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Just now, VEDJ-F said:

Sexism.

That's enough of a gist, right?

Seriously?! What the absolute fuck?!?

Edit- and yeah, that sums it up nicely, btw. But still...wtf?!

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I'll make a point to look through the podcast a bit later and type that up as a separate thing in this topic. Kinda queue jumping since I still have to type up last episode but hey, it's a conversation starter. 

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Does it have to do with the comic industry in general? It is a male dominated market, so I suppose that's just to be expected when you really look into it.

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Let me guess: It's another group of executives that think that just because their target demographic is male, they have to avoid having female characters in a leading role. They think all children (or at least just the boys) are so closed-minded that they will never accept a female protagonist. You know, the kind of thinking that almost stopped the Legend of Korra from being made?

That's my guess.

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I'd imagine it's mainly because of Sonic's target audience, what with it being aimed at 7-12 year old boys. In general, the comic book industry is aimed at an older audience. 

So I've gone onto the video to get that snippet, but I felt the urge to go to the comment section even though there's never usually anything there. For one, I learned that Ian has a personal Youtube account that isn't Bumbleking. For another, there was this exchange;

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Diamonddeath: Is the casual gamer really the financial driving force behind the comic, even more so than the fans of the comic?

Ian Flynn: The numbers are hard to pin down, but it's at least a 50/50 split.  The subscribers are many and loyal, but the newsstand purchases are a huge part of it too.  And the newsstand purchases are largely "Oh hey, they do Sonic books?  Since when?  I remember the games, so..."

 

Now let's make something loud and clear; Newsstand sales =/= Direct Market sales, the DM sales only reflect comic book store purchases, so it's nothing to do with those figures. 

The one thing I glean from this is that making the Sonic comic digital-only would be a fucking disaster for the comic, so they won't do that. 

 

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9 minutes ago, Kellan said:

Let me guess: It's another group of executives that think that just because their target demographic is male, they have to avoid having female characters in a leading role. They think all children (or at least just the boys) are so closed-minded that they will never accept a female protagonist. You know, the kind of thinking that almost stopped the Legend of Korra from being made?

That's my guess.

 Yea, thats probably why we've only gotten one book for any of the female characters (The Princess Sally Mini-Series) and that was decades ago.  Even Arcs focused around female chars like Treasure Team Tango, Pirate Plunder Panic, Spark of Life etc had to have characters like Shadow, Bean, Big, etc, thrown in, cause using only female characters for a story-arc is icky, or some bs like that. 

 

 

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What Ian states is that female-centric issues sell less, just that. He doesn't give as much context as I'd want- he was talking about it in the context of Spark of Life. How does Amy fare? Just the same, or better? Because Spark of Life has the added angle of, you know, it's Sally, not a game character.

That said, shouldn't be that surprising (although I dispute Ian's remark that it's because of "bitter teenagers")- it's young kids buying the comics, often boys, I can see the issues with the pink girl thing in the cover therefore selling less.

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I'm surprised he didn't compare Pirate Plunder Panic given that had Blaze, Amy and Cream as the leads. Then again, that might be because it had the added bonus of coming out right after the crossover. 

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Well, with the industry being what it is and not changing that much anytime soon given the backlashes that can happen when they do, and Sonic being known mostly for his games and cartoons in that order, it doesn't really leave all that much room for them as it is.

Rather sad that's the case. 

Nice to get more depth on the subject tho. Didn't think Amy was that divisive given her status (yes, I've seen the divisive discussions in other topics, but I thought it was small overall), but good to know. I figured it should have been obvious to Ian that Blaze would appeal to boys more given her personality and being the only game character super form (not sure if we should count Overclocked NICOLE).

1 hour ago, Kellan said:

Let me guess: It's another group of executives that think that just because their target demographic is male, they have to avoid having female characters in a leading role. They think all children (or at least just the boys) are so closed-minded that they will never accept a female protagonist. You know, the kind of thinking that almost stopped the Legend of Korra from being made?

That's my guess.

Animation and TV shows are a lot more diverse than comics tho. There's a much bigger audience in that, and it's a lot more readily available on a TV screen or computer, so it's easier for both boys and girls to get into. Contrast that with comics which are still seen as a "boys club" (notwithstanding how much giants like DC and Marvel market their works in TV shows and movies where women are much more likely to come across) where as a TV show can be for anyone who sees it on screen. Mind you, this is all a generalization, so don't read too much into it given how the internet allows more awareness and potential interest.

