Archie Comics
(w) Kelly Thompson (a) Veronica Fish, Andy Fish
Sabrina: The Teenage Witch #3 starts with Sabrina in the grasp of a newly introduced snake monster dragging her into the woods, which she foolishly dubs a witch’s home. But the best laid plans – or in this case spells – often go awry, and in this instance that reigns true. While barely escaping its colorful tail, Sabrina sprains her ankle. Using some magic she masks the pain, while unmasking herself. It’s great that Kelly Thompson shows in this universe there are limits to how much one can use magic at a time, because as we all know having an overpowered character can easily become boring.
Building upon the previous issues, Thompson explores the at home problems of siblings Radka and Ren, giving them more backstory than just a high school bully and love interest. While adding in a few different genre moments in this issue (Sabrina even comments on this), Thompson continues to show how great she is at writing a lovable new resident just trying to fit. Problems keep arising in that keeps getting pulled away by the magic happenings. This bubble of a universe surrounding Sabrina flows greatly in each issue with little world building moments and great character moments that make you care and want to learn more of the characters and the universe they inhabit.
With the ending changing focus to Sabrina’s aunts, we have what seems to be the beginning of the witch hunt. Only one thing seems off with this new series, in some spaces Archie Comics says it’s an ongoing, but I’ve also seen them say this is issue three out of five. That’s not a big deal, but it would be nice to know which it is, because if it continued with this creative team it would be a spell come true.
The art in Sabrina: The Teenage Witch #3 is hard to describe. Not because it’s bad, but instead it is so magically beautiful I believe Veronica Fish and Andy Fish used spells to conjure it up. With a color palette so superb that my eyes had an orgasm from gazing upon them. The duo’s colors have a gorgeous pop that draws you in making you pay attention to the background and foreground while complementing their pencils. As per the previous issues Fish and Fish do great work with their character emotions while making the art flow and each panel move so nothing seems stiff or frozen. Their work blends perfectly with Sabrina’s focus on real problems, high school, and magic making it feel campy but also emotional at all turns.
I would easily rank this art and color as some of my favorite I have seen in recent years. On top of their gorgeous art/colors Fish and Fish have the ability to mix genres and moods in adjacent panels without it seeming out of place. I cannot stress it enough how amazingly gorgeous the colors are. Having only recalled one other instance of recent (FCO Plascencia on Batman: Zero Year) where the color has wowed me to such an extent that I’d write a multi-page thesis on how great it is. With the art complimenting the story, and visa versa we have a great third issue to what may end up being one of the top Sabrina stories.
Memorable Quote: “My life needs to pick a genre already”. – Sabrina. Nah, I’m fine with it being a witches cauldron of genres!
Last Minute Update: When I asked the Archie Comics Twitter page after I finished writing this they conformed that it IS in fact a 5 issue mini-series. Bummer.