If our high-school English teachers were right, there are only four types of narrative conflict. Of these, man vs. man — or rather, woman vs. woman[1] — is one of the most thrilling, for me, in serial comics. The most nail-bitingly intense cliffhanger comic I've read recently is the (unlicensed) ongoing manga series
Garasu No Kamen, or
Glass Mask by Suzue Miuchi.[2] Its plotline is beyond basic, but also a canny storytelling vehicle: it's about a teenaged girl, Maya, who is unremarkable in every way, until she discovers she has an awesome, raw talent for acting.
When former acting diva Chigusa Tsukikage learns about this, Maya is put in direct, active competition for the role of a lifetime, the Crimson Goddess, with the also extremely talented Ayumi, who in contrast has had every advantage — training, pedigree, money, beauty. Not only does this setup allow for character development as each candidate matures, deals with the practicalities of being an actress and hones her skills, it also lets Miuchi change up the art and genre as the two duke it out role by role.[3]
The core relationship in the series is between Maya and Ayumi: anything but a cardboard cutout of a villain, the honorable Ayumi is almost a second heroine. She lets no one and nothing else get in the way of their battle, whether it's defusing dangerous fans, taking out a less-talented contender with her acting, and making sure Maya has access to the tools (lessons, parts) she needs to fight back squarely. On Maya's part, Ayumi is a great motivator and source of growth: though the former feels outclassed by the latter in almost every respect, she judges herself by the quality of her opponent, and that gives her confidence.
Which leads me to the recent news reported on comixology.com by Valerie D'Orazio that Archie Andrews will propose to either Betty or Veronica (a solicited cover depicts him proposing to Veronica).[4] That said, I find plots about women fighting over a man romantically ultimately rather dull for the obvious reasons: there's only so much you can do to keep it fresh and compelling (such as adding in more rivals, aka the
Ranma ½ syndrome) and once someone "gets" the fellow, the story is effectively over (though I'm sure Archie Comics will take steps to make the storyline less than conclusive).
On further inspection, however, this paradigm is a bit difficult to apply to Betty and Veronica, simply for the reason that, having been depicted by a small army of artists and writers over 50+ years of little to no continuity and spun off into their own comics title and digests, other than a few core concepts, their personalities and relationship are ever-shifting (
sometimes they're enemies, sometimes they're BFFs, often they're both) and difficult to define, other than the absolute of their foildom (foilhood?) for one another.[5] (They're also drawn identically, save for the hair and clothes, which only exacerbates this problem.) As such, they're like the comics equivalent of a Rorschach inkblot test: each reader's (and creator's, too, I would imagine, save for house styles and dictates) take on Betty and Veronica is based on his or her own perspective.
My preferred version of the two's relationship is not a "frenemy" model (defined as a girl who pretends to be friends with another girl while simultaneously undermining her), but rather the idea that the two compete because they're so evenly matched, and no one else (save Cheryl Blossom, whom they unite against) is at the same level, and that this is why each is the best friend the other has, as well. In fact, my favorite Betty and Veronica stories are the ones in which their major source of their conflict isn't Archie at all: my very favorite, probably from the '50s (the title, creators and issue are lost to the sands of time: I read it as a kid in a digest which I no longer have, although I read it multiple times) involves Betty and Veronica competing in a secretarial contest, judged by Mr. Weatherbee and Miss Grundy, in which the prize is a trip to Paris. When Veronica seduces Mr. Weatherbee's … nephew, I think, her plan "backfires": she incenses everyone, including Archie, and loses. In the end, Veronica confesses to a third party that she's a better secretary than Betty, but she lost intentionally for a noble purpose: she's seen Paris, and Betty has not.[6]
Betty and Veronica's bouts are not quite as worthy as Maya and Ayumi's: Betty and Veronica are pettier, more broadly (and certainly more erratically) characterized, much more likely to fight dirty (and therefore are maybe a little more human): still, my interpretation is that that Betty and Veronica's power struggles at heart have more to them than just who-gets-the-guy. What is clear is that, nowadays, while there are quite a few Japanese comics centering on female competition to choose from available in North America, such as Moyoko Anno's
Sugar Sugar Rune and the formally inventive
Swan by Kyoko Ariyoshi, for girls and for a long time, the North American comics market mostly had Betty and Veronica.[7] And that, cartoon (well) a story of battles with honor and humanity between women (of any age, but I'll take what I can get), and I'm there.
