Quote from: beatman10 on August 21, 2022, 08:56:13 AMI think Jughead has some power over Trula if he really wanted to use it. That is, simply by ignoring her. Maybe Archie Comics could do a story on that and how Trula's reaction would be.

The way Jughead's mind works though, is that he'd be immediately worried if his attempt to ignore Trula resulted in zero response from her (which is just how she'd play it).... and the more he continued to ignore her and she continued to not respond in any way, the more it would vex and frustrate Jughead, because he would certainly conclude that her non-response to his ignoring her meant that she was biding her time secretly calculating (and maybe even carrying out, without him being aware of it) even more sinister mind games with him in mind. And unfortunately, that is how Jughead thinks. Trula can well afford not to obsess over him if she doesn't want to, but Jughead isn't capable of that -- the only thing he's really capable of is pretending to ignore her, because in reality when she seemingly does nothing, that's when he's most worried about what she might do next.

Yes, but there are those few times where Jughead doesn't react to her the way she thinks he will and that throws her off a bit. I had mentioned earlier that it would be interesting to see how Jughead and Trula would interact with each other as adults. And I found a story! After a long absence, I decided to check "Big Ethel Energy" to see if and how the story has progressed since it's been going for almost a year. To my surprise, one of the most recent installments has Ethel interviewing Trula. And, of course, their main topic was Jughead. Apparently, Jughead fell in love with Trula. but she didn't feel the same way and that may be the reason why in this story, Jughead shuts everyone out. It seems like in BEE, Riverdale has become a romantic dystopia  where everyone is with no one and any pairings have fizzled out before Ethel came back. The only romance that may happen is between Ethel and Moose. 

For the record, I consider any Trula Twyst story NOT written by Craig Boldman to be at best of negligible importance, if not an entirely alternate-universe (as in the case of Big Ethel Energy) version of the character. Fortunately, Boldman has recently written a couple of new stories for Archie Comics, but it's actually kind of hard to write a new Trula Twyst story that reveals any new aspects of her character (and Jughead) in a mere 5 pages.

That's true of many of the less-seen characters, too. You can't get into any complex plots (never mind complex character development) with a strict limit of 5 pages per story, so that limits the kinds of stories you can tell now in "traditional style" Archie stories. I miss the days when they could expand, at their discretion, a story for up to 22 pages.

I mostly agree, but Dan Parent actually does try and I thought his latest one was really good. My only complaint is that she never called him Juggers and too short.

But with only five pages...yeah, you can only do so much.

Quote from: PTF on August 30, 2022, 02:41:39 AMMy only complaint is that she never called him Juggers

But she DID call him Juggers... that nickname was entirely the invention of Craig Boldman. Many people call him "Jug" or "Juggie" for short, but ONLY Trula calls him "Juggers". I'd have to check, but that might even go all the way back to Trula's first appearance in JUGHEAD (1987 series) #89.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 01, 2022, 09:43:51 AM

Quote from: PTF on August 30, 2022, 02:41:39 AMMy only complaint is that she never called him Juggers

But she DID call him Juggers... that nickname was entirely the invention of Craig Boldman. Many people call him "Jug" or "Juggie" for short, but ONLY Trula calls him "Juggers". I'd have to check, but that might even go all the way back to Trula's first appearance in JUGHEAD (1987 series) #89.

I think they're talking about the recent Dan Parent scripted story in Archie Jumbo #332. She only calls him Jughead.

Ah, ok I get it now... the complaint is she should have called him Juggers.

But even so, it seems to me that most secondary characters that amount to anything at all, only do so in the hands of their original creator. Like... I wouldn't expect Craig Boldman to suddenly turn in a story featuring Veronica's cousin Marcy and have it feel authentic, either.

I get the feeling with the recent re-appearances of a lot of lesser-seen characters that it's just the editor deciding on which characters will be featured, then handing out the assignments to whoever's available. Rather than it's an idea the writer came up with on his own -- which you have to admit, would be a lot easier to believe if Dan Parent was writing a new cousin Marcy story, or Craig Boldman was writing a new Trula story.

Yeah, that's what I was saying, Parent didn't have Trula call Jughead "juggers" that's really the only complaint.

But I do agree more often then not you do have stories where the character is off when the creator isn't writing, like World of Archie 112 and, man did not like that story one bit.

But I think if the Archie editors would get involved a lot of these problems could be fixed. Like Trula. Character focuses on psychology tactics, She's the Cecil Turtle to Jughead's Bugs Bunny (in others she gets the W), and she calls Jughead by the nickanme "Juggers."

The two writers who seem to be on the same wavelength to the extent that you might not guess who wrote which story are Bill Golliher and Dan Parent. Those two started out together 35 years ago, and worked so closely with each other so often, that it's not too surprising that they think alike.

Oh, I can tell. I liked Parent's way more.

And I'm not saying Golliher is bad--he actually wrote a fun digest story recently, but that was a miss for me.

And Dan Parent has written Trula before during the election where Obama met Sarah Palin. So he has some experience with the character.

And credit to Boldman and Lindsey writing an aweomse Trula story with just four pages.


Sigh. Makes me miss the classic Jughead.

LOL- I randomly decided to check out the forum after years away, and I immediately find a Trula Twyst post. Nice .

I was a big fan of Trula back in the day- Jughead's nonplussed reaction to everything and his utmost confidence in himself was one of his best traits... so a character who could up-end all of that was the perfect nemesis.

Granted, they sometimes overdid it by having her beat him EASILY, and she rarely, if ever, got her comeuppance. And the artist who first designed her started kind of cheaping out on her design as time went on (so her detailed, curly hair was now a big messy pile of it). But overall she was a very fun addition... if someone entirely located in the "Jughead-Verse" of stories. It might have been fun seeing her interact more directly with Reggie, Archie, etc.- or even find out more about her dating life (as she'd initially created the "J.U.S.T. Cause" as a means to get Jughead to date her, which made her seem more enticing and attractive to the boys in Riverdale.