That said, Legend of Korra piggy-backed off of The Last Airbender's success with a wide-demographic, so that something to be aware of. I'd think a better example would be Young Justice given that it's something that boy's would gravitate...only for it to be a shock that more girls were watching it which led to it getting canceled for a while.

It's complicated...

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Not surprised SU #96 got pushed back to may, it had the march 08th release for so long but  I knew that was probably going to change.  But yea, part of me hoped that all 3 were coming out in April but I guess that's not realistic. :P

 

So I guess odds are that we will get something like this..

 

STH # 291 & #292 3/22

Sonic Overdrive 3/29

Sonic Universe #95 4/12

Sonic #293 4/26

Sonuc Universe #96 5/8

Sonic #294 5/22

Sonic Universe #97 6/5

 Oh well... All the more reasons to look forward to Spring I guess. XD

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The sexism thing is, unfortunate to say the least. I wont go into it here as of right now, i've gone through it before, but I wish sonic would, support female characters more than they do. But hey people will want to make their specific kind of money, its why and they will cancel potential money making things to support their mindset, look at young justice. 

Onto something else. 

3 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

 

Says who? Remember that Sega is indifferent to the comics as far as we're aware, and this so called priority and hierarchy doesn't exist here in the way it does in the games else it would already be the case right now. That the FF even continue to exist when the liscencor could have put their foot down regardless of the comic team asking to keep them around shows that they're not that caring about who is present and how much spotlight they get.

Well says sega it seems. Considering they wanted to rid the comic of it entirely. Along with that, as far as priority is concerned it seems pretty evident in sonic boom of all things, most characters are relegated to background whilst those who are important as few as they are and pushed to for front hard. I have no hard evidence, but I would imagine that's kinda what sega would want the comic to be like. 

Also Sega has no foot to put down. Everything involving ken penders, was archives fault. And Sonic is a world famous brand... they could find another company more than willing to do a sonic comic. 

Archie has no footing in this situation, and with the foibles of the time, they had even less footing than that. Also again they are on fire so... kind of hard to put your foot down when its burning. 

 

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No, it's precisely about balance--

No its about what people want, or what people think they want to see. As we learned with recent podcasts about sexism. Or a non sexist example, UH martian manhunter is the best JL member. He's the dopest, no one gives a shit about martian manhunter, and he ussually gets less play. Dude gets less play than aquaman, my desire for balance, does make them do that. They do it because money. 

Thassit, they do stuff because they think it might make money. 

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You don't put characters in just because people want to see them because that's not how you tell a good story that people came here for

People do that all the time, and it results in bad stories and people still buy them in a lot of cases. As much as It may disappoint me , some people don't care about the quality of story as much as we think they do

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--if that was even remotely true, we'd have seen the games use its characters more than just cheerleaders, which it has yet to do since Sonic 06 and people wouldn't be fussing about the games' story telling post Unleashed when things started getting joke-heavy even with characters that are present. But that ignores things like context, settings, and motivation if not the entire process of storytelling in general, which does not do any work any good. 

1) How sega views vs uses their characters doesn't really have anything to do with that? They probably still value the characters they design and push more than ones they don't bother even acknowledge their continued exist ( every Archie character )

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And plenty of people want to see the FF as much as Shadow and Knuckles fans want to see their favorites--unless you have official sources and statistics proving who wants to see who more, your opinion of characters you don't care for makes little difference to the next fan that does care or Sega themselves, because you don't speak for the whole (divided) fandom and should stop acting like you do. It doesn't matter if one group of fans wants to see Knuckles, if it makes more sense to put Sally in a major position then so be it.

Well for one thing those are two of the most popular characters in the franchise, world renown video game characters, one of which, while in an assist trophy capacity is actually in smash brothers. Vs... characters most people don't know about, in a comic book, sega doesn't acknowledge. Odds are people are there because video games brought them there, and they want to see their video game character do a cool thing .

Also Ian just strait up talks about this on the podcast. He talks about how game characters can get more stuff, some more than others, because of their popularity. The writer will just tell you. In the youtube comments section of the last podcast video Ian responded that 50 percent of the audience from the comic is people picking up it on newsstands going " Oh i remember character from the video games, let me read this sonic comic". That's strait up half, people going on " i want to see my game character do a cool thing". We aren't even considering the subscriber base, who a percentage is also that exact same motivation.  During that podcast he strait up says  " The freedom fighter arc to get that remotely possible , we have a sega character on the front of every book" . He strait up says it. He strait up says while people who come for the freedom fighters are a nice foundation , they are not the main source of income. In that podcast.

Not trying to be rude, Ian will just tell you. 

 

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:rolleyes:

Okay then...

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Well says sega it seems. Considering they wanted to rid the comic of it entirely. Along with that, as far as priority is concerned it seems pretty evident in sonic boom of all things, most characters are relegated to background whilst those who are important as few as they are and pushed to for front hard. I have no hard evidence, but I would imagine that's kinda what sega would want the comic to be like. 

Also Sega has no foot to put down. Everything involving ken penders, was archives fault. And Sonic is a world famous brand... they could find another company more than willing to do a sonic comic. 

Archie has no footing in this situation, and with the foibles of the time, they had even less footing than that. Also again they are on fire so... kind of hard to put your foot down when its burning. 

No, Sega does has a foot to put down--they own the brand and can tell Archie to do what they want done regardless of what Archie has to say about it. But the thing is they barely did, else what you're saying would have already transpired before this discussion even became a thing and they'd have already rid the comic of it already, and Archie screwing things up would have been enough for them to do just that. They backed off and let these things that weren't Pender'd stick around when they have absolute say and could ignore convincing point to have their way, but they allowed them to go on. Makes one wonder how they got into this situation if someone was that much of a smooth-talker over these elements.

If you have no hard evidence, then you have a very weak arguement on a situation that is ambiguous at best. Aside from mandates they've made, I'd imagine that SEGA is very ambivalent in what they would want the comic to be like until they make a statement to show otherwise.

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No its about what people want, or what people think they want to see. As we learned with recent podcasts about sexism. Or a non sexist example, UH martian manhunter is the best JL member. He's the dopest, no one gives a shit about martian manhunter, and he ussually gets less play. Dude gets less play than aquaman, my desire for balance, does make them do that. They do it because money. 

Thassit, they do stuff because they think it might make money.

That is circular reasoning and a false equivalence that makes little sense given the wide berth between Archie and DC comics. Archie doesn't have much capital in the way that they can push Sonic characters in positions even remotely close to any of the DC characters these days, and Martian Manhunter still gets plenty of representation beyond comics in animated movies and TV shows to this day. Nevermind the massive cast DC already has, with even obscure characters like Vixen getting their own animated web series to star in.

So not the best comparison, dude. And that's without getting into how heavily centralized the Sonic franchise is that few characters in it can star on their own without Sonic anyway. In fact, that very reason works against you--Tails is without a doubt one of the most loved characters in this franchise while characters like Silver and Shadow are among the most divisive. You'd hardly see many people badmouthing Tails to the same extent as Shadow or Silver, so tell me why those last two characters have gotten at least six Sonic Universe arcs combined to star in while Tails only has one? Shouldn't Tails have more than that if this was just about characters people want to see?

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I'm gonna tell you a secret about comics, there are some comics and characters that are notoriously bad, but the grand nature and seeing characters is why people love them. Eddy Brock venom is an excellent example of a bad character with poor motivations just existing because he was badguy spiderman. Some people, I would argue maybe most people who pick up a sonic comic book, want to see a sonic character they recognize do a cool thing. That's it. 

A good story will keep people there, but they want to see a character they like do a thing.

That's not really a secret--that's common knowledge. There's another thing you should know--people have a wide variety of things they'd love to see. Not everyone comes to Sonic to just see game characters, some come to see the Freedom Fighters too, some come to see what the comics do in general, some come to see what new things the comic has that the game doesn't, and when they read them some people come back to characters they love regardless whether they're the game characters, the FF, or other characters. Which means plenty of people happen to like characters you don't care about. 

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1) How sega views vs uses their characters doesn't really have anything to do with that? They probably still value the characters they design and push more than ones they don't bother even acknowledge their continued exist ( every Archie character )

It has everything to do with that, because if what you're saying is the case, then SEGA should have caught on to that with their games. But they still relegate most of their characters to background status, even the so called "main" characters like Amy and Knuckles who've barely done much in the games since Sonic 06 aside from Sonic Boom. You'd think if they valued these characters to the extent that you claim, they'd have made a much bigger presence for them by now, especially given the very comic we're talking about where they've been far more prominent as characters than the games have done even with the Archie characters around.

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Well Shadow and knuckles are very popular and recognized characters across the entire world,featured in multiple mediums sold to people. The archie characters, are not that, and only exist in a comic. book.

People come the comic, to see the characters they know from the game, do stuff. Like you can't deny that. Like to even suggest that this is the same amount of popularity is delusional. Like knuckles having the same demand as... any archie character is already delusional. Like the guys who run the sonic twitter said on this very site they stopped doing character popularity polls because they know who would win and archie characters were not in their predictions. But shadow is like another level? Shadow is a character who is so popular Sega makes fun of popular he is. Shadow is a character so popular that despite not actively being in games, he's retained his extreme popularity. Shadow is a character so popular that the writer of the comic said himself, that the only character at this point that could get a spin off book, is shadow. 

