Sonic the Comic & Sonic the Hedgehog: the Knuckles debate (Posts originally appeared on Charmy's Messageboard, part of True Red's "Knuckles Haven" site) Ed Wheee - Knuckles V Chaos on Wed!!! ^_^ (nt) Sun Mar 19 15:12:14 2000 --- Klitch huh --- True Red Hi, Klitch! Just welcoming a new poster around here. :) Ed is the resident comic reader from England and brings me news of the happenings in Fleetway comics. Their comic comes out every two weeks instead of monthly like Archie. However, each comic right now is 25% new stories and 75% repeats. For readers from the beginning that's very annoying, but for a new reader (or someone who's just discovered the comic exists like me) the repeats are interesting since it's normally some of the better stories from the beginning of the comics existence. --- Ed Beg to differ True, STC new stories have had some pretty cack moments in the past, but nowadays they're extremely close to being the best stuff in the comic - EVER. "Planet in Peril" (issue 171) was fantastic, "The Terra Connection" (STC 172) wasn't too bad, "Game Over" (STC 173-4) was gorgeous, "Coming of Chaos" (STC 175) was flawed but not bad, and "What Price Victory" was another all-time classic. Out of those six, that's 4 that are big contenders for best Sonic story ever. So I don't think the reprints are the best stuff in the comic any more. Not since Andy Diggle became editor at any rate. --- True Red That's not what I meant I meant that the reprints were of the best old stories and not reprints of the worst old stories. I didn't mean to imply that they were better than the new stories. :) --- Klitch Ohhhhhhhhhh . . . Lucky. Over here they cant even keep a comic running let alone put it out every two weeks. --- Ed A rant. Hey, Klitch. I know this is like your second post here, so please don't think I do this often, or that this is aimed at you. BUT. I'd hardly qualify us STC fans as lucky, and most certainly Archie fans as unlucky. Just for a quick comparison exercise... What Archie readers get each year: 12 issues of comic with about 24 pages an issue. 4 48-page specials a year. Mini-series and spin-offs where required. What Fleetway get a year. 26 issues of comic with 7 pages an issue. Hmm... wonder which I'd go for? Don't get me wrong, I love the Sonic the Comic stuff we get here. I know that I'm terribly biased, but the universe holds much more appeal to me as it has a brilliant blend of action, humour, history, forward-looking plots, original writers ideas and SEGA stuff. It's very cool. But let's be honest - 'Knuckles' got a fair crack at the comic whip. In fact a ridiculous crack at it. In fact, there's something on the web (probably on the site petition) which says how Archie ended up running it AT A LOSS!! Sure, by all means try and convince them it's worth resurrecting, but all this resentment of the company comes across as exceedingly ungrateful. Hypocritical, this may be. Fleetway gave STC a pretty good run. For 132 fortnights, we were given quality stuff with Sonic and chums, specials in the summer which either reprinted old stuff or went overboard with lots of brand new adventures and features, and we even had a 9-issue run of Poster Magazines featuring Sonic, Shinobi and Streets of Rage, and with guest appearances from Tails, Amy and Knuckles. But I still don't think Archie is any unluckier. Let's compare on different levels, shall we? SEGA Europe/America Sega Europe seems to be far more lenient than SOA, and this has played right into Fleetway's hands. I'm not sure if Fleetway was allowed to use stuff from the cartoons, but they certainly weren't forced to and as a result the comic was much more free to interpret the games. From what I've read online, it appears that SOA (quite understandably) want to push its cartoons. Egmont Fleetway/Archie Publisher-wise... ahem. Archie. Man, how big a chance did Archie give their series?! A load of Tails, Knuckles and Sally mini-series, hodloads of specials for each and every new game of note, 32 ISSUES of a spin-off series for crying out loud. Then Fleetway. Five years of 22 pages of new stuff a fortnight, a year of 17 new pages and ever since STC 157, 7 pages. Each Archie book has 32 pages (albeit on naff paper) and a glossy cover. Fleetway chopped the glossy cover so now the whole thing is on 32 pages (although the quality is much better). And the Fleetway comics are standard British size, which is bigger than the standard American size but the difference doesn't have too much effect. Editors Seems like the Archie editor is an OK guy; I read somewhere that he supported Ken Pender's attempts to try and get something or other in the comic (Sonic Anime stuff, I think) despite Sega skepticism. Well, STC has had (in recent years) Deborah Tate and Andy Diggle. I know Deborah