The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Sabrina the Teenage Witch first appeared in the anthology series Archie's Madhouse in 1962, as a glamorous although rather malevolent witch perhaps inspired by the movie Bell, Book, and Candle (1958). 

During the last fifty years, she has appeared occasionally in the Archie universe as a student at Riverdale High, generally in stories where she tries to use her magic to help one of the gang, with disastrous consequences.  But magic doesn't fit in well with the usual naturalistic Riverdale, so Sabrina appears most often in completely separate stories, living in an unnamed town (later called Greendale) with her own supporting cast: her aunts Hilda and Zelda, an older cousin Ambrose, and her doofus boyfriend Harvey.  Her cat Salem is sometimes just a cat, sometimes a familiar with magical powers of his own.

Sabrina has had four comic book series:

1. From 1971 to 1983, in conjuction with the tv cartoon Sabrina and the Groovy Ghoulies (a pack of Universal Studios monsters)

2. From 1997 to 1999, in conjunction with the TGIF tv series starring Melissa Joan Hart (who appeared on several covers).

3. From 2003 to 2009, in conjunction with a new animated series.

4. Her most recent comic book series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2014-), is set in the 1960s, with witches as Satan-worshipping cannibals.  But you're also born a witch; there are strict rules about witch-mortal "miscegenation" to "protect the blood line."

So is being a witch a religion or an ethnicity?

Heterosexual romances abound, but there are no gay characters -- although Cousin Ambrose comes across as a bit fey, and head witch Aleister Crowley is criticized for breaking the Satanic Bible's rule against men lying with men.

Nor is there any beefcake.  There are nude females everywhere in boob-heavy detail, but no men with their shirts off, ever.  Not even Harvey, who in this rendition is a football-captain-mega-hunk rather than a nebbish.

So I don't hold out a lot of hope for the Chilling Adventures tv series premiering in 2018.  It will be set in modern times, a cognate to Riverdale.

Ross Lynch (top photo) has signed on to play Harvey.  He always looks good naked, but will he be allowed to fumble with a button on the show?

Chance Perdomo, who will be playing Cousin Ambrose, looks like Diana Ross.  One article says that he'll be making his character pansexual, so he'll be like the gay best buddy of the female lead stereotype.  But Ambrose is "under house arrest," forbidden from leaving Sabrina's house, so he won't be doing much dating.

Other beefcake possibilities include Richard Coyle as Father Blackwood, who I assume is the head of Sabrina's coven.

And maybe some of the boys at the school.


See also: Riverdale