for the rest of the issue.

That said, it seems Jughead does try to come clean to Sabrina about what’s really going on on their date.  He manages a, “Sabrina… there’s something you should know.  I—” before a crazy interruption (named Archie) pops up.  This gives me hope that we’re ultimately heading for a resolution in which Jughead comes out to Sabrina and is able to explain (in his funny Jughead way) that he’s not into her the way that she wants but still wants her as a friend.  Since Sabrina knows a bit about being different – and, like Jughead, she likes being who she is but also knows it can cause problems for her – I have my fingers crossed that she’ll be cool about it.

But let me tell you:  there had better be a reckoning coming for Jughead’s friends, because every one of them is being a terribly ally.  I mean, after last time, I’m not surprised that Archie’s idea of “helping” Jughead with Sabrina is to pose as a hacky French waiter proffering a milk shake with two straws, but it’s still disappointing.  What I really hate, though, is Kevin’s involvement in all this.  He wasn’t in issue #9, so he didn’t make my list last time.  But here, when Jughead calls him to the restaurant in a panic, Kevin takes one look at the scene and shrugs off Jughead’s concerns.  “Dude, please,” he tells Jughead.  “This is just ‘go to a bland restaurant that’s too expensive and therefore fancy’:  a.ka., boring heterosexual activity #202.  You got this.”

No, he doesn’t, because he’s not heterosexual, Kevin, and you know that!  What gives?  If you were in this situation and someone dismissively said, “You got this,” you’d read them the riot act.  Jughead isn’t straight any more than you are – just because he doesn’t like guys doesn’t mean he likes girls.  Don’t brush aside his orientation, dude.  Boo.

Seriously – these guys are checking all the boxes of Ace Erasure 101.  If I don’t see Jughead taking them to task for it in issue #11 and some major contrition on their part, I might have to hit something.  They’re being awful, and it makes me feel terrible for Jughead.

Okay, We Need to Talk about Jughead Again

You know how I recently raved over the magnificent asexual/aromantic representation in Jughead issues #7-8, and how I said I hoped new writer Ryan North would understand this aspect of Jughead’s character with as much skill and care as Chip Zdarsky did?  Well… North’s first issue of the comic is out, and let’s say I’m feeling apprehensive at best (spoilers for issue #9.)

Quick plot breakdown:  Jughead is flummoxed by the new “mascot” outside Pop Tate’s, a girl in a Styrofoam hamburger costume that everyone calls the “burger lady.”  Jughead feels conflicted because, as per his thought bubble, “Burger = <3 <3     Lady = :|     Burger + Lady = ???”  He freaks out and obsesses over the girl in equal measure, leading to Betty’s delighted pronouncement, “Jughead has a crush!”  At her urging, he tries talking to the girl, and they kind of bond over hamburger flyers.  Before Jughead knows it, he’s accidentally made a date with her and all his friends are giving him girl advice.  The issue ends with Jughead on the brink of his date, getting his first glimpse of the girl (it’s Sabrina, by the way) out of her costume.

For starters, as someone who was already nervous about getting a new writer in terms of Jughead’s aceness, North’s very first story being all “Girls, and crushes, and dating, oh my!” was an efficient way to put me incredibly on edge.  I need my ace Jughead so bad, you guys.  I have yet to find representation better than him, and I’m way paranoid about anyone messing with that.

To be fair, nothing in the issue contradicts Jughead being asexual.  When he imagines the two of them together – the gimmick being that she’s still dressed as a hamburger the whole time – I love the moment at their imaginary wedding when he whispers to the minister, who then says, “Ah, my apologies.  You may now high five [the bride].”  And while it’s true that being ace doesn’t mean Jughead can’t be some flavor of romantic, demi- or otherwise, I feel the story still paints him as essentially aro.  Despite Betty’s insistence that he doth protest too much, I totally buy Jughead’s explanation that it’s a friendship crush.  I can platonic crush hard, and 1) I get how it could throw Jughead for a loop if he’s never had one before, and 2) it’s funny that it stems from his fascination at “what drives a woman to dress up like a burger.”

