The Curious Case of the Archie Graphic Novel and Reprint Delays and other GN Hyjinks (Sonic/Mega Man GN and Reprint Release Guide inside)

[Big Panda]

The preview for the Sonic Comic Spectacular is up on the Archie App. I can tell you the book will be opening with "The Light in the Dark" from #260-#262.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

5 hours ago, Detective Panda said:

The preview for the Sonic Comic Spectacular is up on the Archie App. I can tell you the book will be opening with "The Light in the Dark" from #260-#262.

My honest guess is Speed of Sound is going to be fully compiled of Post-Reboot stories, or it will be made up of several Digests like the Archie Comic Spectaculars are. 

[Big Panda]

I'm basically certain now that Archie are attempting to just flat out ditch the old continuity reprints now. At this rate I wouldn't be surprised if the Sonic Universe graphic novels just ditched the next four volumes in favour of skipping straight to Pirate Plunder Panic P;

[Your Vest Friend]

Putting this under spoilers because I don't actually want you to see this;

I'm actually wondering if Penders is the reason we're not seeing most of the graphic novels.

Remember that the court case wasn't just for characters; it was also for story royalties, and Penders was supported by a few previous writers so I don't think they considered him trying to screw Archie over (on the contrary, Archie have been doing some pretty shady stuff with regards to royalties). While it was just removing Penders' characters at first, it became all writers' characters, and it's not out of the realm of possibility to consider that they decided that not risking the wrath of the writers again for reprinting their stories was worth the cost of missing out on reprinting the old stories. The reprints of such stories stopped mid-2014 for Digest, and obviously most everything else was curtailed early 2015.

So even with that, where does that leave the ones that aren't covered by that? Universe is actually hit very hard pre-reboot since the only stories I can think of that don't have pre-reboot characters appear in them are Treasure Team Tango and the first two parts of Babylon Rising (and even in Digest #15, Rotor's dialogue is edited so it cuts out "that I mentioned to Elias" in his last speech bubble). So that would mean we'd never get Scrambled or Chaotix Quest reprinted, which is a shame. 

The post-reboot stuff and Boom seems to fit less since there's zero hold-up on them, but I wonder if Digest (and the Sonic Comics Spectacular thing if it's exhaustive enough) has become the cover for those given that it reprints everything, and in fact has reprinted everything that Waves of Change and Boom-Shaka-Laka cover. That would an even greater shame given the inferior quality. I hope those can at least start up again in time.

The one thing that still seems weird and doesn't fit anywhere is the remaining stuff pertaining to Mega Man, whether his own comic or Worlds Unite.

 

[Big Panda]

Wait what? I didn't notice Rotor's dialogue being edited...

[Your Vest Friend]

It is, you compare the Digest version to the original issue and you'll find they've removed a piece of line. 

[Zaysho]

I can buy that Archie would edit out Digest reprints, at least, to remove dialogue and things pertaining to off-limits material. They're just cheap newsstand digests sold alongside their other cheap newsstand digests; they may not want to pay whatever royalties they have to for them. And the primary audience picking them up are more than likely not anyone that picks up the comic regularly from a comic book store, or they're looking to get into the series. Missing/edited content would be a bigger deal in the actual trades (I've checked most of the Sagas books released since the lawsuit up to vol. 6 and I haven't seen any editing that wasn't correcting something like the direction of a word balloon or character's coloring), especially for established readers.

Granted, there is something weird going on with royalties, if Penders rearing his head over Archie's app is any indication (I haven't been keeping up, so I'm unsure of the details), but I'm inclined to believe the trades were hit with delays as a result of the other problems Archie is currently dealing with--the same problems that are affecting Mega Man. At the very least, I would hope Archie wouldn't do anything like heavily edit material for their trades or lock it away in the vault and never reprint it again, anyway.

I am bummed that they're pushing out a "best of" collection instead of their trades, though. I really hope they sort their shit out soon, because I'd really like to finish my collection of the Sagas books.

[Big Panda]

8 hours ago, Zaysho said:

I can buy that Archie would edit out Digest reprints, at least, to remove dialogue and things pertaining to off-limits material. They're just cheap newsstand digests sold alongside their other cheap newsstand digests; they may not want to pay whatever royalties they have to for them. And the primary audience picking them up are more than likely not anyone that picks up the comic regularly from a comic book store, or they're looking to get into the series. Missing/edited content would be a bigger deal in the actual trades (I've checked most of the Sagas books released since the lawsuit up to vol. 6 and I haven't seen any editing that wasn't correcting something like the direction of a word balloon or character's coloring), especially for established readers.

