Archie Andrews and the Riverdale gang are some of the most enduring characters in comics history. They’ve teamed up with superheroes, met countless pop music icons, taught Bible lessons, and fought Sharknados. Their stories range from innocently humorous vignettes to deeply emotional personal drama; Archie married both Betty and Veronica in divergent story arcs that converged again with Archie’s death. Archie Comics as a company has taken on a number of licenses through the years and never been afraid to push the boundaries of comics as an art form. I guess it was inevitable that the zombie apocalypse would eventually make it to Riverdale. Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Francesco Francavilla , creators with whom I am unfamiliar, eschew the easy camp of a zombified Archie to tell a darkly serious tale. In a premise that owes much to The Walking Dead and Dawn of the Dead , the main characters struggle to survive as they are forced to destroy their own loved ones. The zo...

I never would have guessed that Sonic the Hedgehog and Archie Comics would be the ones to revitalize my interest in superhero comics. For reasons I won’t go into immediately, I walked away from both Marvel and DC in 2009/2010. They simply stopped telling the kinds of superhero stories I wanted. When Humble Bundle featured a selection of Sonic the Hedgehog comics as their digital book bundle, I thought it was a good opportunity to stoke my son’s interest in reading in general and comics in particular. I read the first book just to see what Sonic looked like these days. It hooked me instantly. I remember when Sonic the Hedgehog premiered in Archie Comics back in 1993 . I considered it a kid’s book, with goofy artwork and the kind of four page gags for which Archie Comics was known. The new Sonic book I read was from 2013. It began with Sonic and Tails fighting for their lives against a tentacular mechanized horror controlled by a sinister and murderous stuffed doll. The book slowl...