Which is better: Sonic Archie Comics, Fleetway or Sonic IDW Comics?

[Rabbitearsblog]

2 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Let’s just say it carries much of the same torch of what people liked Archie for when Ian was in charge.

It’s not perfect, but it’s similar enough to get into.

That's great to hear!

[Styx_Linoone]

Let's just hold out for Sega in case they remember that Tekno the Canary exists from Fleetway.

[Rabbitearsblog]

3 hours ago, Styx_Linoone said:

Let's just hold out for Sega in case they remember that Tekno the Canary exists from Fleetway.

Can they use Tekno the Canary from the comics into the games?

[Mauro Fonseca]

What's being asked?

If the question is which is the better SONIC Comic, it's IDW. It's the best representation of the franchise at the moment it was made. Second place is Sonic the Comic, third is Sonic Adventures Dans Les Griffes de Robotnik, fourth is those 2000s gag manga, fifth is Archie.

Maybe StC in third and Adventures in second? Regardless yeah. Don't think this is very debatable, in terms of sheer "which is keeping truest to the games at the time it's being made". StC veered off in weird directions but always tried to keep true to the games (as shown in Western manuals at least) and while towards the end it was starting to take a liberal approach with adaptations, it got canned before it could divert too much. IDW of course has Sega directly involved so it's the "truest" Sonic comic.

 

Now, if the question is which is the better Sonic COMIC, as in, forget the Sonic, how good is it as a comic in and of itself, then that'll depend on what you want from a comic. My answer is Sonic the Comic; I think a lot of the criticism nowadays comes from people without the context of how comics can be distributed outside the US Capes-Japanese Manga formats, so the idea of a magazine with 5-page stories that some're serial and some are just short fun bits is too alien, together with the tone and humour being perhaps too British. I think it succeeds with flying colours at what it set out to be, which is "2000AD for six year olds".

 

Archie's too much of a mixed bag. While it improved with Ian and had good moments before too, it's just got too much melodrama, too much outright bad stuff, and too many narrative checks that can't get paid. If someone asked me for "funny animal action comic" I'd recommend Archie's Ian run, sure, but I don't think it's as good at what it set out to be as StC was.

 

IDW is Archie but further neutered. Growing pains of it trying to find its own footing have made it an awkward read, and I've genuine hope it'll improve with time, but so far it's just been a condensed version of the worst parts of latter-day Archie- awkward pacing, narrative checks that can't get paid, etc etc etc. While consistent in quality, compared to the first 50 or so issues of Archie, I think Archie gets the advantage too.

 

Dans Les Grifffes de Robotnik is really fun and got great art but in terms of being a self-contained album it's meandering and goes nowhere fast imo, nothing compared to the best action stuff in the format like a good Valerian et Laureline or Spirou.

 

None of the manga have been particularly remarkable or high quality as manga.

 

tl;dr- best comic at being a Sonic comic- IDW 1st place, StC 2nd place, French comic 3rd place; but best comic at being a comic- StC 1st place, Archie 2nd place, IDW 3rd place.

[Rabbitearsblog]

On 2/14/2021 at 1:56 PM, The KKM said:

What's being asked?

If the question is which is the better SONIC Comic, it's IDW. It's the best representation of the franchise at the moment it was made. Second place is Sonic the Comic, third is Sonic Adventures Dans Les Griffes de Robotnik, fourth is those 2000s gag manga, fifth is Archie.

Maybe StC in third and Adventures in second? Regardless yeah. Don't think this is very debatable, in terms of sheer "which is keeping truest to the games at the time it's being made". StC veered off in weird directions but always tried to keep true to the games (as shown in Western manuals at least) and while towards the end it was starting to take a liberal approach with adaptations, it got canned before it could divert too much. IDW of course has Sega directly involved so it's the "truest" Sonic comic.

 

Now, if the question is which is the better Sonic COMIC, as in, forget the Sonic, how good is it as a comic in and of itself, then that'll depend on what you want from a comic. My answer is Sonic the Comic; I think a lot of the criticism nowadays comes from people without the context of how comics can be distributed outside the US Capes-Japanese Manga formats, so the idea of a magazine with 5-page stories that some're serial and some are just short fun bits is too alien, together with the tone and humour being perhaps too British. I think it succeeds with flying colours at what it set out to be, which is "2000AD for six year olds".

 

Archie's too much of a mixed bag. While it improved with Ian and had good moments before too, it's just got too much melodrama, too much outright bad stuff, and too many narrative checks that can't get paid. If someone asked me for "funny animal action comic" I'd recommend Archie's Ian run, sure, but I don't think it's as good at what it set out to be as StC was.

