Sonic The Comic Con 2014 Thoughts
Having had a bit of time to process Sunday’s events, I want to share my thoughts on the day (and give away a few secrets of the organisation process!). To give you the quickest summation possible: it featured the realisation of a life goal of mine and allowed me the privilege of sharing the day with some of my greatest childhood icons.
Now, I won’t pretend the organisation of the day was straightforward. In fact, it was often fraught with problems. But, in the end, not only did we manage to work through the problems, I think everyone involved learned valuable lessons about their craft which should help us enormously in the future should we ever hold another Sonic The Comic Con, and in general for producing future issues of STC Online.
We had a truly titanic line-up of guests. Nigel Kitching (lead writer and regular artist for all manner of strips from Sonic to Decap Attack) and Nigel Dobbyn (Knuckles’ main artist) are practically mainstays at British Sonic conventions these days and Ferran Rodriguez (Sonic artist) also made a return to the UK to appear after his first showing at Summer of Sonic last year. Every other guest we had on board, however, was brand new to the Sonic convention scene- we had Carl Flint, one of the longest serving artists in STC’s history and creator of dozens of iconic front covers for the comic; Jon Haward, the sensational artistic talent behind the Shinobi and Eternal Champions stories; Kev Hopgood (whose name you might just see popping up a lot in the immediate future since he designed Iron Man’s Hulkbuster armour, which IM will be wearing in next year’s Avengers film!), the artist who gave us the front cover art to STC’s first two issues (and the cover of its 20th anniversary issue, #261).
Without wanting to do any of these wonderful people a disservice, however, arguably the star attraction was Richard Elson. Elson’s artwork was head and shoulders above almost every other artist’s work on the Sonic stories in STC’s early days and he remained on the comic from his debut in issue 7 right up until its final printed edition, #223- the only member of the creative team to stay on board until the very end. A great many Sonic artists, including a lot of the talent responsible for Sonic The Comic Online, have cited Elson as a key inspiration on their work and to have him there on the day- at his first ever Sonic convention, no less- was an enormous treat. Even speaking as someone who can’t draw for toffee, I’d say Elson is my favourite artist to ever draw a hedgehog, so it was a pleasure to be in the same building as him.
As for the day itself, it was an absolute treat from start to finish. Kicking things off shortly after 10, I was thrown right into the deep end as the host of 8 Out of 10 Caterkillers, STCC’s answer to Summer of Sonic’s Never Mind the Buzz Bombers (I can only imagine Weston Super Sonic will fire back with Have I Got Newtron For You). Not only was I the host for this event but also the quiz master and had come up with a whopping ninety-eight questions about all manner of STC characters, storylines and minutiae. For what it’s worth, working on the questions was a joy and it’s given me an idea that I may follow up down the line- watch this space, Boomers! I was privileged to be joined for the quiz by team captains Michael “Stiv” Stephenson and Michael Corker, the two co-editors of STCO, as well as staff members artist Mark “Sonicmark” Hughes and writer/artist Chris “Chigs” Gould. Rounding out the teams with two fans, we had a great time and we received a lot of positive feedback from the audience that they had really enjoyed the quiz and that it had been well organised (incidentally, Michael C beat Stiv by 3½ points!).
Not long after that, I was back up on the main stage again, this time compering a Q&A session with Kev, Ferran, Carl and Jon. This would be the real test of my hosting skills- trying not to panic myself into a stupor surrounded by four icons of my youth! The guests were all extremely receptive and warm and spoke openly about their time on the comic. The audience learned a great deal of interesting facts from them all and- though it’s a cliché- a good time was had by all, especially with Carl and Kev being wonderfully irreverent and funny. I can’t help but get the feeling they all have many more interesting stories to share with the fans and I, for one, would love to hear them.
