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What Would Your Ideal Sonic Comics Liscensing Agreement Be Like!?


SonicComicFanboy

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53 minutes ago, Ernest-Panda said:

This still sort of counts as a license agreement discussion, right?

In recent days, I've more or less made piece with the fact that the IDW comic most likely won't be a continuation of the Archie continuity.

However, as unlikely as it may be, there is one thing I really want, and that is for SEGA to give IDW the reprinting rights to the Archie series.

My question is, if they were allowed to, would you want them to pick up were Archie left off or start fresh?

Here's where I churn out random ideas for how either scenario could go:

  • IDW continue printing the Post-SGW graphic novels under a new title to differentiate from their own comic and subsiquent GN reprints, something like "Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog" maybe. As well as printing from Volume 5 onward, they'd go back and reissue the existing volumes under the new name. They'd get all the way up to "Genesis of a Hero" where they are allowed to print the part 4 for the first time for the sake of completion. They'd also start printing Archie's initially planned "Sonic Universe Sagas" series alongside it, maybe without the "Sagas" part in the title, since there isn't another currently-running comic to get confused with.
  • This idea is similar to the above, except in this scenario, IDW are also allowed to reprint the Pre-SGW stories. In this instance they not only continue with the Post-SGW Sonic books, but they also revive previously discontinued titles like Sonic Archives, Knuckles Archives (admittedly a pretty big "if"), Sonic Sagas, etc. Like before they also reissue the existing volumes as they continue to print the new ones, and maybe even do reissues of completed series' like the Selects. Since the original Sonic Universe graphic novels (picking up again with "Babylon Rising") will also be revived, this would likely allow them to discard the planned Universe Sagas series, as they can now finish up the Pre-SGW arcs before moving onto the Post-SGW arcs from volume 13 onward.
  • IDW start their reprintings from scratch. They start a series called "Sonic Classics" or something, and follow suit with the other titles. They can either only do the Post-SGW stuff, or all stuff, in which case they can either do separate lines per continuity or not.
  • IDW get reprinting rights to certain stories. I honestly don't see why IDW wouldn't be free to have at stuff like the strictly game-centric stories, such as the out-of-continuity game tie-ins, and the Sonic Boom comics, and of course, Mega Drive.
  • IDW are allowed to release the Mega Drive graphic novel only, because...come on, SEGA, at the very least let have this one!

The first three ideas would, most likely, have to exclude the Mega Man crossovers, since IDW lack the license to the franchise.

My suggestion:

 

* Sonic the Hedgehog: The Legacy. IDW should finish-up the post SGW reprints, and then start this. It has not only pre-and-post SGW, (including Boom and X) but also the Mangas, Fleetway, and oddities like the newspaper strip and Les Dans Griffes de Robotnik. Possibly even the literary media get tossed in as well. Even includes unreleased stories for the sake of completion.

* Old continuity can be crossed-over with at least once. Probably to tie up loose ends and send off the old American canon once and for all. 

* Allow for a darker, teen-adult oriented comic when the series gets on sturdier ground (likely soon). This would allow more liberal use of older characters, and be a bit less mandated. However, this will clearly serve as a new brand as opposed to some outlier. Hence, Sonic can now meet up with Godzilla, the Ghostbusters, etc. 

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It irritates me a bit how people seem to over-worship the Mega Drive books, but with the final story finished and untold, they really do need to be collected and released, probably in graphic novel form, as others have said.

I'd also really like to see the rest of the post-reboot graphic novels released, right up until they were cancelled. All those Sonic and Sonic Universe stories are good and are worth being collected. If they can, IDW should start where Archie left off and move forward with the same numbering Archie was using for the graphic novels.They'd get better sales this way as opposed to reprinting stuff that's already been collected. After that, once the Archie-printed books get scarce due tot being out of print, then it would make more sense for them to be reprinted under their own label. Whether they keep the same title or not is less important, so they could change it to distinguish it from the graphic novels for their presumably new series if they want. I still want IDW to continue from where Archie left off as far as characters, stories, and issue numbering for reasons I described in detail in another thread, but we'll see.

If they're able to go back further for some reason and reprint not only the reboot stuff but also Sagas and potentially even Archives, then more power to them.

On the other hand, maybe a part of this deal is that Archie gets to keep reprinting the stuff they made, but I kind of doubt it. Again, I'm sure we can all file this under a "wait and see" header.

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If IDW can reprint all of the Archie Material, and do it regularly, I'll be a very happy man.

I still feel like the new Sonic comic book should simply be titled "Sonic the Hedgehog", maybe any reprints of past Sonic continuity could be referred to as "Sonic and the Freedom Fighters" or something. And for Knuckles, "Knuckles and the Brotherhood"

Even if they started fresh from nothing I'd love to have all the old comics in a nice paperback form.

Though I hope they do continue the post SGW continuity. Or even a new continuity that just keeps the SatAM characters and some of the post SGW concepts... But that's a little optimistic. I feel like best case scenario I can hope for is a cast of Sega only characters, and they're not banned from using characters no longer in circulation like Fang, Mighty, Battle Kukku, ect.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't reprint royalties one of the issues Penders and other former creators were kicking up a fuss about, though?  I'd imagine that anything pre-SGW is out of the picture now; probably anything Archie altogether.  Too risky.

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If IDW is in talks with any of them regarding continuing to be a part of the Sonic book(s), then they probably know. But even if that's true, we don't know for how long, and it's possible that IDW isn't reaching out to any of the current staff, though that would be unfortunate.

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1 hour ago, RedFox99 said:

Does anyone think that the writers knew about the IDW deal? 

I guess not.

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6 hours ago, FFWF said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't reprint royalties one of the issues Penders and other former creators were kicking up a fuss about, though?  I'd imagine that anything pre-SGW is out of the picture now; probably anything Archie altogether.  Too risky.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) the big difference here is that IDW is a much bigger company than Archie, one who could potentially afford to pay royalties for reprinted material. I mean, they are doing just that with their other licensed properties, are they not?

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13 minutes ago, Ernest-Panda said:

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) the big difference here is that IDW is a much bigger company than Archie, one who could potentially afford to pay royalties for reprinted material. I mean, they are doing just that with their other licensed properties, are they not?

 Yea, IDW has reprinted loads of older Material.  The origional Mirage TMNT comics & the Archie Adventures ones.  The DC Cartoon Network Stuff, The Marvel & Marvel UK Transformers books, The Gold Key Star Trek books, the Dell Popeye books and when they had Doctor Who they did reprints of past runs of that as well.

 

 So its theoretically not impossible to do reprints of Archie's books.  It all just comes down to weather they would want to touch anything pre-SGW with a 50-foot pole.

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If IDW deemed it worth the cost, it could be a good thing for everyone around. Maybe they could make some money along with Sega and even the ligneous former writers. They'd have to factor how much they think they could make, though.

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4 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

If IDW deemed it worth the cost, it could be a good thing for everyone around. Maybe they could make some money along with Sega and even the ligneous former writers. They'd have to factor how much they think they could make, though.

 

8 minutes ago, SonicComicFanboy said:

 Yea, IDW has reprinted loads of older Material.  The origional Mirage TMNT comics & the Archie Adventures ones.  The DC Cartoon Network Stuff, The Marvel & Marvel UK Transformers books, The Gold Key Star Trek books, the Dell Popeye books and when they had Doctor Who they did reprints of past runs of that as well.

 

 So its theoretically not impossible to do reprints of Archie's books.  It all just comes down to weather they would want to touch anything pre-SGW with a 50-foot pole.

That's pretty interesting to hear. So they could reprint post-SGW issues?

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I'm not sure if anyone knows for certain (someone correct me). It all depends on who owns the stuff Archie made, if IDW would have to license it from them, etc. Anything is possible if they're willing to pay for it.

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I really just don't want SEGA to sweep Archie Sonic under the rug and pretend it didn't exist. Doing that to a record-holding series, it was bad enough they wouldn't allow it to end properly, but doing that would be downright disrespectful.

I don't care if the pre-reboot stuff gets included or not, this series deserves better than to be forgotten.

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I just remembered something. If I rememeber right,  Archie was forbidden from reprinting any of it's Sonic X related comics. So that has me a little worried that even if IDW was willing to print archie material, Sega would probably give that notion the thumbs down.

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On 07/24/2017 at 8:40 AM, FFWF said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't reprint royalties one of the issues Penders and other former creators were kicking up a fuss about, though?  I'd imagine that anything pre-SGW is out of the picture now; probably anything Archie altogether.  Too risky.

Which is a shame too. One of the things I've always wanted to do was complete my Archie Sonic collection and while I would prefer to have the original floppy prints, having the ability to purchase reprints would make things significantly easier, not to mention overall cheaper. And these comics deserve to be available for anyone interested to buy, not just swept under the rug as if the past 24 years didn't happen.

Just another reason to hate Penders I guess. Really, thanks for making the comic even more difficult to read man. My wallet will appreciate it too when I finally decide to hunt down floppys because I never see those graphic collections available anymore, and even then they don't cover everything.

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