Archie Horror: Post 3: Afterlife with Archie

After that delightful little trip into an aspect of Archie comics I didn't know existed, it's time to get to the main even, Afterlife with Archie written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa with art by Francesco Francavilla.  At the most basic level, the story is really simple; 

What if there were a zombie outbreak in Riverdale?

Archie comics have done many crossovers and genre switches in the past, most famously with the crime-noir adaptation that is the current CW show Riverdale, but previously including crossovers with The Punisher, KISS, and even The Predator.

What I love about Afterlife With Archie is the simplest thing, not the fact that Dilton is now an encyclopedic expert in horror trivia, nor the fact that Betty and Veronica have also become horror fans in this world.  Nope, it's the fact that I know everyone.

When watching zombie series like The Walking Dead, you definitely feel for the leads, but as wave after wave of the undead move towards them, it becomes increasingly easier to forget that these were all regular folk once, with there own goals, hopes, and dreams, and instead focus on the cool visuals.

The genius of what Aguirre-Sacasa and Francavilla have done with this comic is to populate it with people I've grown up reading, I know all about the rivalries, friendships, and back stories of all theses characters, from dedicated readings as a little kid, to watching the animated series, and even occasionally leafing through the issues now as I wait in the grocery line.  By using these characters that we know so well, they make every single new zombie in the outbreak personally heartbreaking, because we've been reading about these characters forever, even if only ironically we have a degree of investment and it hurts a little every time a new character falls to the zombies and rises again...

Which to be fair, makes it even more horrifying.

Well played gentlemen, well played.

Genre Character of the Week: Chris Romero

One of my favourite things about blogging is getting to meet and read so many other great bloggers out there, because when you start finding people with similar interests, you get pointed to movies and books you might never have seen before. Case in point, Night of the Creeps, a 1986 horror/comedy that I had never heard of before, and then was pointed to by Paul Castiglia (who writes the classic horror/comedy blog Scared Silly) and BJ-C (who writes a feminist view of horror blog called Day of the Woman). Thanks very much to both of them I have just enjoyed an incredibly fun film and have found this weeks Genre Character, Chris Romero.

When the film was first brought up to me, it was described as the closest thing you will ever see to Archie and Jughead in a horror film. Our main character Chris is a guy who is still getting over a break up with his high school sweetheart and then sees Cindy. His best friend A.C. (pictured right with Chris) introduces them and it looks like these two cute kids are gonna hit it off.

Unfortunately, first they'll have to deal with a host of zombies, and space slugs, and a serial killer. What I really like about Chris is his ability to freak out like anyone would under these horrible conditions and then he gets the job done anyway. The end of the film is probably one of the coolest zombie stand-offs I have ever seen and along with Cindy (pictured left), Chris really gives it his all.

I love this guy, he comes across as someone you'd really like to get to know, and if alien-infested zombies ever do come calling, you will definitely wish you could have spent some time with this guy.

Things I've Noticed #3: Following your favourite comic-book author may bankrupt you

A quick look at my history with comics in a convenient timeline:

Ages 4 – 10, (1980-1986): I’m pretty much limited to Archie comics

Ages 11 – 13 (1987 - 1989): My own personal Dark Ages - I only read a few scattered X-Men I found in friends basements, dentists offices, etc.

Age 14 (August 1990): Wandering into my local comic book / used book store I came across Sandman #18 (Dream of a Thousand Cats). I had a couple extra bucks and the Dave McKean cover artwork totally grabbed me so I went for it, and I've never looked back since.

Since then I’ve been a big purchaser of series, mostly collections in trade paperbacks as I don’t have the patience to wait month by month for my stories to finish.

My problem with comics actually came a few years back. Basically I had my favourite three series (Sandman, Swamp Thing, Transmetropolitan) and was looking for a fourth. As I had followed Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore into their other works I decided to give Warren Ellis a try.

I looked him up in my library and found they had two books of his, Planetary and The Authority. As Planetary was pretty much stand alone I started there – it was awesome. The libraries copy of the Authority was stolen, lost or damaged before I could give it a look, so I headed off to my local comic book store, where I was told it actually was a continuation of a previous comic of Ellis’ called Stormwatch. Figuring I should probably read Stormwatch before I started the Authority, I decided to look into purchasing the previous 8 years worth of comics (I attempted this in 2001).

Two weeks of research later and here was the problem in a nutshell:

1) I wanted to read more Warren Ellis, so

2) I wanted to give The Authority a try, but

3) The Authority was made up, principally of surviving members of Stormwatch, and

4) Ellis only started writing Stormwatch at issue 37.

5) Before that, the title was written by Ron Marz, who spent a great deal of time tying it in with James Robinsons WildC.A.T.S., to the point where I would need to read WildC.A.T.S. to understand the earlier run of Stormwatch

6) and I didn’t have the three bazillion dollars needed to purchase all these old titles

So there you have it. It’s now been almost 8 years since I decided that maybe reading The Authority would be cool and I haven’t done a thing. I’m scared that in the incredibly complicated tie-in, crossover, dingo-crazy world of comic books that I will end up obligating myself into purchasing more comics than my house can physically hold.

Instead, I’ll call it a day, and go back to my dependable, never-charnging, you can always count on me classic: Archie.

OH MY GOD!?!