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).
She 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 she didn't fit in well with the usual naturalistic stories, so she appeared in stories of her own, in an unnamed town with her own supporting cast: her aunts Hilda and Zelda, an older cousin Ambrose, and her doofus boyfriend Harvey.
She got her own comic book series (1971-1983), in conjuction with the tv cartoon S
abrina and the Groovy Ghoulies (a pack of Universal Studios monsters), and again (1997-1999) in conjunction with the TGIF tv series starring Melissa Joan Hart, and again from 2003 to 2009, in conjunction with a new animated series.
Her most recent comic book series,
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, 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
