By Andrew A. Smith

Tribune Content Agency

 

Who is Jughead Jones?

Everyone knows him as Archie’s best pal and Riverdale’s resident chow-hound. A quietly confident eccentric, Jughead has been known as a talented prankster (he regularly turns the tables on Reggie) and isn’t as girl crazy as his peers (although he does date).  He wears the most famous beanie in America (called, among other things, a “whoopee cap”), and his eyes are always at half-mast, as if a nap attack is always an imminent possibility (it is).

He’s lazy, clever, loyal, imperturbable, insatiably hungry, unconventional -- and funny.

But how’d he come to be that way? The rest of the Riverdale cast is pretty straightforward: Archie Andrews is the clumsy everyman, Betty Cooper the girl next door, Veronica Lodge the spoiled rich kid and Reggie Mantle the selfish, snarky member of the gang that nobody really likes (See: Eric Cartman). But Jughead is unique – and something of an enigma.

Fortunately, Dark Horse Books is shedding some light on the mystery of Forsythe Pendleton Jones III. (Yes, that’s his real name. You didn’t think his parents named him “Jughead,” did you?) Dark Horse has been doing the universe a huge favor in recent years by reprinting Archie Comics in chronological order, beginning with the old redhead’s first appearance in Pep Comics #22 in 1941. And now that they’ve reached 1949 (with volume 10), the year when Jughead was first awarded his own book, they’ve released Archie’s Pal Jughead Archives Volume One ($49.99), collecting the first eight issues.

One element that jumps out from reading all the “Archie Archives” in order is that Jughead was once poor, but got better. In his early appearances in Archie, Pep and Laugh, if Jughead was ever depicted at home it was a dismal scene. His wallpaper was peeling, his furniture had broken legs tied together, his plaster was cracked and his sheets were patched. His “alarm clock” was some Rube Goldberg affair involving livestock, and there was no sign of any parents or relatives.

I think it was supposed to be funny.

Comedy has always found humor in lack of means, especially in the Depression era. Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” and vaudeville acts like Laurel & Hardy leap to mind as predecessors in the penury-for-laughs arena. One must assume that Jughead was a sort of stock character of the time, or at least one with which the audience would be familiar and/or comfortable.

But those scenes disappeared pretty quickly. By 1949, when Jughead #1 debuted, the Jones house was firmly (and without explanation) in the middle class, like the rest of the Archie gang (excepting the ultra-rich Lodges). Jughead acquired family, too. A ditzy inventor uncle – another stock character – appeared occasionally, but he didn’t last any longer than it took for the writers and editors to realize that Jughead was funnier as the instigator of chaos rather than as its victim. Jughead’s parents began making appearances as well, and they appeared to be in the same socio-economic class as the parents of Archie and Betty, with Mom a homemaker and Dad having some ill-defined job requiring a tie.

Someday someone will write an award-winning dissertation on the whys of Jughead’s improved fortunes, which were possibly a reflection of the broad prosperity in America after World War II, or maybe poverty was something America wanted to forget after the Depression was over. But one wonders if Jughead’s voracious appetite is a holdover from his hungrier days, a symbol forever harkening back to his origins on the wrong side of the tracks.

But while sociological musings are fun (and occasionally enlightening), the book rises or falls on whether it’s funny. And it is.

One other metamorphosis in this collection is that Jughead goes from a relatively undefined supporting character to the headliner we recognize today. By the end of the book, the titular star has found the status quo that will endure for decades … because it’s funny.

Some credit for that must go to the artists as well, particularly Samm Schwartz, who drew the character for more than 40 years. His version of Jughead remained the house style for Jughead the book until the most recent volume was canceled in 2012. That style, or at least a seminal version of it, is on display in this collection.

Because, you know, it’s funny.

Elsewhere:

DC Comics has launched a publishing initiative under the general heading “Earth One,” where its familiar characters are re-imagined as younger version on a parallel world. The most recent addition is Batman Earth One Volume Two ($24.99) and it’s really rather good.

A little background: Up until 1986 “Earth-One” meant the regular DC comics you were reading, to distinguish it from “Earth-Two,” where DC’s 1940s characters lived. But after a number of reboots, the current status (as of 2011) has DC’s current superheroes living on Earth-0, alongside 51 other parallel worlds in “the local multiverse.” Earth One (also “Earth-1”) is one of those 51 worlds, one where the familiar heroes of our world are just starting out, beginning with Superman, Batman and (oddly) the Teen Titans.

So far there have been three Earth One Superman books (written by J. Michael Straczynski) and one Teen Titans book (written by Jeff Lemire). And, to tell you the truth, I didn’t much like them. The Earth One Superman book wasn’t different enough from the regular Superman to avoid redundancy, and the Earth One Teen Titans were so different as to be a different concept altogether.

But the Earth One Batman, written by DC’s Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns and drawn by superstar Gary Frank, is – in the words of Goldilocks – just right.

Like the TV show Gotham, Johns’ Earth One Batman doesn’t take the familiar mythos at face value, including characters like Commissioner Gordon and Alfred because, well, they’ve always been there. Instead, Johns gives them a reason to be there: Gordon to teach Batman how to be a detective, Alfred to teach Bruce how to fight. Other characters get the same treatment, and when a character has outlived his or her story potential – such as Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot in the first volume – he or she is killed off.

In Volume Two the themes and characters introduced in the first volume are fleshed out a bit more, while Johns introduces Two-Face, Killer Croc and The Riddler, albeit in ways both logical and unexpected. We also get the Batmobile, and again, Johns establishes why Batman needs it, and where he gets it.

So, like in Gotham, Johns is building a world with internal consistency that hangs together effortlessly, while providing a canvas on which to tell Bat-stories. The creative decisions in Batman Earth One Volume Two are different than those on Gotham, but the thrill is much the same.

 

Reach Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), the Internet (comicsroundtable.com), Facebook (Captain Comics Round Table) or Twitter (@CaptainComics).

 

You need to be a member of Captain Comics to add comments!

Join Captain Comics

Votes: 0
Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • ...A story in the dear departed ARCHIE AND FRIENDS a few years back had Juggie briefly dropping knowledge of the fact that he was a character in a comic book .

      I think it may have been the book-collected " A Night At The Comics Shop " .

  • Perhaps Jughead is a cosmic being who has created Riverdale for his own amusement. Sort of like Q in Star Trek.

  • Jughead was always my favorite character in the Archie books. I still bought Jughead as late as 10th grade, long after I'd abandoned the other Archie titles. I liked that he was unapologetically an oddball, completely immune to peer pressure or verbal abuse. I admired that, and wished I could do the same. he wasn't just a character, he had character.

    I hadn't thought of Afterlife with Archie in the way you describe, Clowny; my first thought was that he was perhaps knocked off first due to being the least realistic of the gang. (What teen is immune to peer pressure? Also: the nose.) But what sold me on Afterlife is that I found myself enjoying an Archie story without Jughead in it, which means it's an awfully good Archie story.

    But you're right that his absence also heightens the drama. Not only is it unsettling that the most likely to survive is the first to go, but that the survivors must deal with the situation without his resourcefulness.

  • Thou speakest verity. Zombie Jughead is demonstrating that he can think, and has leadership capabilities. Brrrr!

  • I've read Jughead was the first to go because he was the one most capable of knowing what to do in case of a zombie apocalypse.

This reply was deleted.