No, I still feel fairly solid with Jughead himself, which is what’s keeping me calm.  What’s really uncool here is how all of Jughead’s friends react.  Betty is thrilled at Jughead having a “crush” and launches straight into playing matchmaker, and when Jughead comes to his friends with the problem of the accidental date, everyone starts in with dating tips and personal love philosophies.  Everyone treats it like “Jughead is inexperience with girls”/“Jughead is nervous,” when in fact, the problem is, “I didn’t realize my new friend was asking me out, and I accidentally said yes!  How can I get out of this without making her hate me?”  (Been there, Jughead.  I’ve so been there – over time, I’ve had to train myself to understand that, “Can I have your phone number?” may not mean, “We should be friends!”)

It’s like his orientation doesn’t matter.  It’s not even on their radar.  It’s like Jughead is a late bloomer who’s finally sprouted, and everyone is just so frickin’ pleased about it.  No one is listening to the actual words Jughead is saying, and no one is telling him anything helpful.  I can’t help but think about Kevin (who isn’t around in this issue.)  Kevin being gay is as well-known among the gang as Jughead being asexual – if Kevin made friends with a girl who mistakenly thought he was into her and wound up in the same situation, would his friends honestly be telling him, “Here’s what you need to know about women…”?  I could see maybe one of them (probably Reggie or Veronica) approaching it that way and everyone else immediately shutting it down before encouraging Kevin to just be honest about the misunderstanding.  Jughead is out to all his friends, and it really bothers me that they’re so dismissive of his asexuality here.

And look, I’m not saying they’re all awesome allies who totally get aceness.  They’re not.  Just in the last issue, in the heat of a fight, Archie refers to himself as “a normal guy” re:  girls and dating, with the unspoken implication that Jughead, being ace, is abnormal.  But the thing is, Archie knows in that moment that he’s messed up.  All it takes is a look from Jughead, and Archie knows what an insensitive thing that was to say.  Here, they don’t even get that they’re messing up.  It’s so tone-deaf and, again, dismissive, that I’m offended on Jughead’s behalf.

The story isn’t over yet, so we don’t know how things are going to shake out with the date or the friendship, or whether Jughead’s pals are going to get the wakeup call they need on how obtuse/uncool they’re being (side note – it’s also weird to me that Jughead doesn’t call them out on this.  Too wrapped up in his own problems to educate his friends on stuff they should already know by now?  Saving it for the next issue?  Who knows?)  However, Ryan North and I are off to a shaky start. 

At minimum, Jughead’s friends are being real heteronormative jerks to him; although I’m sure they’re doing it with the best of intentions, it’s still awful, and I hate to see them doing it.  Plus, even if this story ends as well as it possibly can, with Jughead explaining matters to an understanding Sabrina and his friends realizing why the crap they said was so gross, it’s still a story that makes Jughead’s aceness into so much of a “Thing.”  I adore how understatedly Zdarsky handled this – even during that fantastic conflict between Jughead and Archie in issues #7-8, which is definitely ace-related and rings so powerfully true for me, neither of them ever has to actually say the word “asexual.”  (Which doesn’t mean there’s not power in saying the word itself.  It does, as I discussed re:  issue #4, but I love that Zdarsky could still address it so subtly.)  This, on the other hand, is a Big Ace Girl Problem that’s all about aceness and the complications that it brings and, best-case scenario, is headed for a scene of Jughead coming out to Sabrina in a delicate situation (when the original reveal of his asexuality sidestepped that old chestnut by having Jughead already comfortably out) and teaching his friends an important lesson about not acting like asexuality is just some fricking phase he’s finally growing out of (yep, still mad about that.)  After Zdarsky’s wonderfully-written ace stuff, a story like this feels obvious and hamfisted.