did a lot for the comic, but the result of a lot of it was to push it into 5-year-old inane antics with Sonic and Amy visiting new places each issue and having as little continuity as possible. Now Andy Diggle is almost the opposite, and he's been on the side of a healthy load of action, excitement and continuity to keep it afloat. (I'm a big fan of what Andy Diggle's done for the comic - I think most people are). Writers It seems that Nigel Kitching and Lew Stringer had a lot more freedom to move than Ken Penders and Karl Bollers. Not having the backdrop of two cartoons helped. Another incredibly biased and unfair statement(considering that 80% of what I know about Archie Knuckles was learnt on this site) but I think Knuckles got a much better deal in Fleetway. Sure, in the last 75 issues he's had only 8 5-page outings and a few guest appearances in Sonic stuff, but when he was in his prime he really did have so much going for him - two great artists, an incredible amount of history and no pressure to 'rush in the relatives' which Archie seems to have done. If STC goes into the Tikal stuff then we're bound to come across the ancient Echidnan-Drakon war of the Chaos Emeralds sooner or later... I can't wait!! Artists Again, artists in Archie do seem to have had a rougher time. Although there are some great people there (how can you people not like Chris Allan's work??? The man is a genius!), the colourists never got much of a chance to shine. Fleetway has that cool paper so the colours are really great - especially with Nigel Dobbyn, Richard Elson and Andy Pritchett. Unfortunately, nowadays we're stuck with computer-colours which Richard is only now beginning to master... Anyway, there's my own highly subjective viewpoint. It still think it's incredibly cheeky to dislike Archie after they bent over backwards to accommodate Knuckles. You guys should have a taste of Fleetway for a few years. That'll sort you out! :P --- True Red In defense of Archie fans Ah! The old compare the companies thing. :) The reason for the complaints against Archie is that the fact the comic sold at a loss is more their own fault (some of it is society--check my reply to Klitch below) than the fans. The percentage of Knuckles comic fans with a complete collection from when they started collecting is somewhere around 5% compared with Sonic, which will run much closer to 50%. While some people do complain about not being able to find Sonic in stores, that number PALES in comparison to the amount of Knuckles fans with the same complaint. Of course, if I base my experience with Knuckles in my area, anyone could see why I'd be upset. In seven different stores within 20 miles of my home, Sonic is sold. In only one store within the same distance, Knuckles was sold and that was in the store 20 miles from my house. In the seven different stores, Sonic sold out in only one. In the others, only a few copies were sold, but they stocked up at least 20 issues (how about cutting down and selling some Knux?!). Knuckles always sold out in the store it was sold in, which was also the only store where Sonic sold out. The store that got Knuckles steadily kept increasing the amount of Knuckles issues it got and Knuckles continued to sell out(by the cancellation, there were 25 issues coming in each month). I also ran a little campaign in my hometown and convinced a store to start selling Knuckles starting in January of this year, figuring on at worst bi-monthly status for Knuckles. That's another reason fans are angry. Archie suggested bi-monthly, but never even tried it. It's also the reason that the outcry wasn't that bad during the summer, everyone figured "well, at least we're still getting it." But the biggest reason most fans are angry is that Archie cancelled the book BEFORE the sales came in from when Ken gave his initial warning that Knux is in trouble. Let's just say that those sales are in now and they were going UP! And to make things worse, they cancelled Knuckles when it was GUARANTEED to get sales since the SA adaptation was going to crossover between the two books, therefore the Sonic fans that have never given Knux a chance would have to read it finally. Archie fans are also upset because unlike when Sonic came out, Archie NEVER publicized Knuckles. They didn't promote it, they were too busy promoting a defunct comic that they had. I mean every issue of Sonic and Knuckles had those dumb Super Heroes, which were obvious rip-offs from the Justice League of DC comics and various Marvel characters. If you checked their own website, there was nothing there about Knuckles (but the defunct comic has its own section), unless you decided to visit the subscription page to get a subscription online. Of course, that was not the case for Sonic and that's not how you attract