It had a promising first and third season, twists and turns, clever story arcs, and a contender for the most faithful adaptation of a comic book series from the past decade. The creators of the fourth and final season of Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina gave 2020 a much-needed batch of two complete seasons, and we already gave the third season kudos in the 2020 Best of TV review here at borg. Kiernan Shipka proved to be one of TV’s best young actors, embodying a character that is next in line after Buffy Summers, Veronica Mars, and Liv Moore as young genre heroines who led series you can count on the first time and after re-watches. Already a contender for one of the best TV series of this century, and one of Netflix’s most creative efforts, how did the final season fare for our heroine Sabrina Spellman?
It’s not an overstatement to say Francesco Francavilla is the artist who brought Archie Comics back to life. At the very least he has turned a new generation of readers onto one of comicdom’s longest lasting titles. Along with Jon Goldwater and Alex Segura behind the scenes and writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and later artist Robert Hack in the pages of the monthly books, it was Francavilla’s haunting, brand new look at Riverdale and its teen characters that kick-started reader interest in new titles and take another look at the classic stories, the ones with the traditional Dan DeCarlo look that 70 years of readers were familiar with. Francavilla, the Eisner Award-winning cover artist, is the focus of a new hardcover book Archie Comics is premiering this Wednesday. Featuring all of his Archie Comics standard covers and variants, plus selected interior artwork and cover artwork for books outside the Archie universe, The Archie Art of Francesco Francavilla is a must for collectors of his books and neo-pulp styled art prints.
In part because of his use of fantastic colors for his imagery, his designs seem to pop on every page. You’ll find his several covers for Afterlife with Archie, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Vampironica, Jughead the Hunger, Archie Meets Batman, Archie vs Sharknado, Archie vs Predator, Chilling Adventures in Sorcery, Riverdale, Life with Archie, Archie, Jughead, Betty & Veronica, and Josie and the Pussycats. Other pages highlight Francavilla’s style on the covers of New Crusaders, The Black Hood, and The Hangman. The Archie Art of Francesco Francavilla also includes some cover and page roughs–preliminary sketches used for approval and story breaking, all shown along with the final versions. You’ll also find exclusive cover art from convention-only covers and other variants.
Woule we have a Riverdale television series if not for Francavilla’s darker look at Archie? Probably not. Here is a first look at some advance preview pages of The Archie Art of Francesco Francavilla for borg readers courtesy of Archie Comics:
Surprisingly CW’s Riverdale not only teased the answer to the show’s big mystery in last night’s penultimate episode–instead of dragging viewers into a season finale cliffhanger–it delivered the goods. The result is a tightly written, highly watchable and addictive first season that will stand alone as an example of how to get your characters and plot right from the very beginning, and a easy watch for new viewers wanting to jump on for Season Two.
Satisfaction. Above all else, it’s what matters to the viewing audience. Writers can throw twists and plenty of shock and awe onto the screen, but if they cannot tie up all the loose ends without a deus ex machina event or similar trickery, viewers won’t come back for the second season. How many opening seasons of series give the audience enough interest to keep watching, yet they are full of ups and downs, episodes that don’t quite work, too many red herrings, and tangled plot threads that seemed to be stuffed into the show for filler? Heroes,Lost, and Twin Peaks garnered immediate cult followings, yet they dragged the big secrets out until we just didn’t care anymore.
How few television series have been as tightly written as Riverdale? CW’s other comic book adaptations weren’t this good in their freshman year–Arrow, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, CBS’s Supergirl–none created a finely stitched together bookend set of episodes that will be fun to watch again and again once they arrive at Netflix or other streaming services. Riverdale took an idea: adapting a classic, 75-year-old, well-known set of characters from a beloved comic book, added in that comic book’s own modern updates from the recent past, and then gave it a dark twist. Both Twin Peaks and the look and feel of Archie Comics’ own dark title Afterlife With Archie are owed plenty of credit, along with a great story writing team and a top-notch cast.
You’ll need to watch the series for yourself to discover who killed the Laura Palmer of Riverdale, Jason Blossom. In fact you’ll think you have it all figured out until the big reveal at the end of last night’s episode, “Anatomy of a Murder.” But you’ll probably be wrong.
The annual San Diego Comic-Con weekend is here and we have already seen some great, new movie and TV posters. Revealed to publicize properties fans have been waiting for as well as new seasons of our favorite TV shows, Hollywood has piqued our interest again–we want to see all of these films and shows now.
First look images from the world’s best and biggest fan event include the first posters we’ve seen for 2017’s Wonder Woman and the remake of The Magnificent Seven. And we can’t wait to see the first episodes of CW’s Riverdale, the next season of Star Wars Rebels, and the last season of our favorite horror drama Grimm.
Fans of the Power Rangers have their first look at the new outfits for the next live action version of the franchise.
Check out all these new images with more to come this weekend from SDCC 2016:
