Zombie Trend Officially Dead; Archie Comics Announces Zombie Title

Archie Comics today announced Afterlife With Archie, an ongoing comic title debuting this fall. It will be written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, but no artist has been announced. The company described it as

“a zombie series revolving around the beloved characters. The comic will blend attributes of horror comics along with the typical Archie fare, for both new and old fans to enjoy.”

I know every comic company wishes they had the huge success of The Walking Dead, but I find it pretty tasteless to do a comic about dead Archie characters. Are we supposed to be entertained by kids with body parts falling off trying to date? (But what do I know, I don’t like zombies.) I do think it’s about two years too late to launch a series starring them, though.

Update: ICv2 has some more information on the series, saying the first two storylines will be “Escape from Riverdale” and “Betty RIP”. Aguirre-Sacasa is quoted as describing the concept as follows:

“This series came out of conversations with Jon [Goldwater, co-CEO], asking questions like, ‘what if the Archie characters found themselves in a Stephen King novel like The Stand or a Sam Raimi movie like The Evil Dead?‘” he said. “Could we pull that off, tonally? We’re really going for it.”