Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Vol 1: The Crucible

I was never really in to Archie comics as a kid. I knew the names of the main characters, but I never sought out or read the comics. Which means that, even though I watched Sabrina the Teenage Witch religiously when it was part of ABC's TGIF lineup, I had no idea there was any connection between it and those comics. But with the success of Riverdale, a dark, edgy Archie, Sarbina's getting a similar makeover.

My familiarity with the TV show helped me orient myself in this comic. I already knew most of the major players: Aunts Hilda and Zelda, Salem the Cat, Harvey the boyfriend. But the comic takes that cast in a very different direction. The series is set back in the 60s, and it is straight-up sensational horror.

This presented a bit of a problem in the first issue in that I didn't really connect with any of the characters. These are horrible people (literal Satanists) doing horrible things. Things improve as Sarbina grows up and becomes slightly more ambiguous, being half human. But she still uses magic mostly to improve her own life.

It isn't until the villain of the piece shows up that I felt like rooting for anyone. Her vengeance is an extreme reaction, but at least I understand her motivation. And I'm no fan of the people she's trying to kill either.

Parts of this book were a clear homage to Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and those were my favorite parts. Mostly because of the recognition factor, since they referenced my least favorite part of that series. But that also helped me put the book as a whole in the context of horror. That context let me stop worrying and just have fun with the story and the magic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Crown of Swords

Image
The seventh book of the  Wheel of Time  series is where many people agree that the series takes a dive in quality. Although I think it's less that anything changes significantly and more that people get tired of how stagnant the books are becoming. Nearly nothing happens in this book. Jordan still has serious issues writing female characters and romantic relationships. The world is continuing to be expanded on, and the rules of the magic system are slowly (so slowly) becoming more clear. But this is also a step down in terms of length. We go from a few 1000 page books in a row to one that's only 850 pages (and the next is less than 700!). Combine that with my brilliant idea to read  A Tale of Two Cities  right before this book, and I positively flew through it. I think you have to reach a sort of zen state to get through this series. There are a lot of side plots, a lot of world building, a lot of descriptions of clothing. Rather than just hating certain characters, you hav
Read more

The People We Keep

This was a really sweet coming of age tale about finding your way and finding your family. Aprils' mother walked out when she was little and her father wasn't much more present. By the time she's sixteen, April is basically on her own, stuck in a small town where everyone looks down on her and even her father mostly pretends that she doesn't exist. And then she realizes that she can leave, too. So April heads out for life on the road, working odd jobs, writing and singing songs, making friends and fleeing before anyone can get too close. And through it all her music sustains her. My favorite part of this book, hands-down, was the soundtrack. April's love of music, and the way the author uses it to set the scene and drill right into her emotional state was fantastic. I kept having to put the book down so I could bring up songs on youtube and listen to them while I read certain passages. This was just an overall enjoyable book. I had a lot of sympathy for April being
Read more

Parable of the Sower: The Graphic Novel

This is one of my favorite books, so I clearly had to read the graphic novel version. It's a good story to revisit every now and then, and this edition makes that a lot easier. Since so much of the information is conveyed through images, reading it is a lot quicker. Of course, this being an adaptation, a lot of things got left out. I know the story well enough to have recognized all the omissions. The story still works well, but I'll always think the original has more depth.   Overall, it's a good adaptation of a really important novel. And if the new format helps it reach new audiences, that can only be a good thing.
Read more