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Help me get started with Sonic please!


SilentWitchy

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I read a huge number of Sonic comics as a pretty young kid about two decades ago now and absolutely adored the series and characters. As I got older and going to a comic shop every week no longer became a thing I more or less fell out of reading comics.
A week ago now I randomly got a YouTube video of a fandub for some sonic games and really fell in love with it all over again. I started looking up what comics to buy and what series to get into and just wow. The number of spin offs and and main line series comics is so absolutely crazy it feels impossible to really get into.

So I have two questions:

1. Is there a timeline of comics out there that I can look at and see what to buy in what order?

2. I saw there are a few archives volumes that hold more than one comic, does anyone have any recommendations so I can get more bang for my dollar?

 

Just in general, someone please help an overwhelmed guy get back into the series lol

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It sounds like you're referring to the Archie Comics run of Sonic, which is an archive nightmare as it all ran out of print in 2017.

If you want to start from the beginning, the Sonic the Hedgehog Archives omnibus series isn't too bad of a place to start, although it is lacking in a few special spin-off issues. You ask me, I'd say to just read them all online at this point, anything else will seriously hurt your wallet.

There does exist a timeline of sorts to follow, but not one that I have on hand, however.

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Archie Sonic Online has them all grouped into a reading order. :) Up until 248 that is; where the Megaman crossover and reboot happens. Everything after that on this particular list is a fan continuation.  

The oldest one I'd recommend is probably Mecha Madness personally. Which was reprinted between Sonic Archives vol. 10 and Sonic Select Vol. 2. It has some of the best fights in the series despite being one of the oldest. 

Issues 160 and beyond are when Ian Flynn took over as head writer, and his run is a consistent fan favorite. Though don't sell the older issues short. Especially if you have some nostalgia for them. 

Personal favorite sagas are:

Return to Angel Island,

and Return of Enerjak (I swear they don't all start with return)

The SatAM era runs from about issue 25-50. That's to say the books are most like the cartoon around that point, and diverge from there. Those are a personal favorite. 

A lot of modern characters like Shadow, Rouge, and Silver don't start really featuring until after 160. If you're looking for any of them.

The most infamous stuff that tends to put people off the books are shortly before Ian took over say about 130-159. 

Also consider getting into IDW. The current comic, in some ways a successor to Archie as much of the same crew were ported over, but it's a very different beast and still quite young. Going on it's... what are we in the 3rd or 4rth year now?

 

and just for the sake of completeness there was also a sizable European counterpart called Sonic the Comic by Fleetway. It ran for 184 issues, before shifting exclusively into reprints and dying in 2002, but I'm wholly unprepared to prime anyone on that one. 

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10 hours ago, SilentWitchy said:

1. Is there a timeline of comics out there that I can look at and see what to buy in what order?

Though I'm sure it's probably subjective, I personally prefer Bobby Schroeder's reading order, her liveblog of the series helped me articulate a lot of things I both liked and disliked about the series but had trouble expressing before.

10 hours ago, SilentWitchy said:

2. I saw there are a few archives volumes that hold more than one comic, does anyone have any recommendations so I can get more bang for my dollar?

The best "bang for your dollar" with Archie is to pay zero dollars to read as much as you want. And that's not me dissing the series! I just genuinely think there's not a lot of reason to shill out money for hundreds of comics when that money isn't going back to the people who made them anymore.

While I probably shouldn't link anything directly (I'll happily toss you a PM if need be), there's plenty of free comic book sites and collection uploads that make it way more convenient to just pirate the series. It's out of print, it's tied up in copyright hell, I don't see any moral quandary, you should only be spending money on those books if you're specifically a collector. If you want to give money to the creative forces behind Sonic comics, buy the current IDW run. They're great too!

I highly recommend Return to Angel Island, Eggman Empire, Iron Dominion, most of every Sonic Universe issue, and heck, the entire post-252 reboot continuity.

I'm also a fan of the arcs ranging from "Sonic Adventure 2.5 Ω", Tossed in Space and even HOME to some degree, though I'd be lying if I said those weren't all pretty flawed.

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