Archie Comics will apparently launch four as-yet-unidentified projects in March 2017, per a batch of teaser images released on its Facebook page.
Some of the images deliver promises that seem pretty obvious, while a couple of them are somewhat more cryptic.
Videos by ComicBook.com
We’ll take a look at the teasers, and unpack what they promise come March, here, starting with the image above in just a moment.
It’s not clear whether the four books being teased will be ongoing series, miniseries, one-shots, or something else — but there’s some high-profile talent and some fan-favorite concepts being teased here, and dropping these teasers all at once suggests that Archie plans to make March a packed month for readers.
2017 plans to be a big year for Archie Comics: with Riverdale set to become the publisher’s first primetime hourlong drama, a comic book tie-in planned with contributions from the show’s writing staff, and a handful of recent launches selling out and going to second printing, the publisher is wrapping up its “75 years of Archie” celebration and heading into its 76th year strong.
So…what are they teasing next? Read on…!
THE ARCHIES
Alex Segura, Archie’s publicity director and the writer behind books like Archie Meets The Ramones and Archie’s Comic Con Chaos, will apparently be writing another music-driven title based on The Archies, Archie Andrews’s band.
(This is the teaser image we used on the previous page. The video above is the song itself being performed on The Archie Show.)
We’re assuming that anyway, given the use of the guitar and the word “sugar” to promote it, an obvious nod to “Sugar Sugar” by The Archies — a song that was released and became a big hit in 1969, in spite of The Archies being a band composed of ficitonal characters.
LITTLE ARCHIE
Art Baltazar and Franco, the Aw Yeah Comics Eisner winners behind Tiny Titans, will apparently tackle Little Archie and Friends in what’s the easiest teaser to decipher, given the use of the phrase “Little,” the trademark silhouette of Baltazar and Franco’s style, and the fact that the pair have already worked on Little Archie once before — when they crossed the Riverdale gang over with Tiny Titans.
SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH
Sabrina the Teenage Witch, whose sitcom was Archie’s last major foray into live-action television, will apparently be the star of a book from Franco (mentioned in the last panel) and a pair of co-creators named Cook and Price.
If we had to guess, the writer would be Katie Cook, best known for her work on My Little Pony, and her frequent collaborator on that title, Andy Price. Given the fact that Cook and Price tweeted out the teaser image, that seems like a pretty safe bet.
While she’s a major player in the Archie Horror line, this watermark says “Archie Comics,” and there will be an “Archie Horror” watermark in just a minute, so we’re guessing this is more about the version of Sabrina who recently debuted in Jughead.
HOWL?
Here, of course, is the big mystery: an Archie Horror title with “Howl” as the teaser clue and a shot of the moon.
It looks like Frank Tieri and Michael Walsh have something creepy to cook up for the Archie Horror line…but what? Well, there has been at least one Archie-as-a-werewolf variant cover from Francesco Francavilla, whose Afterlife With Archie gag variant actually turned into a huge bestseller for the company. Also, a few years back in the regular monthly Archie books, they did a Twilight riff that pitted werewolves against vampires.
