Cool, noir story — essentially riffing on Archie comics. Dark, but a lot of fun. ( )

Some great visual style here, beyond the hallmark realistic noir drawings, the scenes that flash back to high school are drawn like Archie comics. ( )

So good. ( )

Wow, another compelling crime-noir read from Brubaker & Phillips. A dark take on the Archie comics. I almost want to read the rest of this series... @_@ ( )

Wow, that was DARK! And I kind of loved every frame of it.

Getting the obvious out of the way, yes, this musing of if Archie married Veronica instead of Betty. If you never read that comic series, here ya go, but basically Archie is the main character and has two girls fighting over him. Veronica is the rich, pretty sophisticate and Betty is the girl-next-door. But you could probably read this without any of that back knowledge.

The comic uses two distinct art styles. The Present is gritty, noir...



...and the Past is portrayed in the classic Betty/Veronica comic style. Pretty instantly recognizable and definitely jolting to read considering the subject matter of the story.



And the ending... Man, I wasn't expecting that. Maybe because I haven't read the previous stories, but DAMN. That's cold, man.

Click the spoiler to see the last page of the comic. It has a spoiler, but DAT TRANSITION!



Anyway, LOVED this comic and fully intend on reading the previous volumes. From what I understand they are all standalone series.

Copy courtesy of Diamond Book Distributors/Image Comics, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review ( )