31 Days of Horror Day 22 Afterlife with Archie

Afterlife with Archie issues 1-5
Archie Comics

Yeah I am cheating. This isn't a review of a film. It is ,as it should be obvious,a review of a handful of comics.

I heard all the hype about Afterlife with Archie last year. And thought "meh Archie plus zombies doesn't sound that fun." So I skipped it.

Then about a week ago I was loaned the first 6 issues to read. After one issue I was hooked.

The first issue starts off with Jughead rushing to see Sabrina. Someone has hit Hotdog with a car and killed him. So Jughead begs Sabrina to use her magic to bring him back to life. She tells him she can't. But later that night she steals a powerful spell book from her Aunts. And uses it to bring Hotdog back.

But of course shit hits the fan. Hotdog comes back as a zombie dog. He bites Jughead. And Zombie Jughead attacks the Riverdale High School Halloween dance. Where we get a very emotional scene as Jughead bites Big Ethel.

Thanks to Archie and Betty most of the teens escape and end up in the Lodge Mansion. All seems to be ok. There is plenty of food and water. The mansion has amazing security. But Archie is worried about his parents. So he sneaks out. He is at his house when he runs into Hotdog. And in a scene that caused me to almost tear up,we get to see Archie's loyal dog Vegas save him from Hotdog. After having to fight off his now zombified father Archie and his mother make it back to the Lodge mansion.

Where we find out that Moose's longtime girlfriend Midge has been scratched by Jughead. So she turns. Also we see that Jughead is leading a herd of zombies to the mansion. Issue 5,which is the last issue of what is called book 1,ends with Archie and what is left of the teens escaping into the woods.

Now I love Archie comics. Been reading them for decades now. And I know that over the past 4 or 5 years Archie has been making strides into becoming more current. Like introducing to the main cast the first openly gay character in Riverdale. With Afterlife with Archie they do lots of stuff they haven't done before. Like how this is the first Archie series to be rated for teens. Mostly for the violence. But for a few other things. Like how we find out that two the females in the series are in a secret relationship. And there is one scene where Kevin Keller,the previous mentioned gay character,strongly hints that Reggie is in the closet.

One other thing I loved with these five issues is after the main story we get black and white reprints of pre-code horror comics that MJL published. MJL is what the company now known as Archie Comics was called.

My only nitpick with the series so far is that it looks like this isn't a monthly series. There was a few month gap between the first and second issue.One very minor complaint I have is that the variant covers,one of which is at the top of this post,are much better than the normal covers. But both of those are minor.

Afterlife with Archie has great art combined with amazing moody coloring. Add in the compelling storyline. Which after 2 issues had me more invested in the main cast than The Walking Dead has done in 100 issues. I have no idea how long this is suppose to run. I do plan on buying the trades of the series.

Afterlife with Archie gets a solid A.