Afterlife With archie

The Humble Bundle continues to be one of the best values in comic books, and as you might expect, this week they've turned their attention to the morespoooooky side of things. And by that, I mainly mean comics where Pinocchio uses his endless wooden nose to stab vampires. In addition to several books without pictures -- which I find strange and frightening -- the current Horror Book bundle added a bunch of horror comics today, including The Mocking Dead by Fred Van Lente and Max Dunbar, a volume of Valiant's Shadowman by Peter Milligan and Roberto de la Torre, the first omnibus of Dark Horse's Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics, the first two issues of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla's Afterlife With Archie, and more.

Welcome to the latest episode of ComicsAlliance Presents “Kate or Die,” a series of exclusive comic strips created by one of our favorite cartoonists, Kate Leth! In this episode, Kate observes the critical and commercial success of Archie Comics' work in the horror genre -- specifically Afterlife With Archie and the much anticipated Chilling Adventures of Sabrina -- and decides to jump on the bandwagon and offer some compelling additions to the line.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is the chief creative officer of Archie Comics and the writer on both the critically acclaimed oddball horror comic Afterlife With Archie and the forthcoming Sabrina the Teenage Witch series -- and he's helping oversee a huge creative renaissance at Archie. Chris Sims caught up with Aguirre-Sacasa at San Diego Comic-Con to talk about the Dark Circle relaunch and the Shield redesign, the 1960s setting of his Sabrina horror comic, the chances of a Josie and the Pussycats appearance in Afterlife With Archie, and whether there's such a thing as "too far" in an Archie zombie horror comic! Plus... any chance of an appearance by Jingles the Christmas Elf in the forthcoming Afterlife With Archie Christmas Special? (Yes, that's a real thing.)

Archie Comics has developed a reputation for doing the unexpected and somehow pulling it off. The wholesome publisher pipped Marvel and DC to the lead in launching an ongoing book with a gay teen protagonist in Kevin Keller; it broke with the conventions of comic book continuity with its attention-grabbing Archie Marries... books; and it successfully brought zombies to Riverdale with its critically and commercially successful Afterlife With Archie books, potentially kicking off a new line of horror books. So it feels in keeping with that spirit that Archie Comics announced yesterday that it plans to relaunch its cheery (and under-exposed) Red Circle superhero line as 'Dark Circle,' a line of adult-oriented series with the sophisticated narrative ambitions of HBO or Showtime. It's certainly unexpected. Can Archie Comics pull it off?

Each weekday, ComicsAlliance brings you a carefully selected variety of links from around the web about comics and comics-related media, including movies, video games, toys, and whatever else might be worth noting. Quite frankly, these are items you may just need to know about to have a productive day. Take a look at today's hand-picked links after the jump.

This week, Chris and Matt talk about how much they love Big Trouble in Little China, and how much they enjoyed the first issue of the new comic sequel by Eric Powell and Brian Churilla in spite of some art hiccups; then it's on to Nailbiter #2 by Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson; and finally they discuss the first volume of Afterlife With Archie by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla.

Although Archie's core line of kid-friendly titles has been grabbing its share of headlines lately, the company's biggest critical and commercial success over the past year has undoubtedly been Afterlife With Archie, the moody, adult-oriented story of how the zombie apocalypse hits Riverdale. Created by Francesco Francavilla and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the book has been hailed by fans and critics, and with that kind of praise, it was pretty much inevitable that they'd expand the line with another similar title. Now, they have. This week, Archie announced Chilling Adventures ofSabrina, an ongoing series about everyone's favorite teen witch, from Afterlife writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Robert Hack.

Q: What's the weirdest thing Archie Comics has ever done, and why was it awesome? -- @darkmaple A: It almost goes without saying at this point, but Archie's marketing strategy over the past few years has been nothing short of brilliant. All the stunts they've been pulling -- and I mean that in the most positive way possible -- have been designed to shake up the public perception of just what Archi

Comics fans know Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa from his work writing a handful of Marvel properties, such as Marvel Knights 4 and The Sensational Spider-Man and from the recent breakout hit Afterlife With Archie. But he's also a TV writer (for shows including Glee and Big Love) and playwright (the only reason Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark ended up making any kind of sense), which is a big reason Archie C

It's been pretty well established over the last few decades that when supernatural troubles erupt in Riverdale, Sabrina the Teenage Witch is usually at the center of it. In Afterlife With Archie, however, things have gotten a little more out of hand than they usually do -- it turns out that meddling in the incomprehensible forces required to resurrect the dead has far more dire consequences than d