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Archie Sonic Main Discussion


Toby

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15 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

So there's still the chance, unlikely as it may be, that Archie is going to renew the license, and thus why we haven't heard anything yet? Or there was that chance, but Archie's given their final word to Sega and just haven't told us for some reason?

I don't have anyone in particular in mind, but it does bother me when I feel like people who don't like the FF in the first place are projecting their dislike of the characters onto Sega and other readers.

There was a chance and Archie has given their final word to Sega and just hasn't told us for some reason (remember, this you're all hearing from me so even though this *is all likely to be true*, it's still unofficial and should not be treated as gospel--this was more about me letting you guys know any new info I found out).

Timeline is like this, basically: Archie stops subscriptions -> Archie and Sega talk for a few months to work out a deal -> Ultimately both walk away from the table because they are no longer interested in doing business with each other.

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To be honest if Sonic ends up getting a new comic from a new publisher, I'd want a fresh start. Not that I'd be against them using whatever characters they want, including post-reboot Archie-exclusive characters, but rather I'm honestly not that attached to the current storylines that I desperately need them to continue.

Especially since, in retrospect, a fresh start is what I wish we got after the Penders mess. Tho' in fairness, who knows where Ian was going to go post-Genesis of a Hero. Maybe it would've been a direction I really liked. Hell, we could still find out, one way (the comic continues after all) or another ("Lost Hedgehog Tales 2").

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10 minutes ago, Celestia said:

Hell, we could still find out, one way (the comic continues after all) or another ("Lost Hedgehog Tales 2").

lol. More non-paid work for Ian! :P

He should find a way to make money telling the stories he wasn't able to tell. Then he could make a career not out of telling stories but instead by telling stories about those stories. Then, he could take interviews where he answers questions about interviews he was invited to but never attended and the questions he was asked but never answered.

If all this is true, and I'm still open to Archie retaining the license if this isn't true or if something changes, I wouldn't mind seeing Mega Man go to IDW as well as Sonic. In that case, I'd want them to retain the numbering of both (who really wants to give up the title of longest-running video game comic anyway? What a sales pitch!), and if they keep the numbering, they may want to justify it by keeping as many elements from Archie as possible.

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Meh, at this point I'm starting to not care what happens, even as someone who's read the book since 1993. Cancel it, keep it going, give it to a new publisher, whatever. Just let us know what's happening so we can have some closure. 

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Just now, PC the Hedgehog said:

Meh, at this point I'm starting to not care what happens, even as someone who's read the book since 1993. Cancel it, keep it going, give it to a new publisher, whatever. Just let us know what's happening so we can have some closure. 

You could say we're closure to getting an answer than we were before!

...

Okay, I'm going to step away from my computer before I make another pun I regret.

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At this point, I think rebooting would be for the best; there's been too many issues going on with the current lore and whatnot. A fresh start would at least allow writers to ease into it rather than picking up from where previous authors left off and trying to work around it.

I'd miss all of the current Archie exclusive characters myself and would at least hope newer writers would try to incorporate them somehow, even if it meant they'd be playing lesser roles than the original series.

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21 minutes ago, Celestia said:

To be honest if Sonic ends up getting a new comic from a new publisher, I'd want a fresh start. Not that I'd be against them using whatever characters they want, including post-reboot Archie-exclusive characters, but rather I'm honestly not that attached to the current storylines that I desperately need them to continue.

Especially since, in retrospect, a fresh start is what I wish we got after the Penders mess. Tho' in fairness, who knows where Ian was going to go post-Genesis of a Hero. Maybe it would've been a direction I really liked. Hell, we could still find out, one way (the comic continues after all) or another ("Lost Hedgehog Tales 2").

I also wonder about it. And considering both Genesis of a Hero itself and the Boom episodes Flynn did (not even part of the arc!), I probably wouldn't have liked it. And I vaguely get the impression that the planned arc was going to be kind of a send-off to the FFs, at least for now. 

