Vampironica #1 Review

Writers: Greg Smallwood and Meg Smallwood
Artist: Greg Smallwood
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Publisher: Archie Comics

The time has finally come, Vampironica has been released after a lot of promoting and has gained a lot of excitement. All of the Archie Horror series have been amazing in my opinion so naturally, this idea by Archie Comics had me very excited. Needless to say, my expectations were very high.

This first issue of this series is definitely really good, hands down. When I read the first issues of Afterlife with Archie, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and Jughead: The Hunger, I was enthralled the entire time and was extremely pumped up when I got to the end. I did not have that feeling with this issue.

I began to wonder if the reason for that was the high expectation I put on this series. I also thought that maybe those other three series had first issues that put off a similar vibe and I for whatever reason was at a time in my life that made me enjoy them more. So I went back and read the first issue of the other three Archie Horror series and I can conclude, this issue of Vampironica is just lacking something. Each of those three issues weren’t carbon copies of each other, but were each unique and packed with substance and established such strong storylines immediately.

Vampironica’s first issue’s writing isn’t bad at all, there’s just not enough there to pull me in. But what is there is good and I can see this series being one that will probably be consistently pretty good. The story of Veronica becoming a badass vampire who kills bad vampires is destined to make a great story.

The artwork does satisfy me more than the amount of content in this issue. The action panels are illustrated beautifully and Greg Smallwood really captures the intensity of the scenes that he draws. The teeth panels are such an awesome reoccurring thing throughout the issue. The first scene’s artwork is amazing and easily one of the best opening scenes to any of the Archie Horror first issues.

Overall, I really like Vampironica #1, I just don’t love it. There wasn’t enough substance in this first issue to blow me away or to reel me in quickly. The artwork is great and the storyline is interesting, but for me to fall in love with this series, it’s going to have to become much more unique. The other three Archie Horror first issues brought a common horror story to our Archie characters and it fused together seamlessly. This issue was kind of just a good comic book issue of a common horror story without ever giving me the overall feeling of being in Riverdale and experiencing these horrible things alongside all my favorite Archie characters.