After months of hints and speculation, on Wednesday The CW and Warner Bros. Television confirmed that they are developing a drama based on the Archie Comics series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, set to debut during the 2018-2019 TV season as a companion to the hit Riverdale.

But what should we expect from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and how will it be different from the 1990s Sabrina the Teenage Witch sitcom that starred Melissa Joan Hart?

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina will be based on the comic of the same name that Archie Comics's Archie Horror imprint has published irregularly since 2014. While it draws its cast and basic concept from the classic Sabrina the Teenage Witch comics Archie has published since 1962, the book, written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and art by Robert Hack, has an altogether different tone. Where the original comic was lighthearted and silly, Chilling Adventures is outright horrifying, feeling much more like Scott Snyder and Jock's Wytches or Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook's Harrow County.

In his introduction to Chilling Adventures' first trade, Aguirre-Sacasa described the book's tone in comparison to its companion series, Afterlife with Archie: "If Afterlife was about Lovecraft and zombies and body horror, Sabrina would be more psychological, a bit more subtle (but only a bit), a bit more sexual (as stories about witches often are). There would be less humor than Afterlife, which strives for a Sam Raimi-vibe; this would be more like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist and The Omen and Arthur Miller's The Crucible.... A dark, occult coming of age story."

And, unlike Afterlife with Archie, which is set in an ambiguous present, Chilling Adventures is a period piece, firmly set in the mid-1960s, with the book's events set off by Sabrina's sixteenth birthday on Halloween night 1966—and the choices she must make. The period setting adds to the series' foreboding tone, helping it to instantly conjure up the psychological horror of the works that inspired it.

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While Chilling Adventures shares a time period with Sabrina's earliest Archie Comics adventures -- she first appeared in October 1962's Archie's Madhouse #22 -- this Sabrina is radically different from what readers have seen before. The series leans hard into witchcraft as overtly Satanic, with Sabrina at the center of a cult that is unafraid to cheat, steal and kill in order to advance their power.

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Gone, too, are the old limits on Sabrina's power; she might be a teenage witch, but she refuses to be governed by anyone's rules, come what may. Where even the Sabrina of Afterlife with Archie is reluctant to turn to dark magic, Chilling Adventures' Sabrina jumps in with both feet. (In this, she has more than a slight hint of the Time Lord Victorious of "The Waters of Mars" to her.)

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The series also differs in the nature of its overarching plot. While traditional Sabrina stories -- as well as the Melissa Joan Hart sitcom -- have focused on Sabrina learning to use her powers while maintaining the life of a (relatively) normal teen, here she is caught in the center of a war for control of witchdom. In this, she must wrangle with the ghosts of her past—including her maybe-not-as-dead-as-everyone-thinks father—and literal denizens of hell, such as Madame Satan. Sabrina's ultimate role in the "Witch-War" has not been fully revealed, but whatever it is, she will be at the center of the eldritch conflict.

Aguirre-Sacasa's scripts for the comic are always compelling, evoking Neil Gaiman's Sandman at its more horrific (think the terror of "24 Hours" or "Collectors," rather than humor of Brief Lives). But the stories aren't just terrifying -- they are also inhabited by wholly believable characters, whose motivations make sense, even if the world around them doesn't. Much of Archie Comics' revival over the past several years is directly tied to Aguirre-Sacasa's appointment as Chief Creative Officer, and he has brought his A-game to Chilling Adventures.

Robert Hack's art is also genuinely stunning, and absolutely perfect for the book. Hack, perhaps best known for his variant covers that evoke the style of old paperbacks and film posters, brings his vintage sensibilities to Sabrina's world and period setting. Meanwhile, his textured colors contribute to the eerie atmosphere and the sense that there is something uncanny and not quite normal going on. Hack was definitely an unconventional choice for the book, but I would not want Chilling Adventures drawn by anyone else.

Chilling Adventures does have one significant downside: the book is published very irregularly, averaging two or three issues a year since 2014. In the three years since it's debut, we've only seen eight (soon to be nine) issues and a single trade. But, when new issues do appear, they are always a delight, even if their erratic schedule makes them unlikely to appear on many best-of lists.

Ordinarily, we'd be very skeptical of a 9-issue comic that barely manages to get three issues out a year being adapted to television. How could they possibly maintain the book's quality when there are at most a handful of episodes' worth of material? And yet, we're not really worried about the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina TV series for one simple reason: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.

Aguirre-Sacasa, who serves as showrunner on The CW's Riverdale and wrote four of the thirteen episodes from the series' first season, will be executive producing and writing the Chilling Adventures TV adaptation. Aguirre-Sacasa will thus be able to shepherd this ideas for Sabrina both on-screen and on the page. While a Game of Thrones situation where the TV series quickly moves past the comics is fairly likely, having the comic's writer at the helm should keep things from going sideways.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina may be an unconventional choice for a TV adaptation, but it has the makings of a genuinely incredible series, just so long as the Archie team are able to maintain the tone and feel of the comic, including the texture, feel, and colors of Hack's art. (Having Hack design the opening credits sequence, a la Michael Allred's credits sequence on iZombie, would be a nice touch.) But, with Aguirre-Sacasa at the helm, we may just see lightning strike twice.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is tentatively planned to debut during the 2018-2019 television season on The CW. The second season of Riverdale premieres on October 11, 2017.