Its not a close battle, folks come to this comic book about video game characters, to see the video game characters do shit. This comic is nothing with out the sonic licence, and sonic comic could exist with out any archie characters an do fine. One came out it was called megadrive, it sold more than everything else actually. 

The demand for archie characters are no where near game characters.  

I don't need official source numbers.

Ian flynn will tell you that himself because he already did. 

Yeah, they're popular, and apparently so is Princess Sally by the same word of god, and that's despite the sexism angle. People who come to the comics may come to see the games, but if you had any grasp of how flexible people can be (which you apparently don't since you continually go "people want the game characters, not the FF" as if the FF and comic fans don't mean anything as an audience), you'd know that not everyone who comes to see game characters are going to immediately scoff at those who aren't from the games--for every fan that does there's another that might actually like it, or in other words, it's the same division that we already have in the games where there are people who don't like Shadow vs those who do like Shadow.

And the whole popularity poll is nonsense given that the actual reason why they stopped doing popularity polls was because a group of trolls from /v/ messed up the entire thing trying to rig the entire thing against characters they didn't like. And it had nothing to do with who they knew who win (why would anyone even have a poll if they knew who would win? What kinda stupid is that?), especially given that Blaze somehow beat the uber-popular Metal Sonic of all characters because another troll decided to do the same thing in her favor, and said trolls tried to make Shadow lose to Sticks the moment that poll even began--and if they succeeded, that would have really blundered your point, because by then one could make a case that people wanted to see Sticks more than Shadow, which I'm sure people could find hilariously bizarre.

The main reason they were focused only on game characters was because they were just focused on game characters--the comics aren't the games, and even considering the games only, that poll doesn't use every character given that 1) Sonic himself isn't even on it, 2) Charmy, Wave, Storm among others got passed over for a goddamn Chao, and 3) said Chao, one of the most minor things in this franchise, somehow beat Big the Cat.

All in all, while everyone who likes Sonic does come to see the game characters, they're not a collective mass whose opinions you can accurately assess and determine who they want to see more of. Even popular characters like Shadow and Knuckles have people who don't want to see them in their own arc. People come here because they love Sonic as a franchise and want to buy something that's a part of it, and those very people can and will like things in this franchise outside of what they've seen in the games.

It's about high time you realize that as oppose to projecting your views and interests on the whole group--once again, you do not speak for the massively divided and diverse group that is the Sonic fandom in its entirety. And from this point on, every time you close your ears to that and keep addressing me with this "People come to this comic for the game characters" I'm just going to keep repeating my own counterpoint ad infinitum.

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  On a completly random note, I wish SEGA would  give Ian more freedom with the main characters again.  I know he does the best he can, but it would be awesome if they could make Archie/SEGA Amy is neat as her old STC Counterpart.

 

Again Ian has done wonders for her & the others compared to Penders, but still would be nice if SEGA allowed actual character development for them again.

 

(Yet another reason to keep the FF around, since SEGA doesn't care about them they can actually grow & develop as characters, XD)

STC103-AmyRose.jpg

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Is she really that restricted as a character? He's done a lot with Amy compared to how she is in the games that I find it hard to believe Ian doesn't have that much freedom.

Plus, they're really flexible, so it's kinda hard to notice in my case.

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Hmm. I don't like these allegations that automatically equate fan interest or lack thereof with sexism. What sells sells, and if boys trend to identify with and read stories with male protagonists, that doesn't make them little misogynists. It makes them boys that like to read about boys, and that's an entirely valid, potentially natural, preference. That being said, I've enjoyed all the recent stories focusing on female characters and wouldn't mind that sort of thing continuing. Focus on interesting characters regardless of gender--but also do what sells.

That thing about Young Justice being canceled because more girls watched it isn't really true either--at least not directly. Greg Weisman, the show's creator, explained that the show was funded by you sales and that not enough toys were being sold. No toys, no money; no money, no show. The second season must be funding itself differently. Either that, or they're just gung ho certain they're going to sell them some toys this time. :P

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I don't think they meant "Sexism" as if their audience was a bunch of misogynist than it is they're not as interested in the female characters as they are the male characters, and the folks in charge of them preventing the idea from going about due to it not likely selling well for that reason.

I mean...in a technical sense, that is misogyny, but that makes them sound malevolent than they really are.

And I was just being general about the part of Young Justice being watched by more girls--they canceled it because the girls don't buy the toys they wanted to sell.

