Interesting Sonic comic find

[-Mark-]

Well, I'd been meaning to dig these out for a long while, now, and I finally got round to scanning them.

Yeeears back, I must have only been eight or nine at the time (so the best part of 13-14 years ago) my aunt gave me a pile of magazine pages that she'd been collecting for me. Turns out they had a small run of Sonic comics in them. I'm not sure what the magazine was or why it had Sonic comics in, but I wasn't complaining.

Now, what I have here is far from complete, but I've scanned them all and tried to put them in as logical an order as possible, bearing in mind I obviously have a few gaps even in what's here.

Sonic Mini-Comic Scans

The interesting thing is that, for the most part, much of it is clearly (at least from what I can gather, which after years of STC should be quite a lot) Richard Elson's style, although the comics went uncredited. That said, there were small text ads for STC under them, which might be a bit of a giveaway.

What's also interesting is the last one (again, I just shoved it at the back since it didn't fit in with any of the others), which has a decidedly more classic feel (and uses an Eggman design which seems to be largely based on his classic game design, but has minor elements of his cartoon counterpart).

So, has anyone else heard of/ seen/ got any of these comics? What are your thoughts on them?

It'd actually be really interesting to try and get a complete scanned compilation of them, although I'm not sure how possible that'll be, since as far as I know the comic itself is pretty obscure.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Whoa! Now theres something I didn't know existed.

In terms of their art style and their plot (which little plot they have), they remind me not so much of STC, but of the old Sonic Yearbooks, yes they did have some of the STC staff working on them, but the style seems a bit different to STC's.

Unfortunately, the yearbooks don't have a full list of staff in them (who did what) so it's mainly guesswork as to who was responsible for the strips, but since they resemble fleetway so much, it's a safe bet that they were made by the old fleetway staff. However who wrote each strip is debatable until they come out and say 'I did it'

Chances are, given the years on the yearbooks, these were made during 1991-1992. The yearbooks have the publisher Grandreams, but I don't think that this will have any influence over these pages.

I have utterly no idea as to what magazine they came from, chances are it would have been something like "Look In" or one of those kids Sunday newspapers that used to be out in the 90's. However if they are magazine pages then it would be a magazine like 'Look In' or even a music magazine as they would often have comic strips in them aimed at kids.

I would post these over at retro junk, see if anyone there remembers it.

Not sure what the value of the individual pages would be, if they were in the magazine as a whole then they would be worth a lot more.

I guess that the only way to be sure would be to ask Nigel Kitching or one of the original fleetway staff, see if they know or remember anything. And Nigel Kitching remembered the original Sega promotional comic that they based issue 1 off, so he may remember this if he had anything to do with it.

But this is something that I would love to add to my collection of STC.

[The Conductor]

If I am not wrong, I believe that was well as their fortnightly comic, STC ran news paper strips. What I think you have there. is the news paper comics...I could be wrong. I don't have these in my collection of EVERY SONIC COMIC EVER MADE so I'm stumped, but my best guess would be the news paper comic...

[-Mark-]

Well, it wasn't a newspaper since the pages themselves are glossy. And considering it was a magazine my aunt was reading I assumed it was some kind of women's or lifestyle magazine that just happened to have some comics in for them to show to their kids, but who knows?

In any case, I doubt the ones I have are worth anything at all now, since being the age I was at the time, I cut all the strips off of their respective pages and glued them into a scrapbook. Oh well. D=

[Sankai]

Wow.... cool. Extremely similar to the Sonic promo comic, with Kintobor and that crap. Sonic seems to talki n the third person....

[redmenace]

I think that's Elson as well, it sure looks a lot like his style, but the ammount of jokes about cheese doesn't really remind me of anything.

Great post however, thumbs up. It's always nice to see STC Sonic, centred in Sonic and Eggman, badniks flying around and Tails helping every now and then.

[Jix Hedgehog]

Nice!

That would be worth quiet a bit I'd imagine

[Sankai]

Nice!

That would be worth quiet a bit I'd imagine

Totally. Good $130 I'd imagine. But now you've gone and ruined it with the scans.

[Jhog]

Hey, I've been looking for these comics for a while! Thanks!

[-Mark-]

Totally. Good $130 I'd imagine. But now you've gone and ruined it with the scans.

You make no sense. D=

For a start, how can you personally put any kind of actual value on them? Secondly, what does the fact I've scanned them have to do with their value?

[TheGerkuman]

Basically, you'd have to hoard the comics to yourself, and sell it to someone who'll scan it for a large amount of money. In other words, be a git.

I think it's good you scanned it for us all though, it's the nicer option.

[SKSpawn]

I remember these, and have a few stuck in a little book. They're similar to the Sonic strips in the old Sonic annuals, of which I also have a few, which don't seem to be set in the Fleetway continuity, more the old SEGASonic timeline. Shame this sort of stuff never got collected in any real way. As I recall, the strips ended at some point and were replaced with ones based on the old 90's Spider-Man animated series.

Edited September 21, 2009 by SKSpawn

[Badnik Mechanic]

I've been looking closely at these images in a bid to find out where they came from, and I noticed that they're actually a lot more recent than I first thought.

