This year marks the 90th year since Nancy Drew first started showing off her detective skills in The Secret of the Old Clock by Mildred Benson back in 1930. Eighty million books in print later and several adaptations in different media including a current CW TV series, and despite updates and changes to the character, readers keep coming back for more. Partnered with her familiar allies The Hardy Boys, a new series from Dynamite Comics arrives next week, but will it be the last? Get ready for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew.
Archie with a crossbow. Betty with an axe. Jughead with a wooden spike.
No it’s not some strange version of Clue. It’s all part of Vampironica, the Archie Comics series, now available as a trade paperback from the Archie Horror imprint. Collecting Issue #1-5 of the series, Vampironica, Book One introduces the Veronica Lodge you always knew, until she is bitten by a centuries-old vampire. So then what’s a teenage girl to do? Turn Riverdale upside down in a search for blood, of course.
Siblings Greg Smallwood(Moon Knight) and Meg Smallwood partnered to co-write the story, adding a new realm to the imprint’s great re-imaginings of the 77-year-old Riverdale characters along with Afterlife With Archie, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,Chilling Adventures in Sorcery, Blossoms 666, and Jughead: The Hunger. Interior artwork and covers were created by well-known cover artist Greg Smallwood, and he worked on interior art along with Greg Scott, with colors by Matt Herms, and lettering by Jack Morelli.
The series has a great, lighthearted, pop culture vibe, like Scooby Doo and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and it’s not too much of a stretch to swap the leads in Buffy for the leads in this series, for anyone missing their Buffy fix). The book includes a section with a few of the variant covers for the series, by Francesco Francavilla, Audrey Mok, Djibril Morisette-Phan, Marguerite Sauvage, Robert Hack, Fiona Staples, Matthew Taylor, and a bonus, Issue #4 of Jughead: The Hunger.
Later this month Jughead: The Hunger faces off against Veronica in the next iteration of the two series, Jughead: The Hunger vs. Vampironica,Issue #1.
The Jughead/Veronica crossover will feature a story by Frank Tieri, interior artwork by Pat and Tim Kennedy, Joe Eisma, Bob Smith, and Ryan Jampole, colors by Matt Herms, and lettering by Jack Morelli, and covers by Pat and Tim Kennedy, Bob Smith, and Matt Herms, Francesco Francavilla, Robert Hack, John McCrea, and Dan Panosian.
Here is a preview of the new trade edition of Vampironica, Book 1, Issue #1 of Jughead: The Hunger vs. Vampironica, and some future covers from the series, courtesy of Archie Horror:
It’s hard to believe we first Kelly, Sabrina, and Jill forty-two years ago. And don’t forget Bosley and Charlie. Charlie’s Angels, replaying all these years later on cable channels, remains great nostalgic fun for fans of the early all-women team-up series. Jaclyn Smith’s Kelly, Kate Jackson’s Sabrina (long before she was Mrs. King), and the first of the circulating #3 position: Farrah Fawcett-Majors’s Jill Munroe. Although the series ran from 1976-1981, Jill was a member of the team in the first season only. Dynamite Comics is returning to that first season in its new series Charlie’s Angels. Written by John Layman with art by Joe Eisma, get ready for a 1970s throwback in the vein of Dynamite’s The Six Million Dollar Man Season Six and Wonder Woman ’77/The Bionic Woman series.
Here is the marketing release information from Dynamite:
The Angels are back, baby! The original Angels, Jill, Kelly and Sabrina! Travel back to the swingin’ 70s, and revisit the butt-kicking, crime-fighting, mold-breaking lady detectives who took 70s TV by storm, ready to do the same to comics 40 years later! Break out your bell-bottoms, feather your hair, and jump back to an era of peanut-farmer presidents, gargantuan gas-guzzlers and foxy female detectives… for a globe-trotting adventure that’s simply too big and epic for the 70s-era boob tube. Written by elderly Eisner winner and solicitation-writing former-superstar John Layman, and with art by his scrappy but lovable youngster pal, Joe Eisma. This is one comic you DON’T DARE TO MISS!!!!
Look for ten covers for Issue #1 of the series, including the main cover with logos and an incentive cover without logos (above) by David Finch and Jimmy Reyes, two covers by Joe Eisma, three character design variants, two pencil-only variants, and a blank sketch cover:
