Afterlife with Archie: Escape from Riverdale

September 15, 2014

Not parody but serious drama, this graphic novel casts off the typical Archie comic lightheartedness and goes deep into the gut. The art by Francavilla (The Black Beetle) carries this with black/red tones throughout and a gruesome face on the cover that can, unfortunately, only be Jughead's. The cartoonish big eyes are gone, and all characters are drawn with subdued and edgy realism. Upset over a rivalry with Moose for Midge's affections, Reggie runs over Jughead's dog. The distraught Jughead enlists teen witch Sabrina to bring the dead mutt back to life, but the dog reanimates as a zombie and bites his master. As a now-grisly Jughead and his pet spread the plague throughout Riverdale, all the teenagers' petty feuds and buried secrets come out of the closet, and they turn on one another in fear. Only Archie keeps his head and heart, trying to save as many lives as he can. VERDICT Paired with Francavilla's dead-on illustrations, the excellent writing from Aguirre-Sacasa (The Stand) brings constant surprises while confronting the dilemma of remaining humane through crisis. This story line skews older than other Archie titles and is best for teen through adult readers.--M.C.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2014
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Archie: The Married Life turned the Archiverse upside down to revelatory effect, so it's saying a mouthful that this latest gamble is even better. The cast is familiarArchie, Betty, Veronica, Moose, etc.though matured in both style and substance. (You'll encounter such verboten words as sexy and dammit.) It begins when Jughead's pet, Hot Dog, is killed by a car. He takes the carcass to Sabrina (you know, the teenage witch?), who, in a moment of pity, enacts a bit of necromancy. Hot Dog comes back, all right, but as a frothing devil-dog whose first victim is his owner. Zombie Jughead then storms the Halloween dance, eating Big Ethel in front of everyone and spawning the Riverdale plague, while the rest of our gang barricades themselves in Lodge Manor. The fact that this sounds humorous is Aguirre-Sacasa's best weapon: readers have 70 years' worth of warm memories to serve as sepia-toned flashbacks while Arch and the gang fall apart physically and mentally. Francavilla dials up the garish colors and compositions of comic-book horror, but it's the wrenching sadness that sticks with you; for example, Archie's bludgeoning of his undead dad is intercut with sweet memories of their life together. This is a tough, sad story of our fearless, unlikely leader, a red-headed boy who has finally, at long last, become a man before our very eyes. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)