Aubrey Sitterson and Megan Hutchison’s Archie Comics: Judgment Day returns for its second installment June 19, and io9 has a sneak preview today. The Archie Horror mini-series event takes place in an alternate version of Riverdale plagued by demons that—terrifyingly—often spawn from Archie’s friends and loved ones, which complicates his mission to destroy ‘em all.
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Here’s the official synopsis of Archie Comics: Judgment Day #2; the script is by Sitterson, art by Hutchison, colors by Matt Herms, and letters by Jack Morelli.
“The epic Archie Horror event continues, as does Archie’s quest. Jughead’s trying his best to act as Archie’s conscience and voice of reason, but with so many people once familiar and even beloved to Archie turning into demonic monstrosities, can Archie maintain his grip? Maybe if Jughead gets more people on his side, they can talk some sense into him—are Betty and Veronica up to the task of bringing back the Archie they know and love from Alistair’s grasp?”
In a statement provided to io9, writer Sitterson expanded a bit on his process. “Reader experience is always front of mind for me, along with my desire to create the kinds of comics that I desperately want but find to be exceedingly rare,” he said. “That means crafting something with care, that reads as the result of a series of deliberate, conscious, and artful choices made at every step of the process; this extends even to the printing of the book and the new Archie Premium Event format. We don’t want to make a quick, breezy, or even easy read; there’s an immense amount of thought going into every page of Judgment Day and, in keeping with that, it should be read differently than other comics. It’s our hope that readers pore over every page and, if they feel compelled to flip back to reread a caption or inspect a piece of art… good. It’s by design.”
Added artist Hutchison, “Aubrey will make notes in the script about specific things and I’ll text him about different ideas—all things hidden in the background, character designs, visual cues, etc. We intentionally hid things visually for the readers to find for themselves. Aubrey is a visual writer and I come from production design for film so we both build up worlds for the reader to visually immerse themselves in.”
Keep reading for an exclusive peek inside the comic; see those demons fighting Archie at the bottom of the first spread? Those are demonic versions of rich-kid twins Alexandra and Alexander Cabot. Also, as teased above, Betty and Veronica drop by to help Jughead as he tries to keep Archie’s head on straight. We’ve also included the cover and its variants. You can pick up the issue June 19!
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