Sonic's Attitude in Sonic the Comic

When I first started to get into Archie and SATAM, I too wanted something more akin to the games and kind of lamented about it. Its why Sonic X was my favorite series for so long, since it had all of the stuff that I liked from the games...except Chris.


But I'm 29 now, and I have enough understanding to realize why these changes were made and why adhering so strictly to the source material isn't necessarily a good thing for creativity. IDW is as close to the games a comic has gotten and, ngl, while I do like it, I can't deny that its kind of mediocre on the plot and characterization when it comes to the game original characters. I got what I wanted after so long and realizes its nowhere what I imagined it to be and it made me come around to all of the crazy changes that came before, because there was much more creative passion there.

 

I don't really understand why this is a seven page topic, because yes, the UK comic was designed for UK audiences.

If you're not part of that UK audience, you might not like it. Which is why there's an American comic for American audiences. And Japanese comics for Japanese audiences. See also: two Sonic CD soundtracks.


And while there's a temptation to explain the differences in culture in colourful terms, it's probably better to just accept there just... is one and move on. The best thing about Sonic the Comic is that it was created in an era where the a big game publisher actually recognised this - Sonic the Hedghog material specifically tailored for the British, rather than generic "English speakers". You'd never get that today.

That being said, this particular thing isn't just a British pasttime.

 

You're cherry-picking particular elements that differed from the games. I don't know why, as no one said that StC was a 1:1 recreation. I said that it actually incorporated game elements beyond 3 characters and a few things like rings. For the most part, StC was a western take on the Sonic universe based on the information and lore the writers had access to back then. Most of the settings and main characters were from the games, and weren't loose re-imaginings like SatAM's version of Floating Island and the Time Stones. The Tornado was still Sonic and Tails' plane, the Death Egg was Robotnik's space station, Mecha Sonic was Robotnik's creation that Sonic fought on the Death Egg, Robotnik still used his badnik minions. And that's talking only about the early Sonic 2 days.

The writers didn't have access to the Chaotix's Japanese character profiles. Robotnik was played seriously in western localizations, including the Promo Comic which StC was based on. As for Chaos, I can't judge without knowing how much access Kitching had to SA1's plot. But I'll say that I always found StC's adaptation of SA1 a bust. But I'll recognize that a 1:1 adaptation would have been impossible, given that StC was based on the old western canon where Sonic lives in Mobius and humans are extremely rare.

Maybe because new SatAM episodes were still being produced when these characters were introduced.

 

Adding to this, in season 2 they had an episode with the Floating Island and the Time Stones. Season 2 episodes were being written in 1994. Knuckles' near-final design existed back in April 1993.

The show's staff knew about Tails before he was revealed to the public, since he was in the series bible dated February/March 1992.

Maybe Sega was less willing to share details during the production of season 2, maybe Sega explicitly told them not to use Amy, Metal Sonic and Knuckles, or maybe the show's staff just didn't want to use them. Whatever the case, they feasibly could have included them in season 2, had both Sega and DiC wanted to. (Amy was in the Sonic manga in Japan in March 1992, if SOA and SOJ were more closely aligned then they could potentially have gotten her into season 1.)

 

On Sonic5993's point about Characterization. We know for Shadow especially Sega has put down rules on how exactly he's handled. But he's really the major character that I've personally felt as stifled with IDW.

I still find it funny that StC might have been more like SatAM (or at least even more like the earlier concepts) had Nigel Kitching not asked about Snively. With Ben Hurst having had a chance to add Knuckles later, in Underground, and him talking about setting up Season's 3 and 4 I would love to have seen how much more game content they could have tapped into. Probably would have grown like Archie later did as more games were released.

Then again, I'll agree early SatAM was all over the place. Ben Hurst came in with Season 2 and mentioned their wasn't an explicit continuity at the time, rereading some of the old alt.sonicfan stuff recently. I think StC had the advantage of not being burdened by the American content when starting and what they did draw from let it grow organically.

As for Sonic's attitude overall in StC, I still think it was an Adaptation of "Dude With an Attitude" through a British lens. I'll say he had moments of caring. Was it a front to keep people at arms length, possibly. Was he a jerk, often. I can see why it's against some people's tastes. Kind of reminds me of the OVA Sonic who seemed like a Cocky jerk at times, at least with the dub.

