Archie

The Sonic comics seem pretty good at celebrating big milestones with a jumping-on point, and in next month's Sonic the Hedgehog #288, Archie Comics is giving us another one in the form of "Genesis of a Hero," a story that flashes back to Sonic's first battle with his rotund, mustachioed foe, just in time for his 25th anniversary.

With almost 300 issues in the core series, Archie's Sonic The Hedgehog stands as the longest-running current American monthly comic book that hasn't been rebooted, restarted, or renumbered. Because of that, if stands as a surprisingly significant title in the annals of mainstream comics --- and it's also one that I know almost nothing about. But never let it be said that I let a gap in my comics knowledge go unaddressed, no matter how wary I am of the subject matter. Thus: Hedging Your Bets, where I attempt to get up the speed on Sonic the Hedgehog, attempting to spite the odds and make it all the way to the finish line. This week, we kick things off with a prologue that asks a simple question: What the heck is this thing's deal?

Horror has been a big part of the Archie Renaissance, but in the classic Archie titles, the idea of Veronica being sent to a possibly haunted house still has all the charm and novelty that you want it to, and this week, that's exactly what we're getting when the Archie line goes Halloween for October.

"The Shattered World Saga" has been running through Archie Action's Sonic The Hedgehog for over two years and has redefined the kind of stories that can be told with everyone's favorite furry speedster, but this week the epic multi-part storyline is finally coming to an end. Ahead of the release of Sonic The Hedgehog #287 by Ian Flynn, Tracy Yardley, Terry Austin, Gabriel Cassata and John Workman, Archie Action has provided us a look at the final part of the biggest Sonic story ever.

It's October now, and everything's getting spookier. So this is the perfect time to imagine a movie based on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the Archie horror comic by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Robert Hack. Chilling Adventures takes the characters and premise of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and recontextualizes it from silly comedy to gruesome supernatural horror.

I don't know that I've ever wanted to see a live-action comics-inspired television show as much as I want to watch Riverdale, and considering that we are currently living in an era where you can see stuff like Gorilla Grodd, the Martian Manhunter, and Red Kryptonite on TV every week, that's saying something. The show, which debuts mid-season next year on the CW, has promised a darker take on the Archie Comics characters, full of dark secrets - and if you're calmly enduring the wait to find out what kind of dark secrets Jughead has, then you're a far more patient person than I am. But for the rest of us, there's good news. Today, Archie announced that they're going to be publishing Riverdale, a prequel one-shot followed by an ongoing tie-in series early next year, written by showrunner and Archie Comics Chief Creative Officer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa with art by Alitha Martinez.

The question most often asked of the ComicsAlliance staff is a variation of, “Which comic books should I be reading?” or, “I’m new to comics, what’s a good place to start?” The Wednesday deluge of new comic books, graphic novels and collected editions can be daunting even for the longtime reader, much less for those totally unfamiliar with creators, characters and publishers, and the dark mysteries of comic book shopping like variants, pre-ordering, and formats. It’s with these challenges in mind that we’ve created Best Comic Books Ever (This Week), an ongoing guide curated by the ComicsAlliance staff. This is where new comics readers and seasoned Wednesday shoppers alike can find our picks of the best books the medium has to offer.

More than any other company, Archie Comics has done a pretty amazing job of keeping its back catalog in print for new readers. On top of the decades worth of digests that stocked grocery store shelves with a library of older stories, the past few years have seen a new wave of digital collections and massive tomes that hit the highlights of 75 years of Riverdale's favorite teens. This week, The Best of Archie is getting a deluxe hardcover treatment, and what's really interesting about it is that it's going into some deep cuts of the wider Archie Universe.

The question most often asked of the ComicsAlliance staff is a variation of, “Which comic books should I be reading?” or, “I’m new to comics, what’s a good place to start?” The Wednesday deluge of new comic books, graphic novels and collected editions can be daunting even for the longtime reader, much less for those totally unfamiliar with creators, characters and publishers, and the dark mysteries of comic book shopping like variants, pre-ordering, and formats. It’s with these challenges in mind that we’ve created Best Comic Books Ever (This Week), an ongoing guide curated by the ComicsAlliance staff. This is where new comics readers and seasoned Wednesday shoppers alike can find our picks of the best books the medium has to offer.

Today is Bisexual Awareness Day, the finale of Bisexual Awareness Week. As a bisexual comics fan, I'm always on the lookout for bi characters. It's exciting how many are official now, like Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and probably some characters who aren't female Bat-villains as well. We could certainly use more, though, and there are a lot of established characters who have already been hinted to be bisexual, or who very plausibly could be. So here's a list of characters who would we'd like to see come out as bi, to their benefit, our benefit, and the benefit of the companies that publish them.