Bite-Sized Archie writer Ron Cacace makes his mainline Archie debut in Archie Comics Digest #345. Combining Ethel Muggs, Jughead Jones, and a whole lot of Christmas chaos. Ron sat down with us to tell us what he wanted to include in his debut but did not, and a whole bunch of other tidbits about his creative process.
WWAC: I was delighted by how many characters you managed to pack into Jughead’s investigation, especially during the interrogation. Were there any folks who got left on the cutting room floor?
Ron Cacace: I absolutely wanted to include more characters in the interrogation scene as there’s such a fun assortment of characters in Riverdale that could have been used here. I would have loved to have included Jason Blossom, Souphead, and others – I actually didn’t even get to use Archie in this one at all!
WWAC: Jughead donning his trench coat again and becoming a private investigator is a marvelous nod back to Jughead Jones: Semi-Private Eye – and, of course, his inquisitive Riverdale self. Do you have a favorite Jughead-related detective story?
RC: The original run by Alex Simmons and Rex Lindsey from Archie’s Pal Jughead #202 is a personal favorite and was the guiding light for this story. The cover for that issue is so iconic and I used to see it around the office back when I worked full-time for Archie. It was a dream to work on this with Rex himself!
WWAC: Ethel and Jughead’s often fraught relationship gets a revisit here. Do you have a favorite story or storyline featuring them teaming up?
RC: I know the classic dynamic was typically Ethel pining after Jughead, but I do enjoy their team-ups more than those. There’s just something about seeing people put aside differences (or working with someone who sometimes annoys you) and figure things out together that makes for good storytelling.
WWAC: What’s it like writing a longer-format story for Archie versus a few-panels-a-day strip? Were there any unique challenges?
RC: It was fun to have more space for the story to breathe and to be able to work with the page layouts a bit. The standard four-panel setup that we use for Bite-Sized Archie requires brevity and little room to mess with how the pages are put together. That helps me keep my ideas small and my dialogue sparse to save room for the artwork and make sure these stories are legible on a phone screen. With the extra space for this digest story, I was able to open with a big splash page (Rex did an amazing job on it!) and even do one of those “interrogation” scenes with multiple panels of different characters talking to the camera. Of course, by the time I got to the last page, I was wishing I had several more to wrap things up!
WWAC: Bite-Sized Archie has become well-known for breaking the fourth wall, and there’s a great example of that here (among other things, Jughead being bemused that his interrogation subjects can just get up and leave because he doesn’t have them under arrest). What’s your favorite example of that here?
RC: I’m a sucker for 4th wall humor and it’s probably all the Peter David comics that I read growing up. There’s a bit in the beginning where Ethel asks Jughead if he’s narrating out loud and he quickly stops. I try not to rely too much on breaking the 4th wall, but I also can’t help it! It’s a comedy series; we should be allowed to do silly things from time to time. And since they let me do whatever I want, I will continue to do it until I’m forced to stop.
Thanks to Ron for sitting down with us, and you can find Archie Comics Digest #345 on newsstands worldwide!
