« Well, as everyone knows, once witchcraft gets started, there’s no stopping it. » — Mikhail Bulgakov

Another, day, birthday post? Well, it’s still a mighty special occasion, as we’re celebrating the one-hundred and fourth birth anniversary of our beloved Samm Schwartz (1920-1997).

One year ago to the day, we gave you Love in Broom, first of a loosely connected two-parter (‘loosely connected’ is the strongest dose of ‘continuity’ one could expect from the Archie folks in those days).

Of course, the now-named Samantha the witch — and the rest of the cast, notably Jughead and Reggie — appear to have forgotten all about their earlier encounter… but that’s just fine: the burden of continuity is one I’m glad to see sloughed. The chief constant is that our witch has quite a yen for Jug.

Switch Witch first appeared in Archie’s Pal Jughead no. 123 (Aug. 1965, Archie). It was presumably scripted by George Gladir (not coincidentally co-creator of Sabrina the Teenage Witch a couple of years earlier), and unmistakably illustrated by Mr. Schwartz. Of Mr. Gladir, Mark Evanier wrote: « Even when they had no credits, you could generally spot a George Gladir script. They were a little wackier, a little sillier, a little more human in their humor. And oh, yes — they were usually fresher than the ones crafted by younger writers. » This certainly fits the bill.

-RG