Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[shdowhunt60]

2 minutes ago, The KKM said:

Yyes, you already indicated you're fine with "this isn't as bad as shit".

Why do you keep replying repeating what you said? I already know, you're fine with "this is just fine". I already said, "I'm not".

Because my response to getting confused is to go on a loop and repeat the same thing over and over again?

[Mauro Fonseca]

What's there to be confused about? It's a difference in opinion.

You don't see how it's bad, I explained how. You also think it's acceptable because it's not as bad as it could be, and I don't agree.

Now, if you were arguing in defence of it with actual praise, like, "it does this or that good", there could be an actual discussion and comparison, or if this were simply a question of differing art styles- for an example, I don't like Art Mawhinney, someone does, someone defends them, there's a discussion on his strong points and bad points, etc.

Here the discussion is literally going nowhere but

"It's acceptable because it's not shit"

"I like things to aspire to more than not being shit"

"but it's acceptable because it's not shit"

[QuantumEdge]

Is it really the end of the world when a colourist gets something slightly wrong?  Frankly, I think Cassata's improving somewhat from when he started.  In my opinion it's best to not let the tiny details be a big bother and just gloss over them because mistakes happen.  Besides, as someone who actually likes Unleashed, I really don't care if the water is the wrong colour, mistake or no.

[Toby]

Sonic Universe has the better colorist and the better inker for certain, thats just a fact. That doesn't make Austin and Cassata bad, they're just not as good in comparison.

 

[Big Panda]

10 hours ago, Toby said:

Cream is carrying both Sally and Antoine, if it makes any difference. Her being able to carry Big is stupid all the same.

I'm still considering that bit in the Sonic X comic were they discover Froggy is actually the heavy one as canon in everything else =P

[Toby]

2 minutes ago, Ernest-Panda said:

I'm still considering that bit in the Sonic X comic were they discover Froggy is actually the heavy one as canon in everything else =P

Well, I mean, like. Joe Adkin also legitimately thought both Sonic and Amy could FLY... So.

[Mauro Fonseca]

1 hour ago, QuantumEdge said:

Is it really the end of the world when a colourist gets something slightly wrong?  Frankly, I think Cassata's improving somewhat from when he started.  In my opinion it's best to not let the tiny details be a big bother and just gloss over them because mistakes happen.  Besides, as someone who actually likes Unleashed, I really don't care if the water is the wrong colour, mistake or no.

That's why I mentioned "putting that aside", because my problem there is the amateur use of textures. The part I actually pasted images of. Collage is a visual look that can work, but when done intentionally for it and planned out for it- when you're instead just grabbing linework and shoving a photo of clouds or a photo of water so you don't have to do clouds or water, it just looks bad, especially, again, when the water was rocks anyways :V

And I don't believe I said it's the end of the world. The opposite to "not caring" isn't "caring so much it's the end of the world".

Cassata ranges from serviceable to bad, I've already said. That's the whole point of what I was talking with shdowhunt- to me, "serviceable" isn't enough. Not visually, at least.

(also the point about the river isn't liking Unleashed, but respecting intentional colour choices that were well thought and had a reason to exist. You wouldn't accept Sonic being painted red, right? If the comic went visiting the literal real world, would painting the Statue of Liberty red be acceptable? Or a blue Lincoln Memorial? Unless you were JoJoing it out, I don't think it should. The fact Apotos is white and blue instead of yellow and brown, or that Chun-Nan is gray and green and red instead of blue and red, are big parts of the identity of the locales. You may not care about having the elements be represented as they were designed to be represented, doesn't mean I won't.)

Like, again. Your arguments are basically "it's not shit so it's fine" and "I'm fine with it, why aren't you?". Can't really do more here than say "I disagree, I disagree" :V

[Your Vest Friend]

Back from Free Comic Book Day!

As advertised, the majority is made up of reprints of Sonic #280 and Snic Universe #83. The entirety of "Keys to Victory" is there, while only half of "Egman's Dozen" part 1 is included. The latter cuts off pretty abruptly in the middle of the Witchcarter fight.

The middle of the comic has a pin-up of the cover to Sonic #283, and it looks nice.

For those of you expecting the Fast Forward Feature to be super hyping, I wouldn't go that far. The feature is just three panels of Skelley's sketches for Panic in the Sky.

-The first is Sonic directing something, but it's cropped so we can't see what. The way it is, it looks like a bunch of shuttlecocks to be honest, but I assume it's not that. There is a distinct Sonic head on it though, maybe it's supposed to be a gumball Sonic reference?.

-The third is the opening shot of the arc. It's the Sky Patrol going past pieces of the planet, possibly with Eggman or one of his machines tailing. It's deliberately in shadow.

-The second panel is by far the most interesting. After Phage was mentioned in the solicit of Eggman's Dozen part 4, this confirms that he'll be using her in Panic in the Sky after. And that's not all; She's changed her look since Spark of life, so while one eye of the mask is more distorted, the other side is broken entirely, revealing a glowing digital eye. The caption also alludes to where she emerges from being important enough to not reveal it.

I'm still waiting for dragons though.

[RobotnikHolmes]

Dude chill. You're like one of those fans on Sonic Retro who went on a massive tangent that Sonic Generations was ruined forever because Sky Sanctuary "wasn't yellow enough".

And honestly, I barely noticed the textures were so lifelike, so does it really matter getting wound up over things not many other people would even notice?

[Mauro Fonseca]

You know that Rick and Morty clip where someone tells Rick's father (or Morty's, I'm only passingly familiar with the show, which one's the kid again) to calm down and the father goes on a rant about how no-one calms down when told to calm down and being told to calm down only makes them more agitated?

I wasn't wound over this until repeatedly being told not to be wound over it, now I'm actually pretty wound over the fact that not being happy with "good enough" as far as the comic's art goes is such an awful crime :V I mean, read back over it, I just said "this looks awful", because it does, and then kept being told "it's fine because it's fine", and being accused of caring too much for replying back each time with "I don't agree with that". So you barely noticed the textures, what's that to do with me? You do you, let me do me.

[QuantumEdge]

34 minutes ago, The KKM said:

That's why I mentioned "putting that aside", because my problem there is the amateur use of textures. The part I actually pasted images of. Collage is a visual look that can work, but when done intentionally for it and planned out for it- when you're instead just grabbing linework and shoving a photo of clouds or a photo of water so you don't have to do clouds or water, it just looks bad, especially, again, when the water was rocks anyways :V

And I don't believe I said it's the end of the world. The opposite to "not caring" isn't "caring so much it's the end of the world".

Cassata ranges from serviceable to bad, I've already said. That's the whole point of what I was talking with shdowhunt- to me, "serviceable" isn't enough. Not visually, at least.

(also the point about the river isn't liking Unleashed, but respecting intentional colour choices that were well thought and had a reason to exist. You wouldn't accept Sonic being painted red, right? If the comic went visiting the literal real world, would painting the Statue of Liberty red be acceptable? Or a blue Lincoln Memorial? Unless you were JoJoing it out, I don't think it should. The fact Apotos is white and blue instead of yellow and brown, or that Chun-Nan is gray and green and red instead of blue and red, are big parts of the identity of the locales. You may not care about having the elements be represented as they were designed to be represented, doesn't mean I won't.)

Like, again. Your arguments are basically "it's not shit so it's fine" and "I'm fine with it, why aren't you?". Can't really do more here than say "I disagree, I disagree" :V

I wouldn't take the whole "End of the world" thing so seriously, it's just a figure of speech dude.  And as much as painting various landmarks incorrectly would be a comical mistake, miscolouring water isn't too much of a problem.  I mean do you really think getting the water in Chun-Nan wrong is as bad as colouring Sonic red?  I know I probably can't change your opinion (and you're perfectly entitled to it), but I just don't think this detail is worth getting so irritated about.

[Mauro Fonseca]

As mentioned, I'm more irritated about the constant "stop caring about it" attitude than the actual mistake :V that said, while obviously not as bad as a red Sonic, I do think it is a pretty serious problem. Like, if it were, say, a level where you have a small fountain and someone uses the wrong shade of blue in the water in the fountain, that's fine, but Chun-Nan literally looks like this

It's basically half the screen at any given moment that's not inside, I'd say it's a pretty relevant part to try and get right when portraying the location :V they also got the red of the dragon too bright, but THAT's the more kind of irrelevant detail you're making the water to me. I'd say getting this water right is as relevant as, say, getting the water is purple-pink when portraying Chemical Plant. Or getting the ice to be white-blue when portraying Holoska, considering half of what you see in the screen when being there is the colours white and blue. Or getting that the houses in Apotos are white, both since that's how the game portrays them and how they are in real life.

wait that last one

[Toby]

I myself am kinda tired of the same circles we tred every month over the coloring, but what can you do?

[E-122-Psi]

Concerning Cream's involvement, I think the problem is that there hasn't been much development on the matter.

Remember that Sonic X episode where Vector questioned Cream staying with the team? There wasn't much elaboration why she was in fact, they just snapped at Vector to keep his big nose out of it and his antics later justified them.

I consider this a more reasonable tactic because it TRIES to place a compromise. Cream is questioned but instead of just labelling the person safeguarding her the Designated Evil, she has to EARN their trust. The problem is execution. Sally hasn't been shown realising Cream's competence. Cream saving her life could have made development into this and realising she underestimated her, but instead she just had angst about falling for Eggman's trap. So now she's allowed slightly more involvement without any reasoning why Sally's changed her mind.

It's a shame because it's an arc that could really improve Sally's character. She's a cautious character, and while she can be overprotective and outright patronising about it at times, she can have a point. But they undermine this development and being more open about it. This only worsens as she herself has been portrayed as increasingly reckless throughout the series. The mangling is making a potentially sympathetic but humbling development look demeaning and hypocritical.

[QuantumEdge]

19 minutes ago, The KKM said:

As mentioned, I'm more irritated about the constant "stop caring about it" attitude than the actual mistake :V that said, while obviously not as bad as a red Sonic, I do think it is a pretty serious problem. Like, if it were, say, a level where you have a small fountain and someone uses the wrong shade of blue in the water in the fountain, that's fine, but Chun-Nan literally looks like this

It's basically half the screen at any given moment that's not inside, I'd say it's a pretty relevant part to try and get right when portraying the location :V they also got the red of the dragon too bright, but THAT's the more kind of irrelevant detail you're making the water to me. I'd say getting this water right is as relevant as, say, getting the water is purple-pink when portraying Chemical Plant. Or getting the ice to be white-blue when portraying Holoska, considering half of what you see in the screen when being there is the colours white and blue. Or getting that the houses in Apotos are white, both since that's how the game portrays them and how they are in real life.

wait that last one

Fair enough, I guess.  Again though, it doesn't matter much to me, but I admit Cassata was likely not checking over the finer details.  And I don't mean to sound like your opinion doesn't matter and you should stop caring about it.  That's not at all my intention.  I'm just trying to say that these sorts of mistakes happen all the time and that we may just have to accept them as they are.

[Mauro Fonseca]

Fair enough. I just honestly can't connect there- half the colours used in a screen doesn't strike me as a "finer detail", but as usual I present my thoughts with the admission I just place more importance on the visual side than most people seem to.

[Big Panda]

I just came all the way out to a this particular comic shop that always has the Sonic issues without fail, only to find all the copies of Sonic had been grabbed up.

I was really bummed as a result, but after reading that the flash forward bit didn't really have much, I'm considerably less bummed.

I was so bummed that I left without bothering to partake in the other comics on offer. Which I'm now kicking myself over. =P

[Your Vest Friend]

Even here it was pretty much good fortune that I got it. Forbidden Planet did this weird system where you got given a random pack instead of choosing what you wanted, so I wasn't able to get it there, and the shop I did get it from ran out of it ten minutes after opening.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Yeesh. This FCBD 2016 issue is pretty lazy. The only reasons I got it was collection purposes, and the flash forward feature, and even that was pretty damn lazy. Annoyed a little tbh, because the comic shop I went to was offering last year's TMNT IDW FCBD issue I missed, and I got Sonic instead of it.

[Kaotic Kanine]

1 hour ago, E-122-Psi said:

Concerning Cream's involvement, I think the problem is that there hasn't been much development on the matter.

Remember that Sonic X episode where Vector questioned Cream staying with the team? There wasn't much elaboration why she was in fact, they just snapped at Vector to keep his big nose out of it and his antics later justified them.

I consider this a more reasonable tactic because it TRIES to place a compromise. Cream is questioned but instead of just labelling the person safeguarding her the Designated Evil, she has to EARN their trust. The problem is execution. Sally hasn't been shown realising Cream's competence. Cream saving her life could have made development into this and realising she underestimated her, but instead she just had angst about falling for Eggman's trap. So now she's allowed slightly more involvement without any reasoning why Sally's changed her mind.

It's a shame because it's an arc that could really improve Sally's character. She's a cautious character, and while she can be overprotective and outright patronising about it at times, she can have a point. But they undermine this development and being more open about it. This only worsens as she herself has been portrayed as increasingly reckless throughout the series. The mangling is making a potentially sympathetic but humbling development look demeaning and hypocritical.

