This Day in Comic Book History — September 27, 2026
This Day in Comic Book History
Spotlight
The Witch Archie Built Turns 30 on Television
Today is a two-for-one in Riverdale's spookier corner. George Gladir, the Archie Comics writer who co-created Sabrina Spellman, was born on this date in 1925 — he'd be 101 today. And exactly thirty years ago, on September 27, 1996, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch premiered on ABC's "TGIF" block, pulling in over 17 million viewers and turning Gladir's decades-old gag character into a genuine pop-culture fixture.
Gladir co-created Sabrina with artist Dan DeCarlo back in October 1962, and she quietly headlined humor-anthology stories for most of the '60s before Hollywood ever came calling. It took thirty-four years for a one-page gag character to become a network sitcom lead — and then, twenty-two years after that, a Netflix gothic-horror franchise. Not bad for a witch who started life as filler material.
More From the Vault
From Normandy POW to Archie's Head Gagman
Before he ever wrote a witch, George Gladir survived D-Day. He landed at Normandy with the U.S. Army, was captured and held as a German prisoner of war, and came home to build one of the longest careers in humor comics — writing one-page fillers for Archie starting in 1959 and eventually becoming head writer at Cracked magazine for roughly 2,000 pages of material. In 2007, the Bill Finger Award recognized him for a lifetime of comic-book writing most readers never knew his name for.
First Issues, Debuts & Premieres
Comic Debut: Sabrina Spellman, October 1962
Sabrina's very first comic appearance ran in Archie's Madhouse #22 (cover-dated October 1962), written by George Gladir and drawn by Dan DeCarlo as the humor anthology's lead story. It's a rare case of a "filler" character outliving nearly every headline feature she shared a page with.
TV Premiere: Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Sept. 27, 1996
ABC's TGIF sitcom adaptation, starring Melissa Joan Hart, premiered thirty years ago today and ran for seven seasons. It followed a 1996 TV movie earlier that same year and eventually spun off into the darker Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina in 2018.
Research note: outside the Gladir/Sabrina thread, verified first-issue debuts and film/TV premieres specifically dated September 27 were thin this cycle across Marvel, DC, and indie publishers — nothing else cleared our two-source bar for today. We'd rather tell you that than pad the page.
Panel of the Day: Salem Wasn't Really an Actor
The talking cat Salem Saberhagen was voiced by Nick Bakay, but on screen he was played by four different trained cats — plus animatronic puppets, built for close-up "dialogue" shots and controlled by three puppeteers who could move Salem's body more than 30 ways. Salem even won a 1998 Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Animal Star. Somewhere, George Gladir's original one-page gag character would not have predicted any of that.