It seems so obvious now. LA Times reports that TV’s Glee and Carrie remake writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and one Behind the Panels’ favourite Italian artists Francesco Francavilla will team up for Afterlife With Archie, a tale in which zombies invade Riverdale. Francavilla will provide the cover to the first issue and interiors, the former of which can be seen below.
Reportedly inspired by EC Comics, the tale will see Sabrina the Teenage Witch accidentally bring about a zombie apocalypse with a spell gone wrong, much the same way she almost did the same in Archie Meets Kiss.
In the LA Times article, Francavilla talks about his inspiration for the art:
[B]eing a huge fan of those classic EC comics, I went with that approach, including hand-drawn balloons and text, typical of that period. I can’t remember why I decided to use Jughead as a zombie, but I thought he worked well for that part…I plan to give a classic horror comic vibe to this book, but with a modern, Francavilla twist.
Our relationship with Archie on the podcast is a shaky one. We had a lot of fun looking at Archie Meets The Punisher, but less so with their encounters with Gene Simmons and co. Even so, between the Kevin Keller series, gay marriage, Occupy Riverdale and the recent run-ins with the Million Moms protest groups, Archie Comics are doing some of the most fun and innovative work of any publisher around at the moment. Afterlife with Archie is more than just a gimmick, and instead is indicative of a company willing to try new things with their characters after years in the business.
Francavilla has also recently released some retro fun with Batman ’72, Hawkeye (including an issue told from the perspective of a dog) and continues his monthly work on The Black Beetle.
Zombie Archie. What more could we ask for? Look for this to hit shelves come October 2013.
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