Archie Horror is an important line of comics for me as it opened me up to both the world of Archie Comics and horror in general. For a while every Halloween I liked to take a look at a comic from the Archie Horror line starting with the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Now, it has been a while since I’ve looked at a comic from Archie Horror partly because I am annoyed that they haven’t finished Afterlife with Archie or CAOS. Lately, they have been releasing horror anthology comics and last year Archie Horror put out a children’s horror anthology featuring middle-grade versions of the Archie gang. This was quite fun and apparently, this is something the team had been wanting to do for a while as it is mentioned they loved things such as Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? The latter seems to be a good comparison for the wraparound of this comic as the characters are on a camping trip telling scary stories. Last year was a big year for comics featuring younger versions of the Archie characters and there was also a comic one-shot about Little Archie and Friends.
Cover
I adore this cover with Reggie telling a scary story over the campfire, Betty covering her face in fear and Archie being nervous while pretending to be brave and Ronnie is just annoyed and Jughead being Jughead is just roasting a marshmallow as Reggie tells the story, there is a spooky-looking monster looming behind them and it seems as though Archie is the only one to notice the monster. I remember someone saying last year that this cover doesn’t look like a cover for a horror book and I couldn’t disagree more. Again, this is a children’s horror book and the cover is giving me Goosebumps vibes as it wants to be both scary and silly like what those books are known for and I believe that this comic strikes that balance quite well.
Stories
As I mentioned this is an anthology book and each story has a different team that worked on the story. The wraparound story, Snack Attack was written by Micol Ostow who I know from writing the prequel book to the Nancy Drew CW show. It’s a fun and silly story that relates back to the cover with the fear of a monster having eaten the kids’s food for the camping trip. The art style for this story is adorable and feels so inviting and fun for this book.
Something about the etchiness of these pages makes them so fun. I don’t know if I’m making sense here but with the way, these pages are presented they look as if someone uncrumpled these pages after coming across the book which helps to contribute to the horror feeling that the book is going for. Also, I appreciate how the gang is trying to prank Reggie in between stories considering how much he tries to get them.
And yes it does turn out there is a real monster afoot.  Now let’s move on to the the stories that are told over the campfire. The first is Suburban Legend and this story stars a character named Wilbur Wilkins. From what I understand this character predates Archie and friends by quite a few years and it is neat to see older characters being used once more. This was written by Michael Northrop and he does a good job with this story as it’s rather short, Wilbur is out on a date with his girl Laurie at Lover’s Lane and they are having a good time but then he gets a text from Linda, this meant to parallel the classic Archie/Betty/Veronica triangle and that is cute. The text is a warning of an escaped inmate with a hooked hand running about town and the two dating lovebirds get worked up and think that their friend is in danger as she was never able to finish her text.
They eventually come to the conclusion that Linda is safe and was just talking about the hook for a song that she was working on and decide to continue on with their date but they couldn’t be more wrong as the last panel reveals she is in danger.
While we don’t see the character die, we see that she is in danger and that allows for the imagination to wonder what becomes of the girl, does she survive and become a Final Girl taking down the hook-handed man or is she his first victim? You get to decide as there is no definitive answer given in the story and I appreciate that the ending is left ambiguous here.
The next story, Whatever Happened to Dilton is okay but not as good in my opinion this was written by Magdalene Visaggio, and as you can perhaps tell by the name by the name of the story, it’s told by Dilton and it is something of a tech-horror in how an old video game named Artemis ruins the life of Dilton, I do appreciate the red pill joke in this book though I wonder if that might go over the heads of the intended audience.
The idea of an old video game driving someone mad is a cool idea and I do enjoy the story and Dilton’s quest to get answers only to turn up short. Don’t misunderstand me, this isn’t a bad story but I just think Suburban Legend had a bit more of an oomph to it. I should also mention that this story is told in rhyme which I can see what it was going for but at points that took me out of the story and I believe the art style for this particular story was inspired by the illustrations seen in Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark.
The art style in my opinion is the best part of this story and elevates what I feel is a just okay story up quite a bit as it makes the story feel unsettling which is the tone that this story is going for and the art does a great job of making the reader nervous as Dilton loses his mind.
My Final Thoughts
This is a fun little anthology comic of horror stories for kids featuring younger versions of Archie and his friends. A new Fear the Funhouse comic focused on evil toys and evil robots will be released this year and I am excited for that. This was a good starting point for this series and honestly, none of the stories are bad even if the Dilton one was weak but it wasn’t awful. This is a great Archie Horror title that I’d be happy to return to during this time of year.
About Author
I’m not too interested in the Riverdale franchise but this sounds interesting.
This is separate from the tv show and most of the Archie Horror stuff is really good.
Getting some “Are you Afraid of the Dark” vibes from the format, which I think helps, and the art styles are nice as well. It would be cool to see an anthology TV series like this with Archie and the gang in different horror scenarios (just as long as they don’t make it preachy with morals like “Archie’s Weird Mysteries”)
If I remember right Are You Afraid of the Dark was a big inspiration on this comic as the creators talked about wanting to pay tribute to the various children’s horror media they grew up with. The differing art styles for each story is my favorite part of the comic.