INTERVIEW: Sarah Kuhn of Archie’s Darkling

Archie Comics has resurrected another character from its recent past and given the character Darkling a whole new purpose. Created by the creative teams of writer Martin L. Greim, and artist Dick Ayers, Darla Long first appeared in The Mighty Crusaders #3 in 1983, and has been seen in various iterations of the team since. She’s back with a one-shot from writer Sarah Kuhn and artist Carola Borelli.  Here, we interview Sarah Kuhn, the writer of Darla’s one-shot, to examine the importance of capes and the joys of magic. Click through to read our exclusive interview with writer Sarah Kuhn!

Sarah Kuhn: The one I probably love the most is a recent lighthearted short called “Friendship is Magic,” by Ian Flynn (writer) and Steven Butler and Lily Butler (artists) [ED. NOTE: in World of Archie Digest #126]. It has Darla teaming up with Sabrina the Teenage Witch to take down a Nethric Portal. It’s fast and funny and contains elements like Darla and Sabrina riding brooms together and dealing with running snarky commentary by Salem the Cat. I thought this story was so fun, I actually used the Nethric Portal in our version as well — it’s like this huge, roaring thing with tentacles, what’s better than that? I also love how well this comic establishes Darla’s voice in the opening panels — Sabrina keeps texting her these long blocks of words and Darla just texts back “K.” Amazing.

SK: No, I did not — why mess with perfection? I am obsessed with Darla’s teleporting cape because it’s not just magic, it’s fashion. That is a true intersection of two of my deepest passions! But seriously, I thought that power was so cool, I couldn’t stop thinking of all the things we could do with it and all the ways Carola Borelli, our amazing artist, would visualize it. We also start Darla off in a place where she hasn’t really embraced her connection to the supernatural world — she rejects it, she’s afraid of it, she sees it as something that’s always made her an outcast. So she’s not really trying to explore the full scope of her power. We end in a place (spoiler alert, I guess??) where she’s starting to embrace and celebrate her power and there is sort of an open-ended question of “what all can she do?” Perhaps that’s something to explore in a future story.

SK: Never say never, but I actually liked that Darla got to be her own thing here, with her own cast of characters — especially since we’re telling a fairly compact story in 20 pages. I could see some cameos being fun in the future, though — I’d love to see her team up with Sabrina again. They have such different energies and different ways of approaching their magic, and I’d love to play with that contrast while also showing them developing an appreciation for each other. Witches bonding is one of my favorite things, both to write and to read.

SK: It was great fun. Darla is a character with a particular aesthetic and vibe, and I’d say that carries over to most incarnations of her — I loved playing with the moody Goth witchiness of it all, and I loved situating her in a setting that had that same sort of atmosphere. Since she’s the star of this, everything had to match her and I thought that was delightful. And then at the same time, we wanted to have a fresh, modern take on the character, to really focus in on why she feels like an outsider and how she comes into her power. I hope we’ve done her justice.

SK: No, because this version of Darla doesn’t have that history. She’s a college student and doesn’t have much knowledge (yet!) of the supernatural world outside of herself — a lot of the story is about that discovery.

SK: I would love to do a Katy Keene book — she, of course, has been around much more recently than Darla, in both comics and TV. As a comics-reading kid, I was obsessed with those fashion pages in a lot of the Katy Keene books, where they’d showcase outfits that readers had sent in or have Katy paper dolls or a thematic set of clothes and accessories that went with whatever adventure she was having. One of my dream goals was to get my own design in there, and I’ve used those kinds of fashion spreads as inspiration in some of the comics I’ve written. I always loved Katy’s sunny disposition, creativity, and massive wardrobe, and she’s always felt like one of my perfect match characters. Interestingly, she’s kind of Darla’s polar opposite in a lot of ways — imagine them in a story together!

 

LF: Which of Darla’s powers would you most like to take on, should you have the opportunity?

SK: Of course, I want the cape. Who wouldn’t want the cape? It’s super stylish and I could travel wherever I want in the blink of an eye.

LF: Even better question: If you had the choice between being a superhero or a supervillain, which would you prefer?

SK: I’d be a superhero but with a supervillain wardrobe. Villains always have better wardrobes.

LF: If Darla could trade powers or places with anyone else in the Archieverse, what would she do, and which powers would she choose?

SK: Darla as she is at the beginning of our story would probably choose to switch with someone who doesn’t have any powers — that mundanity is incredibly appealing to her. Darla at the end of the story… I think more than anything else, she’s excited to explore her own powers and finally tap into her full potential.

LF: If Darla could fix one canonical event in her timeline, what would she erase?

SK: You know, I think a lot of our story is about Darla finally accepting herself exactly as she is. And she can’t be who she is without acknowledging and embracing the full scope of her life and what she’s gone through to get to this point. I love imagining a future where she flourishes — in order to do that, I don’t think she’d erase anything.