 

IDW is Archie but further neutered. Growing pains of it trying to find its own footing have made it an awkward read, and I've genuine hope it'll improve with time, but so far it's just been a condensed version of the worst parts of latter-day Archie- awkward pacing, narrative checks that can't get paid, etc etc etc. While consistent in quality, compared to the first 50 or so issues of Archie, I think Archie gets the advantage too.

 

Dans Les Grifffes de Robotnik is really fun and got great art but in terms of being a self-contained album it's meandering and goes nowhere fast imo, nothing compared to the best action stuff in the format like a good Valerian et Laureline or Spirou.

 

None of the manga have been particularly remarkable or high quality as manga.

 

tl;dr- best comic at being a Sonic comic- IDW 1st place, StC 2nd place, French comic 3rd place; but best comic at being a comic- StC 1st place, Archie 2nd place, IDW 3rd place.

Hmmm...I never heard of the Dans Les Grifffes de Robotnik comic.  Is it in French?

[Adamis]

Yes, it's a French comic released in 1994 by "La Sirène". It's a one-off that ends on a cliffhanger (I suppose it was just telling the players to play S3K).

There's also a Sonic&Knuckles guide with a few comic pages with Sonic and Knuckles, not really tied to "Dans les griffes de Robotnik" but by the same artist.

[bumhole_the_tom]

I think each of the 3 main series has something it does better than the others, no series was/is perfect.

The Archie world was MASSIVE, enabling them to tell huge stories that expanded dozen of characters across a large variety of locations, both of which were constantly reappearing through the series (i.e. Knuckles' lore/storyline was incredibly comprehensive, thanks to Penders), and had great continuity: the story rarely ever stopped. It was always exciting to see how things had changed when Sonic revisited old locations in newer issues (Flynn did this the best when he first took over, around issue 160). Much of its world has nothing to do with the games, and that's mostly because the 90s Sonic games didn't have much in terms of source material for an expansive storyline, so they decided to just create a lot of it themselves. At times it was pretty mediocre, but there were plenty of great ideas and additions as well. Once the games developed more of their own characters/canon, the Archie series started to feel like a different franchise altogether, which is by far my biggest gripe (and there were lots of gripes in story/artwork). Imo, they should've focused less on the freedom fighters (more on the game cast), but still should've kept them around. Eggman was far more threatening in this series, pushed Sonic to his limits a number of times, and it was awesome. Also awesome was two issues per month!

IDW is a LOT more consistent with the games, and I think that's the way the Archie series should've been. Writing has been consistently good, and so has the artwork. Now that there have been a few simplistic arcs that have introduced all the main characters/story tropes, the new stories are starting to explore new territory, and it's really, really good! I miss the rich, expanded world from Archie, as well as the more dramatic storylines (girl drama aside: that was an awful addition to Archie), but I like the consistency with the games.

I haven't read much of Sonic the Comic, but I really liked how the early issues stayed true to the Genesis games, as if they didn't care about how little source material there was. Sonic literally talks to the animal friends, who are the same size as him and each have their own names/personalities. There's nothing better than playing the games and feeling like the comics expanded the story of what was actually happening in the games, as if it were this grand, interconnected world with a massive lore that was just never described on the cartridge.

[Rabbitearsblog]

3 hours ago, bumhole_the_tom said:

I think each of the 3 main series has something it does better than the others, no series was/is perfect.

The Archie world was MASSIVE, enabling them to tell huge stories that expanded dozen of characters across a large variety of locations, both of which were constantly reappearing through the series (i.e. Knuckles' lore/storyline was incredibly comprehensive, thanks to Penders), and had great continuity: the story rarely ever stopped. It was always exciting to see how things had changed when Sonic revisited old locations in newer issues (Flynn did this the best when he first took over, around issue 160). Much of its world has nothing to do with the games, and that's mostly because the 90s Sonic games didn't have much in terms of source material for an expansive storyline, so they decided to just create a lot of it themselves. At times it was pretty mediocre, but there were plenty of great ideas and additions as well. Once the games developed more of their own characters/canon, the Archie series started to feel like a different franchise altogether, which is by far my biggest gripe (and there were lots of gripes in story/artwork). Imo, they should've focused less on the freedom fighters (more on the game cast), but still should've kept them around. Eggman was far more threatening in this series, pushed Sonic to his limits a number of times, and it was awesome. Also awesome was two issues per month!

IDW is a LOT more consistent with the games, and I think that's the way the Archie series should've been. Writing has been consistently good, and so has the artwork. Now that there have been a few simplistic arcs that have introduced all the main characters/story tropes, the new stories are starting to explore new territory, and it's really, really good! I miss the rich, expanded world from Archie, as well as the more dramatic storylines (girl drama aside: that was an awful addition to Archie), but I like the consistency with the games.

