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Archie Sonic Main Discussion


Toby

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They are low but combined with Universe sales, special books sales (Like Digest, Tie ins, Megadrive) they all together sell pretty well. And they sell better that some other less know Archie titles. It's just that it's not enough of a money maker to really keep around if they want to be more Archie, less Sonic.

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@doctorbenMD No, but I'm sure people in the know have ways of guessing, depending on the information given, etc. I'm sure you've already weighted this all out before posting and have the permission of your informant and your informant's informants. It's too late to take back anyway.

1 minute ago, VEDJ-F said:

We hope Archie tell Lisa to send out an email sooner rather than later. 

lol.

I'm still not buying this completely until we have the actual final word, but the logic does make sense. If I were Archie and had an actual Archie line, I'd want to be known for my original books instead of licensed stuff. Sega raising the license cost is believable too, especially if they're splitting it in two, one "classic" Sonic license and one "modern" Sonic license. Then there are the legal issues we all know about that Archie and Sega would probably both like to wash their hands of.

I guess I'm just hoping now that another licenser *coughIDWcough* picks up the license and brings on the Archie team. Maybe Ian could even start the new book by implying there was another Genesis Wave or something. And maybe they could keep the numbering from the Archie books too, and bring over as many characters and elements as possible, though the legal issues may continue to limit that.

Again, not buying this in full until we get the final word, I'm just evaluating the premise and accepting it for the sake of argument.

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15 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

Yeah, it definitely took a major hit after the 2016 hiatus at least. Did they mention how long sales figures had been considered low for?

No, we more talked about the other Archie titles taking a hit like how I mentioned "Reggie and Me" and such.

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Ah, okay then. I sort of figured Reggie and Me hadn't done so well anyway because it was apparently planned as an ongoing series but then suddenly made a five-part mini-series. I remember people responding to Twitter posts that mentioned part 5 being the conclusion with "Wait what this wasn't a miniseries". 

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18 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

@doctorbenMD No, but I'm sure people in the know have ways of guessing, depending on the information given, etc. I'm sure you've already weighted this all out before posting and have the permission of your informant and your informant's informants. It's too late to take back anyway.

lol.

I'm still not buying this completely until we have the actual final word, but the logic does make sense. If I were Archie and had an actual Archie line, I'd want to be known for my original books instead of licensed stuff. Sega raising the license cost is believable too, especially if they're splitting it in two, one "classic" Sonic license and one "modern" Sonic license. Then there are the legal issues we all know about that Archie and Sega would probably both like to wash their hands of.

I guess I'm just hoping now that another licenser *coughIDWcough* picks up the license and brings on the Archie team. Maybe Ian could even start the new book by implying there was another Genesis Wave or something. And maybe they could keep the numbering from the Archie books too, and bring over as many characters and elements as possible, though the legal issues may continue to limit that.

Again, not buying this in full until we get the final word, I'm just evaluating the premise and accepting it for the sake of argument.

I wasn't *not* given permission to post it, and this was more a conversation between two friends than "definitive gospel." And this isn't the first time Goldwater has said this, for what it's worth. Watch the video posted in this topic by Barry the Nomad. 

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Plus, while the Reboot sold well at first, the too long Shattered arc and the way too long and overhyped Megaman/Capcom Crossover right after we just had a Megaman crossover and the weird editorial decisions like Road to Chaos (or whatever it was called, you know, the memories thingy) were a big blow to the momentum of the reboot, then printing issues that caused a mini hiatus. It's just been a mess for a while. And then when the book was finally reaching the end of it's first arc and fixing it's pacing issues, this hiatus. A half a year long hiatus. And the lack of communication from Archie? This will just be terrible for sales and PR. Another huge blow to sales if the book returns.

Thus I do believe the theory that it might be cancelled... This isn't something you just come back from. We've hand hiatuses before, but this has gone past spring and well into Summer. It's a mess. 

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17 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

Ah, okay then. I sort of figured Reggie and Me hadn't done so well anyway because it was apparently planned as an ongoing series but then suddenly made a five-part mini-series. I remember people responding to Twitter posts that mentioned part 5 being the conclusion with "Wait what this wasn't a miniseries". 

There's that, there's the failed Kickstarter and the entire PR fiasco from it from 2 years ago that was all leading up to the Archie line-wide relaunch, I'm sure there's various other poor business decisions that we don't know about, etc.

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Please, SEGA, for the love of God, give the liscence to another publisher. The comic will excell from the rut that Archie put it in and have enough finances and overall competence to do more cool stuff with it.

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If this a confirmation then at least Sega can give the license to another comic publisher if they want comics to still be a thing. There's much better choices out there then Archie. 

So..what will happen to freedom fighters? Sega don't own them, right? Is it still possible to have them appear in a new comic series by a different publisher? 

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Problem is that if SEGA have upped the price of the licence, that may very well put off anyone else from wanting to pick it up. 

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 think IDW has enough money to get the licence, plus they would want Sonic. It's already got name recognition and a solid story in the comic book world. 

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Someone here can correct me, but I think Sega owns the FF, right? Also, I assume it's less about Sega giving the license to someone else as it is about someone else buying the license from Sega.

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I really wouldn't count on them shopping the license to someone else even. Imagine you're a country who has a property who licenses out your character to a company from another country to write non-canon stories based on said character. Naturally, the comic leads to stories involving new characters created within these stories that have never and will never show up anywhere else. And then because of ineptitude and bad luck, 2 lawsuits come out--one of which is lost and does damage to the character you've licensed out to a company for *years.* SoJ definitely at some point probably was saying "what the fuck." And these characters are from a TV show from ~25 years ago--talk about a niche within a niche within a niche. Frankly, the comic survived longer than it should have.

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Just now, Borvoc said:

Someone here can correct me, but I think Sega owns the FF, right? Also, I assume it's less about Sega giving the license to someone else as it is about someone else buying the license from Sega.

Yes SEGA does own the Freedom Fighters and any other characters produced in the comics.

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35 minutes ago, doctorbenMD said:

Move on and find another book to read. 

I meant for the comics...:rolleyes:

Particularly in the event another publisher were to take it. I doubt any other major publisher would just ignore the goldmine of making Sonic comics, and I've been hearing about IDW being a good fit. Although there's still pessimism over what would happen to the setting in that event.

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So basically, as speculated, Archie are indeed ripping off subscribers with no intention of ever supplying them with the comic they're paying for, and almost certainly intend to string this out as long as possible.

I wonder how much exactly the license to make Sonic comics costs.  On the one hand, it'd be a shot in the foot for Sega to up its license fees and suddenly go from making some money off it to making no money off it, but on the other hand if the fees are pigeon feed in the company's profits overall then they probably wouldn't care.

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17 minutes ago, doctorbenMD said:

I really wouldn't count on them shopping the license to someone else even. Imagine you're a country who has a property who licenses out your character to a company from another country to write non-canon stories based on said character. Naturally, the comic leads to stories involving new characters created within these stories that have never and will never show up anywhere else. And then because of ineptitude and bad luck, 2 lawsuits come out--one of which is lost and does damage to the character you've licensed out to a company for *years.* SoJ definitely at some point probably was saying "what the fuck." And these characters are from a TV show from ~25 years ago--talk about a niche within a niche within a niche. Frankly, the comic survived longer than it should have.

Hmm, you might be right. Even a comic without the additional characters, just the games. Would eventually start generating OCs, and if it ends like the last time, it will just get messy again. Plus the comic was started in a time when Sega really didn't care that much, they just wanted publicity. I imagine that now they would be a lot different in managing the situation. 

If some other company contacted them though and offered to pay for the licence, would they do it? If they follow the rules and don't get too crazy, I think Sega would be okay with it.

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1 hour ago, doctorbenMD said:

The book is definitely cancelled, and the reason why we haven't heard anything yet is because Archie and Sega were trying to reach a deal together

Just curious, but if the book is cancelled, what deal is there left for Archie and Sega to work out?

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Look, the main reason I was fine with the reboot's OCs was because we lost a lot of them as a result of this new universe.

I personally find it unnecessary as fuck for a new publisher to dump most of this cast create completely new and separate OCs when they already have plenty to work with that they can use in regard to acquiring the liscense. And although Sega would be an influencing factor and they can do what they want, that same logic applies to them.

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15 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

Just curious, but if the book is cancelled, what deal is there left for Archie and Sega to work out?

That Sega wanted more money as they were trying to reach a deal over these past few months that we weren't told any information. Both my friend and I still don't know officially why Archie now isn't saying anything to the public and subscribers as to whether or not the book is cancelled.

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1 minute ago, doctorbenMD said:

I really wouldn't count on them shopping the license to someone else even. Imagine you're a country who has a property who licenses out your character to a company from another country to write non-canon stories based on said character. Naturally, the comic leads to stories involving new characters created within these stories that have never and will never show up anywhere else. And then because of ineptitude and bad luck, 2 lawsuits come out--one of which is lost and does damage to the character you've licensed out to a company for *years.* SoJ definitely at some point probably was saying "what the fuck." And these characters are from a TV show from ~25 years ago--talk about a niche within a niche within a niche. Frankly, the comic survived longer than it should have.

Yet those lawsuits do not effect the characters that came from that show. The only thing that would effect them is if SEGA still is hellbent on the decision that nobody needs them or wants them. Which is kind of hard to defend at this point when they probably already got an earful about keeping them in the reboot, and they did approve those FF stories for Sonic Universe. I'm getting tired of seeing people play the "25 year old show characters" card as an excuses for SEGA to throw away the FF. Sega let Archie use and build up those characters, and even redefine who they are so they could fit in the reboot. I might have some bias on this because I only got into the comics after the reboot happened, but I see the post-reboot FF as being vastly different incarnations of their SATAM counterparts.

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21 minutes ago, RictalRose0 said:

Hmm, you might be right. Even a comic without the additional characters, just the games. Would eventually start generating OCs, and if it ends like the last time, it will just get messy again.

If you're talking about the legal mess, that only came about because Archie didn't have, or didn't ever have their writers sign, documents stating Archie's ownership of the characters. This has been fixed in recent contracts—Ian, for example, couldn't sue Sega for use of his characters if he ever left the books (not that he'd shoot himself in the foot like that anyway). All a new publisher would need to do is have that paperwork and have their writers sign it, and they don't have to worry about the lawsuits.

If we're talking about narrative mess, I'm not sure I agree. Characters can show up in some games only to never be mentioned again (hypothetically; I can't think of any examples off-hand), and it's equally okay to have characters unique to the comics. If Sonic's going on a lot of adventures, it's only natural that he's going to meet different characters at different places and at different times and they're not all going to be with him everywhere. As long as the books keep fans engaged with the license and the license doesn't go too far off-track, I don't see the issue.

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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.

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8 minutes ago, doctorbenMD said:

That Sega wanted more money as they were trying to reach a deal over these past few months that we weren't told any information. Both my friend and I still don't know officially why Archie now isn't saying anything to the public and subscribers as to whether or not the book is cancelled.

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?

4 minutes ago, JC_Mike said:

I'm getting tired of seeing people play the "25 year old show characters" card as an excuses for SEGA to throw away the FF.

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.

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