Vampironica: Book One [Archie Comics, 2019]

Vampironica, Vol. 1

by

Greg Smallwood (story+art) , Megan Smallwood (story), Jack Morelli (Illustrator)

A fun little romp that sees our heroine move away from her familiar rom-com styling’s and little-rich-girl cute form into outright horror and gore. Written by brother-sister duo of Greg and Megan Smallwood, regardless of what you think of the comic otherwise, I did feel like they were fans of the original comics and did a nice job with the characters themselves.

The short summary is that Veronica is living the usual Archie Comics life of little rich girl Ms. Lodge, until one night she finds her parents have been attacked and then she is as well by a vicious vampire – she gets away but finds that now, she is well and truly changed! Does she give in to her blood-thirst and go down the dark path or does she fight against the monster that slew her parents? What will become of her former life in the calm little town of Riverdale and in fact, how will the town survive the whirlwind that was already was, but now amped up to eleven?!

The artwork by Jack Morelli and Greg (doing double duty on story and art) is really great and stands out for being both very unique and at the same time, not straying too far from the starting point of the Archie Horror sub-franchise by Francesco Francavilla. In fact the choice of colouring and a hint of graininess to things gives it an almost old-school horror movie vibe. It really suits the story and the tone which is both intense given the content but never strays too far into outright “dark!” territory. In particular, I found there was a transition between the art and colouring – partly owed to the double duty being put in by the writer on the artwork but also because they seem to have been attempting a tonal shift between the day-time and more “mundane” settings and the horror moments.

The story itself I’m afraid is fun but there’s not a whole lot of meat to it that I can go into without spoiling the entertainment – in that it is again like those old movies, a little twist and turn but mostly a straightforward tale, told here in a manner brisk enough to keep you enjoying the ride and not bogging you down. A plus is that does make a small effort to add some layer to the vampire lore which gives it a little something more and it doesn’t bore you with that either given that it’s only a five-issue series and as such moves well enough.

If you like a quick bit of horror fun and games and more so if, like me, you grew up but haven’t really engaged too much with the normally simplistic Archie comics, I would very much recommend checking it out. I’ve read it four year after release but it did entertain me enough that I might check out Jughead: The Hunger (which is given as a bonus chapter in this collected edition here) and the crossover of this series with that sometime down the road.



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