Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #1

by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Robert Hack

When you hear about a comic publisher making bold moves, you almost never think of Archie Comics first. However, some of their recent choices such as the Afterlife with Archie zombie apocalypse series or even killing Archie off in Life with Archie. With the first issue of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina released this week, the teenage witch gets a darker reboot.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who is responsible for the Afterlife with Archie series and is now the Chief Creative Officer for Archie Comics, now re-imagines Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Her origin and how she came to live with her aunts are pretty grim for what you might expect out of a comic that takes place in Riverdale. Also choosing to have the story take place in 1964 helped enforce some of Riverdale’s wholesomeness. In doing so it made the dark witch elements that much more creepier. Big thumbs up to also bringing back Sabrina’s little known cousin Ambrose and giving him pet cobras with names that paid homage to the Rudyard Kipling’s story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

Artistically the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina looked hauntingly beautiful. The inks have a ghostly quality that inadvertently sends chills down your spine. The other reason this book just looks sinister is the sepia toned colors, which have a washed out look that is reminiscent to Matt Kindt’s water-colored style palette. Robert Hack brings such a dark overtone to this series that is a perfect for this type of story and still capture that 60’s period.

What an excellent book to start October off with. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a wonderful first issue that any new reader could easily jump into and still be incredibly pleasing to older fans. It’s fun to stumble across a comic like this that you can just enjoy for what it is.