Way back in 2021, Archie Comics had a pair of big announcements tying into classic character Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The first was that writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Robert Hack would be returning to their hit series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina for an additional issue. The other was that the Netflix adaptation of Chilling Adventures would continue in comic book form as The Occult World of Sabrina. One of those books came out in comic book shops. The other did not. So… Whatever happened to The Occult World of Sabrina?
To take a little step back so this question doesn’t seem so random, while taking a look back through Chilling Adventures for a recent Halloween highlight, I was reminded of the now four-and-a-half-years absent comic book. It was originally announced on July 21, 2021, with Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #9 promised for October 13, 2021, and indeed, hitting that pub date. Meanwhile, Occult Adventures was supposed to pick up on a scene cut from the Chilling Adventures Netflix finale after the show was canceled. Specifically, that Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) is in her happily ever after, a form of Heaven, with her Aunt Zelda (Miranda Otto) aiming to bring her back to life.
Occult World of Sabrina would have run side-by-side with Chilling Adventures, and started with an arc titled “World Without Sabrina,” involving all the characters in the Netflix series. Meanwhile, Aguirre-Sacasa had pitched a Season 5 to Netflix that would have loosely adapted the “Witch War” storyline from the book involving Archie, Betty, and Veronica; but got shot down because the COVID pandemic made shooting that impossible.
You may be aware of this part, but 2021 — when Occult Adventures was meant to be released — has come and gone. Riverdale, the show created by Aguirre-Sacasa, ran until 2023 and did bring on Shipka as Sabrina for guest appearances in the final seasons, post cancellation. And recently it was announced that Aguirre-Sacasa is adapting Afterlife with Archie for Disney+, which will bring together the characters from Archie Comics to fight zombies.
Given all that, and the amount of time passed, seems like Occult Adventures is dead and gone, right? Well, when we reached out to a PR rep for Archie Comics, we got an answer — albeit perhaps not a totally satisfying one for fans. And that answer is while there are “not really” any plans to release the book at the current time, it’s still a possibility.
Per the PR rep, “There are no plans for OCCULT WORLD at the moment, and it’s also not canceled; [Aguirre-Sacasa] comes back to the various comics when there’s enough time to work on them, like with the upcoming continuation of AFTERLIFE and CAOS #9 a few years back.”
As the quote notes, alongside the announcement of the Afterlife with Archie TV series, Aguirre-Sacasa also revealed he’s working on additional issues of the comic with Hack. So will we see Occult Adventures get released at some point in the future, as well? Like Sabrina, it’s in a form of purgatory. Not totally dead, just resting.
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