AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE is the best comic of 2014

Technically, AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE has a one-joke premise. Inspired by a variant cover created by the mighty Francesco Francavilla for the series LIFE WITH ARCHIE, this series seemed engineered to do nothing more than grab headlines and die a quick death.

Back in October, 2013, I reviewed the first issue and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Sure, it was difficult not to have doubts about the premise, especially after disposing of Jughead so quickly in the narrative. The world of Riverdale came to a bloody end with seemingly no place for our heroes (or the story) to go. And then a funny thing happened ...

AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE kept going.

Against all odds, the book has been the most consistently entertaining comic of 2014. What might be more amazing than the blunt-force trauma of the book's premise is that writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has not only found genuine humanity in the characters, he even managed to justify the Betty/Veronica/Archie love triangle in a way that isn't gross. He's created a compelling story that's absolutely worth more than the sum of its parts.

Meanwhile, Francavilla's art is essential to making AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE work. Pairing Francavilla with Aguirre-Sacasa might seem like an obligatory gesture (Francavilla's idea lead to the creation of the comic, after all) but his art is a constant reminder that you should be having fun here. Equal parts "Ghastly" Graham Ingles, Jack Kirby and Eduardo Barreto, Francavilla has become one of the most prolific artists working today. He does more with a few brush strokes than most artists can do with an entire bottle of India ink ... and he somehow makes it look easy.

What I'm trying to say is, "You should be reading this book."

Review: CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA #1

It’s unlikely you’ll read another mainstream horror comic this year as f*cked up as CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA.

The teenage witch of Archie Comics has been reinterpreted here for a straight-up horror story that finds inspiration from sources as diverse as Stephen King, Ira Levin and J.K. Rowling. It would be unrelentingly bleak if not for a streak of dark wit running throughout. But “fun” is a subjective word, especially when you’re talking about horror stories. And, despite its flaws, CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA is a pretty fun book.

As with AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, the new SABRINA series relies only on the character’s most basic ingredients. Our heroine is still a witch being raised in a suburban community by her aunts. Her cat, Salem, is also present, as are a few recognizable names and faces from Riverdale. But that’s where the similarities end. Here, Sabrina and her aunts have more secrets to keep than mere witchcraft. And, while we’ve been privy to a few of them in the first issue, there are quite a few more lurking off panel.

When the story begins, Sabrina’s mother is trying to rescue her from an uncertain fate at the hands of her father. Unable to bear children, she’d made a pact to surrender her firstborn to the family coven, only to get cold feet at the last minute. She is banished to an asylum and lobotomized; not long after her husband meets an even more grotesque fate, leaving the infant in the care of her aunts.

As Sabrina’s powers begin to grow, the aunts remove her from a private school for witches, opting instead to give her a public school education in a quiet town where the child’s heritage won’t be questioned. There are a few allusions that the family might be cannibals (the aunts comment on the advantages of living next to a funeral home, where they’ve got access to an “unlimited” food supply), and Sabrina gets her first familiar in the form of a “cat” named Salem.

Salem is a former warlock being punished for trying to destroy the world. Sabrina’s British cousin, who has also taken up residence with the family, is even more unsavory: Even Alistair Crowley has taken issue with the lad’s behavior.

It’s a pretty good set up, but writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa makes a critical error. There are a lot of ideas jammed into this first issue, but its linear nature leaves little room for character development. Sabrina spends much of the first issue as an infant without agency, while characters are introduced (and dismissed) at breakneck speed. It’s hard to invest much in Sabrina because we don’t know anything about her. Sure, we know her history (something even she doesn’t know), but we’re given little opportunity to see her behave as a person. While the opening scenes of Sabrina’s family self destructing are effective, I’m not sure we needed to see these moments unfold this early. It’s a problem that will likely right itself quickly as the series progresses, but it makes this issue less than essential.

Also: Robert Hack’s art here is terrific. His style is a welcome breath of fresh air for the medium, and rejects the traditional linework and digital color palettes that makes comicbook art so faceless these days. This guy’s good.

I’m not sure how CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA relates to AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, which is also written by Aguirre-Sacasa. Archie Comics is doing a lot of crazy things these days, and it’s always hard to tell which books — if any — are related. For those of us bored with the “continuity management-as-story” policies at Marvel and DC, it’s nice to see a company putting creativity first. It’s possible AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE and CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA aren’t related, and I don’t really care if they are. The books don't need each other to work.


Despite its violent tone, Sabrina actually comes across much better in this story than she did when introduced to the Archie line back in 1962. Her first appearance is included as a back-up in this issue, and it’s going to come as a bit of a surprise to fans of the Melissa Joan Hart television series. I’m not sure what the original intent was for the character, but she comes across in her first appearance like a raging sociopath.

While Sabrina doesn’t outright kill anyone, she’s not exactly above hurting people. One panel shows her casting a spell on teenagers to ruin a dance … by giving them back pain. She also brags to the reader about meddling in high school sporting events, causing her own school’s team to win or lose at whim. Sabrina also casts spells to force teens to fall in love, makes students fail tests … she’s kind of an asshole.