That's gendered marketing for ya I suppose.

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1 hour ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Is she really that restricted as a character? He's done a lot with Amy compared to how she is in the games that I find it hard to believe Ian doesn't have that much freedom.

Plus, they're really flexible, so it's kinda hard to notice in my case.

 Oh I agree.  The comic has done alot more with the SEGA characters then the games,  Ecspecially Amy, Knuckles & Tails.  But while they are well written 90% of the time I still personally feel Ian has to hold back on them abit.  And honestly Sonic himself has been bland as cardboard for most of the reboot.

 

But yea, Archie Amy is better then SEGA Amy atm, but the STC & Boom incarnations are my fave atm.

 

 As for comments on Sexism.  It is indeed a legit problem in the comics industry, but they are making strides agsinst it which is good.

 

But yea I agree Archie & Sega aren't nessicarly sexist for not having comic arcs solely focusing on Amy or Cream or  Bunnie or Sally by themselves, but doing so down the line would be interesting if it were ever OK'd.

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Hmm. Not so sure I agree with sexism being a current issue in the comic book industry. They simply put out what people are willing to buy (except for when they're pushing social agendas like having Cap punch a member of the Tea Party or making Donald Trump, whom half the country voted for, an actual super-villain—way to marginalize half your potential audience, btw). More recently, Marvel has been throwing so many female lead characters at us that it's dizzying, sometimes doing so to the extent that they're getting rid of beloved characters in order to make room for untested new female ones. Whether this explosion of female characters is in response to what people are buying or simply the social ideologies of the writers and publishers, I can't say, but it has been happening.

Then again, I think sexism is a bit of a misnomer and has been defined too broadly (Get it? Broadly? As in broads? Sexist joke!) recently. Anyway, I'm willing to amicably agree to disagree with anyone on this topic.

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59 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

Hmm. Not so sure I agree with sexism being a current issue in the comic book industry. They simply put out what people are willing to buy (except for when they're pushing social agendas like having Cap punch a member of the Tea Party or making Donald Trump, whom half the country voted for, an actual super-villain—way to marginalize half your potential audience, btw). More recently, Marvel has been throwing so many female lead characters at us that it's dizzying, sometimes doing so to the extent that they're getting rid of beloved characters in order to make room for untested new female ones. Whether this explosion of female characters is in response to what people are buying or simply the social ideologies of the writers and publishers, I can't say, but it has been happening.

Then again, I think sexism is a bit of a misnomer and has been defined to broadly (Get it? Broadly? As in broads? Sexist joke!) recently. Anyway, I'm willing to amicably agree to disagree with anyone on this topic.

How we went to sexism is beyond me. From what I read people make it seem if a young boy doesn't want to read a girl issue Thier sexist? How did we even drop that low in comic discussion???

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1 minute ago, Meta77 said:

How was went to sexism is beyond me. From what I read people make it seem if a young boy doesn't want to read a girl issue Thier sexist? How did we even drop that low in comic discussion???

lol. Maybe we'll get more news on the books soon to get us back on topic (though I believe we're still at least tangentially discussing the books as it is). Unless someone wants to jump back into discussing plots, etc.

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17 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Does it have to do with the comic industry in general? It is a male dominated market, so I suppose that's just to be expected when you really look into it.

I bet it's some stupid market based thing about boys not wanting to read/watch stories about Girls or some such nonsense.

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3 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

I bet it's some stupid market based thing about boys not wanting to read/watch stories about Girls or some such nonsense.

But what if some such nonsense is true? Is it bad for them to market toward what their readers want? Just asking hypothetically.

Edit: Sorry, just reacting again toward the idea that this is automatically sexist. I personally enjoy female protags so long as the story is something I'm into.

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6 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

But what if some such nonsense is true? Is it bad for them to market toward what their readers want? Just asking hypothetically.

Edit: Sorry, just reacting again toward the idea that this is automatically sexist. I personally enjoy female protags so long as the story is something I'm into.

When I was a kid I proudly enjoyed The Powerpuff Girls and Kim Possible and That's so Raven and tons of shows considered "For Girls". Don't just assume from Stereotypes that Boy's automatically hate anything that has girls in the focus.

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10 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

When I was a kid I proudly enjoyed The Powerpuff Girls and Kim Possible and That's so Raven and tons of shows considered "For Girls". Don't just assume from Stereotypes that Boy's automatically hate anything that has girls in the focus.

Fair. Just don't assume either that any female-lead comic that's either cancelled or never made is the result of sexism. We all just gotta vote with our money for the stories we like.

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