This holiday season, fans can curl up with a feel-good story for the season with ARCHIE’S HOLIDAY MAGIC SPECIAL #1 (ONE-SHOT), arriving December 8 from Archie Comics. As the iconic character celebrates 80 years, the anthology will explore Archie and the Riverdale gang’s past, present, and future with a heartwarming release that pays homage to celebrated holiday classics and modern romance stories.
It’s Christmas Eve in Riverdale, and Archie still can’t decide who should be his date for the annual Snow Ball — Betty or Veronica? As the constant indecision leaves Archie in crisis, he is soon visited by a spirit guide that will help him rediscover the meaning of the season. Readers will be treated with delightfully fresh artistic takes on classic Archie Comics franchises including “Little Archie” and “Life With Archie”in this can’t-miss anthology one-shot spearheaded by Archie’s Senior Director of Editorial Jamie L. Rotante.
The all-new anthology will feature three separate stories penned by top writers including Micol Ostow, Michael Northrop, and J. Torres. Ostow is very familiar with the streets of Riverdale, previously writing the RIVERDALE: THE TIES THAT BINDoriginal graphic novel and RIVERDALEcomic book series for Archie Comics, alongside the best-selling RIVERDALE original novel series for Scholastic. Northrop is most recently known for his massively successful Dear Justice League and its follow-up Dear Super-Villains graphic novels for DC Comics. Meanwhile, J. Torres has a long history with Archie’s classic characters including JINX: LITTLE MISS STEPS.
“We were definitely inspired by the Archie reboot series from Mark Waid and Fiona Staples, and feel-good Hallmark movies for this fun and heartwarming anthology,” explains Rotante. “We think it’s a perfect way to celebrate 80 years of Archie by taking a trip through different eras of Archie’s life as he ultimately rediscovers the importance of friendship and community during the holiday season.
In regards to the creative talent contributing to the anthology, Rotante goes on to note, “I’m so thrilled to be working with the creative team on this book! Micol has such a knack for the characters’ modern day voices, while J. Torres is a master of sentimental storytelling, especially involving the younger versions of the characters. It has also been a bucket list of mine to work with Michael Northrop, and his comedic voice works so well in this future scenario. We’ve also got three amazing artists contributing to this project. Gretel, Arielle, and Dan all have beautiful, animated styles that fit perfectly to each era in Archie’s life and I’m so excited for Archie fans to see their art for the first time here.”
