Jinx: A Cursed Life #1

Bought from cover artist Jay Kennedy, who had a table at Zombie Hideout in Springfield MA USA for Free Comic Book Day 2025.

Title: Jinx: A Cursed Life
Issue: 1
Date: July, 2023
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Magdalene Visaggio
Artist: Craig Cermak
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Colorist: Ellie Wright
Cover: Jay Kennedy
Editor: Jamie Lee Rotante, Vincent Lovallo, Stephen Oswald

This is from Archie's horror line, putting the familiar Riverdale gang into horror scenarios. Jinx, rumored to be the daughter of the Devil, just wants to be a punk rock musician and for everyone to leave her alone. But when Archie shows up seeking help for a demonically possessed Jughead, Jinx and her friend Danni spring into action. After a sufficient bribe, that is.

This felt a bit more like dark comedy than horror, and it was having some trouble figuring out if it would rather lean into the comedy side of things or the dark. Demonic Jughead was presented as a serious threat, even if rotting-meat hamburgers was a big part of his gimmick, but he ended up getting defeated relatively easily once Jinx started using her not-all-that-well-defined superpowers.

The best parts of this were the characterization of Jinx and Danni, who were both great and full of snarky dialogue. Archie was fun too in his supporting role. This provided a good introduction to this version of Jinx, but didn't lay the groundwork for much ongoing story.

Rating: 5.5/10

Sabrina the Teenage Witch Holiday Special

Bought from cover artist Jay Kennedy, who had a table at Zombie Hideout in Springfield MA USA for Free Comic Book Day 2025.

Title: Sabrina the Teenage Witch Holiday Special
Issue: 1
Date: 2024
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Kelly Thompson, Danielle Page
Artist: Veronica Fish, Veronica Johnson
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Colorist: Matt Herms
Cover: Jay Kennedy
Editor: Jamie Lee Rotante, Vincent Lovallo, Stephen Oswald

Two stories here. The first one has Sabrina and a crew of girls at the Academy of Unseen Arts pulling off a bold plan to rescue a fellow student who was abducted by a batlike demon. Sabrina ventures into the demon's dimension while her classmates keep the portal open and prepare a reception for the demon. This was fun, tightly written and delightfully girl-powered. It was nice to see a serious-but-fun side of Sabrina.

The second story is a flashback to Hilda and Zelda as teenagers, and involves a less-confident Hilda calling up a trickster spirit that threatens to cause all sorts of mayhem on the Solstice. I didn't really have the background knowledge to fully appreciate this, and the level of the threat the characters faced seemed to be a bit ill-defined. I did appreciate the exploration of the themes of family and tradition.

It was also nice to see a holiday-themed comic that kept its focus fully on Solstice.

Rating: 7/10

Archie #600

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Archie
Issue: 600
Date: October, 2009
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Michael Uslan
Penciler: Stan Goldberg
Inker: Bob Smith
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Colorist: Glenn Whitmore
Editor: Victor Gorelick

This milestone-number issue is also the first installment of the "Archie Marries Veronica" storyline. This is basically a "What If?". Archie, about to graduate from high school, with no idea of where his future is heading, goes for a walk in Riverdale, and finds himself on Memory Lane. But this time, instead of walking backwards in time, he tries out the other direction. The lane becomes a path in the woods, that splits, in a little bit of a Robert Frost reference, setting up this series along with the parallel "Archie Marries Betty story.

From there we leap into the future, where Archie and his friends are now college grads, finally going their separate ways (including one to Bayonne NJ! Yay Bayonne!) after four years at State U.

With Veronica about to depart on a round-the-world cruise, Archie makes the biggest decision of his life.

The scenes with Archie and Jughead had some good dialogue, and I enjoyed the general vibe of good friends having to part ways, and looking forward to different futures.

The stuff with Veronica and her caricature-level rich father were the usual silliness, and some of the sentiment around Betty "losing" in her rivalry felt forced. The story implied that Archie and Veronica had been dating steadily through college, and I was left wondering why Betty hadn't moved on.