Notes:
[1] I'm interested in conflict between women of all ages, but, unless it's a newspaper strip or the Hernandez Bros., female characters tend to skew rather young in comics. If you think about it, even the most famous female autobiographical cartoonists, such a Marjane Satrapi and Alison Bechdel, told stories of their childhood and adolescence.
[2] Although I would love for this series to be released in the U.S., I doubt any manga repackagers will take the financial risk of republishing it, as it is currently at 43 volumes, ongoing, drawn in an sparkly eyed, elaborately hair-doed '70s shoujo art style and doesn't appear to have the kind of online fan base that would guarantee commercial success.
[3] It puts me in mind of the contemporary manga Nodame Cantabile, by Tomoko Ninomiya, out from Del Rey, which also concerns a girl whose saving grace is her powerful, untrained talent. However, Miuchi has avoided some of the pitfalls of Nodame Cantabile, namely by 1.) deemphasizing romance, 2.) selecting an art form that's much easier to portray visually than music, although both frequently use audience commentary to help get across the quality of a performance, and 3.) focusing on a competitive relationship rather than the mentor/mentee relationship two main characters in NC share. Both Miuchi and Ninomiya counteract the she's-so-special storytelling trap: Miuchi's technique is to come right out with it — Maya is special, but only in regards to acting — but plays up the downside to that, namely melodrama (her mother thinks she's good-for-nothing), jealousy (other actors are always working against her) as well as plain old sadism (cue insane training sequences). Ninomiya, on the other hand makes Nodame's weirdness feel dangerously genuine, as opposed to give-her-a-shower-and-suddenly-Ally Sheedy-is-pretty-in-pink: save for her musical gift, Nodame could easily be more of a Dawn Weiner type. Both manga-ka do add elements of realism to their stories as well, which makes Nodame's and Maya's struggles more relatable.
[4] Save for a general lack of continuity, Archie Comics are pretty romantic-comedy-manga-like anyway, with their high-school setting, wacky sidekicks, animal mascots and two beautiful, big-eyed girls with small noses vying for the affection of an every-teenaged-boy.
[5] In other words, they are defined by one another — in a way, one can imagine them existing without Archie, but it's harder to imagine them existing without each other.
[6] I love this incarnation of Veronica. She reminds me of Blair Waldorf, played by Leighton Meester, on the TV show Gossip Girl. Serena Van der Wooden, portrayed by Blake Lively, is a less suitable Betty, but a Georgina Sparks (Michelle Trachtenberg) is a fine Cheryl Blossom analog. I feel that the power struggles in Blair and Serena's friendship are enormously entertaining and, even though their circumstances are heightened and exaggerated, are at the core fairly realistic and pretty much exactly what I imagine Betty's and Veronica's would be like if the fighting-over-Archie thing was less prominent.
[7] I am sure there are many instances of well-done, mano e mano female competition in superhero comics … but other than Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy having a Betty and Veronica vibe for a while during the Lee/Romita Jr. run, nothing immediately pops into mind.
Image credits:
Panel from "Photo Finish" written by Mike Pellowski penciled by Pat Kennedy and inked by Al Nickerson
Panel from "The Search": writer and artists uncredited
Panel from "Maid for Each Other": writer and artists uncredited
All Archie Comics art [©2009 Archie Comics Publications, Inc.]
Glass Mask [©2009 Suzue Miuchi]
Kristy Valenti currently works for The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics Books, Inc.
Uncharted Territory is © Kristy Valenti, 2008
