Vampironica, a vampire in Riverdale

A high school party is in full swing until it's interrupted by a vampire. Luckily, Veronica Lodge arrives to play Buffy. But getting bitten, she dives into the pool and goes up with her bloodshot eyes. Indeed, after a business meeting of her parents that went wrong, Veronica was bitten by a centenarian vampire. Afraid of hurting her friends, she goes into hiding, but who is going to protect the city from bloodsuckers? Veronica will have to curb her desire to kill her friends to save them.

Unlike Afterlife where we follow the high school band, Vampironica is mostly a solo title. The heroine also comes out of stereotypes because unlike other vampires, the pump-cheerleader controls her appetite for blood. Vampirism is as often the metaphor of unfulfilled sexual desire. He will have to fight against his fears to save the city. Like a modern woman, she takes charge of her body. She is neither fragile nor domineering but questioning. The beginning is centered on Veronica but the series increases in intensity as the threat becomes clearer and the brave high school girl looks for allies. The volume ends in an evening that may turn into a bloodbath… But the pool will be a solution.

The fan of Riverdale or Archie comics finds in Vamperonica the archetypes of teenage stories. More than a place of education, the high school is the space of expression of youth, a center of rivalry and sometimes a refuge. The prologue takes up the high school movies – a party turns to drinking, Veronica's cheerleader training – to reassure Archie's regular but the episode quickly turns into horror by telling the story of a disaster. Disappearances are multiplying in the city but carefree young people do not realize it. They are concerned about the worries of their age: Betty wonders why Veronica does not respond during the day… Which makes sense when you're a vampire. In Vampironica, the text is kept to a minimum to let the mood settle. The evil comes from high as of course with vampires. The most powerful want to drink blood not to feed but to dominate

This concept of vampire is old starting in a few special episodes but the success of Afterlife with Archie has encouraged to expand the range. The publisher proposes to the cartoonist Greg Smallwood who wants to become a scriptwriter. Some time later, he arrives with a text of Vampironica written with his sister fan of the universe of Archie. Behind its naive attire, Archie comics has always had disturbing elements like the threesome between Archie, Betty and Veronica. The latter's futile remarks make her smile: Veronica in action welcomes her new all-black look. We feel that the screenwriter plays more and more with the codes by adding more of Archie's typical humor at the end : Jughead burps and scares away a vampire thanks to these hints of garlic.

We find the same major and minor characters like Dilton the geek of high school who comes to work on his science project on weekends… but through his knowledge of genre cinema, he immediately understood that Veronica had become a bloodsucker. He welcomes her into his home and gives her a course on the history of vampires. He will even bear arms to save the city. All this would be nothing without the superb work of cartoonist Greg Smallwood. It has a realistic style but adds a material effect almost taking up the greasy chalk and grain of the paper. For the last two episodes, he is replaced by Greg Scott whose style differs but also seeks to modernize the hyperrealistic drawing by bringing more speed and a feeling of incompleteness very successful.