Afterlife with Archie Book 1: Escape from Riverdale by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Spectacular! Remarkably, writer Aguirre-Sacasa plays it absolutely straight, penning none of the jokey Riverdale antics we’ve come to expect from Archie and the gang into the story. Instead, the characters we’ve all come to know and love are presented as authentic human beings, although the personality traits we associate with each of them still manage to come through charmingly and recognizably. Artist Francavilla follows Aguirre-Sacasa’s lead by eliminating the cartoonishness of the original character designs and drawing the characters realistically. (Or sometimes hyper-realistically. Trust me, you’ll never look at Sabrina’s two aunts the same way again.) The zombie mayhem is well rendered and satisfyingly distributed throughout, and even in just these five issues all the characters get their chances to shine. Aguirre-Sacasa has really done his Archie homework, bringing in characters from LIFE WITH ARCHIE that I’d long forgotten existed, only to have their appearance here instantly spark those dormant memories. This is a must-read for fans of zombies, horror comics in general, and anyone who remembers Archie and his friends from their youth. I can’t wait for the next volume, and for ACP to start collecting the spinoff series THE CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA, too. Bring it on!
so so def