Posted in: Archie, Comics | Tagged: archie, Fabio Moon, W. Maxwell Prince

W. Maxwell Prince Is No Longer On The Oni Press Archie Comics Reboot

Ice Cream Man's W. Maxwell Prince is no longer on the Oni Press Archie Comics reboot... so what's happening?

Bleeding Cool has learned that W. Maxwell Prince, creator of Ice Cream Man from Image Comics, is the Archie Comics reboot line from Oni Press and will no longer be writing the lead title, as previously announced. Making enquiries, I have been told by Oni Press that it is down to a conflict of schedules.

Last year we learned that Oni Press and Archie Comics were teaming up for "an ambitious and wide-ranging publishing partnership" that would see Oni Press lead a line-wide relaunch of Archie's most prominent characters in a trio of "ongoing, monthly comics series," kicking off in September 2026 with Archie # 1by writer W. Maxwell Prince and artists Fábio Moon, and Nick Cagnetti  – which will gracefully coincide with "the 85th anniversary of Archie's' first appearance in 1941's Pep Comics #22 no less. These will be followed in October 2026 by Sabrina the Teenage Witch #1 by writer Corinna Bechko and artist Kano (both notably staples of Oni's Eisner-nominated Cruel Universe series) and in November 2026 by a surprise new horror title: Archie in Hell #1 by writer Patrick Horvath and artist Tyler Crook.

"The joy of being young. The pain of growing up. In 2026, the fantastical, pure-pop existence of "America's Favorite Teenager" will be thrown into overdrive as Archie Andrews reaches a once-in-a-lifetime crossroads between then and now, daydream and reality, the heat of the moment and the vast expanse of eternity, across three daring new monthly series from some of the most brilliantly innovative creators working in the comics industry today: multiple Eisner Award nominee W. Maxwell Prince (Ice Cream Man, Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum), Hugo Award nominee Corinna Bechko (EC Comics' Blood Type, Green Lantern: Earth One) and Harvey Award winner Patrick Horvath (Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, Free for All), working alongside riveting artists, including multiple Eisner Award winner Fábio Moon (Daytripper, Casanova), Nick Cagnetti (Spirit of the Shadows, Pink Lemonade), Eisner Award nominee Kano (EC Comics' Cruel Universe, Gotham Central), and Russ Manning Award winner Tyler Crook (Out of Alcatraz, Harrow County)"

Then earlier this year at ComicsPRO, Oni Press boss Hunter Gorinson stated "We brought a surprise to show you, which is the cover to Archie number one. We probably won't be releasing this publicly for at least a few more weeks. We were talking about what W Maxwell Prince's very ambitious plans for the Archie series are and how great it was to have Fabio Moon on board doing the first few issues, and we said: "Who could possibly do covers for this book?" We said to ourselves: "How about the greatest living artist, Mr Stuart Immonen?"

Hunter Gorinson also wanted to talk about what was behind the new Archie series… "I was gonna say that the sun rises… yes, here's what I'll say. Which is for anyone who has asked me over the course of the past two or three years, "Hey Hunter, what's your favourite series?" They always expect me to say an Oni book, but it's actually an Image comic. It's W Maxwell Prince and Martín Morazzo's Ice Cream Man, which I do think is like a work of genius. So when we were thinking about how we could take an icon like Archie and do something true to the history of an 85-year-old character while also bringing him into the modern day, we started talking about a very short list of names. Will was at the top of it, and what he came back with was something really, really inspiring. The same way the conversation we had went, with Ice Cream Man talking about existential dread and the terror of being alive, if you can do that, can you also do the joy of being alive and the joy of being young, but also the pain of growing old? He was like: "That is a fascinating approach to this. I have an idea." And we also got character designs by Sabrina artist Kano…

"And what I'll leave you with, is the first five pages of Archie #1 are essentially Archie walks down Main Street, and he walks past Pop's and he says hello to Betty and he says hello to Veronica and he says hello to Kevin Keller and he gets to the end of the street and he looks up in the sky and he sees that the sun is rising in the west instead of the east. Something is fundamentally wrong in Riverdale, and he needs to figure out what it is."

"And in each issue going forward, there'll be a different extrapolation of that problem that he needs to solve. We're gonna be doing a series of very small arcs on these books. It's kind of a tribute to the way that Archie's best stories are like eight pages long.  So these are gonna be two-arc, three-issue arcs. We're gonna have a different cast of artists work with Will to interpret all of these different challenges that Archie and the gang face. Fabio is gonna be doing the first three issues—which is incredibly exciting. Nick Canetti, who just did a book called Spirit of the Shadows for us, is gonna be doing the next couple. And then we're gonna be reeling in a really exciting cast of artists who're gonna be on this book over the course of the first 12 issues."

• ARCHIE #1
  Written by W. Maxwell Prince
  Art by Fábio Moon and Nick Cagnetti
  September 2026
• SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH #1
  Written by Corinna Bechko
  Art by Kano
  October 2026
• ARCHIE IN HELL #1
  Written by Patrick Horvath
  Art by Tyler Crook
  November 2026

W. Maxwell Prince is an American comic book writer, best known for his surreal, anthology-style horror and weird fiction series like Ice Cream Man from Image Comics, which blends horror, dark humor, and bizarre storytelling across different genres and time periods.

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