new readers. Knuckles fans feel cheated and to paraphrase the feelings of many Knux fans (based on Save Our Knuckles signers & my own): "This comic was the first thing in a long time that we felt was our own (Knuckles Chaotix for the 32X being the other). It was the only thing in which Knuckles didn't play second fiddle to Sonic." As for the stories, I'm glad that they don't have a "Sega" feel and are more toward the "cartoon" feel. I'm not particularly fond of the Sega storyline (that includes SA) and I much prefer the Echidnaopolis and other stuff to anything the games have done. I love the Dark Legion and Dimitri, who used to be Enerjak. I know I'm on the extreme when it comes to Archie (love-side). If you classify me based on different universes, I'm a steadfast Archie Knux/SatAM Sonic supporter. I totally love what Ken has done in Knuckles and wouldn't change a thing. However, I think the writers for SatAM cartoon handled Sonic the best. I can't really say it's Archie, it's just Ken. The thing is, I thought the comic was better than SatAM until after issue #50, when things started the downward spiral. That was also the last Sonic issue Ken really wrote as he started writing Knuckles. Knuckles then excelled in quality, while Sonic just went down and the only thing REALLY worth reading became Ken's back-ups in Sonic. Notice the relationship. Ken is just the best writer hands down at Archie. Sometimes he messes up (he's allowed, he's only human), but 99% of the time, you're getting a great story. It might not be a happy story (SSS#11 comes to mind), but it'll be well-written. Also, most Archie fans don't know Fleetway or even its existence. I know I wouldn't if it wasn't for the 'net. And while I think the Sonic fandom is large on the 'net, I think it's smaller than the population off the 'net. As for most of the other complaints about stories, they mostly originate from the fact that the Knux stories were so good. There's definitely a drop in quality when you compare just about anything strictly Sonic to something strictly Knux. Also, the other complaint is of getting rid of "cannon" characters and replacing them. The only real "mistake" Ken has made in Knux was that Julie-Su in the eyes of many is Charmy's replacement. I never saw her as that, and if my guesses are right (I'll find out in SSS #14), I know I'll be right. And everyone who'd been complaining about the "lack of Chaotix & Knux action" would have gotten their wish. I have to stop now, bed time. I'll check to see if I left anything out later. Any and all responses welcome. :) --- Ed Egmont VS Archie -- round one! *dingding* : Ah! The old compare the companies thing. :) Hehe… yep! ;) :The reason for the complaints against Archie is that the fact the comic sold :at a loss is more their own fault (some of it is society--check my reply to :Klitch below) than the fans. The percentage of Knuckles comic fans with a :complete collection from when they started collecting is somewhere around 5% :compared with Sonic, which will run much closer to 50%. While some people :do complain about not being able to find Sonic in stores, that number PALES :in comparison to the amount of Knuckles fans with the same complaint. Fair enough – but let’s be honest here. Go up to 8-year-old Billy McBloglin and ask him if he’s heard of SONIC. He’ll probably say ‘yes’. Ask him if he’s heard of KNUCKLES. Odds on, your answer is going to be ‘no’ unless he’s played the relevant Sonic games. Therefore, it’s not good business for Archie to chuck out loads of these things. The theory is that if the people want them, they’ll order them. If enough people order them, they can be tested in stores. Is it not possible to order/subscribe via Archie directly? :In seven different stores within 20 miles of my home, Sonic is sold. :In only one store within the same distance, Knuckles was sold and that was :in the store 20 miles from myhouse. :In the seven different stores, Sonic sold out in only one. In the others, :only a few copies were sold, but they stocked up at least 20 issues (how about cutting down and selling some Knux?!). I don’t know how it works with American comics, but here the newsagents get their magazines and comics for display and if you want a comic you ask them to order it too. Not a problem. Then you pick it up every month. If they’re having bulk quantities of SONIC imported, why not import KNUCKLES? :Knuckles always sold out in the store it was sold in, which was also the :only store where Sonic sold out. The store that got Knuckles steadily :kept increasing the amount of Knuckles issues it got and Knuckles continued :to sell out(by the cancellation, there were 25 issues coming in each month). Probably because everything was diverted there. But why the local shops wouldn’t just order