The last panel raises the possibility that there might be hope for our junior super-villain, as she wonders if there might be some secret appeal to muggle life. I hope these early Sabrina stories are included in future issues of this series, because they’re kinda fascinating.

Review: AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE #1

"This is how the end of the world begins," warns the first issue of AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, scrawled in blood across story's first page. In case you believed this was all a dream, hoax, or an imaginary story, this ill portent leads the reader directly to a scene showing a crying, broken Jughead Jones holding the corpse of his pet, Hot Dog.

And then things get much, more worse.

If I were a gambling man, I would have bet against AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE. Archie Comics has barely been a blip on anyone's radar since the 1960s, and has managed to hang onto thin shreds of life by virtue of its valuable rack placements in grocery stores across the country. You'll get those racks when you pry them from the company's cold, dead hands, but Archie Comics has otherwise shown little interest in taking advantage of this valuable real estate.

Until a few years ago, that is. Having a Come to Jesus moment worthy of BREAKING BAD, the company figured out it had little to lose by shaking up the book's hoary status quo. The most notable of these experiments has been the introduction of the book's first openly gay character, Kevin Keller. Since then, the company has produced some of the most fun, innovative titles on the market ... which is no small feat, given that it wasn't too long ago that people were using Archie comics as a cheaper alternative to packing peanuts.

Also making the creative success of AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE more than a little dubious is the over exposure of zombies. The meme was tired before the first copy of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES hit the shelves, and its only grown more boring since then. Combining the world of Riverdale with a George Romero plot seemed like a one-note joke, something that should wear out its welcome before the end of the first issue.

Luckily for us, the company put some incredible talent on the book. Creators Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla have decided to pursue the subject as explicitly humorless, which has the affect of making all the more hilarious.

Aguirre-Sacasa wisely uses the world to destroy itself. When the first zombie makes its appearance, it's not because of a Biblical prophecy, bullshit superdisease or alien radiation. Distressed by the death of his dog by reckless driver, Jughead turns to teenage witch Sabrina Spellman for help. When Sabrina's creepy aunts decline to intervene in the natural order of things and resurrect the animal, Sabrina takes matters (and a copy of the Necronomicon) into her own hands. Things quickly go PET SEMATARY when poor Hot Dog returns with a taste for human flesh. Sabrina is exiled to hell for a year by her aunts, while zombie Jughead crashes the Halloween dance at Riverdale High ... murdering Principal Weatherbee on his way into the building.

The dialogue and characterization are all spot-on, and never falls into Joss Whedonesque hipsterism. None of the kids are too clever to ever sound anything other than fairly real, and the book has genuine pathos. It will be interesting to watch the title character evolve in coming issues, though, because he's the most thinly drawn of the bunch. Archie Andrews has always been a doofus, but he's going to have to step up his game if we're expected to give a shit about him. By the end of the first issue, two of the book's three most interesting characters have been taken off the game board. This leaves us with smug asshole Reggie Mantle, who spends most of the book agonizing over having hit Jughead's dog with his car the night before. He's about to confess his guilt to Archie in the book's final pages, when the undead Jughead interrupts him.

It goes without mentioning that Francavilla's art here is incredible. He's the best kind of old-school artist, and does more with a few simple lines than most artists can do with an entire bottle of India ink. As the cover artist to Dynamite's DARK SHADOWS comic, he's been mentioned on this site a few times, but his talent extends beyond the ability to create bold, amazing cover art. He's also got real skill as a storyteller and knows how to not only construct a good panel, but also how to layout a page to best carry a reader though a story.

Had the book ended there, it would have been enough. AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE is slated to be an on-going series, though, which is one of the ballsiest moves I can imagine for such a premise. Drawing out the concept indefinitely will create a legion of opportunities and challenges along the way, and it's hard to imagine the book doing anything other than collapsing under the weight of its own premise. Had you told me last year that the most exciting comic of 2013 would be published by Archie, I'd have called you a fucking liar. Like the book's own teenage witch, Aguirre-Sacasa and Francavilla have done the impossible with AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, and we're all going to have to live with the dire, blissfully nihilistic consequences. Frankly, the end of the world never looked so good.

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BARNABAS COLLINS by DAN PARENT

During my recent trip to HereosCon, I picked up a few pieces of original art from some of the event's talented guests. Aside from a few signatures from folks like JIM STERANKO and NEAL ADAMS, I mostly spent the weekend adding "convention sketches" to my collection, including this drawing of BARNABAS COLLINS by DAN PARENT.

Parent is perhaps best known as the artist on various ARCHIE comics, including the landmark KEVIN KELLER series. Curiously, this wasn't Parent's first metaphorical trip to Collinsport ... a year ago a reader shared this little gem with me: A sketch of DENNIS PATRICK as the scoundrel JASON McGUIRE.

Curiously, the ARCHIE/DARK SHADOWS connection doesn't end there. FRANCESCO FRANAVILLA, the cover artist for Dynamite's DARK SHADOWS comic, will be providing covers for the upcoming series AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE. The book will pit the Riverdale gang against a zombie apocalypse. I didn't think I'd live to see the day where ARCHIE was publishing interesting, compelling comicbooks, but there you have it.