Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Salamander]

5 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Ew i can't believe people truly think a comic without freedom fighter is not as good as a Sega Sonic cast with only cannon characters in it, have people forgotten about Shadow, Blaze and the Deadly Six and how they influence so much untapped world building by themselves especially Shadow who introduced a dark plot for the first time since sonic adventure.

I don't know that people are necessarily making absolute statements about the objective quality of an unwritten comic, merely about what their own personal feelings would be.  For my part, I would be resistant to the idea of outright dropping any character if it could legally be helped; to have a vast background cast on standby for if you ever need them strikes me as an excellent resource when planning a long-running comic book.

And the trouble with world-building set around the characters you mention is that Sega might not allow it to happen if they have even the slightest idea that they might ever want to provide some development in that area themselves.  I agree that there's a massive amount of room for development around Blaze's entire universe, the Deadly Six's home and species - but if Sega won't actually let you touch it, then there is no potential at all.  I believe there are some indications that this is the case with Blaze's world, correct?

[Your Vest Friend]

1 hour ago, Chameleon94 said:

And it was a Freedom Fighters-less arc. Not surprising.

Wouldn't have mattered, the important part is that the cover had no non-game elements on (since the promotion did not go into the contents so didn't have to mention Walter Naugus being the main baddie). It's the same deal with the Genesis of a Hero covers, which didn't show the FFs or Snively despite their presence. 

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Btw, does this meeting deconfirm Ian as a potential writer or not...?

Not really, no. That seems to be a meeting of heads far above the creative team level, so he wouldn't be there even if he was on board. 

 

All this being said, I do think Iizuka being directly involved does diminish chances of the Freedom Fighters (or even scrapped game characters) appearing, because SoJ have their eye on the comic directly and they probably have a very strong idea of what the comic should do. 

[NikoS]

Iizuka didn't "move" to SoA after the decision on "America will be Sonic hub from now on" ? Or am i misremembering things and he is on SoA for now just to oversee the new games development?

[Red Hot Jack]

3 minutes ago, NikoS said:

Iizuka didn't "move" to SoA after the decision on "America will be Sonic hub from now on" ? Or am i misremembering things and he is on SoA for now just to oversee the new games development?

I think he moved just for a while to overview the development of the current games.

[RedFox99]

I wonder what he thinks of the comics. 

[rosedust]

6 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

No they weren't. Especially as often it's not stuff that had a great effect. For example, Sonic could tear up but not cry his eyes out, that's pretty much nothing. 

http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Ken_Penders'_legal_cases#Mandates 

These are stupid, in my opinion. I know it's not their fault but it's very annoying to me, personally.

[Heckboy]

I don't think any of those are that bad, really. 

[SBR2]

2 hours ago, Chameleon94 said:

And it was a Freedom Fighters-less arc. Not surprising. Btw, does this meeting deconfirm Ian as a potential writer or not...?

I'd say not since IDW's located in San Diego and Ian lives in Toronto. This seems like a meeting between Higher ups at Sega and IDW to me.

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Get that Webber out of there if you want to have anything to do with a plot in that comic you're cooking up! As far as I've seen the man's making everything a big meme, everything he touches.

Boy that sure would mean something in Webber wrote for the games and didn't just run the social media pages.

[Dash Speed]

This comic needs to go back to its Japanese roots with more Japanese type elements incorperated in them. The reason the franchise isn't very popular is a lot of character are disconnected to the Japanese public in certain areas of the content the promote making things like Archie sonic American exclusive.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

For those who tend to blow stuff like the "Sonic can't cry" or "Sonic can't completely fail" mandates.

For the first one. Come on, It was stated that they wouldn't be showing excessive bouts of emotion.

This being a prime example:

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An example of established-requirement of censorship of emotion from Sonic the Hedgehog #166 (left: original, right: current)

Instead of being a sobbing mess, he still conveys the hardships and sense of loss quite well. And speaking of which, the second one.

Yeah, he can still suffer defeats, and hardships, but he wasn't allowed to lose the arc. Which makes sense from the get go.

Seriously, the mandates get awfully blown sky high out of proportion, as if they even really did notable damage outside of having some character be unavailable, and that one's not even on SEGA.

[SBR2]

1 hour ago, Jovahexeon Ace Joranvexeon said:

:

Instead of being a sobbing mess, he still conveys the hardships and sense of loss quite well. And speaking of which, the second one.

Yeah, he can still suffer defeats, and hardships, but we wasn't allowed to lose the arc. Which makes sense from the get go.

Seriously, the mandates get awfully blown sky high out of proportion, as if they even really did notable damage outside of having some character be unavailable, and that one's not even on SEGA.

I mean as time goes on I find a little more silly but you have to remember that Sonic's talking about how his children were erased from existence and he never appreciated all he had.

Don't get me wrong I'm pro-Mandates because going light on them is how we got Penders but like Context is important.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Just now, SBR2 said:

I mean as time goes on I find a little more silly but you have to remember that Sonic's talking about how his children were erased from existence and he never appreciated all he had.

Don't get me wrong I'm pro-Mandates because going light on them is how we got Penders but like Context is important.

But that's the thing. The context is still there and isn't harmed.

Like seriously, he still sheds tears. Just because one doesn't break down into a sob doesn't mean they aren't hurting just as much if not more, keeping them bottled up.

[SBR2]

2 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Ace Joranvexeon said:

But that's the thing. The context is still there and isn't harmed.