the stuff miffs me a little. I still don’t see that this is a problem at Archie’s end. :I also ran a little campaign in my hometown and convinced a store to start :selling Knuckles starting in January of this year... Strange it may be but they’re also a business: if they’re losing money on each issue then OF COURSE they aren’t going to keep it up. And OF COURSE they aren’t going to chuck more money at it in the hope that it might start working. :Archie fans are also upset because unlike when Sonic came out, :Archie NEVER publicized Knuckles. They didn't promote it, they were too :busy promoting a defunct comic that they had... Fair enough, that seems odd. Of course, part of the problem may have been that nobody higher up actually took Knuckles seriously and it was carried (for THREE YEARS for heaven’s sake!) by middle management. Just a guess. :"This comic was the first thing in a long time that we felt was our own :(Knuckles Chaotix for the 32X being the other). It was the only thing in :which Knuckles didn't play second fiddle to Sonic." You’ve never seen the Knuckles Knock-Out Special then? Ah, that was lovely. ^_^ As for Knuckles’ Chaotix… well, that was really just a hair-brained SoA scheme. :As for the stories, I'm glad that they don't have a "Sega" feel and are :more toward the "cartoon" feel. I'm not particularly fond of the Sega :storyline (that includes SA) and I much prefer the Echidnaopolis and :other stuff to anything the games have done. This is really by-the-by. But I disagree with you of course. I think it’s a key part of Knuckles that he’s alone and that he ultimately will never know everything there is to know. It’s a very poetic and tragic angle to play it. It works very well. I think Nigel Kitching hinted once that he planned that Knuckles’ ancestors had become so spread out across the universe that it would become evident that despite legends, they would never return to the island. I don’t think Knuckles is built to be that kind of character where he’s got this enormous bunch of buddies. It doesn’t fit. The very best Knuckles stories are the ones where he’s alone or with very small groups. It’s no coincidence that this is also where Knuckles artist Nigel Dobbyn comes into his own. If you haven’t seen ‘The Graveyard’ I’ll have to scan it for you sometime. It’s beautiful. :I love the Dark Legion and Dimitri, who used to be Enerjak. I know I'm :on the extreme when it comes to Archie (love-side). If you classify me :based on different universes, I'm a steadfast Archie Knux/SatAM :Sonic supporter. I totally love what Ken has done in Knuckles and :wouldn't change a thing. That’s fair enough. Although I don’t agree with it. :However, I think the writers for SatAM cartoon handled Sonic the best. :I can't really say it's Archie, it's just Ken. The thing is, I :thought the comic was better than SatAM until after issue #50, when things :started the downward spiral. That was also the last Sonic issue Ken :really wrote as he started writing Knuckles. Knuckles then excelled :in quality, while Sonic just went down and the only thing REALLY worth :reading became Ken's back-ups in Sonic. Notice the relationship. :Ken is just the best writer hands down at Archie. Sometimes he messes up :(he's allowed, he's only human), but 99% of the time, you're getting a :great story. It might not be a happy story (SSS #11 comes to mind), :but it'll be well-written. This sounds familiar. I mean, I don’t for a moment claim that Nigel Kitching did that good stuff when he was doing Captain Plunder and stuff; but under what appears to be enormous editorial pressure he did incredibly well. It’s no coincidence that the best stories were the Knuckles stories which he wrote. Or that the Super Sonic stories were great and he wrote them too. :Also, most Archie fans don't know Fleetway or even its existence. :I know I wouldn't if it wasn't for the 'net. And while I think the Sonic :fandom is large on the 'net, I think it's smaller than the population :off the 'net. Umm… so? Sorry, I think we’ve rambled off-topic here. I was saying that Archie ultimately has done a lot more for KNUCKLES than Fleetway would ever dream of doing for STC. Let’s be honest – if they never gave an ongoing KNUCKLES series a run in the first place but just kept occasional 3-issue runs, then you’d still love Archie. But because they took the risk and kept on for THIRTY-TWO ISSUES until mainstream (MAINSTREAM) sales were so bad that they were losing money (irrespective of any of this ‘Sonic Adventure’gubbins) I think they should be commended not hated. Persuaded, not patronised. Honestly – which would you have preferred? The Sonic Specials to be replaced with reprint; all but 7 pages of Sonic be replaced by reprint; all but 7 pages of Knuckles be reprinted – OR the way it is