Afterlife With Archie 1

BETTY ATE VERONICA!

Everybody who’s been reading this site knows I’m a big fan of Archie Comics, and particularly of their attempt, over the last few years, to revitalise their septuagenarian franchise.

But when I first heard of this series – basically, The Walking Dead in Riverdale – I was appalled. I didn’t think that a zombie drama involving the Archie cast would appeal to horror fans, and I feared that such a gory concept would be one “innovation” too many for traditional Archie readers.

Plus, one of the creators attached gave me serious pause. Announced writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacas was indelibly associated, in my mind, with a truly excruciating “Lieutenant Mary Sue” story arc in Marvel Knights 4, wherein he made himself a character in the story, for which he may never be forgiven.

So I approached this with extreme scepticism and hostility.

And within a few pages I was sobbing like a babyman, and that was even before any of the supernatural stuff started!

We open with a desperate appeal by Jughead to Sabrina the Teenage Witch; Jug’s pooch, Hot Dog, has been the victim of a road traffic accident, and Jughead wants Sabrina to save him. But the best efforts of Sabrina – and her aunts Hilda and Zelda – are too late; Hot Dog is gone. The tender-hearted Sabrina – against the commands of her aunts – makes a compassionate but foolish decision. Engaging in the most dangerous of magics, necromancy, she arranges for Hot Dog and his master to be reunited, and sets off a chain of events that threatens cataclysm for the inhabitants of Riverdale.

This is intended as an ongoing series, but while I have doubts how far it can “ongo” – Riverdale’s a small town, after all –it promises to be a fascinating read while it lasts. Aguirre-Sacas manages to keep all the Riverdale Regulars “on-model”, performing their usual light-teen-soap antics, and building a sense of looming menace, without invalidating either theme.

The "Betty vs. Veronica" battle rages on - but with a little added sauciness!

Archie Comics has succumbed, belatedly, to a phenomenon which gripped DC and Marvel from the ’70s onward, the fans-turned-pro syndrome. Having decided, by some unspoken zeitgeist, that it’s not “uncool” to admit to liking the Archie titles, folks who read them as kids have stepped up as contributors, and while this syndrome had a wildly hit & miss effect on the Big Two,  Archie is benefiting from this enthusiasm, which has pushed their traditional safe envelope and garnered them more attention, publicity, and sales than they have had in years.

Kevin Keller’s intro; the Obama/Palin face-off; Archie’s romance with Valerie; the whole new Life With Archie/Married Life series – so far Archie’s Powers-That-Be have pulled it off. While DC and Marvel have been futzing around with superficialities, Archie have stealthily established themselves as the genuinely innovative and daring publisher, something which a decade ago would have been utterly unsuspected.

Sabrina's Aunties redefine the "Time Out" - You really don't want these ladies pissed off at you!

I was confidently expecting Afterlife With Archie to be their ‘shark-jumper’, the one that broke the bubble, but so far, I admit, I am delighted to have been mistaken.