According to the disclaimer at the bottom of this imagethat particular magazine had comic strips for the Flintstones and Power Rangers, other pages show Captain Scarlett, But the dates on some of them are copywrited to 1994, meaning that these must be from that year onwards and not 1991-1992 as I originally thought.

Is there anything on the backs of these pages? If there is and they're not adverts (or heck if they're all of a specific advert such as perfume), it may give us an idea as to what magazine they're from. But if theres a feature of somekind, even if it's just the title of a specific feature, it may help with the search.

I don't believe that these are from the childrens newspaper called "The Funday Times" as I had pondered, the Funday Times had comic strips like that, but it was barely 10 pages long and printed on newspaper.

The fact that the magazine is at least 62 pages long would indicate that it's got to be a big name, no way would it be a small publication or a free supplement from a larger paper.

I now wonder if it was from one of those puzzle magazines that used to be popular, like Take a Break magazine?

Edited September 21, 2009 by Casanova

[-Mark-]

Like I said, I can't check the backs of all of then without physically damaging them, since I glued them into a scrapbook. Thankfully though, I stuck some of the related ones on top of each other in a flap sort of fashion, so I can check the backs of those.

Most of them seem to have adverts the sort of which you'd expect to see in a TV Guide magazine or typical women's/ gossip magazine, so Take a Break seems possible. The ads in question are for things such as mail-order book clubs, cosmetic surgery and general 'catalogue' type offers. I've tried peeking behind a few more pages as much as I can without tearing them and some seem to have some articles on the back, but most of them are just rather generic mail-order adverts.

Interestingly a couple of them actually seem to have some brief videogame related things on the back, although nothing too deep. They very much seem like gossipy TV-Guide type fare. And considering I got them from my aunt, as I said in my opening post, I'm assuming more likely than not that it was at the very least a magazine with a largely female audience.

[Dreadknux]

.... ARGH! o_o

I remember these! Oh dear, I completely forgot about the existence of these mini-comics!

I -don't- remember too much about them, but what Mahzes has assumed is pretty much correct -- these mini-strips were part of a collection of kid's strips that came with a small TV magazine (you know, the ones that come with News of the World on Sundays or something). So they both came from a glossy and a newspaper, technically. I remember reading/loving these as my nan used to get the newspaper and use it as a TV guide/whatever it was.

Honestly can't remember the name of the magazine though. As my nan was all about The Sun/NotW though, I'd hazard a guess that whatever supplement it was printed in has something to do with that newspaper.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Honestly can't remember the name of the magazine though. As my nan was all about The Sun/NotW though, I'd hazard a guess that whatever supplement it was printed in has something to do with that newspaper.

Oh no! If thats the case then chances are we'd never find a complete set, if these supplements were weekly things, then they would have around 52 issues per year. Until one is found complete with a date then theres no way to tell where to start looking... unless the news of the world/sun has archieves for their supplements... Not sure if they would... but if anyone was desperate to find some that would be a place to start.

[Dreadknux]

Oh no! If thats the case then chances are we'd never find a complete set, if these supplements were weekly things, then they would have around 52 issues per year. Until one is found complete with a date then theres no way to tell where to start looking... unless the news of the world/sun has archieves for their supplements... Not sure if they would... but if anyone was desperate to find some that would be a place to start.

I honestly don't think they did a Sonic strip consistently... if I remember correctly, they had the Sonic strip for a few months. But then I don't know, it could have gone on for a year or two.

I've noticed that in one of Mahzes scans the date 1991/1992 is slapped in the copyright details. Perhaps that's a clue as to narrow down our search?

EDIT: This is the one:

http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/RapidHedgehog/Sonic%20scans/?action=view&current=19.png

Although now that I've looked at it, it features copyright for Captain Scarlet and the other comics featured on the page too... which have dates of 1993/1994. So unless NotW has a time machine, I doubt we're looking at strictly '91/92 here.

[-Mark-]

I think considering how the artistic style seems to change (especially considering that one uses Eggman/ Robotnik's 'classic' design... well, almost) suggests that these comics were either fairly long-running or were on-and-off for a number of years, at least.

I think the 1991-1992 copyright is simply 'because Sonic started then'. If I recall, a lot of early Sonic merchandise only had the 91-92 copyright on it. Considering a few of the comics actually advertise STC in the small print ('Sonic also stars in his own fortnightly comic') means that those ones at least had to be from 1993 at the earliest.

Beat in mind, I think I got these around 1995-1996, although at the same time my aunt does horde things quite a bit, so it's hard to tell how current they were then.

[Lucky]

Dread was right on the ball with News of the World. It was printed in their Sunday magazine.

After doing a bit of research into it, I stumbled across a couple of Sunday back issues for sale. One of the issues listed was dated 10th April 1994, but since it was £15.99 I decided to ask the seller if there actually was a Sonic strip in it before jumping right in. Earlier tonight I got a reply saying that yes there was, and it covered about one-third of the page. But! The exciting part was that she also had another issue from 12th February 1995 and said that there was a smaller Sonic strip contained within. So I have no idea whether or not it ran constantly for that long, or if there was possibly a gap in between, but that shows it was still printing as late as '95.