now? Knuckles still ultimately gets A LOT of press. It’s an incredible risk that they took. And sure, they may have cacked up along the way. But the whole thing had to be such a long shot that it’s a marvel they ever launched it. :As for most of the other complaints about stories, they mostly originate :from the fact that the Knux stories were so good. There's definitely a :drop in quality when you compare just about anything strictly Sonic to :something strictly Knux. Also, the other complaint is of getting rid of :"cannon" characters and replacing them. The only real "mistake" Ken has :made in Knux was that Julie-Su in the eyes of many is Charmy's replacement. :I never saw her as that, and if my guesses are right (I'll find out in :SSS #14), I know I'll be right. And everyone who'd been complaining :about the "lack of Chaotix & Knux action" would have gotten their wish. This Chaotix thing has got way out of hand. On the game of videogaming Great Whites to minnows they’re on the plankton side of below average. With the exception of Knuckles, all four are basically failed characters. I have no idea why Fleetway picked them up over and above stronger characters/stories. I mean, I see why people can like the characters and that’s fair enough. I think STC did the worst with Chaotix. They aren’t nearly as bad as people make them out – Vector, Espio and Mighty are cool. It’s only Charmy that’s annoying (and he’s meant to be). But even so… basically, you’re still getting LOADS of Knuckles stories. And if you’d prefer Egmont to Archie normally, distribution problems notwithstanding then you are not just mad but serially deranged. :P ------ DDmouse I guess... the reason for the difference between the two books (the two archie books that is) would come from the fact that,initially, Sonic had a predestend role (you could say) where as Knuckles had the freedom to go in whatever direction the writer wished. This is my first go at trying to write something that passes as 'topical' (if thats even a word). So go easy ok? --- Ed That helps too... ... STC has been incredibly blessed in that they seem not to have had Sega breathing down their necks ordering Sonic Underground in the comics. :) Of course, the previous editor seemed to (IMO - and the opinion of most in the fandom that I know) squandered that. Not so with the superior Andy Diggle. --- Klitch I still can't believe that they canceled Knuckles though The comic had much more going for it that sonic did. And I think the aditional characters (Ray & Julie-su) made it much more interesting. I think it's sales weren't as good as Sonic's because it was to new. I don't much of the readers liked all the change. Although I liked it more. After the Knuckles comic came out I got slightly bored with the Sonic comic. --- True Red It wasn't so much that it was new... ...as much as it was distribution. Three big time problems: 1) Many stores don't sell Sonic as it is. I don't think half of the stores that sell Sonic even sold Knuckles. Knuckles sells took a huge hit when Wal-Mart stopped selling Knuckles (and Sonic for that matter) along with most of its other comics (it also didn't help that it was during a point when Ken ticked off some readers either--not everyone likes Julie & Knux being together). Wal-Mart decided to stock up on Phantom Menance stuff instead of comics. While Wal-Mart stopped entirely, other stores just cut down their supply to support problem number 2... 2) Pokemon. Nothing is bigger among the target audience of Sonic & Knuckles. As a result, many suppliers are cutting down their supplies of every other comic dramatically to make sure they have room for Pokemon. Comic book sales are down all over, with the exception of Pokemon. 3) It's hard to convince places to sell Knuckles because outside a Sonic comic reader and a Sonic game player no one knows who he is. They might see the comic, but not pick it up. Many of my friends had seen Knuckles before and just ignored it because they saw "animals" and thought "kiddie." Boy were they shocked when I finally told them about Knux. Can you say "Instant fans" once they started reading it? But I couldn't totally bug them about it because I KNOW that if I didn't like SatAM and read Sonic first, I never would've known about Knuckles and probably would not have read Knux myself. --- Ed Look on the bright side... Your petition got a response; some Archie guy explained himself. And the stories that would have gone into KNUCKLES are going into SONIC and its supporting comics. This differs from Egmont in that they shut up shop, and stopped new stories entirely. It seems that I've taken it upon myself to be the sweet ray of pessimism in your lives. :) Sorry about that. It's not that I loathe, destest, despise and abhor Egmont... oh, wait - I do.