The craziest part of Afterlife with Archie isn’t the idea of “Archie with zombies” but how Aguirre-Sacasa’s writing makes me wonder if I shouldn’t be reading Archie on a regular basis. He does a fantastic job with the characters when they’re dealing with the non-zombie related scenes.

Aguirre-Sacasa tells the issue in flashback–with a couple interludes (and what’s up with the weird brother and sister from college… are they in the regular comics); Veronica is telling her father the story of the dance. The recent past tense thing works for the story, particularly because Aguirre-Sacasa gets how to insert Veronica’s panic into her recounting.

And then there’s the Francavilla artwork. He’d do an amazing regular Archie comic too; the way he toggles between horror and teen drama is wonderful.

Even just engaging with the characters as icons, there’s still a lot of tension. Afterlife’s awesome.