Jughead earned his own comic book as part of the reboot. Today’s release is the fourth installment. The first story arc to the series involves a new principal at the characters’ high school and Jughead’s sexual orientation is mentioned as part of the tale’s background.
Writer Chip Zdarsky talked to Comicbook.com about the new series shortly before its premiere. Zdarksy points out why the character got his own series and how his asexuality will play into the storyline.
“He’s the one character who can easily shift to the outside looking in,” Zdarsky said. “A teenager who’s comfortable with himself, smarter than he appears, feeling more deeply than he lets on.”
“For the stories it’s good to have someone not as mired in the hormonal teen romances, and it adds to that ‘outsider-looking-in’ quality I talked about before.”
“I’m writing him as asexual, but this is comics, yeah? The next writer could make him discover girls or boys or both and that’s totally fine,” he said. “There have been iterations of Jughead over the decades where he HAS been interested in girls, so there’s room to play around if someone was inclined. For me though, I like an asexual Jughead. That’s more interesting to me than writing him as just being behind everyone developmentally.”
A sample page from the comic shows just how casually Jughead’s asexuality is handled – no judgement, no questions, and full support.