On one hand, I agree. This whole development could've been a retread of that Sonic X episode but done right by not labeling the "questioner" as the bad guy and actually showing/explaining why Cream is on the team. It would benefit Cream by legitimately justifying her presence in the group, whereas that episode just had the whole group insist that Cream is useful without proof, and would give Sally some nice character development (I think). But it just had to be botched and go on for too long.

But on the other hand, I can't help but find that development pointless even if it was handled right. Like, first off, why does Cream need to "earn trust"? This would've made sense Pre-Reboot, since Cream was a legit, inexperienced newcomer there. But the majority of the games are canon as of the Reboot; Advance 2, Heroes, Battle, Advance 3, and Rush have occurred in the comics history. Sure they may have gone down differently but Cream still took part in those events (and I swear if Ian changed that he is going to get one hell of an angry e-mail), so this version of Cream is no newcomer and is experienced in adventuring and fighting Eggman. Assuming Sally has taken part in at least one of those events (given Ian's unabashed love for her, I'm positive Sally was involved in all of them), she ought to have seen Cream take part in those adventures and ought to know of her capabilities by then. Of course, this may be the first time Cream and Sally have met each other so Sally underestimating Cream would be justified. But then again, Sonic, Tails, and Amy, good and trusted friends of Sally whom she may have known for a long time, are all too familiar with Cream and fully know her capabilities. Sally ought to have learned about Cream's capabilities and such from them and thus Cream shouldn't have to "earn" Sally's trust, especially since Cream is a very kind character who genuinely wants to help (and very well can). Either way, this whole "earning trust" is entirely pointless and only serves to deny Cream any sort of contribution for the Freedom Fighters or taking part in the events taking place right now, which I've expressed multiple times are extremely hurtful to Cream and in turn makes this "development" not worth it in the end.

And secondly, if this "development" is being done in part to justify Cream being part of the main cast, wouldn't having her actually take part in the action and show her doing useful and important crap do a better job of that than having her be forced into the corner by a canon foreigner and having to "prove" herself to said canon foreigner? There's really no reason to go about doing this whole shindig to justify Cream being on the team when having her take part from the start accomplishes the same thing to greater effect. In the end, this is only being done to give Sally some character development.

Now that I think about it, this is exactly why this whole thing pisses me off so much. One of my favorite characters of all time, one I'm most passionate for right now, is essentially being sidelined and forced to miss out on important events and not able to contribute to the team upon joining them at long last to give a canon foreigner, one who I have always struggled to tolerate because of her over-prominence and Sue-like qualities, some more character traits and development. This whole thing is being done to further the agenda of a single character, who already has a lot of stuff on her plate (being the leader, her relationship with Nicole, her history with the cast, and her being royalty), and is forcing the character who desperately needs meaningful contribution and prominence to the comic the most to take a backseat in order to do so. That is possibly the most insulting thing that can be done to a character and it had to happen to one I love the most, to promote a character I never liked. And it all had to be done during an adaptation of my favorite game of all time (yes, I have bitched about SWC being a crappy, in-name only adaptation of Unleashed but it's still the closest I have to Cream and the other characters being a part of its events) and during a huge, major crossover with Mega Man and more (which Cream got to appear in but didn't get to do anything because of Sally "Creator's Pet" Acorn)... 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

There's one weird thing from the FCBD sampler. You know how at the end of #256, right as the world shatters, we have a two page spread of the world shattering with shocked reactions from The Freedom Fighters? We got a set of those for other characters. Those being Silver, Blaze, Shadow, Rouge, Knuckles, Eggman, Omega, Vector, Charmy, and Espio.

It also confirms that somehow, Shattered and Panic in the Sky are connected, with it stating that Universe's side of the tale ends with Shattered, while the main comic's ends with Panic in the Sky.

[Fletch]

Well, I decided to use my scanner to scan the fast forward page for anyone that wants to see it. (Under spoiler)

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Your Vest Friend]

The panel thing was in Sonic Digest #16 as well, but I didn't say anything as it looked like an edit of #256's original (the rectangles for the character are exactly the same, some of the characters don't seem to be reacting or even looking so I thought they were bits of art from previous issues made to fit).

It also confirmed the Shattered and PitS link.

[RobotnikHolmes]

Sonic looks like he's directing towards a party table filled with food and desert...perhaps as a celebration for piecing together the world?

[Sonictrainer]

Is that the Egg Cauldron the Sky Patrol is chasing?