Daniel Guerrero
Editor
The Archie Comic Universe gains popularity once again
The Archie Comic Universe was amazed from fans nationally when it first came onto shelves. Reading the comic under people’s hand, people could not forget the clumsy and studenning Archie Andrews who wears a black sweatshirt that has a big red R on it in the first issue or the fierce Sabrina the teenage witch that pops out in the cover of comic, showing her white blonde short hair and her red shirt.
Based off this, the Archie Comics universe has been an icon in the comic and animation television industry during the 1960s and 70s.
The company was established and founded by Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John L. Goldwater on 1939. Besides comics, People would always tune int0 episodes that debuts on television which created soon history for the brand in it comes to ratings since the very beginning.
For the past year, Archie comics begins to lose their audience over time where they do not taking risks and only targeting for children audiences instead of all ages when establishing their comics. They observe and based this kind of lose from their sales and ratings in their television shows. However, in 2015, archie comics was rebooted where they will soon gain back that audience once again.
This new comic book series is called “New Riverdale” where it focuses on the teenage life of Archie Andrews and his chaotic adventures in Riverdale High School. These adventures mostly consist of teenage problems that Archie is determine to solve with the help of his friends like Jughead Jones and Betty Cooper. The comic series is written by Mark Waid and artist Fiona Staples, who previously work on the comic book hit, Saga. Stapes redesign the characters and Riverdale as well in a more modern way. According to USA today, Stapes had a sense of nostalgic over these character when working on the project.
“I’ve always liked the way Riverdale appears to be ordinary, whitebread town---like the perfect average of all towns across North America --- but the oddest things go down there,” Staples said to USA today.
Even though Staples had left project during its run on shelves, the new rebooted comic book series became a huge hit towards to old and new audiences in the market. The creators would further go on establishing other comics that features different kinds of characters in the series which progresses the untold adventures in Riverdale to audiences. Based off this popularity, this lead to the CW channel adapting the comic book series, making it into a TV show over time.
The TV show series is called “Riverdale” and premiered last year in 2017 on the CW.“Riverdale” focuses on the dark aspects on the town where the characters would need to solve a murder mystery that is being created over time. In addition, the audience would go back in forth between the characters, observing their point of view towards the situation. Therefore, this kinds of situation further leads to the characters building a relationship between one and another over time which fans enthuses over time.
Besides story, the show would remix some Archie classic songs that debuted during the 1960s such as Sugar Sugar which lead to old fans having a sense of nostalgia. Overall, similar to the comics, the tv show was a massive hit as well.
According to TV by numbers , the first episode of the show received 1.38 million viewers in the United States alone. The tv show was created and developed by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa who previously work on dark comics like “Afterlife with Archie”.
As for casting, the shows stars KJ APA as the the main role of Archie Andrews which fans may recognize him from previous soap operas like Shortland Street. In addition, Lili Reinhart plays as Betty Cooper and newcomer, Camila Mendes plays as Veronica Lodge. Finally, Cole Sprouse plays as Jughead Jones in the show which became a fan favorite as the show progress over time. “Riverdale” was After season one was over, the show was picked up for a season 2 which receive even more praise and ratings from fans.
In the first episode of season 2, it receive about 2.33 million viewers according to Tv by numbers. Besides views and fans, critics also praise the show as well where the show received a 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.5/10 on IMDB.
This was a success for the Archie comics after years of struggling to regain their frame as well as Aguirre-Sacasa. After the show became a huge success from fans, Aguirre - Sacasa was move up from his position becoming a chief creative officer (CCO) at Archie Comics.
Based off his work, this new creation and take on the Archie comic universe was just getting started where he rebooted “Sabrina: The Teenage Witch”. He was influenced by the horror genre to create this new dark take on the show.
“The entry point for me was the coming-of-age story. And I love horror--I love the genre. And I love the Archie Comics characters. So this felt like it was a confluence of a bunch of stuff,” Aguirre-Sacasa said to Variety.
Aguirre-Sacasa rename the rebooted dark show to the “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” which debuted on Netflix and based off his original comic series. Since it got announce, fans were excited to revisit Greendale since the last season of the sitcom show in the late 1990s.
Unlike “Riverdale” being portray as high school soap opera, “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” is being targeted as an adolescent melodrama with occult horror according to the verge. The show debuted on Netflix in October 26, 2018 which many fans binge-watched over that weekend.
Different from Sabrina’s past adventures, the show focus on whether Sabrina will choose between two different worlds in her life which are the moral and witch world. The moral world is another way of saying humanity. However, if she chooses to be with the with world, therefore she would need to sign the book of the beast and able to utilized her powers to the max while abandoning all of her friends that she made on her 16th birthday.
Many audiences and fans praise the show where some mentioned it is considered as Aguirre - Sacasa best work so far.
“And I’m taken with Aguirre-Sacasa’s belief in Sabrina as a new American myth: The powerful young woman discovering her whole world is some kind of lie” critic Darren French said in the Entertainment weekly.
Production wise, 18 year old, Kiernan Shipka plays as Sabrina Spellman and Ross Lynch plays as Harvey Kinkle which people may recognize him from “Disney’s Austin and Ally” and “My Friend Dahmer”. As for the aunts, Lucy Davis plays as Hilda Spellman whereas Miranda Otto plays as Zelda Spellman.
The show was also shot at Vancouver, British Columbia as well. As time goes on, audiences feels attached to these cast members on the way the portray these characters in which some grew up with during the early 2000s.
According to Shipka, she feels that the show is so enjoyable to watch because Sabrina is inspirational to audiences.
"I think she is so strong-willed, has such a good heart, speaks her mind, stands up for herself, and questions things that she feels aren't right" Shipka said to Seventeen
Aguirre-Sacasa’s production team stated that Netflix ordered 2 seasons of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” from the beginning last year. In addition, Netflix has announced that the show will be receiving a Christmas special and will be released this December which fans do not have to wait for a long time. The show currently has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.9/10 on IMDB.
Besides announcements, audiences begin to speculate whether “Riverdale” and “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” is getting a crossover or not. They speculate this due to a character from Riverdale making a cameo on Sabrina. According to Aguirre- Sacasa, he states that he is all in for creating a crossover between these show even though they are completely different from each other. He begins to map out multiple ideas for this crossover to Express.
“I think it would probably be easier if maybe the Riverdale kids go to Greendale. On a dare, they could go spend the night in a haunted house” said Aguirre- Sacasa.
As for the future, the company will proceed to create more modern Archie Comics and add more seasons as well as holiday specials to their series which fans can look forward to.