Comic Book Review: Afterlife with Archie: Escape from Riverdale by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa // Francesco Francavilla (Archie Comics)

To sum this story up as quickly as possible, let's just say that Jughead's dog- Hot Dog- gets hit by a car and dies only to be brought back to life by Sabrina (Yes, the teenage witch) and this turns Hot Dog into a zombie dog, which in turn sees him bite and infect Jughead who then manages to infect everyone he can until the end of Volume 1.    So there you have it.   Picture this perfect little world of Riverdale, which reminds me of something out of the Carebears, and imagine zombies not only being thrown into it but Jughead being the first human infected.

The artwork on this is dark and right on because it really shows you what you need to see.   It doesn't look like your typical Archie comics with blood because as cool as that might seem in theory I think it would begin to just feel too cartoony, like in the way that you have cartoons where people blow up and they just turn all black instead of dying.    So the images definitely fit and the words that go along with it tell the story that needs to be told.

I randomly pulled this off of the shelf at the library so I don't know how many more issues exist or if this is even still going but I feel like this volume was the introduction and what happens next, in what would be Volume 2, is where the story would become the most interesting and have to fit accordingly.    It's one thing to go into this sort of perfect universe and mess everything up- which is kind of what Volume 1 did here- but then being able to go on from there is perhaps where it really counts the most.

I do know that I will be looking for more issues of "Afterlife with Archie" so as to see where things go and just from reading this it seems like the Archieverse (That's a word, right?) has changed a lot from when I used to see the digests at the grocery stores.    Oh, and there is a mention of gypsies in here and you know I always like those sorts of things so for that even as well this holds a special place with me.

So if you can manage to find this at your library and it sounds interesting, then check it out.  I don't think I'd ever actually buy this in the sense that I'd pay money for it, but that's not saying it isn't worth reading.   In all fairness, I read this in one sitting and think you could do the same, so if you have an hour or so to spend at Barnes and Noble and this happens to be there... But yeah, you should probably buy it to show your support and all that.   If you didn't buy it though and just wanted to read it then, no, I wouldn't blame you one bit.    Also, someone really needs to come up with a Carebears-Gremlins crossover.