Like a lot of the relatively recent Archie books I've read, this was pretty heavily playing up the nostalgia, with mixed, but generally positive results for me.

Rating: 7/10

Archie #666

From the unread comics stack. I got this issue at a comic shop in the US last summer, just on the notoriety of it being the final issue of such a long run.

Title: Archie
Issue: 666
Date: July, 2015
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Tom Defalco
Penciler: Dan Parent, Fernando Ruiz, Tim Kennedy
Inker: Rich Koslowski
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Colorist: Glenn Whitmore
Editor: Victor Gorelick

An epic run comes to an end with the 666th (with a few offhand references to "the end" as the only acknowledgement of the infamy of that number) installment to Archie. This is an ending, but only for the purpose of rebooting the series.

The story here is that Archie has racked up 666 detentions, and it's finally about to get him expelled from Riverdale High. As the news spread, Archie's friends reminisce on the well-intentioned mayhem that has accompanied Archie, and they make plans to try to save him from having to finish high school across town.

There were a couple of sly references to some of the alternate-timeline Archie books that Archie Comics has put out lately, but otherwise, this story was bland nostalgia with a few sentimental moments.

The format of the book leans heavily on short flashbacks and light on new plot. That being said, the simple story was well executed and did a nice job of capturing the essentials of what makes Archie and his friends such enduring characters.

Rating: 6.5/10

Afterlife With Archie #8

This is one of the comics I picked up during our visit home last summer. Not sure which comic shop I bought this from. I visited a bunch of them during that month or so.

Title: Afterlife With Archie
Date: July, 2015
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Marv Channing, Phil Seuling
Artist: Francesco Francavilla, Gray Morrow
Letterer: Jack Morelli

The variant cover here is a tribute to The Shining, as is the abandoned hotel setting in which this issue takes place. In addition to the Shining, references to A Christmas Carol, plus a whole variety of horror stories an films are scattered through the story.

Archie (post-zombie-apocalypse version) is recounting the story of the death of one of his group of survivors to Jughead, while Jughead pours root beer floats from the supplies found in an abandoned Vermont Hotel.

Later, on the way to the survivors' impromptu Christmas celebration, Archie's mom tells him an old story about a bargain made with witches and a curse placed on the town of Riverdale.

This was all really fun. The classic horror stories were worked to their fullest extent. The familiarity of the characters meshes well with the intensity of the emotions and the seriousness of the horror scenario. There is a lot going on here, but I never felt lost.

Backup story reprints three one-page comic "Essays" on zombies, voodoo, and dragons from Chilling Adventures in Sorcery, published in the 1970s. Short on fact, as is typical of this sort of "nonfiction", but an amusing bit of nostalgia.

I can see why this series has been praised by so many readers. I'll definitely look for more issues of this during this summer's trip home.

Rating: 8/10

Life With Archie #16

Picked this one up at Barnes & Noble tonight.

Title: Life With Archie
Date: February, 2012
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Paul Kupperberg
Penciler: Fernando Ruiz, Pat Kennedy, Tim Kennedy
Inker: Al Milgrom, Bob Smith
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Colorist: Glenn Whitmore
Cover: Fernando Ruiz, Bob Smith, Glenn Whitmore

The first gay marriage in the history of Archie Comics is really two marriages, thanks to the unique format of this book. Life With Archie contains two stories set in parallel, but distinct universes, one with Archie married to Veronica and one with him married to Betty.

The format allows a variety of interaction and subplots and the whole magazine-sized book manages a high degree of complexity without being inaccessible to a new reader. There are even some hints of some subtle supernatural or fantastical forces working in the background amid all of the soap opera drama between the adult versions of the Riverdale gang.

And spanning the whole thing as a single plot is the story of Kevin being wounded while serving as a US soldier in the Middle East, and eventually falling in love with a physical therapist who helps him to recover from his injuries. The action scenes are good, and the romance is handled in a way that feels real and makes sense.

I came into this with high hopes for the kind of positive story on gay marriage that we need to see more of across the spectrum of media. The handling of the marriage was excellent. The rest of the book was just as good.

Rating: 9/10