 

Do you have a link to that post?

 

Really SatAm was weird in that regard. It had tons of concepts that were SORTA KINDA like the games but not really. Robotnik using a space station, the Freedom Fighters using plane, a Floating Island with Time Stones, a robot designed to race Sonic. The list goes on.

I think the only things they directly adapt outside the show's original concepts are stuff established in the pilot, like the power rings and the use of Buzz Bombers, the latter of which was taken out afterwards. At times it almost feels like the show was actively avoiding using games stuff, even when the golden opportunity arrived they'd prefer a lesser clone, and not even for the purpose of adding their own development and identity to it, most of these examples were pretty paper thin in the show.

I dunno if this was down to mandates or the show's creative team, but it felt kind of POINTLESS. There's times where I understand an adaptation needs its own ideas to stand on, especially when the original material wasn't that fleshed out either, but I'm not big on the direction of almost TRYING to avoid being like the original story just for the sake of not wanting to be a 'copy' of them. You don't have to be a shallow commerical for the games, but you're still an ADAPTATION, there's no harm directly linking to them when it helps.

Really even growing up on STC, I noticed the comic was bizarrely different from the games at times, only the first twenty or so issues really closely followed the games style while starting to add its own stuff. The civilians based on animal companions were quickly dropped in favour of bizarre humanoids that looked even less like Sonic characters than the Archie cast of the time. Johnny and Porker stayed but got overhauled the same way, only keeping their head designs to maintain SOME recognisability (which admitedly looked pretty damn weird with those cute cartoony animal heads on muscular human bodies :P). The only other animal friend that was remotely prominent was Sally Acorn who was a bit player that got retired after said overhaul.

Sure most of the games cast appeared, but they did in Archie as well, just slightly less prominently than the SatAm lot initially, and since Johnny and Porker really weren't much more like Picky and Pocky than Sally and Rotor were to Ricky and Rocky, they played a similar role of more prominent Freedom Fighter characters.

They namedropped locations from the games but really they started to look barely anything like the zones they were based on. And yes they maybe had more thorough games adapations, but added tons of their own liberties and use of their own lore and characters much in the same way Archie did. Most original stories otherwise were similar to said comic, as in building off of a completely divergent lore and style from the original material with maybe the odd nod to the games the rare times it fit.

Robotnik was basically Archie Robotnik but choosing the AoSth aesthetic instead (granted while also relatively more threatening he remained more comical in side stories, though the same was true with Archie Robotnik too). Again he was games Robotnik for all of a dozen stories.

Even the whole thing with badnik implementation being more accurate feels kinda moot since it was fazed out later on similar to robotocisation was in Archie (besides Shortfuse who wouldn't let you forget it :P).

Really, comparing Archie and Fleetway, I don't really get why Fleetway gets a reputation for being more loyal to the games besides those VERY early points. I do remember having some nostalgia for those early comics, they did shape a lot of what I thought a games loyal adaptation would look like, but it's a VERY minimal era of STC and mostly before it had fleshed any of its own material and direction out. It's like basing SatAm solely off of its pilot episode.

Really I think the only Sonic comics that lasted long enough beyond a quick promotional tie in to be considered reasonably loyal to the style and aesthetics of the games while also adding a lot of their own identity are the IDW and post-reboot Archie series, and even then some will say a lot of that is down to mandates bearing down hard on creative liberties.

 

For Pengi.
http://info.sonicretro.org/Ben_Hurst_interview_at_SAGExpo_(August_27,_2006)

[21:29] Swriter: When Len decided to bring Pat and me in on the second season exclusively...
[21:29] Swriter: ...we had to sit down and decide the final details of the universe.
[21:29] Swriter: It had just been an unconnected series of episodes up until then.
[21:30] Swriter: So, we watched all 13 from the first season, then brainstormed.

I was pouring through every interview and post I could. One of the satam forums had a note from Ben at one point and of course it's down now with no archived versions I could find. He'd talked about Humans in the two SAGE chats having survived underground and one saying it was a plot thread they'd follow up in Season 3. And Mentions of planning to set up Season 4.

in one mention elsewhere he'd talked about the Great War being between one of those Human groups and Mobotopolis and I was looking into connections with Archie reviving the idea of Nate Morgan and having an underground Station Square as possibly another revived idea. They took the entrance from the OVA, and Karl Bollers and Penders said after SatAM they'd received a copy of the story Bible and some development materials. Kinda following up on that era.