Maybe North is just getting it out of his system now, and then we can get back to business of fun hijinks with our nonchalantly-contented asexual hero?  I don’t know.  All I know is, although I’m trying to encourage myself to stay positive, I’m worried right now.  Tread softly, North, because you tread on my representation.

Some Thoughts on Jughead #7-8

After wrapping up its first major arc, Jughead ran a quick two-part story for the final issues written by Chip Zdarsky, who conceived this incarnation of Jughead.  The next issue will kick off a new arc with new writer Ryan North.  Anyway, I liked these issues a lot, a good breather of a story after the wildness of the first arc.  In particular, though, I really liked them from an aromantic asexual perspective, and that’s what I want to talk about today (a few spoilers.)

Trying to shake up a boring summer vacation, Jughead suggests that he and Archie get out of town and hang out at a cabin.  Jughead doesn’t pick up on the fact that Archie’s lukewarm on the idea until he hears that the cabin is near Camp Lucey.  It’s at the end of issue #7, after they’ve gotten lost in the woods looking for the trail to the camp, that it hits Jughead:  Camp Lucey is an all-girls camp, which is the real reason Archie wanted to go.

This realization really makes Jughead mad.  “You didn’t want to come here to hang with me!” he shouts at Archie.  “You wanted to… to creep on a camp filled with girls!”  Archie, sheepish at this accusation, offers only, “Why can’t it be both?” as a defense.  This is what drives their conflict going forward in issue #8, Jughead’s frustration that he always seems to come in second to Archie’s hormones.

I love this as an aro-ace issue.  In general, I like that Jughead’s asexuality is so lowkey and non-angsty.  He doesn’t go around agonizing over being “different” or regretting that he’ll “never have” what Archie and the others have.  But if being ace ever makes his life harder on occasion, I like that we see it here with his most important friendship.  I completely know how it feels when it seems like your friends can’t prioritize you the way you prioritize them.  Not that they don’t care about you – not at all – but you know that boyfriends/girlfriends (or even the possibility of a new romance, or just sex) take precedence because society establishes this relationship pecking order whereby romance > friendship.  And since my friends are all adults, while Jughead’s best friend is a straight teenage boy (girls on the brain 24/7,) I really feel for him.  When he remembers how much simpler their friendship was before puberty, I get exactly where he’s coming from.

And I know – feeling like your friends don’t make time for you isn’t an exclusively asexual (especially aromantic) problem, but I feel like it’s definitely heightened for aro aces, because for us, there’s not really anything “better” or “more” than friendship.  It hurts to think that the sexuals we love rate our relationship a little lower than they would a romantic one, even though they’re not doing it consciously.

Still, though, while the storyline definitely pinged my asexual radar in issue #7, I wouldn’t have sworn that Jughead’s anger was definitely coming from an aro-ace focus.  It can just be one friend mad that the other cares more about girls than hanging out with him – any friend, regardless of sexuality.  In issue #8, however, even though no one physically comes out and says it, it’s clear that Jughead’s aceness is involved.  As they fight, Archie protests, “Look, I’m not going to apologize for being a normal guy, I--”  And he stops, because he sees how Jughead whips around and glares at him, and he knows he messed up.  He immediately takes it back and wants to apologize.  I like, though, that while Jughead is (rightfully) hurt at that comment, he recognize that Archie honestly didn’t mean to say it like that – because Archie is so used to the prevailing attitude that sex and romance is for everybody and that that’s the only way to be normal – and so Jughead keeps conflict focused on the real issue at hand, talking to Archie about what it’s like for him when Archie throws him over for the sake of some random girls.

All in all?  Loved this story.  Seeing this fight play out between Jughead and Archie might be the most represented I’ve ever felt as an aro-ace.  It’s so real, so well done, so subtle.  Thank you so much for that, Chip Zdarsky.  I really hope Ryan North (and any other future writers) understands Jughead’s aceness as well as you do.