News of the World "Sunday" Sonic Strips Archive

[Lucky]

So a couple of years ago, SSMB user -Mark- found a couple of Sonic comics that most of us hadn't seen before.

These comics turned out to have originated from the News of the World "Sunday" magazine in the early nineties, but unfortunately it was near impossible to track any others down as they were printed in the supplement and not the actual newspaper. A couple of us did eventually manage to get a few strips together, but the magazines were so hard to find and very expensive when they did pop up, so it was starting to look like we'd never get a complete series of them together, if it was indeed still out there.

Around the same time I was in touch with Sonic the Comic artist Richard Elson who confirmed that he was also the artist on these strips as most of us had suspected. He also provided some additional information and it turned out that a few people who worked on the UK Sonic the Hedgehog yearbooks were also involved with these; all of the strips were written and edited by yearbook editor Barrie Tomlinson, and the last chunk were drawn by artist Sandy James. Many of the later Elson strips were coloured by John M Burns wh also worked on STC.
Even more interestingly, he told me that he did in fact have an almost complete collection of these in his personal archives and that he would be happy to loan these to me under the condition that I scanned them in and shared them with the community as we thought it would be cool if people were able to see more of them considering how obscure they are.

Richard was missing a couple of strips from the collection he gave me, but through the issues that myself and Hogfather had managed to collect, along with Mark's original scans and a few that were uploaded later by Tumblr user hypermikey, we've been able to get an almost complete collection together... so behold...

The Sonic Sunday Strips Archive

We believe that we're now only two issues away from a complete collection and the episodes that seems to be missing are from the 29th May 1994 and 13th November 1994 magazines. On the off chance that anyone here may have them or know someone who does, we would love to add them just to finish off the archive so everyone can have a look through them.

 

The comics are quite interesting as it ran alongside STC and there are a few little things that seem to link both universes together, despite most people-- even those who were involved with the comic-- not knowing of its existence. For example, we have a strip from 10th April 1994 where Robotnik's new AoStH-inspired design debuts. This was the week after his AoStH design was introduced by Nigel Kitching in the April 1st issue of the comic printed that same year, which also happened to be drawn by Richard Elson.

Another episode has Sonic being shrunk by one of Robotnik's inventions and during one part of the strip, he's trapped in a spider's web while miniaturised. I couldn't help but wonder if there was a little nod to this somewhere later in STC when Sonic encounters a giant spider and is trapped in its web during the Shanazar arc (all the way forward in issue #152 in 1999) and mentions that it's his worst nightmare, even though it's something that had never been brought up in the comic at all before. This was also in a strip drawn by Richard Elson.

On the whole the comics are generally silly little things without much too detail put into them (as a lot of newspaper comics are), but as a Fleetway fan it's cool to see some small references that may have been nods to my favourite Sonic universe, and it's always nice when something obscure surfaces and is able to be enjoyed by everyone.

Again, a MASSIVE thank you goes out to Richard for making this possible, and also to Mark and hypermikey for providing a lot of the pages we were missing. You guys all rock!

[LargoDELLZ]

This is neat! I just finished reading Sonic the Comic and I liked it a lot; a very interesting take on Sonic. These strips are like a bonus. Kudos to everyone involved.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Yeah just to add to this. 

This was... a seemingly impossible task at one point. Whilst we had a few of the strips between us, ebay prices for these things were going from £15-£30 each, not because it was Sonic, but because it was an old newspaper and when you have one guy selling them and suddenly people start buying, they whack up the price.

So it wasn't financially viable to keep buying them.

We even contacted the News of the World directly at one point (before they were shut down) and they had no idea what they were so they were no help either.

Almost nobody had a complete collection, it was a damn miracle we got half of the strips, let alone all but 2 of them. Lucky has been absolutely instrumental in getting this collection online and available for everybody, she deserves the most credit out of all of this. But huge thanks need to go to Richard Elson, without him this would not be anywhere near complete.

But hey, in about a year we went from around 7 of these things scattered in different places in poor condition. To a near complete collection scanned to a very high level of detail.

[Dere]

Thank you! I love these early adaptations based on the games, before Dic and Archie came and "polluted" the franchise.

Pity that the 29th May 1994 and 13th November 1994 strips are missing, though =( Any UK Sonic fans here that have them?

[Person]

Wow, never knew this existed.

I'd so like to thank the dedicated people who unearthed these, it's a great feeling seeing a piece of Sonic media that I never knew about, especially something that's nearly impossible to have a complete set of.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

The stories are certainly simple, and there are some annoying dialogue tics, but overall, these are as cute as heck, and the art is really great (particularly Richard Elson's). Just classic Sonicy goodness in its purest, simplest form. Nothing not to love, really. Though, while the Sonic & Robotnik solo action was certainly enjoyable, it's a slight shame Tails only appeared in one story. It's awesome that such a rare piece of Sonic media is now available to all - good work, and thank you so much! <3

[Multikaris]

They've found em! They've found em! I can't wait to read some of these!

 

EDIT: "CATERKILLER RECEPTION COMMITTEE!"

 

EDIT: Noticed a handful of original robots in the comic. A robot designed to look like a Pocky/J. Lightfoot, Lavasaurus (an upgraded "super" version of Rexxon), "super" versions of a few other Sonic 2 badniks, a large pale-green octopus, a large vulture badnik with a rather Don Martin-ish head (Sonic calls it the "Freaky Flying Dude"), 2 purply semi-realisitic fish (are those meant to just be normal fish?), and a moray eel badnik that looks like Masher.

[big_smile]

Wow! Thanks to everyone who helped make this a reality! 

Any chance some of the other franchises featured in these magazines could be released. I think they had a really good Power Rangers comic among others. 

[hypermikey]

I'm so proud *sniff!*

[ninjaconor]

Hey! Sorry to necro an old thread, but I didn't know where else to post this. I actually have one of the missing strips. Below is the 29th of May 1994 to add to the archive.

 

 

I know I definitely used to have the other missing one too, but I haven't been able to find it. If it turns up, I'll post it here too.

[Pengi]

On 2/14/2022 at 5:36 PM, ninjaconor said:

Hey! Sorry to necro an old thread, but I didn't know where else to post this. I actually have one of the missing strips. Below is the 29th of May 1994 to add to the archive.

 

 

I know I definitely used to have the other missing one too, but I haven't been able to find it. If it turns up, I'll post it here too.

Great stuff, thanks!

Are you sure about the date though? Sonic Retro has a very low quality black and white photocopy and says it's the 13th November 1994 strip. https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(News_of_the_World_comic)

 

Do you have the magazine itself? If so, it would be great to have a scan of the full page, with all the non-Sonic strips on it. 

[ninjaconor]

On 2/17/2022 at 12:30 PM, Pengi said:

Great stuff, thanks!

Are you sure about the date though? Sonic Retro has a very low quality black and white photocopy and says it's the 13th November 1994 strip. https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(News_of_the_World_comic)

 

Do you have the magazine itself? If so, it would be great to have a scan of the full page, with all the non-Sonic strips on it. 

 

Yes! You're right! I mixed up the date with the other missing one. It is the 13th of November.

 

I don't have the full magazine, but I do have the full comic page. My grandparents used to get News of the World and they'd tear the page out and save it for me. Full scan below.

[Pengi]

Amazing! Thank you for scanning and sharing it!