What a load of silly, magical nonsense. Brings back nostalgia for the days when writing for kids was all about colours and distractions, with no thought put into the implications of certain stories. But 'The Magic of Sabrina the Teenage Witch', to its credit, delivers exactly as promised: Magic, and a teen witch who uses it - zappy zap! Old school! It has fairies, mermaids, dragons and unicorns in it, because why not go all the way? Plus there is something to admire about a comic or TV show aimed at kids having no clear moral to excessively preach at you.
'The Magic of Sabrina the Teenage Witch' is a part-episodic, part coming-of-age (to put it kindly) serial comic collection featuring the most iconic pop culture teenage girl witch next to Hermione Granger, Sabrina Spellman. I grew up watching the Melissa Joan Hart sitcom and the animated series, so it was for nostalgic reasons - and because of girl power and pink! - that I wanted to look into this 'Archie' prize, for a starter at least.
Every little story in 'The Magic of Sabrina the Teenage Witch', with varying degrees of engagement, creativity and cleverness, is funny and still pretty stupid. And I ate the whole thing up like cake and candy. I was most surprised by how selfish, shallow and even kind of sadistic Sabrina is - and Aunt Zelda is more eccentric and irresponsible than Aunt Hilda! - but I guess that's what a teenager with godlike powers would be like, even a limited, half-mortal like Sabrina. Her whining at everything was to be expected. At least she goes to various schools and classes to help her with her magic, and there is insight into her living parallel lives in both the mortal and witch realms.
The characters we know and love most from this franchise are here and they make a good impact: such as Salem the warlock-turned-cat with his snappy one-liners, and Sabrina's boyfriend Harvey Kinkle, being as clueless a Butt Monkey as ever (At least the current horror reboot, 'The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina', puts a terrifying, daring twist to this. Though I think that it is in the older comics and television where Sabrina herself has much more agency and personality). There is character diversity in 'The Magic of Sabrina the Teenage Witch', as well.
Typical teen drama - mean girls, cute love interests, the usual clichés - with witchy fun thrown in. Witchcraft, for its secrecy from normal humans or "mortals", is seen in a positive light, even if it isn't taken seriously in the slightest. 'Sabrina' is what it is: a comedy - light and cartoony children's entertainment. For a sixties serialized comic starring a female protagonist plus loads of other female characters to have become so popular, it is a phenomena worth checking out.
Final Score: 3.5/5
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