Afterlife with Archie, Vol. 1 by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

In each issue after the first, which only uses timestamps counting down to the “contagion,” there’s a different character narrating to give each issue a different feel. It’s not something I had expected the series to do, but the series is all the better for it as it never loses its Archie Comics identity.Īguirre-Sacasa keeps the strong sense of identity through the narration too. By giving the outbreak this source, before the horrors have begun in earnest, “Afterlife with Archie” ensures it has the characters at its core and its something it maintains throughout its first arc.

Sabrina acts against her aunts’ wishes by performing necromancy because she relates to Jughead’s loss through her bond with Salem. Unlike other zombie stories which see the outbreak given scientific origins, the source of the zombies here is magick and, more significantly, human emotion. The tension builds across the page before we are confronted by a dramatic splash page showing an exhausted Jughead arriving at the Spellman house, with Hot Dog dripping in blood.

Issue #1 sets the tone by opening with an ominous written-in-blood title page that reads “This is how the end of the world begins.” Francavilla follows up with a page compiled of small and tense panels draped in shadows and washed with his trademark glowing red and muted blue which further the atmosphere generated by the title page. “Afterlife with Archie” is everything you’d imagine it to be it’s Riverdale being overrun by zombies and, with Francavilla illustrating the book, there’s no holding back the horror in this reimagining.

Afterlife with Archie, Vol. 1 by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa