#writer: karl bollers

[thecoolertails]

she really marries this prick

#my posts #i would treat her right. i would treat her better than this #what. who said that #archie sonic posting #issue 61 #this issue didn't need to exist! the like 2 page karl bollers + steven butler teaser story was the highlight #and nothing happened #mike gallagher returns to the writers chair to give us... barby koala slobbering over an 8 year old (again!) #in a story where we dont actually get to experience like any of it #and while harvo can make some good covers and pin ups... this issue was fucked up looking #i think it was seriously rushed or something #which is like whatever thats not their fault #but still i feel like i couldve just skipped this one

[magicvicky1]

Another unusual pair for today’s drawing :D This time is not simply because of their similarities, though, but it was actually a unnused story for Archie Sonic!

Karl Bollers, one of the writers for the comic, planned to have Monkey Khan and Knuckles meet and learn Kung Fu together! Right now I don’t remember exactly what was the context for it, but supposedly there was some other powerful gem in Angel Island that Khan was there to protect. Then Eggman and the Iron Queen would brainwash them to make them fight against each other, I imagine so that they could get ahold of the gem. Unfortunately, it never come to fruition because Bollers was eventually fired and so along with many other stories, this never got to happen in the comic.

It’s a shame though, because I think this could have been a great story. Monkey Khan and Knuckles in the comic have a lot of things in common: the two of them have a short temperament, they both have a guardian role, they also are connected to a supposed prophecy…….And they also were experimented on at a young age LMAO. So it’s sucks that we didn’t to see how their interactions would go. But hey, at least Knuckles kind of was aware of Khan’s existence, I guess xdxd

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic the hedghog fanart #sonic art #archie sonic #sonic archie #knuckles the echidna #monkey khan #monkey ken khan #my art

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 56: The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish (part 1)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon!

…sigh. Buckle in, kids. This one is going to be a bumpy ride.

Episode 56: The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish (part 1)

I mean, where do I even start with this one? Over its 23 year long run, there were sooooo many different fetishes that popped up in the comic at one time or another. I’d even go as far as to say that if you have a particular favourite fetish that it probably showed up in ArchieSonic at some point.

Are you into magical girls?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Are you into furry love triangles?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Are you into feet pics?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

But maybe you’re more into cannibalism.

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

How about tickle torture?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

What about leather and whips?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Or maybe asphyxiation and/or drowning?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

How about vore?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Whatever the f*** this was?!

ArchieSonic’s (clap) got (clap) you (clap) covered (clap) fam.

But hey, no kink shaming here. I’m all for encouraging the kind of things you sick, twisted readers are into. 😀 But what about the writers themselves? What kind of weird stuff are they into? Well… look, I’m not going to say that Ken Penders has a fetish for tickle torture, but I will point out that he wrote that Tails scene I showed you earlier, and also drew this... “political statement.”

I’m just going to let you come to your own conclusions with that information. 

There is other stuff we could look at as well though. I’m not sure whether or not the rest of this stuff technically counts as “fetishes”, but considering the number of times it got written into the comic, I don’t think we can completely rule it out. For this section I’d like to concentrate on the three writers who contributed to ArchieSonic the most: Ken Penders, Karl Bollers, and Ian Flynn.

Ken Penders is first up, and there’s a lot to explore here during his time on the comic from 1994 - 2006. First of all, he had a habit of introducing zillions of new characters (usually echidnas). But as was pointed out by former ArchieSonic writer and colourist and current awesome person Aleah Baker, that topic might be a little too broad. So let’s break that down into several smaller categories. The first one is “Introducing secret family members that no one knew about and/or were supposed to be dead.” There were so many instances of this!

Sonic’s long-lost parents!

Sally’s long-lost brother and mother!

Antoine’s father!

Knuckles’ father!

Knuckles’ mother!

The League of Extroadinarily Racist Grandpas!

This is in stark contrast to both post-reboot ArchieSonic and the current IDWSonic run, where very few of the cast have family members making appearances.

Another one Penders loved to pull out was introducing unnecessary new characters who were there for the single purpose of replacing already established characters, usually those that were introduced in the games or SatAM. ‘Wait, who did Penders want to replace?’ you may be asking. Quite a few people, actually. For starters, he wanted to get rid of Princess Sally. Do you remember this infamous moment from the Endgame saga?

Sally eventually recovered from that fall, but Penders’ original intention was the death fake-out to be for realsies. Ken wanted Sally gone, as he felt that having King Acorn back gave us a character that served the same purpose as leader of the Freedom Fighters, and that Sally, in Ken’s own words, “cramped Sonic’s style.” Fortunately SEGA intervened and demanded that Sally live, partially because they were using her for marketing SEGAWorld Sydney. I got to visit that place as a kid, fun times. 

It wasn’t long after this that Ken pulled Sally’s long-lost brother Prince Elias out of his hat, whom I can only assume was also designed to serve a similar purpose to Sally.

Is that not bad enough? Well then how about the time when Ken killed off Dr. Robotnik and planned to replace him with this guy?

Meet Dr. Ian Droid (ugh, I hate the pun), a guy who basically boils down to “Dr. Robotnik but cooler because he was made by me, Ken Penders.” Who is this guy? What are his motivations? Buggered if I know. He was supposed to be the villain of Ken Penders’ original series, The Lost Ones (which only ever had a single issue released), and Knuckles: 20 Years Later (which was scrapped and replaced with the Mobius: 25 Years Later storyline).

Dr. Droid was implied to be a time-traveller who had fought Sonic and Knuckles in the past… or future… or whatever! We didn’t really find out anything else about this guy in the single issue he showed up in - a crossover with Image Comics. We should all be grateful that this bland knock-off never showed up again.

Lastly, whether or not he intended this, Ken Penders largely replaced the Chaotix. With whom? Why more echidnas, of course! The Chaotix may be an independent team nowadays, but back when they were first introduced ArchieSonic established that these guys were Knuckles' crew. I’ve talked about this before, but as the Knuckles series progressed the Chaotix tended to make fewer appearances, often becoming background characters whose page time was eaten up by Julie-Su, Constable Remington, and the League of Extroadinarily Racist Grandpas. Even in a three-issue arc called “The Chaotix Caper,” the Chaotix spent a large chunk of it hospitalised while Julie-Su and Remington investigated the case they had been working on.

Penders even used this arc to write Charmy out of the story for the next few years aside from a few brief cameo appearances.

Were there any other “fetishes,” Penders constantly wrote about? Well yes, and it’s a big one: daddy issues. There was King Max of course, a jerk mostly known for making typical boomer calls such as demanding Sally agree to an arranged marriage with Antoine or lose her right to the crown, or calling for all the robots who used to be Robotnik’s mindless slaves to be disassembled.

Obviously, Sally’s relationship with him was rather strained. But it was Knuckles’ father Locke, introduced and mostly written by Penders, that was quite possibly the most controversial character in the entire series. On the one hand, he was something of a guardian angel (pardon the pun) to Knuckles, watching out for him from afar and secretly helping him in his most desperate times. But wow, did he ever go about it the wrong way. Locke took Knuckles away from his mother at a young age to train him to be the next guardian of the Floating Island, and when that training was complete Knuckles had to watch his father yeet himself into a wall of fire, leaving him completely alone.

Obviously Locke didn’t actually kill himself but instead took up residency in a secret base called Haven where he could spy on his son all day long. But Knuckles didn’t know that and was left alone to suffer. When Knuckles finally reunited with him and wanted to know everything he’d been kept in the dark about up to this point, Locke was surprisingly forthcoming and finally came clean with the big secret.

Before Knuckles was born Locke had a vision of him in battle against forces he couldn’t comprehend, so Locke decided the only way to ensure his future son’s survival was to pump himself full of steroids before impregnating his wife and then blasting Knuckles’ egg with radiation from a Chaos Emerald. You all know the meme:

Penders was famously upset by other writers’ interpretations of Locke, especially when Ian Flynn became head writer of the comic and killed Locke off.

Penders had already previously written Locke’s death to take place during the future events of the Mobius 25 Years Later arc - and dedicated the story to his own late father - but despite his insistence otherwise, this was not considered to be the canonical future of the series but rather and "elseworlds" or "what if?" story.

It’s quite possible that this incident was the reason Penders decided to copyright all of “his” characters and start writing The Lara-Su Chronicles. But no matter what Ian wrote for Locke, nothing can be as bad as what Penders himself wrote for him:

Ick. I’m sorry, I thought I got all the gross stuff out of the way at the start of the post.

Tumblr has a limit to the number of images you can put in a single post, so I’m going to have to save Mr Bollers’ and Mr Flynn’s fetishes for next time. I’ll try to have that one out for you tomorrow. 🙂

#archiesonic syndicated

[toaarcan]

Okay, so I got linked a post questioning why people like to undo Fiona Fox's heel turn and make her into a protagonist again, stating that, from their perspective, her being evil and awful was what made her interesting, and insinuated that it's rather sexist to deny her agency in the turn she makes early in Ian Flynn's run.

I'm not gonna directly respond to that post or @ the person who made it, they probably won't even see this, but it made the cogs start turning and I want to go off.

Gonna get the sexism angle out of the way first. I don't buy it. This is a fictional character being written by a dude and her villainous incarnation exists almost entirely as an accessory to her male partner. Even when they're separated, all she's doing is building a team so she can get him back. She's a satellite to Scourge, and her own stated personality and morality are completely removed in order to get her there. She retains zero of the (admittedly thin and underutilised) traits she exhibited before her turn once she turns evil.

Onto the bigger things.

My problem with Fiona's heel turn is that it is an inherently broken story, and it is built on a prior inherently broken story. Ian Flynn's version of Fiona is built on Ken Penders' version of her from the Hell Run, whom is herself incompatible with Karl Bollers' version of her from around the same time.

Of all the characters in Archie, Fiona is the one who suffers the most from Bollers' plans being scrapped and the handover between three different writers. She was left in the lurch with nothing to do until Flynn showed up, and it means that a lot of people view her turn to villainy as a vast improvement over the previous white noise, and that's fair. In many ways, it's a microcosm of the Sonic fandom thinking that Ian Flynn is a writing genius, because their only frame of reference is Ken Penders or Pontaff, and he compares much less favourably to writers who are actually good.

Back on topic, none of those three writers were particularly interested in her as a character. They are far more interested in her as a love interest. For Sonic and kinda-sorta-Tails under Bollers and Penders' pens, and for Scourge under Flynn's, and her own traits are largely ignored in favour of making her a Sally Clone.

Don't believe me? Bollers outright stated in his plans that he brought her in to replace Sally as Sonic's mature and grounded love interest, whom he wanted to write out. Flynn writes her as straight-up the Sally to Scourge's Sonic, and her own traits barely come up. All the ones she had before her turn are gone. Her medical knowledge? Never referenced again. Her connections with the other members of the group? Non-existent. Her history as a treasure hunter? Irrelevant. Everything she has now is just a reflection of Sally.

Flynn's Fiona isn't driven by her anger at Sonic, she challenges him twice and little comes of it, because she's constantly hanging around one of Sonic's actual rivals, who gets the primary focus. Fiona trades barbs with Sally more often, and with more success, because she is framed as Sally's rival on account of dating the evil version of Sally's love interest.

Flynn's Fiona spends the vast majority of her existence glued to Scourge's arm and acting smug. And that's kinda it.

And it doesn't work out well for the other characters involved either.

Scourge absolutely comes off the worst, just because... well, it's rooted in Issue 150. That Flynn based so much of Scourge's early appearances on Issue 150 baffles me to this day, I'd have thought any sane person would distance themselves from that trashfire as much as possible, but nope, Flynn decided to make that sonofabitch load-bearing.

Because the Scourge/Fiona pairing, and thus Fiona's turn, are rooted in Issue 150, there's an inherently creepy aura to the whole thing. It started because Scourge was pretending to be the real Sonic in order to try and score, and she was just one of his potential victims.

The origins of their relationship were only ever told, and not shown, and I think that's because there's no way to write it in a way that doesn't come across as incredibly skeevy.

And going back to Fiona herself for a hot minute here, why does this work on her? Scourge is everything she accuses the real Sonic of being, and her first impression of him is dishonesty. That is a crimson flag, and a character with her specific trauma should be outright repulsed by this.

The heroes aren't looking too hot either. Getting Fiona to the point where she doesn't trust them anymore kinda requires them to act like dumb assholes for a hot minute.

Fiona's backstory not being revealed to the group until Flynn's run requires Sally to be titanically stupid about who gets to join the team that she leads. She is not only the leader of the most famous and effective Freedom Fighter unit on the planet, she is the de facto leader of the Freedom Fighter network as a whole, and the heir to the throne of the nation Eggman spends most of his time trying to conquer. And Flynn is asking us to believe that they don't do background checks. Eggman could hire/build an assassin and send them to "Join the Freedom Fighters", in order to get close to Sally and kill her, and it would actually have a chance of working.

The idea that Fiona could get on the team without Sally knowing who she is and where she came from is, frankly, intensely stupid. Especially when three of the four people who know her backstory already are already in the city and on the same team. Even if Fiona herself didn't spill, Sally should've been able to get at least some of that information from Sonic, Mighty, or Ray.

I honestly and firmly believe that Issue 130-159 were written under the assumption that the FF knew Fiona's deal already, and Flynn made Sally much stupider in order to break the heroes' trust in her.

Also, it's just never made any sense that "I was a small-time thief and I didn't tell you because I was afraid of not being trusted" is so horrible a secret when they have no issues at all trusting Rouge, who did all the same things (but was actually successful), did actually work with Eggman (which Fiona never did), and will eventually be willing to let Blaze's universe die rather than give up a Sol Emerald (Yes, that was also bad writing, but one shit story at a time please), and Shadow, who tried to destroy the world. Why is this a bridge too far for Sally? Oh, because Flynn needs Fiona to be on the rocks with the FF so she can turn evil.

And then there's Sonic himself. Sonic's already looking fairly dodgy before that point. He doesn't end Penders' run smelling of roses. But Flynn manages to make it worse.

We're told in Issue 172 that Fiona tried to find a spark with the real Sonic, but he was boring to her. And then in Issue 179, we find out why: He was never into her to begin with. On his end, their entire relationship, which lasted 17 issues IRL, was actually a harebrained scheme to try and force Tails to move on from his crush on her.

This is, in full honesty, the stupidest plan ever conceived by anyone in any Sonic story, ever. Plans concocted by Scratch and Grounder in AoStH are smarter than this idea. All of them. This is eight consecutive Natural 1s on an Intelligence check. He's making Scott Pilgrim look like a sensitive and mature person.

Hey, Sonic, have a look at your friend Amy and ask yourself whether "My crush is in a relationship with someone else" is actually an effective deterrent to crushing on that person.

Also, the person you are putting in this sham relationship has a history of not trusting you, and has unresolved trauma from the last time you (inadvertently) fucked her over. Maybe consider not using her affections for a harebrained scheme to help your friend, who neither asked for nor appreciated your 'help.'

Literally all Sonic manages to achieve from this plan is making two people angry at him instead of just one.

And that's a giant stumbling block for me, because I look at this story and I don't say "Sonic and Sally fucked up in how they treated Fiona and thus she turned on them," I say "But they wouldn't act like that."

The root cause of Fiona losing her faith in the FF is a "He would not fucking say that" for me, and if I can't retcon it, I'm gonna try and ignore it. It may have happened, but for the purposes of writing further, it does not exist.

The hand of the writer is blatantly fucking obvious in this particular story. Sonic is being an ass and Sally is being an idiot and Fiona's trauma applies only to her anger at Sonic and not to her reaction to Second, Even Shittier Sonic, and Scourge has appreciable qualities besides "Is a Sonic." None of these moving parts work, and said Hand of the Writer is looming so large that I have to fight every urge in me to not justify that Hand by actually making it a "Hand of This Villain with Something to Gain from the Outcome", who is somehow causing all of this OOC behaviour.

If I write a scene where Fiona goes off at Sonic about how he hurt her, then Sonic's response, his first response, is going to be to apologise to her, for all of it. Because yeah, it's really fucking weird that he hasn't already, so that's what he's gonna do.

And then what? If Fiona accepts it, she's not exactly a villain anymore. If she doesn't, then she's become fully one-dimensional. She got what she wanted and she's not accepting it because... reasons.

Furthermore, I have a hard time viewing Fiona's end-of-canon normal as an improvement on her situation from before. Yeah, Scourge accepts her shittier side. Great. He's also an egomaniacal nutbar with genocidal intentions bubbling under the surface, who has cheated on every partner he's ever had, and definitely verbally and probably physically abuses her. The best thing for her is to get the fuck out of there and find someone who won't decide to blow up the planet she's standing on just because he can. And yeah, she could go and live her best life as a villain, but... what is she going to do, what's she going to achieve, and how is that actually going to work? Flynn didn't give her any goals outside of being with Scourge, I don't have a lot to work with here!

If she decides she wants to get even with Sonic, she's going to win that immediately, as I said above. If she wants to beat him physically for it, that's only going to happen if he lets her, because he is much, much too fast for her to even land a hit.

The other thing is, to take an even more external perspective for a minute, I am never going to be in the position of writing for an ongoing comic that is designed to last forever. I will only ever be writing a story that is designed to end. Every villain in anything I write is going to eventually lose permanently, or at least, they'll be planned to do so. And I don't like leaving loose ends. So every last one of those villains is going to end up redeemed, imprisoned, or dead.

I'm a firm agreer with the "Banality of Evil" as a concept. Ain't nobody going to actually be able to live their best life by being a shit. Evil is unfulfilling, and villains do not prosper, because you can't build something great if all you do is destroy things.

And that's why I'm not going to write something where Fiona stays evil and still has a good time of things. It's just not happening. I can have her stay on the path Flynn put her on, which will only ever end badly, break away from that but stay antagonistic and fall because of it, or heal. And of those three, I find the latter the most interesting to explore with her. I already got a dozen villains who will fail and/or die because of the inherent self-destructiveness of their actions, I don't need another.

With characters like this, I'm more interested in healing than I am in stasis.

That's also not to say that Fiona can't be interesting as a hero. Someone with actual, legitimate grievances with the main protagonist, who has every reason to hate them, but finds a way not to? Fascinating stuff. I will loudly and proudly say that pre-evil Fiona is one of the most underutilised characters in Archie, in a way that post-evil Fiona just isn't. I want to know more about the character Bollers was writing after his original plan got scrapped, and before he got shoved out the door by Penders' bullshit. I can't say the same of Flynn's version, she's basic.

And heck, exploring a redemption arc for her can be fun too. Just because she's returned to the light, doesn't mean she's going to automatically get better. Especially if part of it involves seeing Scourge for what he really is, perhaps painfully so. There can still be a bitterness, an anger in her.

I didn't get particular far with it before the burnout hit, and I haven't done anything with my Sonic fic for like five years now, despite often saying that I want to go back to it, but my take on Fiona in that story was mending bridges with her old friends, finding common ground with Bunnie and Amy as former targets of Scourge, discovering a new connection with Sally through both of them escaping from abusive situations, albeit with deep scars in the process (because I had Sally finally acknowledge that her father was abusive), and most importantly, reconnecting with Nic, another character that Archie did dirty. She also has a building new friendship with Emerl, and is heavily involved in the efforts to resolve the mystery of the Gizoid's origin. I built that idea on an extrapolation from her backstory- my version of Fiona is kind of an amateur archaeology buff, she can read ancient languages, and she's familiar with the fall of the Fourth Great Civilisation, so she knows more about Emerl than most others.

And that's not to say that she's wholly good now. There's still a darkness in her, her amount of trauma has only increased and her first instinct is to lash out at the causes of it. Her newfound allies might be opposing that course of action, but that's only causing her to get sneaky about it. Sonic won't train her to fight someone with his abilities? That's fine, she can ask Emerl. And her less-heroic ideals aren't just lip-service either. The Mecha Sally saga changed things, and Sally's own recent heaped serving of trauma has pushed her in a less Lawful Good direction. Fiona's less-pure ideas have a seat at the table now, and I do plan to eventually address some of the bad writing that her villain stint was founded upon.

Of course, there's still a lot that I'd change about the parts I've already published, but that's old writing for you.

TL;DR: Fiona's heel turn and motivations are rooted in a giant case of "They would not fucking say/do that" on the part of Sonic and Sally, and are shaky at best when it comes to Fiona herself and Scourge. I cannot appreciate it as a result, and even Flynn's version is more of an accessory for Scourge than a character, so I don't feel remotely obliged to honour it. I'm also much more interested in healing and I do not tend to have villains prosper in general, because I view evil as inherently self-destructive, and I also write with an ending in mind and don't like leaving loose ends, so "Riding off into the sunset to be evil another day" is not on the table.

For a less serious answer, stapling a new personality onto Fiona is something everybody that ever touched on her in canon did, who am I to break the trend?

#Sonic #Sonic the Hedgehog #Not sure if I should tag Fiona #this is technically a big long rant about how her character is badly written #and her story is founded on everyone else being badly written

[rondo-of-blog]

On the Beginnings of The Lara-Su Chronicles

Today is, as of writing, the last day you can pre-order The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings if you want to make it into the Special Thanks section of the book. Anyone who pre-orders after will be in the app, still, but I think it goes without saying the significance of having your name make it into the first printing. You can pre-order here.

Whether you go and pre-order it now or later, or if you’re looking back at this after the book’s come out, I think it’s gonna be worth the read. Today, I feel moved to write a little about what The Lara-Su Chronicles means to me.

It all started with the Archie Sonic comics. A gag comic that metamorphosed into the bonafide superhero book it came to be known as, that was inarguably the blueprint for what Sonic comics get published today. These things aren’t predestined, no divine hand laid its knowing finger on it to move it from one to another - no, it was the freelance creators who put in the work to make Archie Sonic what it was.

And no freelancer who touched the book can be said to have had a greater impact on it than one Ken Penders. Not Mike Gallagher, who wrote the very first issues; not Scott Fulop, who oversaw the initial transformation the book underwent as the editor; not even Karl Bollers, an incredible talent whose original concepts & characters come the very closest to rivaling Ken’s.

It was Ken who wanted more for the comic, for it to become what the readers of the time wanted it to be. Ken, whose eyes were trained on the countless fan-letters that flooded in, who would test each story idea of his first on his son to determine if he was going the right direction. Sonic comics and everyone who’s helped make them over the years owe him a great deal, whether they want to admit it or not, but it was the Knuckles comic series where he truly shined.

Though it’s become fashionable in some circles to claim he ‘shoved Knuckles down reader throats,’ it doesn’t take too long a memory to remember how popular Knuckles was - and is to this day. One need only look at the incredible reaction to the reveal of Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and the very fact that there is going to be another Knuckles series on Paramount Plus, to know Knuckles stands out in the cast of Sonic the Hedgehog.

But where does Knuckles come from? Who is he? You can refer to wiki articles that note his species and status as a former rival of Sonic, you can watch YouTube videos collecting all the cutscenes for his story in the video game Sonic Adventure, but, as a ‘life-long fan’ of Sonic who is also a writer, I can tell you none of those get us a true insight into the interiority of Knuckles the Echidna.

You can restate his character’s premise like a dog chasing its tail, you can try and mine his angst at being so alone on his island until you’re blue in the face, but neither of those take the character himself in any kind of direction. Not forward, not backward, but stagnant. Only in the Knuckles comics did we see a true step forward, where words met action and the story of the echidna’s past finally had anything meaningful to say about the story ahead of Knuckles.

In the initial miniseries Sonic’s Friendly Nemesis Knuckles the Echidna, after B-stories and C-stories in the Archie Sonic series had laid the groundwork, Knuckles’s past came back for the first time. This was before Sonic Adventure, before Tikal and Chaos, and crucially… it was Knuckles’s story, first and foremost, not Sonic’s as it was in the end for Sonic Adventure.

The follow-up miniseries and ensuing ongoing comic series would expand upon Knuckles’s family, the society they had lived in the past as well as where they lived in the present, and even Knuckles himself. While the Chaotix may be familiar to Sonic fans, they and the Knuckles of these comics live lives and make decisions that SEGA’s characters have not and will not ever know.

In the Knuckles series, Knuckles doesn’t just reunite with his mother and eventually his father. He doesn’t just get into battles with greater stakes for his life than anything he had or would later experience in the video games, face foes more personal and meaningful than the leftovers Sonic leaves for him, and accomplish more than his official SEGA counterpart has in all the decades of history he’s had since. He gets a life - a home with people, not just an emerald and an empty island, to protect. And another soul, who starts off as an enemy, for him to fall in love with.

I’ve never met a Sonic fan who’s been able to reconcile this Knuckles with the echidna that SEGA calls Knuckles. In point of fact, every Sonic fan I’ve ever encountered considers the Knuckles series and every story of Ken’s that came before and after to bear so little resemblance to the source material as to no longer have the right to call itself Knuckles or to claim to have anything to do with what SEGA has done with the character. From their lips, this is an insult. To me, it is both the Knuckles comics’ ultimate badge of honor and greatest strength.

What’s the use of perpetually spinning your wheels and refusing to grow and change? What has Knuckles gained in the three decades since the character debuted, sitting on an island as the last survivor of a dead people? The right to mention every now and then he might take a break from being a guardian, and never seeming to follow-through on that? The right to star in animated shorts where he once again illustrates how little has changed since 1998?

I don’t say all this as a hater, either. I happen to like Sonic Team’s video games, I liked Sonic Frontiers, and heck - I’ve even enjoyed some of the comics they’ve printed in the current ongoing series of Sonic books. The simple fact remains that it’s 2024, Knuckles is still on Angel Island and he still has nothing but ghosts. In every way that matters, SEGA’s Knuckles the Echidna is as dead as his people.

Maybe SEGA does something new with the character in the future, maybe the writers they’ve entrusted with the comics become bolder with their plans, I don’t know and I don’t claim to know what will or won’t happen there. My point stands that today, all these years later, there still is no story told of SEGA’s Knuckles that gives him even half the dignity and respect that Ken’s stories have.

Now, all these years later, what is to become The Lara-Su Chronicles series of graphic novels is finally set to begin with the upcoming release of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings. In it, after a reprint of the unforgettably-excellent Mobius: 25 Years Later story, we’ll be seeing what awaits Lara-Su in the next chapter of her life and in the wake of her father’s death.

I’ve read literal hundreds of Sonic comics over the years. The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings is not one of them.

But that was always the beauty of the Knuckles series, now succeeded by The Lara-Su Chronicles. It started in Sonic, but emerged from it like a butterfly from a chrysalis into something unlike anything a humble caterpillar could imagine - and the sky’s the limit.

#The Lara-Su Chronicles #TL-SC #The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings #knuckles the echidna #archie sonic #knuckles comics

[sonicpanels]

Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Ongoing) #110: "One For All: A Tale of Princess Sally"

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: J. Axer Inks: Andrew Pepoy or Pam Eklund Letters: Jeff Powell Colors: Josh & Aimee Ray

Editor/Art Director: Justin Gabrie Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Archie Comics #Archie Sonic #Archie Sonic Ongoing #Sally Acorn #King Acorn #Maximilian Acorn #Alicia Acorn #Karl Bollers #J. Axer #Jeff Axer #Andrew Pepoy #Pam Eklund #Jeff Powell #Josh Ray #Aimee Ray #Justin Gabrie #Victor Gorelick #2002

[shadowwingtronix]

"Yesterday's" Comic> Sonic The Hedgehog #56

BW's "Yesterday's" Comic> Sonic The Hedgehog #56

Turns out being green has its advantages. Sonic The Hedgehog #56 Archie Comics Publications (March, 1996) “Immortality Is Forever…Life Is Finite.” WRITER: Kent Taylor ARTISTS: John Hebert & Harvo, and Manny Galan & Jim Amash COLORIST: Karl Bollers LETTERER: Jeff Powell EDITOR: J. Freddy Gabrie Continue reading Untitled

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#Archie Comics #Knuckles the Echidna #Mammoth Mogul #Miles "Tails" Prower #Sonic the Hedgehog

[paulagnewart]

Morganic Musings

20th November 1998 saw the 65th issue of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic escape its continental cargo confines and reach the hands of Australian retailers. For us then-avid readers, it meant hopping on a bike after school to make that traditional end-of-month pledge over to the local newsagent, ready to swap a hard-earned $3.95 (and any extra loose change for an ice block when possible) for another enthralling escape to Mobius.

And yet it all felt different this time.

In the aptly titled The Fellowship of the Rings, audiences were introduced to the story of Nate Morgan. Having cameoed in the previous issue (released here on 22nd October '98 for the curious), this humble human sheltered the battered Sonic and Tails into his isolated tundra abode, while giving that nuisance Ixis Naugus a well-deserved booting out. The small, seemingly insignificant old man would prove anything but, as the issue recounted his adventures and adversities over the decades; from creating and refining the Power Rings, serving as key member of Royal Acorn court, even establishing how the Lake of Rings operated while visiting the future Knothole Village and Freedom Fighters' underground HQ

The road from concept to completion for this character was far from easy, and for years looked as though he'd never see the light of day. Morgan's origins can be traced all the way back to early 1992 during DiC's initial development of their Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons, where he was depicted in their story bible as a 110 year old black human with flowing white beard living in Knothole. A former environmental advisor now proud Freedom Fighter, he was a friend to all animals, offering advice/support and boosting morale where he could with the occasional magic trick. Two rough sketches accompanied his profile, with the choice of tall or short designs.

By the time 1997 rolled around, a copy of that story bible and designs made their way into Archie's office. Having combed through its contents, editor Justin Gabrie decided the character deserved a second chance and ordered his inclusion in the comic. The task fell on newly-minted head writer Karl Bollers to breathe life into the character opting to go with the shorter model, which artist Patrick Spaziante imbued with his Midas touch. And lo, the old man was reborn a new old man.

I genuinely liked Nate Morgan (or as my younger self used to mispronounce him, "Mor-Gain". Hey, we all do stupid things from time to time) as a character. His appearance in the comic was something of a revelation, especially in a pre-Adventure era where the idea of other humans let alone a whole city of them living on Mobius was pretty farfetched. It added intriguing new layers to the series' lore, nor could I say no to another kindly father figure at a time when the likes of King Max and Locke were anything but. His backstory of seeking acceptance only to find hate and deception at every turn really touched a nerve, and was saddened to pick up and see his demise years later in issue 105's Touch of Evil.

Unfortunately that same hatred manifested in the real-world, and it felt more than a few times that I was the only person who cared.

How disheartening it was to boot up the 25.5kph modem, peruse the message groups and see fellow readers' reactions. Whether it be through dislike of change or some underlying racial prejudice (which he sadly was a target of more than once), fans certainly didn't hold back when voicing their displeasure over the character. A chaotic chorus which only grew as the millennium drew to a close; some hated his sudden importance to the history of Power Rings and the Acorn Kingdom, others thought he'd outright steal the spotlight from Uncle Chuck and Rotor as the residential techspert, the shameless self-insert of Karl Bollers (or Ken Penders depending on which fan you asked), and of course the ever-present decries of "Mr. Walking Plot Device". In that light, early Mina Mongoose fans got off lucky. It would be nice to see Nate Morgan resurrected or even reevaluated in some form or other in future media, but like the rest of the cast, this series had its time and its day. New ideas and characters have since stepped up to fill their void, even if it's quite the pickle finding a similar substitute for him.

But stranger things have happened. His appearance in the first place being the best one.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Archie Sonic #Karl Bollers #Nate Morgan #Ixis Naugus #Sonic SatAM #DiC #Australia #1998 #Archie Comics #Sonic the Hedgehog Comics #Comic Books #Musings

[themattress]

Assorted “Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog” Opinions, Complaints, and Observations

(This post and this post serving as references.)

- The Classic Era remains the comic at its best. It knew exactly what it wanted to be at the start, a silly colorful kids’ book promoting SEGA’s mascot, but then decided it wanted to get more serious with a continuous narrative and character development, and for the most part (excluding the stuff Ken Penders did with Knuckles) it did it well. The first 15 issues are totally AoStH-style silly, the next 10 issues have a more dramatic SatAM-style undercurrent, the following 10 issues flip it so that the AoStH-style silliness is the undercurrent, and the last 15 issues are totally SaTAM-style drama, with the only weird instances of tonal off-ness being the more serious Princess Sally miniseries early in and the more goofy Sonic Blast special later on (and we do NOT talk about Sonic Live!, it isn’t canon so it may as well not exist.)

- Discounting the Knuckles series and many of the increasingly asinine Super Specials, I am also incredibly fond of the Adventuring Era, which was full of good writing, world-building and characterization for everyone not being written by Ken Penders, and was even able to pull off a Sonic Adventure adaptation that made sense in the context of the series and was better than it had any right being given the troubled circumstances behind its production. The comic series during the Classic and Adventuring Eras WAS Sonic for me throughout my childhood.

- But like many, the Declining Era is where the series lost me. I don’t blame Karl Bollers for this; a lot of his writing was still solid. But the editor for some reason or other decided to push the serious tone too far and add romantic furry teen drama to the equation for good measure. Worse still, after #105 Robotnik suffered from some massive villain decay and a general loss of direction. THE villain of the series began to feel like an afterthought, and it pissed me off. With that said, I’ve....kind of softened on the Declining Era in recent years. It’s still not good, there’s plenty wrong with it (especially the artwork), but compared to the era that followed it’s perfectly tolerable, and #125, with some re-working, would have made a decent series finale.

- Yes, the Miserable Era was the nadir of quality in the series and Ian Flynn being hired was a marked improvement. No, I do not agree he was the savior of the Sonic comics he’s been made out to be - not in the Renewal Era, not in the Burdened Era, not in the Reboot Era, and not even in the current IDW Comics. There’s just way too often where his stories are transparently advancing an Agenda(TM). And whether or not you agree with the Agenda(TM) being advanced is irrelevant, because after enough instances of it happening you just get sick of the characters and world of Sonic being manipulated for Agendas(TM). I feel like prime examples of this are the King Scourge arc and the Iron Dominion arc. Ian previously wrote some truly epic sequential story arcs that lasted anywhere from 2 to 5 issues, as is the norm for this series. And yet these two arcs lasted 9 issues and 12 issues respectively. Why? Because Flynn had an Agenda(TM) to push these edgy reinventions of old lame villains as major league threats in order to show just how talented a writer he really is. The co-running King Naugus and Mecha Sally arcs were a similar deal, as was the Zeti stuff in IDW. And it’s all just so tiresome, just as tiresome as anything Penders and Gabrie put the comic through.

- One thing I appreciate both the Archie comic series and SatAM show for is establishing a distinct world, supporting cast and mythology for Sonic long before the games got around to doing it. With that said, I liked Archie’s better since it had elements of the games and AoStH in addition to SatAM, and the stuff that was taken from SatAM was mostly executed better; the glaring exception being the characterizations of King Acorn and Sally post-Classic Era.

- Speaking of which, worst characters over the course of the series: King Maximillian Acorn, Geoffrey St. John, Drago the Wolf, Hershey the Cat, Tommy the Turtle, Colin Kintobor Sr., Evil Sonic / Scourge, Fiona the Fox, Monkey Khan, the entire Iron Dominion, Dr. Ian Droid, Locke and the Echidna Brotherhood, Dimitri and most of the Dark Legion, Monk, Hunter, Tails’ douchey parents, Zonic the Zone Cop, Mecha Robotnik, Thrash the Devil, and Lara-Su.

- In regards to shipping, the Sonic/Sally/Mina love triangle was stupid and should not have been a thing, and then after #134 Sonic and Sally should have remained broken up and Sonic shouldn’t have pursued any form of romance afterward. As for Knuckles, he should have had a period apart from Julie-Su where they both better figured themselves out without the other around, and then they could get back together (in a poly threesome with Rouge).

- The reboot was largely for the best; even without Ken Penders’ lawsuit bullshit there was so much baggage weighing the series down and it had drifted so far away from the rest of the franchise that a reboot honestly felt logical. Don’t think I’m absolving Penders though, as such a reboot absolutely should have happened on better terms than the forced way it did.

- I will always maintain that the place we ended the series at was, in fact, a good place to end the comic series. But sadly, it wasn’t a good place to end the reboot, which for all intents and purposes had only just begun and had so much more that could be done with it. I will always hold some resentment toward SEGA for not just allowing the reboot to continue under IDW, especially when Ian Flynn keeps trying to make the IDW series like the Archie series anyway.

- Favorite story arcs: Sally’s Crusade (#17-18, SP1), the Uncle Chuck arc (#30, #32, #34, #37-38), Mecha Madness (#39, SP6, #40), the Death Egg Saga (MS4), Endgame (#47-50/SS6)*, the Naugus Trilogy (#64-66), the Return of Robotnik (#72-76), Sonic Adventure (#79-85 + SS13), Sonic Adventure 2.5 (#124-125), Return to Angel Island (#138-141), Darkest Storm (#162-164), Order From Chaos (#168-169), Eggman Empire (#175-177), Enerjak Reborn (#180-184), Mogul Rising (#185-188), The Egg Phoenix Saga (#198-200), Genesis (#225-230), and much of the Shattered Earth Saga (#253-272 and #276-287).

*Almost solely for #50/SS6, although I enjoy aspects of #47 and #48 as well.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Opinion #This has been a PSA

[t4tails]

tbh i think the concept of sally having a sibling who can take the responsibility of the throne (something she didnt want in the first place i think) but then rejecting that themselves is rlly interesting which is why i like elias so much but then 25 years later happened like fucking why. ken penders was the one who even introduced elias did he have no foresight? i know that the writers used to disagree on shit like ken penders wanted elias to take the throne but still wrote it so that sonic was king in the future??? like wtf

easy answer: he just didnt want sally to hold power. i like elias but pretty much all of his interesting writing has come from karl bollers, all penders did with his introduction was have an elder sibling who could usurp sallys throne. he didnt actually want elias to be a character in his own right, he just wanted to keep sally from being a powerful leader. thats why he didnt need elias to rule in 25 years later, because sonics king! and sonic can make all of the decisions, not sally. sure, shes queen, but the entire arc writes her (and julie-su for knuckles!) like his trophy wife. makes his intentions absolutely transparent. ken penders hates letting sally have any agency :/

#og post #ask #scatman-world #comicposting

[fyeahsonicthehedgehog]

Thoughts on Archie writers not named Penders or Flynn?

Karl Bollers aka “Benny Lee” - I liked most of his stuff, especially Return to Angel Island. Dan Slott - He introduced Zonic, who was cool. Most of his stuff was just the random crossovers like Sally Moon so that's just "eh, whatever". Danny Fingeroth - Only wrote two issues but those were the Heart of the Hedgehog story, which would eventually lead to Shard near the end of the preboot's run. Kinda wish he wrote more than just that one story for Sonic.

Michael Gallagher - His stuff was pretty hit or miss, that's all I got to say on him. Angelo DeCesare - He gave us the first Mecha Sally; otherwise his stuff was just there.

Tracy Yardley - Liked the Babylon Rogues SU arc, didn't really care for Pirate Plunder Panic. Mike Kanterovich - Never did strictly his own work, instead just worked with Penders during his time on Archie so I can't tell what was his and what was Penders.

Jay Oliveras - Wrote Ghost Busted in SSS #8 and Cry of the Wolf in #113, both of which were just adaptations of SatAM episodes.

Joey Esposito - Wrote a single story in #264 and that was it. Aleah Baker - She wrote the story that introduced Clove and Cassia. Other than that I don't really remember what else she wrote. Evan Stanley - Wrote the Silver Age SU arc; didn't really care for the comic version of Von Schlemmer but I liked what little we got of Gold the Tenrec. Frank Strom - Introduced Monkey Khan and his side cast; never cared for his stuff. Scott Fulop - He was...there, usually under the pen name Kent Taylor. Scott Shaw - Wrote Tails' Tallest Tale from the Sonic In Your Face special which was a pretty typical story at that point in the comic's history. Paul Castiglia - Wrote two stories, one in #30 which was just slapstick involving Coconuts and Bunnie, and one in #70 which had Sonic reflecting on the fate of Sandblast City after he and Tails fled. I liked both of them. Tom Rolston - wrote that random Discovery Zone story in #52 as a homage to Casablanca. Also wrote The Map from SSS #1 which had Antoine being awesome and wrote Stop... Sonic Time! in the first Sonic Kids special (SSS #5), which was about Sonic giving Tails his shoes as a present while Dr. Robotnik tried to freeze time itself. Overall, just weird.

Romy Chacon - Introduced Tommy Turtle, ‘nuff said.

#archie sonic #anon

[robotnikholmescomicblog]

The scripter of issue 92 must be the scrioter of star trek 2 XD

I dunno if it was writer Karl Bollers or editor Gabrie's idea but if there was anything sci-fi in the mid 2000s, Archie Sonic WILL references it at some point or another. The Star Trek's "Khaaaan!!" one wouldn't be so weird a reference if it was, like, a quick quip uttered by Sonic on one panel, instead of the giant end-page we got 'ere.

It sure was a weird time for Sonic comics. -Shudder-

#RobotnikHolmesAsks #Archie Sonic

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 56: The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish (part 2)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon! Yesterday I went over some of the bizarre fetish-y type stuff that appeared throughout the series, and tried very hard not to kink-shame everyone. I also covered the more vanilla stuff that might not be typically considered fetishes, but were written enough by Ken Penders to at least be worthy of discussion. Today I’m going to continue to go over some of the tamer stuff, but this time looking at the two other guys who wrote the most for ArchieSonic: Karl Bollers and Ian Flynn. Hopefully today's discussion will not leave you wanting a shower like yesterday. xD

Episode 56: The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish (part 2)

Moving on from Ken Penders, our next writer is Karl Bollers, who wrote for the comics from 1997 - 2005. Bollers was a little harder to pin down any fetishes or writing habits for. A lot of people criticise him for the romance triangle between Sonic, Sally and Mina that made up a large chunk of his time on the book, but that apparently came from editorial mandate. I asked for some help with this one too, and the only real suggestion I got was once again from Aleah Baker (thanks Aleah): “90’s slang, especially overuse of the word, 'like.'”

This makes sense given that Karl was actually writing for the comics during the 90’s, and back then Sonic was very much a character who frequently used that kind of slang and had a bunch of catchphrases. Have you ever watched Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, or the fan-named SatAM cartoon? Those versions of Sonic had a barrage of cool-guy-90’s-slang. “Let’s go, bro! Let’s speed, keed! Let’s buzz, cuz! Let’s do it to it! It’s juice time! It’s juice and jam time! It’s jelly and jam time!”

…you get the idea. So yeah, it fit the time. Mostly. There were instances where that kind of language didn’t quite fit right, and one example Aleah pointed out was Eggman referring to his brother Colin Kintobor as “See-Kay.”

Again, this wasn’t entirely uncommon in the 90’s - there were any number of “hip” or “cool” characters in 90’s media who’d refer to a character by their initial or initials. Faith the Vampire Slayer comes to mind, who often called Buffy “B.” Or one-shot character Roy on The Simpsons, who called Homer “Mr. S.” I think in this case it might have been less noticeable had this been printed as “C.K.” rather than “See–Kay.” Printed as it was, I’d say it’s possible some readers had no idea what it meant (it certainly took 2001-me a few reads to figure it out). So yeah, this one isn’t entirely a bad thing and I think it was appropriate enough for the time it came out, but looking back at it sometimes it feels like Bollers was channelling...

That just leaves Ian Flynn, who wrote for ArchieSonic from 2006 all the way up to the series’ cancellation in 2017. And we all know the sick, twisted stuff that guy is into… 

…that’s right. References. So. Many. References! Truly, Ian is the greatest monster of them all. :P Some of these references are extremely obvious...

…while some are more obscure, such as Bean calling out moves from Sonic Riders...

...or Sonic asking Tails and Amy to do their “spinny thing” attacks from Sonic Adventure.

One particular type of reference Ian is known for is sneaking song lyrics from Sonic music into the dialogue. He’s done this A LOT more frequently in IDW Sonic, but he snuck it into ArchieSonic occasionally too.

Another “fetish” that Ian had while writing for ArchieSonic was reintroducing old, long-forgotten characters and finding new purposes for them. Some of these were from the old ArchieSonic days, such as the former Substitute Freedom Fighters...

...Monkey Khan...

...the Iron King and Queen...

...and pretty much everyone on the Secret Freedom Fighters team, including Shard the Metal Sonic.

Shard was an extremely interesting case, as he was reintroduced with a different design - that of Metal Sonic from Sonic Rivals 2. Another neat reference! Ian also introduced characters from Sonic’s past that had never been seen before in the comics, such as Bean and Bark from Sonic the Fighters...

...the Battlebird Armada from Tails Adventure..

...and even Breezie from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog!

And each time Ian brought back any of these long-forgotten characters the readers responded with delight, because we’re all just as sick and twisted as he is. 😀

(Also, the cojones on that man for being nerdy enough to dare to put a Sonic the Fighters adaptation inside a Sonic Unleashed adaptation? Mad respect, my man!)

Alright, I think we’ve covered more than enough on this topic. Were there any other fetishes (or "fetishes") I missed? Let me know in the comments! Thanks again to Aleah Baker for her suggestions on this one - I honestly had nothing for Karl Bollers. I hope I haven’t traumatised all of you too much with this episode, because it was a lot. And unfortunately I’m not entirely finished with it either, as I’ll be bringing back one of the previously mentioned fetishes for the next episode: “Can’t eat favourite food.” I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from that.

#archiesonic syndicated

[silverdragon128]

Now that I’ve mentioned Sonic content on my blog (aside from a reblog two years ago), let’s get this over with.

Reasons Sonic Fans Will Hate Me:

1. I will forever defend both infamous slaps from the Archie series. I think they’re genuine powerful moments that were important for both perpetrators (Sally and Fiona) in addressing just how far they’d fallen

2. I think with proper time and funding Sonic 06 would’ve been an absolutely phenomenal game. And, while I hate Sonic’s story, I think the overall story is one of the strongest of the game series (though it’s weak compared to anything written by the comics team since 2006 and it’s a weak story by normal standards) and it’s by far one of the best characterizations of Shadow in the games

3. I… don’t think Sonic should date anyone. He just doesn’t seem particularly romantically inclined. I’m sure there’s a ship out there that’ll change my mind, but for now I like the idea of ace/aro Sonic

4. Going back to Archie… I’m actually a big fan of much of Karl Bollers work. I don’t think he’s as good as Ian Flynn and company, but he’s a billion times better than Penders. Most of what held him back was editorial (fuck Gabrie and his love triangle obsession), the slated size of his stories (after the cancellation of the Knuckles title, most issues of STH featured two or three stories, heavily restricting the size of the main story down to, like, 10 pages), and the simple fact that Penders was the other main writer at the time (the toxic work environment was insane, Penders literally attacked Bollers for changes he made and stories he wrote, plus… Penders’ contributions were… fairly weak tbh)

5. Despite it being the first Sonic game I ever played, I… don’t really like Heroes. The gameplay doesn’t vibe with me and the story… well… barely exists (Neo Metal Sonic’s cool though)

6. I’m actually pretty positive about the franchise, and always have been. I never bought into the “Sonic has always sucked” bs, and have always been hoping for a brighter future.

All that being said… I don’t want any discourse here. I’m not super engaged with the fandom, and I don’t intend to be. I’m mostly laying all of this out so people are aware regarding anything I reblog or post about. It’s mostly gonna be regarding the comics (been loving the IDW stuff) though I very much keep up with the game franchise, and have been loving these latest entries (screw Forces though)

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic idw #sonic fandom #adhd hyperfixation #god I hope I haven’t marked myself for death

[thecoolertails]

youre so right i LOVE bollers writing and fry art... i think theyre just not talked about much because anyone who isnt an archie fan can only stand to bring up penders or how "weiirrrrdd" archie is, which doesnt rlly apply to these two its just straight up good. its a good comic book and its a good sonic thing as well. good sonic comic book. very glad seeing your thoughts and liveblogging abt these issues because i felt very similarly when i was reading the comic for the first time as well!!! its always nice to find someone who shares opinions about something with you ... and i am very excited to see your reaction to parts of the comic later down the line :)

its good! its really so good! i cant believe that #51-#159 is considered the "dark era" of archie when like. this is so good!?? imo post-mecha madness through endgame (eugh especially right before and during endgame) was the lowpoint of the series for me (actually even when i got to mecha madness the first time i couldn't really appreciate it bc gag era was wearing me down i was just kind of burning out at that point, but looking back on it now i can see that it was really pretty good. and i love spaz's art so there's always that)

the part im at now is peak sonic to me and its perfect that theyre approaching the adventure era because the tone of the comic at this point meshes really well with the tone of those games! they both mix in darker plots and concepts with the fun cartoony vibe inherent to sonic, with larger than life stakes and baddies. karl bollers feels like he really *gets* sonic, and everyone else on the team is pulling their weight as well like all the artists and the other writers (even penders has grown a lot. even if there's certain penderisms that'll always be present, he can at least write an engaging narrative now)

anyway its awesome we're in agreement abt archie stuff! you were definitely a big reason why i kept going back to it and sticking with it through the bad times after giving up and taking some long pauses, and now im super glad i did. and im ALSO really excited about what's to come down the line! i kind of know about some stuff through osmosis but even then i only really know the broader details, and obviously getting there myself will be a whole other thing

#like i knew about robo-robotnik coming back and was excited for it but actually reading through it??? oh my god #fantastic #eeee im so excited #my posts #archie sonic posting

[sonicpanels]

Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Ongoing) #66: "A Friend In Deed"

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Steven Butler Inks: Pam Eklund Letters: Jeff Powell Colors: Ken Penders

Editor: Justin Gabrie Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Archie Comics #Archie Sonic #Archie Sonic Ongoing #Miles Tails Prower #Naugus #Ixis Naugus #Karl Bollers #Steven Butler #Pam Eklund #Jeff Powell #Ken Penders #Justin Gabrie #Victor Gorelick #1998