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1 hour ago, RictalRose0 said:

Neither do I. But as Storm says, would we reall fare well with an all new OC cast when we just got one from the reboot? Kinda like whiplash to be honest. I said so before but honestly all I really care about is that the book is fun and well written and my favorite characters get a good portrayal and some focus. So I personally, wouldn't mind if we got a whole new set of characters. But yes I would prefer to keep the reboot OCs.

Unless Ian Flynn gets on board with a new publisher a relaunch of the Sonic comic would probably also mean a new writing team. In turn that team would want to include their own 'OC' characters to pad out the cast. Even the Freedom Fighters would be a long shot, unless the new writers are huge SatAM fans. Regardless, the important thing is that the core game cast are well written, so that this can form the basis of the new comic. Expanding the comic with a greater cast and other world building details is something that will happen naturally with time, if the comic can find its feet with strong sales.

8 minutes ago, It's a Very Merry Miru said:

I also wonder about it. And considering both Genesis of a Hero itself and the Boom episodes Flynn did (not even part of the arc!), I probably wouldn't have liked it. And I vaguely get the impression that the planned arc was going to be kind of a send-off to the FFs, at least for now. 

Honestly, even before this unexplained hiatus is seemed like the story has been deliberately coasting on borrowed time. The retro inspired arc in recent issues was a cool idea but didn't do anything to advance the story or reveal anything ground breaking about the rebooted Archie verse as a whole. Plus the next few mini-arcs focusing on specific Freedom Fighters seemed more like filler stories, rather than building towards the next major conflict after the extended Sonic Unleashed adaption. It seemed more like Archie was deliberately stalling for time while they focused on Riverdale and never developed any serious plans for continuing the story further.

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5 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

At this point, I think rebooting would be for the best; there's been too many issues going on with the current lore and whatnot. A fresh start would at least allow writers to ease into it rather than picking up from where previous authors left off and trying to work around it.

I guess, though I'd argue everything pre-252 became nearly irrelevant once the characters lost all memories of the old universe. There'd still be a lot to keep track of, but most of it (namely, the games) is what you'd need to know anyway.

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Yeah, well. The decision on whether or not they should reboot the comic probably doesn't come down to how attached people are to the characters. It's more so has to do with whether the current characters can still hold the story together without there being any issues with selling the comics. The FF are in the story, well in part of the fact that SEGA allows them to be, so there could be a sense of progression and character development. There's probably more to it than that, but that is kind of the bottom line.

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Okay, okay, right here. Now. Hold on.

I've been in a case where publisher couldn't get one of their still ongoing translation products out for about half a year. Considering how small market area it is in here it could, on the worst case scenario, have been the last straw. They couldn't say anything else that they're having some trouble and the readers would just need to wait, and we waited.

And we got what we wanted after some time has passed.

So I'm not saying anything before the fat lady sings. Or maybe Big since I can't remember any other character big enough in all ways to fit in that role but anyway.

The only thin I'll do though is

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! SEEEGAAAAAAH!!! AAAAAARCHIIEEEEEEEEHH!!! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO KEEP ON DOING THIS STUFF??? PLEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAASSEEEEEEEEE!!! GIIVEEEEEEEEE MEEEEEEEEE THEEEEEE COOMIIIIICS AAAALREEEEEAAAAAAAADYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYHH!!! I'M SPITTING BLOOD ALREADY!

Yes, I'm wailing, not saying. And I'll wail more if they end this. I'm sorry but still, I need to ask about one thing and I'm being death serious here.

If the worst case scenario happens and Archie Sonic "dies", may I use one Finnish swearing word in here, just this once? It has nothing to do with genitals, it's just an old pagan god name that's used as a swear word around here. I won't use it if you're not giving me a permission but would you at least consider it? As pretty please as possible?

...

Well, the good thing is I've saved some serious money with this delay, time to start thinking about giving my money to SOME OTHER PARTIES that have something to offer.

And heck no I'm going to start reading anything new after this thing, I'd get cancelled shortly after that anyway. I don't want to go over this so many times after all...

