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ASK THE ARCHIVIST
June

Hey, all you Archie-information seekers out there -- you've come to the right place! It's another installment of "Ask the Archivist" with Archie Comics' resident archivist, Paul Castiglia.

Many fans write to me daily asking me when the first appearances of specific characters were. This month, in answer to many fan's requests, we answer the question:

"When was Sabrina's first appearance?"

Well, Sabrina has had quite a history! It all began in October of 1962, when she made her first appearance in ARCHIE'S MADHOUSE #22. This comic book was similar to the popular MAD MAGAZINE in that it featured lots of spoofs and goofy humor. By issue #22, one of its main targets was horror movies, which had been enjoying renewed popularity at the time as the classic horror movies were then showing up on TV for the first time. Usually, the stories in MADHOUSE were one-shots, but Sabrina was so popular that there were several follow-up stories. Then, in December, 1969: Sabrina became one of the leading characters in ARCHIE'S TV LAUGH OUT #1, in stories where she even interacted with Archie and the whole teenage crew from Riverdale High. Sabrina's success was only beginning, however: In September, 1971, SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH-- the Saturday morning animated series-- premieres on the CBS network. Simultaneously, she made frequent "guest appearances" on another popular animated series, THE GROOVIE GHOULIES. By April of 1971: Sabrina had graduated to her own comic series when SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH #1 debuts. The next couple of years brought more Sabrina comic spinoffs including the recurring "Sabrina's Christmas Magic" feature in ARCHIE GIANT SERIES in January, 1972 and CHILLING ADVENTURES IN SORCERY AS TOLD BY SABRINA #1in September, 1972. Sabrina chugged along in comics for a few years as her original animated series went into syndication. Then in September, 1977, the NBC network launched SABRINA, SUPERWITCH, a new Saturday morning cartoon series. Later that year, Sabrina episodes were combined with Archie episodes to create THE NEW ARCHIES/SABRINA HOUR. By the late 1980s, interest in Sabrina had waned a bit and she was relegated to appearance in Archie digests and LAUGH and PEP comics. But in September, 1993 Sabrina got her very own series of 48-page annual specials, originally called SABRINA'S HALLOWEEN SPOOOKTACULAR. The title was changed the following year to SABRINA'S HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR. While those specials had a little bit of a following, the best was yet to come for Sabrina. In April, 1996 the Showtime cable network aired a live-action SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH TV movie. It received great reviews and terrific ratings, and starred Melissa Joan Hart, who was known to millions of kids at the time as the title character in Nickelodeon's hit show, "Clarissa Explains It All." In September of 1996, the ABC network spun off the live-action SHOWTIME movie into a prime-time SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH sitcom for it's "TGIF" Friday night line-up of family-oriented programming. Once again, the popular Melissa Hart was on board portraying Sabrina. The series has been on ever since, and will starting a new life in the fall when it becomes a regular series on the WB network. To celebrate her TV success, Archie Comics launched an all-new Sabrina comic series in September, 1996, featuring photo covers of Melissa Hart. In addition to her live-action TV success, Sabrina has once again become an animated star with a new cartoon series that launched on both the ABC and UPN networks in September of 1999, and the "new look" has spawned a new comic book series as well. It seems like the magic never ends for this little lady!

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