Granted, there is something weird going on with royalties, if Penders rearing his head over Archie's app is any indication (I haven't been keeping up, so I'm unsure of the details), but I'm inclined to believe the trades were hit with delays as a result of the other problems Archie is currently dealing with--the same problems that are affecting Mega Man. At the very least, I would hope Archie wouldn't do anything like heavily edit material for their trades or lock it away in the vault and never reprint it again, anyway.

I am bummed that they're pushing out a "best of" collection instead of their trades, though. I really hope they sort their shit out soon, because I'd really like to finish my collection of the Sagas books.

The Sagas are dead.

EDIT: oh, and no sign of the Sonic Comics Spectacular at Forbidden Planet.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 hour ago, Detective Panda said:

The Sagas are dead.

EDIT: oh, and no sign of the Sonic Comics Spectacular at Forbidden Planet.

Panda, no offence but is there any actual evidence/confirmation other than the Sagas being removed?

My problem being a shit ton of GNs were removed from Amazon anyway to clean up the GN releases, so them being removed as well still isn't much actual evidence for me.

[Big Panda]

17 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Panda, no offence but is there any actual evidence/confirmation other than the Sagas being removed?

My problem being a shit ton of GNs were removed from Amazon anyway to clean up the GN releases, so them being removed as well still isn't much actual evidence for me.

-All the upcoming graphic novel volumes temporarily removed from the American site are still up on the UK site, with the glaring exception of Sagas 9 and 10.

-Saga 8 is still up on the UK site but, just like the final two Knuckles Archives, has gone into "X offers from £999.11" mode.

[Jason Berry]

The comics spectacular has some of the recent back comic short stories combined together including Light in the Dark,  just part four of Waves of Change, ALL of Team Treasure Tango (Worth it for that), part two and three of Total Eclipse (Shadow vs. Knuckles), ALL OF CHAMPIONS! (Okay, this was so worth it now. I only have that in regular book form.), Ray of Hope, Silver Age part one (I already have this digitally so I don't want the rest) Cold Hearted,  Back in Business, Babylon Rising part 1 (Which I have in 3 other digital books. XP) and I think that's everything!

Quick review: First off, if you're gonna buy this book, buy it digitally. The print version is digest size slightly smaller than comic size and uses news print from what I understand. There's some worthless, incomplete story stuff in here, but TTT and Champions (two of my favorite arcs) make it an instant buy! Throw that in along with recent short stories that will get you up to speed of upcoming arcs for new fans make this book a pretty darn good deal.I give it an A

[Your Vest Friend]

Sounds pretty throwaway to me. How many times has TTT been reprinted now? 

[Jason Berry]

I think this is the firast time in it's full form outside of the graphic novel. Usually just parts.

Champions hasn't had a collected graphic novel yet so that's what made it worth it for me.

I guess if you're a regular reader, this really wouldn't be worth it, but for those who are new to the book, I think it's a great place to start.

[Big Panda]

You forgot Sonic Dash and "A Good Day to Start Again" =P

[Your Vest Friend]

To be fair, I'd want to forget "A Nice Day to Start Again" as well. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

A Nice Day To Start Again was a waste of a story, telling us information we already knew for a very very long time, and tried to pass it off as something we've never seen before, and as something that could make or break Bunnie/Antoine. It's a shame, since Control is one of my favourite arcs in the series.

[Big Panda]

Finally got SCS digitally. What I'm here to tell you is that the graphic novel checklist on the book has been downsized a bit:

-Best of Sonic and Worlds Collide now only consist of the Ultimate Edition and Complete Epic respectively.

-Both the Knuckles Archives and Sonic Sagas have been removed, as has the Encyclopedia.

@Ryannumber1gamer if you still needed more proof the Sagas were dead, I think you just got it.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Well fuck you anyway Archie.

...

Nope, nothing else to say.

Fuck. You. Archie.

[Your Vest Friend]

The Best of Sonic and Worlds Collide are weird because it's not as if the other volumes stopped existing. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Detective Reptiles said:

The Best of Sonic and Worlds Collide are weird because it's not as if the other volumes stopped existing. 

Especially since Volume 1 has several stories not in the Ultimate Edition.