And Forces better not turn into Farces if you know what I mean...

This day's theme song is; "I've Been Losing You" By a-ha, by the way. At least "I don't know what to do"...

 

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Also about whatever that informant said, it somehow in the back of my mind doesn't add up. For one thing, the informant doesn't even work for Archie anymore, and he didn't specifically say that he talked to anybody who was in the know how of the licensing issue nor did he give a specific time when he did talk to anybody in Archie.

That thing that Goldwater said about getting away from Sonic is somewhat bullshit when Archie is trying to use Riverdale to expand their business. At some point, they are going to need to take on more assets in the form of licensing opportunities so they can keep profit going at a steady pace with their liabilities. Also saying that its not really Archie is kind of short sighted when they also have the Dark Horse comics.

It also sounded like despite any revenue that was potentially coming in from Riverdale, despite Ian saying that Sonic sales were going swimmingly before all of this, despite Mega Drive being one of the best selling Soinc books, despite receiving funds for consolidation and growth from an investor back in June 2016;  Archie was still struggling to meet Sega's demand or something like that. I don't know, something seems off about this.

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I feel very odd at this situation. For Megaman they set up a plan to end it early enough, and hinted it in the synopsis of the last few issues. Then they did publish those issues with enough closure to the story, and ended the series as they promised.

But for Sonic they put out so many future story arcs on schedule, without a hint of cancellation. Then they halted abruptly without any explanation, without any closure. I wonder why they couldn't do it like they did Megaman.

 

(I used to joke Sonic will get infected with Megaman's Cancellation virus when Megaman comic ended. Can't believe it came true....I knew the crossover was a bad idea!)

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Okay a few things being said here need to be debunked.

1: The Red/Dark Circle characters are Archie. They don't have to pay a license to publish them, unlike Sonic. Most importantly if they're made into a TV show/movie, Archie is a part of that, unlike Sonic. There's nothing inconsistent about saying Sonic is not Archie and continuing to publish those characters. Similarly expanding their business doesn't mean making more licensed books if they've determined their business is selling comics/TV shows/movies based on Archie characters.

2: Sonic's direct market sales had been trending downward for the last couple years, and Ian did not say sales were going swimmingly. He said they weren't in danger of cancellation and subs had been going up. Without wider context that doesn't say much. Were subs going up after staying the same for years? After dropping sharply off?

3: This is a bit of a tangent, but I see the opposite repeated frequently with nothing backing it up so: Mega Drive was not a huge seller. It primarily did its sales through the direct market, hence the push Ian and the gang made through social media to get fans into shops to buy it. We have estimates of those numbers. The first issue shipped almost 6.8K. For perspective, #282 from a couple months earlier also sold 6.8K. The second issue shipped 5K. The Universe issue released in that same month, #92, also sold 5K. Mega Drive sold within the range of what would be expected for a Sonic comic.

"But it got a second printing." This is useless metric when print runs are determined through final orders. One comic can sell 80K and not get a second printing. Another comic can sell 5K and get a second printing of 1K.

4: Mega Man had lousy sales and was hardly regarded as one of the best comics on the market. Outside of Sonic comic and Mega Man fans, it was ignored, just like the Sonic comics. These are niche books.

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Hope Ian Flynn is able to share the plans and the timeline he thought out, what with the prospect of his stories in the comic never seeing the light of day.

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11 hours ago, NotHole said:

3: This is a bit of a tangent, but I see the opposite repeated frequently with nothing backing it up so: Mega Drive was not a huge seller. It primarily did its sales through the direct market, hence the push Ian and the gang made through social media to get fans into shops to buy it. We have estimates of those numbers. The first issue shipped almost 6.8K. For perspective, #282 from a couple months earlier also sold 6.8K. The second issue shipped 5K. The Universe issue released in that same month, #92, also sold 5K. Mega Drive sold within the range of what would be expected for a Sonic comic.

