REVIEW: BLOSSOM 666 #1: Wanna Play a Game of Truth or Dare?

Hey! Remember Archie comics? You know, the white-bread staple of wholesome 1950-60s Americana and hilariously predictable teenage High School hi-jinks? Well, while you were sleeping it has become SO MUCH MORE! It is now a staggeringly complex multi-verse with alternate timelines and improbable crossovers ranging from a WWII era series to team-ups with the rock group KISS. This issue, Blossom 666, is offered as issue number one under the banner of Archie HORROR, which is a new series focusing on the supernatural undercurrents of life in Riverdale, using a Buffy-esque tone and story direction, with Jason and Cheryl Blossom as the focal characters. For many kids 16 and under, the recent Riverdale TV show (inspired by the comics of Mark Waid and Fiona Staples) may have been their first introduction to the Archie IP, right? So the dark macabre tone this issue will make total sense to them, right? I mean, I“m the recently unfrozen dinosaur who expects an Archie story to be bright and squeaky clean, right? Right. Ok then, with a setup like that, let“s see how this book performs when we open it up take it out on the road!

Firstly, I really enjoyed the cover by artist Laura Braga. The of pose and clothes of our two villainous protags are on-point, with a malevolent come-hither vibe that dares the reader to follow their dark path into the woods. The redder-than-red hair of Cheryl merging seamlessly into the folds of the red cloak in an eye-catching organic foreground shape contrast with the blue/brown forest in the background. I also love the spatter effects near the tree-line that make it feel more like a painting scraped with a palette knife than a digital render. However it was done, it gives a great tree-bark like texture to the scene. Throughout the interior art, the red hair of Jason and Cheryl Blossom is left an absurdly high-value “firetruck”“ shade, while the backgrounds even indoors are dimly lit and centered around earth tones. Clearly a conscious choice on Braga“s part, this not only imbues the dark horror vibe into the squeaky-clean Archie-verse, but it allows the beloved red-head Archie to be visually upstaged by two even redder heads in his own universe!

Storywise, the main idea is that the popular mean rich kids who use social intimidation to wield power in high school, are actually supernatural servants of a multi-generational blood drinking satanic family. Pretty much what we all suspected back in the day, right? But what makes this book run smoothly page after page, and not run out of momentum, was the use of space and timing in the script that didn“t fill up any one panel with too much text.

Satanic goings-on in Small-town America? Just another day in Riverdale. Blossom 666 #1

Empty space and silent panels can actually speed things along more quickly in the comic book idiom, because the reader is eager to find the next piece of dialogue. So the wordless panels are taken in rapidly and perceived as direct action rather than plot. The pacing in this volume hearkens back to a time where this rhythm of dialogue and silence was innately understood as inherent in the medium. This beat-structure is refreshing in an era where some books are so overly burdened with text that interactive rhythm of visual scanning and page turning never escalates into the sense of seamless action in the reader’s mind.

All in all, this book would appeal to fans of Stranger Things, Buffy, Riverdale, or Supernatural in that it stays clearly within the lines of ”˜teens-finding-eldritch horror-in-small-town-America“ micro genre, and does so with a succinct and stylish economy of purpose.

Emblematic of this lean and uncluttered approach is the fact that Archie has only two lines in the whole book, and serves as background character while the hapless Jughead, Moose, Dilton and crew are being herded into a demonic ritual of unknown size and scope by the Blossom siblings. If 10 things I Hate About You and Eyes Wide Shut were hybridized into a dark and almost humorless teen melodrama, you“d be pretty close to where this book will bring you. The fact that it is not played for laughs is key to its success, and for a darker take on the Riverdale world of teen angst and paranoia where the villains take center stage, this book is an intriguing beginning.

Recommended for fans of Buffy, Riverdale, and supernatural teen melodrama. 4/5!

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Script: Cullen Bunn
Art: Laura Braga, Matt Herms, Jack Morelli
Cover: Laura Braga
Variant Covers: Joe Eisma, Francesco Francavilla, Robert Hack, Vic Malhotra