I haven't read much of Sonic the Comic, but I really liked how the early issues stayed true to the Genesis games, as if they didn't care about how little source material there was. Sonic literally talks to the animal friends, who are the same size as him and each have their own names/personalities. There's nothing better than playing the games and feeling like the comics expanded the story of what was actually happening in the games, as if it were this grand, interconnected world with a massive lore that was just never described on the cartridge.

I agree.  Each comic do have their own strengths and weaknesses.   For Archie Comics, they are able to expand more on the characters themselves and the world they live in.  However, the plots tended to get so confusing and are all over the place.  For IDW Comics, they are more faithful to the video games and are more organized when it comes to storytelling.  However, they play things a bit too safe and there are several controversial portrayals of certain characters (Shadow being the biggest example).  For Sonic the Comic, they are also pretty faithful to the video games; however their portrayal of Sonic being a jerk most of the time might turn some people off.

[Rabbitearsblog]

Wow, it's been awhile since we last talked on this subject.  So, now that the IDW series has finally reached 50 issues, do you think that issue 50 of the IDW series is better than issue 50 of the Archie series or do you think it's the other way around?

[MetalSkulkBane]

Each of them had their ups and downs, but counting from bottom to top

5 ARCHIE (PRE-FLYNN)
Product of it's time. Had it's good moments. Spaz artwork. Without it we wouldn't even have Flynn.
Say what you want, it's a mess.
Started as a simple comedy book, matured into something decent-ish, then went hard on melodrama. Even if I ignore Penders, it wasn't that great.

4 FLEETWAY
Let's be clear, Richard Elson carried that book. 19 on 20 best stories have his amazing art. There are other things to be applaud sure. With basically 2 writers the characterization was very tight, had some cool OCs and big arcs were fairly epic. But at the end of a day it was silly book for kids with no aspiration to be much more. And some comedy stories were just awful.

3 ARCHIE (FLYNN, REBOOT)
To me, Reboot was all setup, died to quickly before the proper payoff. It tried so desperately to rebuit heold size ASAP that it undercut itself. Also, secondary FF groups were horrible idea that should hdied with old continuity, not get more focus. Too many characters, not enough time to care about them all. And yes, that includes the main group too.
On the positive, it's still Flynn, Aleah, Stanley, Baker, all the greats who made Sonic comics so good in Preboot. And there was definitely more polish to the world, at least to the characters. No more weird designs or recolors, bunch of amazing colorful characters. Eclipse, Relic, Breezie, they will be missed.

2 ARCHIE (FLYNN, PREBOOT)
Technically it was made from the mess of Pre-Flynn, but there was something immensely satisfying in watching Flynn fix everything, make coherent lore, make characters more interesting. Plus I kinda miss the epic size. I miss fighting gods, wizards and evil counterparts. It was pure chaos, but it was alive, rich and fascinating chaos to observe.

1 IDW
I have my complaints here too. I miss the epic size of preboot a bit. I miss better Shadow a lot. Or Knuckles leaving the island. And my Chaos, I miss having 2 books soooooooooooo much.
But IDW has one advantage, and some people will hate me for saying this: we dropped Freedom Fighters.

Finally book can be about Sega cast. Finally there is breathing room. Just look at Tails. In Archie he was best remembered as a kid bullied by Fiona. In IDW he's almost equal partner, an essential part of Sonic victories.
I dont' hate FF. But I like Team Dark, Chaotix, Blaze and the rest ten times more. And even if I didn't, Sonic works much better with a rotating group of friends, than a special forces unit glued to his side.

[Rabbitearsblog]

7 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Each of them had their ups and downs, but counting from bottom to top

5 ARCHIE (PRE-FLYNN)
Product of it's time. Had it's good moments. Spaz artwork. Without it we wouldn't even have Flynn.
Say what you want, it's a mess.
Started as a simple comedy book, matured into something decent-ish, then went hard on melodrama. Even if I ignore Penders, it wasn't that great.

4 FLEETWAY
Let's be clear, Richard Elson carried that book. 19 on 20 best stories have his amazing art. There are other things to be applaud sure. With basically 2 writers the characterization was very tight, had some cool OCs and big arcs were fairly epic. But at the end of a day it was silly book for kids with no aspiration to be much more. And some comedy stories were just awful.