 

So basically what they did in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) during Sonic Adventure's adaptation onward... did Ken Penders and the other guy actually do anything original in that comic?

 

Really it's kind of concerning how a lot of Penders' stuff is directly taken from ideas for Satam. Combined with some of Hurst's conceptual notes for Season 3, it kinda felt like there was gonna be barely ANY Sonic brand left to it at all.

 

I'll give it to Penders. Until SatAM was over they didn't actually have any production materials from the series except a staff overlap where Art Mawhinney was a storyboard artists for one and an artist on the other. Also, the story Bible was so different from the final series it didn't have much to use anyways. It was mentioned Ken sat down and watched SatAM to research it so he kind of did an alternate take on that.

Ken was on the other hand just drawing from Jack Kirby. He'd mentioned Kamandi as an inspiration directly, and it kind of shows in the world maps. Knuckles on the other hand was just ripping off Superman. The entire tech ban was based on Jax-Ur blowing up one of Kryptons Moons.

The StC crew, while doing paradies and using cliches at least kept things more fresh. I'd noticed a trend where a lot of plot points were done by StC before Archie got to them. But a lot of that was just incidental outside of an issue with an evil seperate Super Sonic in Archie which probably was a nod. Oh, and the original Metal Sonic destruction in what, Issue 96 was drawn from the OVA. Because the Archie staff liked that. Which might also have been the inspiration for a post-apocalyptic world too. I was trying to see how the stories all matched up.

Edit: To kinda nail down the flow of things
The American Sonic Bible
The Sonic Promotional Comic
Stay Sonic -> Martin Adams novels
Early parallel SatAM & AoStH development
AoStH
Mean Bean Machine -> Sonic Mania boss
SatAM early promotional material
\ Direct Parallels to StC
SatAM Final - Christmas Blast SatAM nods
\ Archie Comics
Sonic Spinball
One of the things I was trying to determine was which influenced the other. The original Archie Miniseries followed Troll books I think in that Uncle Chuck raised kid Robotnik together with Sonic and it's so out of left field it lead me down this rabbit hole comparing origins.

 

I'm pretty sure in Archie that that was set-up as a simple dream sequence.

 

This is actually a weird one. It started as what seemed like a full Flashback, shifted to being a possible dream sequence, and was called an "imaginary story" akin to the alternate universe tales DC Comics ran for decades predating the later Elseworlds line. So it was always canon adjacent, but still strange they'd do a weird adaptation.

 

Meh, putting words to it helps to explain something that seems to be difficult for some who feel preferring the StC is somehow an affront to their values.

Hard agree. Talking trash isn't a crime against humanity.

 

On another StC note I want to re-emphasise something I touched on and call attention to it on a new post-

Please check the UK show Basil Brush, both the old 70s shows and the 2000s one

Not telling you to check it because it's particularly good, but because I think it might be a very helpful context clue as to "oh, so this is what they do as humour for kids".

 

I don't think this deserves its own thread, so I'll ask here: have any of you read the fan sequel to StC, StC: Online? Is it worth checking out? I've heard it had some input by the original creators but I don't know how much

 

For all intents and purposes it is just StC continued.

 

While I'm not a fan of either Office, I have to link this clip that I think clearly shows this point:

 

I'm not sure where you all heard that "Americans don't get The Office." Just because NBC didn't choose to make an exact duplicate of the BBC version is irrelevant to the fact that the British version has masses of fans in the States. Most people who like one also like the other, though which one they prefer varies from person to person. But it was absolutely not made to be different because people didn't "get" the original. Personally, I'm glad the American version is different so that it can exist alongside the original as a separate program, allowing both to be enjoyed (if you're apt to) without constantly having to contrast and compare them.

Likewise, I see StC as a completely different Sonic from the Archie/IDW version. There are things I prefer about StC and things I prefer about the Archie comics, so just because I don't prefer Sonic's personality in StC doesn't mean there aren't other aspects to the series which I enjoy.