[pocket]

So, with Saga Series pretty much confirmed for cancelled, what's keeping Sonic Universe and Sonic Archives from suffering the same fate? The only reason I can think of for scrapping Saga Series is the pre reboot characters and royalties, which would be a problem with Archives and Univese as well.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

The thought of all the pre-reboot GNs stopping makes me sad. It may not be very urgent to me, but I'd still like to eventually keep reading the old comics that I haven't already (which is a whole lot!), and this will make it a lot more inconvenient. Plus, I dunno, it's a part of the series' history. I may love the reboot, but I'd still like it if the old universe could get at least this tiny acknowledgement, both because of the history aspect and because ultimately I liked it too, warts and all. To see it just be thrown away like this doesn't please me at all.

[Zaysho]

On 2/18/2016 at 4:48 PM, Detective Panda said:

Finally got SCS digitally. What I'm here to tell you is that the graphic novel checklist on the book has been downsized a bit:

-Best of Sonic and Worlds Collide now only consist of the Ultimate Edition and Complete Epic respectively.

-Both the Knuckles Archives and Sonic Sagas have been removed, as has the Encyclopedia.

@Ryannumber1gamer if you still needed more proof the Sagas were dead, I think you just got it.

Well.

Shit.

The Sagas were excellent books with a great presentation, so if Archie has indeed canned them, I'm seriously upset that they can't finish the run. Fortunately, the individual issues are available digitally (that and I own most of them), but I was hoping to own these trades in physical form, especially now that they were getting up to the stuff I really liked. What a waste.

Same goes for the Knuckles Archives, and I have to echo MDS's disappointment because these stories are part of the series' publication history, and it's even worse with the Knuckles series because the digital releases of the individual issues halted with the cancellation of the Archives. Really disappointed with Archie on this one, these releases have been an absolute mess.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, Zaysho said:

Well.

Shit.

The Sagas were excellent books with a great presentation, so if Archie has indeed canned them, I'm seriously upset that they can't finish the run. Fortunately, the individual issues are available digitally, but I was hoping to own these trades in physical form, especially now that they were getting up to the stuff I really liked. What a waste.

Same goes for the Knuckles Archives, and I have to echo MDS's disappointment because these stories are part of the series' publication history, and it's even worse with the Knuckles series because the digital releases of the individual issues halted with the cancellation of the Archives. Really disappointed with Archie on this one, these releases have been an absolute mess.

It's quite honestly disgusting on Archie's part. I don't care what anyone says. I see fuck all justification with doing all this shit to GNs, cancelling one cool series, placing an amazing series on hiatus, and yet they go and blindly waste money on variant covers, and other meaningless shit. Like honestly, they decided it was a good idea to give the first issue of their rebooted Archie series well over 25 variant covers, and yet they keep going on about being low on cash? Are you fucking kidding me Archie?

[Zaysho]

32 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

It's quite honestly disgusting on Archie's part. I don't care what anyone says. I see fuck all justification with doing all this shit to GNs, cancelling one cool series, placing an amazing series on hiatus, and yet they go and blindly waste money on variant covers, and other meaningless shit. Like honestly, they decided it was a good idea to give the first issue of their rebooted Archie series well over 25 variant covers, and yet they keep going on about being low on cash? Are you fucking kidding me Archie?

Those variant covers do help inflate the sales of their comics, and you need only look at the numbers for their relaunch series or even Sonic Universe #75 to see those results (of course SU#75 was a milestone issue too, but eight covers definitely boosted it higher). I'm not going to defend it because I hate the practice of variant covers, but I don't think they're paying very much to commission artists for work that they will own in its entirety and can exploit however they want. The really big problem is that Archie charged in with this relaunch of their entire main line and it hurt pretty much every other part of the company because they were obsessed with expediting their production (the Horror line is riddled with delays--always was, but I wouldn't be surprised if it took another hit since they had promised no more delays just before the Kickstarter--and we all know what happened with the Action line).

They should have waited a year, or not given into pressure to cancel their Kickstarter because the fallout has been disastrous. While I won't miss the Boom comic, I was never happy with how Archie handled things following the Kickstarter in general, and seeing that now it's taking a bite out of their on-going reprints, I'm even less happy.

Out of curiosity, does the Comics Spectacular checklist have any info on the Sonic Archives? I'm guessing those are still going and maybe the Flynn-era stuff that Sagas was collecting will land in there some day, but it'll be too long before that happens.