Like seriously, he still sheds tears. Just because one doesn't break down into a sob doesn't mean they aren't hurting just as much if not more, keeping them bottled up.

True. And like I said the more I see it the sillier the first one looks.

[NotHole]

1 hour ago, SBR2 said:

Boy that sure would mean something in Webber wrote for the games and didn't just run the social media pages.

Given his popularity, I would be surprised if there hadn't been a discussion of him writing the new comic.

[Mauro Fonseca]

3 hours ago, rosedust said:

http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Ken_Penders'_legal_cases#Mandates 

These are stupid, in my opinion. I know it's not their fault but it's very annoying to me, personally.

That page is awful because it mixes and treats everything the same.

There's no mandate against Maximillian Acorn. His disappearance has nothing to do with SEGA, and thus is irrelevant to IDW.

SEGA allowed them use of Dark Brotherhood.

So on, so on.

RE: The Mobius XYL edit, it's one case where I do think keeping the original would've been warranted- if "character bawls their heart out" hadn't been trivialised by then, having Sonic do so would've felt potent and warranted. He's utterly defeated in that moment, so in a rare occasion, he cries a ton. But eh.

[SonicComicFanboy]

2 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

This comic needs to go back to its Japanese roots with more Japanese type elements incorperated in them. The reason the franchise isn't very popular is a lot of character are disconnected to the Japanese public in certain areas of the content the promote making things like Archie sonic American exclusive.

I'm sorry but I can't help but laugh at this.  Sonic was created primarily with a western audiance in mind.  He was literally made to remind western audiances of characters like Bugs Bunny & Mickey Mouse as part of his gimmick to compete with Mario & Nintendo.  Saying he needs to be more Japanese is just silly.  He has never been big as Mario, Megaman, etc, in Japan and never will be.  Best they stay with the US/EU audiance that is more open to the character.

[Sonictrainer]

2 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

This comic needs to go back to its Japanese roots with more Japanese type elements incorperated in them. The reason the franchise isn't very popular is a lot of character are disconnected to the Japanese public in certain areas of the content the promote making things like Archie sonic American exclusive.

I don't think that's the comic's fault.

[Korke]

4 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

This comic needs to go back to its Japanese roots with more Japanese type elements incorperated in them. The reason the franchise isn't very popular is a lot of character are disconnected to the Japanese public in certain areas of the content the promote making things like Archie sonic American exclusive.

Sonic was never popular in Japan, not even in his best years. The fandom core was always the Americas, both the US and Latin America. Also, it's worth to note that, the latter was the only place in the world that SEGA did beat Nintendo in the numbers, when we're still in the 90's console competition.

In fact, Sonic being a anthro himself already disconnects him to the Japanese public. That's why in the anime Sonic X they created Chris. Now, in today's year, if they really wanted to make Sonic popular to them, they would have to turn him into a loli or something.... Heh

[RedFox99]

2 minutes ago, Korke said:

Sonic was never popular in Japan, not even in his best years. The fandom core was always the Americas, both the US and Latin America. Also, it's worth to note that, the latter was the only place in the world that SEGA did beat Nintendo in the numbers, when we're still in the 90's console competition.

In fact, Sonic being a anthro himself already disconnects him to the Japanese public. That's why in the anime Sonic X they created Chris. Now, in today's year, if they really wanted to make Sonic popular to them, they would have to turn him into a loli or something.... Heh

So anthropomorphic animals aren't popular in Japan?

[King Scoopa Koopa]

8 hours ago, FFWF said:

I don't know that people are necessarily making absolute statements about the objective quality of an unwritten comic, merely about what their own personal feelings would be.  For my part, I would be resistant to the idea of outright dropping any character if it could legally be helped; to have a vast background cast on standby for if you ever need them strikes me as an excellent resource when planning a long-running comic book.

And the trouble with world-building set around the characters you mention is that Sega might not allow it to happen if they have even the slightest idea that they might ever want to provide some development in that area themselves.  I agree that there's a massive amount of room for development around Blaze's entire universe, the Deadly Six's home and species - but if Sega won't actually let you touch it, then there is no potential at all.  I believe there are some indications that this is the case with Blaze's world, correct?

Their inability to use Eggman Nega almost at all is a good example.

[RedFox99]

2 minutes ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Their inability to use Eggman Nega almost at all is a good example.

I thought a lot of didn't like him? 

[Your Vest Friend]

Ehh, I don't think it's out of the question that the comic would go back to its Japanese roots...or at least, to put it another way, make it more approachable for international audiences. SEGA may want to spread the comics' span out for Europe as well as America, knowing how the franchise works. 

[Salamander]

13 minutes ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Their inability to use Eggman Nega almost at all is a good example.

Good point; it seems like the comics might be actively forbidden from "filling in the blanks."  World-building in the context of game-specific material, therefore, is an impossibility.  All that's left for world-building is original material... or nothing at all.

[Your Vest Friend]

Eggman Nega is a weird case because we know that was the mandate at the time Ian last asked, but we don't know when he last asked. Considering he finally got a Sonic Channel profile as of late last year, he may have finally become available just as the comic was about to die. 

[Korke]

52 minutes ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Their inability to use Eggman Nega almost at all is a good example.

To be honest, I'm glad he's not used. I hate the concept of a Eggman clone just sitting for Blaze's dimension.

 

1 hour ago, RedFox99 said:

So anthropomorphic animals aren't popular in Japan?

Only as the fluffy funny companion for comedy relief, but never as main characters, much less a whole cast starring almost only them.

That's kinda old news though.