It's safe to say that Archie Comics Chief Creative Officer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is incredibly busy. Currently, the writer is overseeing various television adaptations of iconic Archie Comics characters on shows like Riverdale and is developing the upcoming reboot of Pretty Little Liars for HBO Max. Following last year's conclusion of Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Aguirre-Sacasa reunites with artists Robert Hack and Jack Morelli to relaunch the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comic series, picking up where the first eight issues left off.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Aguirre-Sacasa discussed the differences between Netflix's Sabrina series and comic and also teased the possibility of a Riverdale crossover with Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Included with this interview are preview pages for CAOS' #9, along with its main and variant cover, illustrated by Robert Hack and lettered by Jack Morelli.
I don't have to tell you this but it's been some time since we've seen a new issue of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. How does it feel to come back?
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa: It feels really great and really exciting and long overdue but it's been really fun. It pulled me back to a simpler time in my life when I was happily a comic book scribe writing issues of comic books. It's been fun getting back to where I started, writing for Archie and Marvel, before I got drawn into the Hollywood machine.
As someone that's written for comics, television, film, and stage, how does the comic book medium fulfill you creatively?
Honestly, when I was a kid, I didn't dream of being a television writer. I didn't know such things existed. I dreamed it would be amazing to be a comic book writer. I've loved comic books since I was a little kid and that was always a childhood passion so it was going back to that first love of comics. I think the other big thing is, when you're working on a television show, you're ultimately beholden to the studio, network, budget, and all of the actors and crew you're working with. When you're working on a comic book, it's really you and the artist and the imagination is the limit. I would say it's probably a purer vision of the story than it is when you're doing movies and television and serving many different and other gods.
The comic series stopped in the middle of "The Witch War" storyline, and, during the hiatus, you helmed the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina television adaptation. Did that show inform the comic story or was this something that was always already plotted out?
No, after it was bought by Netflix, we shifted into super-high gear and it was a nonstop ride for two or three years and pretty all-consuming. TV shows are 24/7 jobs. After we finished with Part 4, we talked about doing Part 5 and the fans were so hungry for closure and went, "That's it? Sabrina's in the afterlife?" And it felt like the way to pick up the thread and finish the story was by reviving the comic book but the comic book version of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and the Netflix version aren't exactly one-to-one correlations, there are differences.
It felt like it would be cheating, after eight issues of the first comic [volume], to start with a new #1, and yet, it felt like most people would know Sabrina from the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina TV show. That's where we came up with the two-pronged approach of restarting the comic book, where we went off where we had paused, and later starting up a separate title to pick up the Netflix story where that was going. Basically, as complicated as we could make it, we made it! [laughs]
I always loved that the comic was darker and more graphic than the TV show, which is wild because the TV show had a giant spider woman. How was it being able to lean into that again with the comic?
Without a doubt, when you're writing for actors and to a young audience, that does affect how dark you go.
I remember there was one TV writer on Sabrina's first season... We moved so fast that all the prospective writers had read was the graphic novel collecting the first five issues. A television and film writer joined based on the graphic novel, and, two or three weeks into the [writers] room, he went, "This isn't as hardcore as the graphic novel!" And, no, it was probably a little bit less. Not long after, we parted ways because he thought it was going to be really intense and super-dark and twisted. Though we did get pretty dark on the TV show, we avoided some of the taboos that the comic book traffics in much more readily. The comic is much more sexual, transgressive, occult and it's nuts to be able to go in there and push those boundaries a bit more.
We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the artwork. How is it working with Robert Hack and Jack Morelli again?
Oh my god, Robert has only gotten better! When I went back into it, I was like, "Who was I when I wrote Issue #8?" I think, for Robert -- it's so great to get pages back from Robert. It's like Christmas -- but it was so weird and he's such a trooper. It's true that he's only gotten better in the intervening years and I'm so grateful to him that he rallied and it was pretty seamless.
Even with the seamless reunion with Robert, how was it getting back into the headspace you had before the Archie television explosion?
I would say it took a minute. I went back and read all of the issues and other comic work that I had done for Marvel and Archie. I went back and started reading and rereading a bunch of comic books to get that back into my muscle memory. I would say it took a minute, for sure.
I remember when all the press kits were first coming out for Riverdale, it was described as a subversive take on Archie. When you're working on these characters, what do you want to keep at their core and what do you want to change up in either medium?
It's funny, there is no hard and fast set rule of dos and don'ts, it's instinctual.
As the years have gone by -- now we're writing Season 6 of Riverdale -- things that we got really nervous about in Season 1, it feels like somehow the characters have maintained their essence. In Season 6, Archie is a sort of everyman hero and going on an everyman hero's journey and there are still elements from the comic books that are very true to the series -- Veronica is a daddy's girl, for instance. It's a matter of letting the characters and stories expand organically and the biggest difference is that now the characters have gotten older. They're in their 20s now and that sort of changes the DNA of the show a little bit and allows us to have Archie and Jughead sitting around drinking beer and it's totally natural because they're not teenagers now and we're not breaking any rules. It's a very porous boundary that we're operating in and discovering it episode-by-episode.
I feel like going back to the comics is liberating for Sabrina just as the time jump is liberating for Riverdale.
Absolutely! It's funny, I always say that, even though we're Season 6 of Riverdale, I always tell the writers room to act like we're in Season 1 of this show. Let's keep it interesting for us and the actors and try not to regress but keep pushing forward and seeing what we discover.
With Sabrina going back to the comic books, there are no budget considerations here. The story can expand or contract as much as we want it to. That's also a testament to [Co-CEO and Publisher] Jon Goldwater and everyone at Archie Comics who have given me and Robert that freedom. We can go on weird tangents and directions and that part is so hugely satisfying. It's really special. The truth is, I love these characters and I still love writing for them and following my obsession. It's so fulfilling and really a special thing and I'm glad the ride is still going on.
I have to ask: Is there any hope for Kiernan Shipka to return to her role as Sabrina in the future and for a potential crossover with Riverdale?
Yeah, absolutely there's hope! I think Kiernan is up for it. I think it's about finding the right story and making the timing work out. I can't say when but I truly think it will happen.
Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and illustrated by Robert Hack, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #9 goes on sale on Oct. 13 from Archie Comics.