"But it got a second printing." This is useless metric when print runs are determined through final orders. One comic can sell 80K and not get a second printing. Another comic can sell 5K and get a second printing of 1K.

4: Mega Man had lousy sales and was hardly regarded as one of the best comics on the market. Outside of Sonic comic and Mega Man fans, it was ignored, just like the Sonic comics. These are niche books.

Wait. Mega Drive didn't sell significantly better than then regular ongoing Sonic boos? Where did this narrative come from, then? Was it just all the talk on social media? Was it because it was a spin-off, limited book and was therefore expected to do worse than the ongoing Sonic books? Did that cause Archie to print fewer copies only to be surprised that sales more-or-less matched the main books, thus requiring a reprinting, thus feeding back into the narrative that it sold really well when in reality it only beat low expectations to sell on-par for the license?

Meh. If you ask me, the Sonic comic (and probably the Mega Man book as well) really are/were some of the best stuff in the industry recently. I know my opinion doesn't match up with popular opinion, but to me they beat out what Marvel and DC have been up to. I have my biases, but I just want to say that I agree with this assessment even if the comics industry as a whole overlooks it. Maybe the fact that I dislike the comics industry's leanings and the fact that I like the books that they don't care about are related.

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20 hours ago, Celestia said:

I guess, though I'd argue everything pre-252 became nearly irrelevant once the characters lost all memories of the old universe. There'd still be a lot to keep track of, but most of it (namely, the games) is what you'd need to know anyway.

Irreverent issues or no, I think Sega would probably want something with out all chaff. And new writers would probably not want to be with olden to some lore that admittedly not that many people care about in the grand scheme of sonic when writing this property.

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I see everyone talking about a full reboot, but I still say that a hypothetical new publisher would want to keep the Archie numbering for the sake of the record and built-in sales pitch that entails (especially IDW, who has already carried over the numbering for other comic licenses it acquired), and if the new publisher did carry over the numbering, they'd want to justify keeping the numbering by keeping as much of the Archie stuff as possible. This would be the smart thing to do. After all, a bird in the hand and all that. They know what the books are likely to earn if they stay the same, whereas a full reboot (not even SGW was a full reboot) is a big question mark that could as easily fall flat as rocket to success. If a publisher wanted to change things after buying the license, the smart thing would be to make these changes slowly over time so that they could weigh reader feedback and backpedal if necessary. Some posters to this thread would maybe prefer a full reboot, but I don't think it's the smart thing to do.

Then again, this would all rely on the hypothetical new publisher's ability to acquire use of Archie's creative staff along with their creations and ideas. It mus also be noted that, smart as the above would be, business isn't always built (or destroyed) on people making smart decisions.

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58 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

Wait. Mega Drive didn't sell significantly better than then regular ongoing Sonic boos? Where did this narrative come from, then?

I can't speculate Archie's expectations for the book because none of us can know those, but every publisher understandably wants to present the narrative that their book is a huge success. That's why Sonic Boom #1's cover says "Based on the hit new video game" despite...you know.

I would guess a little of it was wish-fulfillment on fans part and a lot of it was undue weight given to the second printing. Another often repeated mistake is that Mega Drive was the first Sonic comic with an additional printing. A lot of the early specials and minis had multiple printings because Archie kept them in print for years. Comic shops were ordering copies of Sonic in Your Face as late as 2005.

58 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

Meh. If you ask me, the Sonic comic (and probably the Mega Man book as well) really are/were some of the best stuff in the industry recently. I know my opinion doesn't match up with popular opinion, but to me they beat out what Marvel and DC have been up to.

My intent wasn't to disparage the quality of the Sonic/Mega Man books. But I do think a preaching to choir thing happens with them. Sonic/Mega Man fans on Sonic/Mega Man messageboards/social media spaces telling other Sonic/Mega Man fans that the books are the best comics being published.

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@NotHole Sorry. I was spinning off your comment more than trying to disagree with you. I fully agree that the comic industry hardly knows that the licensed Archie books even exist. They're "kid books", not "real books" for "real comic fans".

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