3 ARCHIE (FLYNN, REBOOT)
To me Reboot was all setup, died to quickly before proper payoff. It tried so desperately to rebuild  old size ASAP that it undercut itself. Also, secondary FF groups were horrible idea that should died with old continuity, not get more focus. Too many characters, not enough time to care about them all. And yes, that includes main group too.
On the positive, it's still Flynn, Aleah, Stanley, Baker, all the greats who made Sonic comics so good in Preboot. And there was definitely more polish to the world, at least to characters. No more weird designs or recolors, bunch of amazing colorful characters. Eclipse, Relic, Breezie, they will be missed.

2 ARCHIE (FLYNN, PREBOOT)
Technically it was made from the mess of Pre-Flynn, but there was something immensely satisfying in watching Flynn fix everything, make coherent lore, make characters more interesting. Plus I kinda miss the epic size. I miss fighting gods, wizards and evil counterparts. It was pure chaos, but it was alive, rich and fascinating chaos to observe.

1 IDW
I have my complains here too. I miss epic size of preboot a bit. I miss better Shadow a lot. Or Knuckles leaving the island. And my god, I miss having 2 books soooooooooooo much.
But IDW has one advantage, and some people will hate me for saying this: we dropped Freedom Fighters.

Finally book can be about Sega cast. Finally there is breathing room. Just look at Tails. In Archie he was best remembered as a kid bullied by Fiona. In IDW he's almost equal partner, essential part of Sonic victories.
I dont' hate FF. But I like Team Dark, Chaotic, Blaze and the rest ten times more. And even if I didn't, Sonic works much better with rotating group of friends, then special forces unit glued to his side.

I agree that each comic book series have their own flaws and strengths.  I can't really say much about the Fleetway comics, since I didn't read them, but I do have quite a bit to say about both the Archie comics and the IDW comics.

So, the biggest strengths for the Archie comics were that they did a better job at building up the world of Sonic and his friends.  One of my biggest issues with the franchise as of late is that they won't build up Sonic's world and I seriously don't understand why.  The Archie comics did a great job at establishing the lore for Sonic's world and I was always interested in seeing just how things worked on Sonic's world.  Another thing that I liked about the Archie comics was that it wasn't afraid to take risks with the storylines. Now, this can come with some consequences, which I'll dive into later, but I do like the fact that we have stories where Sonic is allowed to cry or any of the characters are allowed to let their anger get the best of them during intense situations.  Now one of the biggest issues with the Archie Comics was that because there were no restraints on the storylines, the stories tended to go all over the place at times.  Like, there were numerous plot threads about Tails supposedly being the chosen one, but they never went anywhere with that, and then you have too much unnecessary romantic drama between Sonic and Sally that took up most of the storylines.

Now let's get into IDW.  So, the strengths of this series were that the stories are much more focused, and the world is much more faithful to the games.  Even though I enjoyed the world of Archie Sonic, I will admit that I was a bit puzzled that there were barely any game elements incorporated into the stories and sometimes, it felt like I was reading a series that wasn't really about Sonic the Hedgehog.  The IDW series actually took a lot of elements from the games and incorporated them into very intriguing stories around these characters.  I also like the fact that the stories have a lot more focus with the direction they are going than Archie Sonic did. Before Ian Flynn took over Archie Sonic, the stories tended to be all over the place and there were times where there were story lines that were opened, but they never got resolved in later issues.  That is definitely not the case with IDW Sonic as the story arcs always get some kind of resolution at the end of their arcs.  Now some issues that I have with IDW Sonic is that I felt that the characters and the stories are a bit more restricted due to SEGA's mandates.  Because SEGA have more control over these comics than they did with Archie, they call the shots in regard to how a character should be written or what elements from the games and other properties they can use, and they cannot use and I feel that it limits the potential storytelling of some of these characters, including not being able to fully develop Sonic's world because of these restrictions.

[Darkness Void]

I'm sure Archie is far better but right now I'm reading all of Fleetway before anything else. Why? Because of Fleetway Super Sonic. 

So far Fleetway is really good. I utterly hate it that it's so short, but every now and again it has issues with the right length. I really do enjoy reading it. 

Now if Fleetway Super Sonic could make a comeback...

[Rabbitearsblog]

17 hours ago, Darkness Void said:

I'm sure Archie is far better but right now I'm reading all of Fleetway before anything else. Why? Because of Fleetway Super Sonic. 

So far Fleetway is really good. I utterly hate it that it's so short, but every now and again it has issues with the right length. I really do enjoy reading it. 

Now if Fleetway Super Sonic could make a comeback...

I really want to read the Fleetway Sonic comics, but they are hard to get.  Do you know where you can buy the Fleetway Comics?

[Darkness Void]

1 hour ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

I really want to read the Fleetway Sonic comics, but they are hard to get.  Do you know where you can buy the Fleetway Comics?