I've bought both issues and I'll scan them when they arrive if they're different from the strips already posted.

Also, I'm gonna head to the library as soon as I get a chance, 'cause I know they have a huge backpile of newspapers. Alas, no idea if those'll have the supplements and the likes, but it's worth a shot. If they've got them I'm planning on getting photocopies. I really hope they do have, 'cos that'd give me a chance to check the dates it was published to and from.

I know a couple of those scans show there was a Captain Scarlet comic printed asides from the Sonic one, and I found out that ran in Sunday from 10th October 1993 until 2nd April 1994. I guess the Sonic comic ran on for a while after that finished, and I'd take a wild guess that it probably started printing in 1993 itself, possibly around the same time STC started or not long after. I know Richard Elson once said he'd done work on the first Sonic Yearbook before he got started with STC, but I've never saw any mention of him doing anything else in between which leads me to believe he probably started work on this at the same time he joined STC, or not long after at least. (That's if it's his artwork: It's impossible to say 100% without him actually coming out and saying it of course, but I'd be willing to bet anything that he did do it. Cos his style's really distinct to me and that definitely looks like it).

I actually had a couple of these comics myself years back, but like Mahzes I got them from someone and never actually knew where'd they'd originated from, then I just forgot all about them for years, so it's nice to finally get some light shed on where they came from.

Edited September 24, 2009 by Lucky Winters

[Badnik Mechanic]

I too can confirm this... almost. I found an issue of "Sunday" for sale which was May 1994, so if those copywrite dates were correct it should contain the Sonic strip.

I asked the seller if it contained childrens comics, if so, which ones, the seller told me...

Yes it does. One page, Sonic The Hedgehog. Captain Scarlet. The Flintstones. Zig & Zag. Thanks Tony.

With any luck that issue should turn up tomorrow. But I didn't want to say anything until I had seen it first.

Also, I'm gonna head to the library as soon as I get a chance, 'cause I know they have a huge backpile of newspapers. Alas, no idea if those'll have the supplements and the likes, but it's worth a shot. If they've got them I'm planning on getting photocopies. I really hope they do have, 'cos that'd give me a chance to check the dates it was published to and from.

I'm not sure if a public library is the best way to go, they may have them, but a University Library which is over 2 decades old (if it's been redesigned or new it's unlikely to have them). That has copies of the news of the world may have them due to how they store them.

Then I have flashbacks to the day I tried looking for newspaper articles at my uni, it was like a monster, the giant pile of papers, I do wonder if it would actually be worth it in the end.

But, given how most newspapers have a form of archieve which is typically their entire history, maybe someone should be brave enough to contact the news of the world? If they do have archieves of the issues, it would mean someone going into their offices, they won't do the work for you... or... contact Richard Elson and see if he has the original concept art.

[SKSpawn]

Sorry to bring up a topic that's pretty much dead, but has anyone found any more scans of these little strips?

[Marcello]

You didn't post any pics, but can I assume you mean those SA2/Heroes strips? I had a link a while back, but I can't find them anymore.

This isn't a new topic. Ignore. >_>

Edited October 5, 2011 by MarcelloF

[Lucky]

Sorry to bring up a topic that's pretty much dead, but has anyone found any more scans of these little strips?

Well, since this topic was posted in the first place, I've managed to track down five issues that contain the strips. One was unfortunately this one that Mark had already posted, but the other four are different. Actually been meaning to scan them to show a couple of folks for a while now, so this is as good a reason as any to get on with that. Just have to dig them out tonight and I'll shove them up here as soon as I do.

Been a long time since I've managed to get a hold of any others alas, and I was never able to find out the exact dates the strip ran. Even tried contacting the News of the World about it and no one had a single clue what I was on about, and the magazines pop up so rarely that it's hard to even keep tabs on it that way... The earliest one I got was from April 10 1994, and the latest was March 5 1995. I did find an issue from September 1993 a couple of months ago and the Sonic strip hadn't started at that point, so I just have to assume that it likely popped up around the beginning of 1994.

Just a shame it was in the supplement and not the actual paper, or else I'd imagine it'd a hell of a lot easier to track down.

[Badnik Mechanic]

One other problem is that these can be epically expensive to track down.

There are shops and services that will re-print old newspapers, but it's very expensive, like £15-£20 per paper! And theres no guarantee that it includes the supplement or not (I imagine you won't get it).

Although that reminds me, I should really photo my issue and upload it at some point.

Also now that the News of the World has been shut down, this makes the task near impossible. Chances are if you turned up at the old NOTW offices and asked if you could look through their archieves you would find what you were looking for.

Let us add another thing to the list of stuff that Rebekah Brooks did... killed all chances of finding all these comics! The bitch!

[SchemingMinor]

Robotnik is a dick. That is all.

Also somebody posted up this quite disturbing cover long ago on their DeviantArt page (remember, DeviantArt is not Livejournal or Photobucket! ) which made me question how the hell they got this past the censors back then:

Oh right, it's from Australia. The land of punching marsupials. Never mind...