With Issue #5 available at comic book stores this week, Archie Comics’ groundbreaking Afterlife with Archie wraps its first story arc. Bridging a classic group of characters with the horror and zombie genres, it may be the most mainstream route to buying into this zombie thing for those who haven’t been pulled over the fence yet with The Walking Dead.
Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has done the unthinkable, taking the most popular Golden Age non-superhero series full of 1940s and 1950s values–truly a title for all ages–and ripped Archie, Jughead, Veronica and Betty’s world from its seams. And Francesco Francavilla brings some of his best work, and finest horror imagery, to the series.
It all started when someone hit Jughead’s best pal, his dog Hot Dog, with a car. From the pages of a Stephen King book, Jughead begins a quest that engages Sabrina the Teenage Witch to bring Hot Dog back from the dead. What Hot Dog brings back with him was not foreseen, and the result is a fight for Archie and his remaining living friends to escape Riverdale, while they still can.
The first five issues will be released in a trade edition on June 10, 2014, as Afterlife with Archie: Escape from Riverdale