I don't know where to buy them, but they're all online to read for free. 

If you prefer to actually hold them, you could try Ebay. Though they probably won't be cheap.

[Rabbitearsblog]

3 hours ago, Darkness Void said:

I don't know where to buy them, but they're all online to read for free. 

If you prefer to actually hold them, you could try Ebay. Though they probably won't be cheap.

Cool!  Although I'm upset that they aren't selling reprints of these comics anymore.

[MetalSkulkBane]

6 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Cool!  Although I'm upset that they aren't selling reprints of these comics anymore.

From what I understand, no one is sure who owns Fleetway Sonic, but at the same time no one cares enough to fight over it, so it's in limbo, probably forever (or till the copyright expires in like 80 years)

"Support the official release" and all that jazz, but this is one of those times you don't have to feel guilty.

[Eskana]

Personally, it's Archie first for me, and then IDW (not having read enough Fleetway to make an opinion.)

Archie was around so long and had so much worldbuilding that I know it isn't fair to judge IDW on that, even though I know I do anyway. But Archie almost reinvented itself, probably thanks to Ian Flynn, and I feel that Archie was its strongest in the 175-275 stretch. I enjoyed seeing how the writers took old concepts and reinvented them- Scourge, Monkey Khan, even Larry the Lynx for crying out loud- and also have the characters transform over time. While I am okay with the game side characters, I found myself getting more invested in the SatAM characters, who I think fill out needed roles better. For example, Sally is a great foil to Sonic, without being absorbed by him. Even though they're trying with Amy, there's really no one in that role in IDW. And I'm sure they won't be able to, since Sally was always the will-they-won't-they, and I bet there is some official prohibition now on Sonic's love life.

IDW is still okay, but like someone mentioned, it's kind of a "neutered" Archie-verse. That's not entirely it's fault... it's still creating a world and new characters. I hope it can last long enough to create a solid foundation for itself and build on it. But even more than that, I hope it will be able to breathe and that the SEGA mandates aren't too stiff, because if they are, we'll never get any really deep stories or character exploration. I feel like it would be hard to bend the status quo in that case.

[Rabbitearsblog]

4 hours ago, Eskana said:

Personally, it's Archie first for me, and then IDW (not having read enough Fleetway to make an opinion.)

Archie was around so long and had so much worldbuilding that I know it isn't fair to judge IDW on that, even though I know I do anyway. But Archie almost reinvented itself, probably thanks to Ian Flynn, and I feel that Archie was its strongest in the 175-275 stretch. I enjoyed seeing how the writers took old concepts and reinvented them- Scourge, Monkey Khan, even Larry the Lynx for crying out loud- and also have the characters transform over time. While I am okay with the game side characters, I found myself getting more invested in the SatAM characters, who I think fill out needed roles better. For example, Sally is a great foil to Sonic, without being absorbed by him. Even though they're trying with Amy, there's really no one in that role in IDW. And I'm sure they won't be able to, since Sally was always the will-they-won't-they, and I bet there is some official prohibition now on Sonic's love life.

IDW is still okay, but like someone mentioned, it's kind of a "neutered" Archie-verse. That's not entirely it's fault... it's still creating a world and new characters. I hope it can last long enough to create a solid foundation for itself and build on it. But even more than that, I hope it will be able to breathe and that the SEGA mandates aren't too stiff, because if they are, we'll never get any really deep stories or character exploration. I feel like it would be hard to bend the status quo in that case.

While I think that IDW is well written as a whole, I also have issues with SEGA's mandates regarding the series.  If SEGA just loosen up on their mandates, then it's possible that IDW might surpass Archie in terms of good storytelling.

[Eskana]

18 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

While I think that IDW is well written as a whole, I also have issues with SEGA's mandates regarding the series.  If SEGA just loosen up on their mandates, then it's possible that IDW might surpass Archie in terms of good storytelling.

 

I could definitely agree with that. IDW has the same creative team I liked from Archie, with none of the baggage, echidna-related or not. I can appreciate the fact that they are working within (I would assume) strict mandates, and also trying not to copy characters from Archie (which must be difficult.)
But without the mandates, or at least less strict ones? I bet they could do some cool stuff. Clean slate.

[Rabbitearsblog]

8 minutes ago, Eskana said:

I could definitely agree with that. IDW has the same creative team I liked from Archie, with none of the baggage, echidna-related or not. I can appreciate the fact that they are working within (I would assume) strict mandates, and also trying not to copy characters from Archie (which must be difficult.)
But without the mandates, or at least less strict ones? I bet they could do some cool stuff. Clean slate.

Agree!