I was also granted the opportunity to lead the STP team in a live episode of Sonic The Podcast. I have to be totally honest- I don’t really think the live format worked for us! We were lucky enough to have a good number of our regular listeners in the audience but, truth be known, I don’t think the majority of the audience were used to our style and, moreover, we suffered from a few last minute technical difficulties (including the fact our 45 minute slot ended up being shortened to 20 minutes- which, I must stress, was simply a casualty of the day and nobody’s fault in particular). I wasn’t entirely happy with how the segment went but I do know that a few people enjoyed it and, frankly, that’s good enough for me, considering I didn’t think anyone would like it at all! The strongest part of it by far was when the audience were asking Stiv questions about his time on STCO- in hindsight, I think we ought to have had another Q&A session with the STCO team but, of course, hindsight is 20/20!
Other events of the day included Nigel Kitching and Richard Elson giving a talk about their memories of the comic and art classes led by Nigel Dobbyn. The latter was, of course, more suited to the artistically minded, so I didn’t end up seeing it. Unfortunately, I missed most of the former segment, but I’m hoping to be able to swap notes with people who saw it!
Aside from this we had a wonderful art gallery of STC pages and images from over the years (and I also had some samples of my STCO script work on the table, which I’m thrilled to say had been read at numerous points by the fans in attendance!) and a merchandise table stocked to the brim with classic STC issues- not to mention we were running an art contest for the grand prize of a one-of-a-kind art canvas that the pros had all collaborated on. The winner, Keiran Holmes, seemed overwhelmingly happy to have had his work selected, which made it clear to us we’d picked the right entry. With any luck, there may even be a space for Keiran on the STCO team (hint hint, editor Humes)!
Most memorable of all, at least for me, were the free gifts. As well as a T-shirt with a Super Sonic design by Richard Elson and a selection of wristbands (pink, blue or yellow to match your favourite hedgehog) and the classic STC free gift, a pack of Chewits for every attendee (which, I can assure you, led to howls of laughter and whoops of agreement when it was suggested in one of the staff meetings running up to the events), we also gave away a free special issue of Sonic The Comic. Last year, at Summer of Sonic, the STCO team gave away a printed comic featuring the lead strip of issue 261 (which, incidentally, Sega had paid to have printed) with an event-exclusive alternative cover by Nigel Dobbyn. This year, however, the comic was the work of the STCO team exclusively. We really got to see exactly how much work goes into the publication of a single issue of a printed comic- and, I can tell you, it is one heck of a lot! As I alluded to above, working on the comic was not always pretty (in fact, Adam Tuff, one of the co-organisers of the event, requested that we collectively never speak of the process again once it was sent to the printers!) but the only reason passions ran so high is because those passions were so strong- this comic had to be right. But how right it ended up being!
I was enormously privileged to be given the task of writing the lead strip for the issue. I cannot understate the enormity of this. I am actually the newest regular member of the STCO writing team so to be allowed to write the main character’s story in an extremely special issue was no small task. The story that I wrote is actually the ninth I’ve proposed to STC editorial but the first to be finished (naturally, we had to move it right to the top of the pile to hit the deadline). The story went through many drafts but ended up in an excellent form, with credit having to be shared with the amazing artists that brought my story to life- Adamis, and Seumidh MacDonald on the line-art and Pete Murphy and Matt Dittmer providing colours. Since fitting a story into current STC continuity would have been very precarious considering the plot direction in the upcoming issues, I thought it would be wiser to write a story set between issues 120 and 121- though I was extremely happy to be able to bring back Sally Acorn to a speaking role, who has only appeared in two small cameos since issue 33! Sally’s personality meant she was an absolute joy to write for and I’m really hoping it’s not the last time I get to use her.
In addition to this, STCO veteran Charles Ellis provided a four page story for the back-up strip, with lineart supplied by the insanely talented India Swift (with Pete and Matt joined by Claire “Mambocat” Ryan on colours). India’s art is an absolute joy to behold and it was so fitting that we were able to show off her work alongside the other as they represent some of STCO’s finest artistic talent.
The comic was rounded off with four amazing posters including the traditional STC centrefold by Ferran, a shot of Sonic and Tails by Stiv and a fantastic Knuckles picture by American Sonic comic supreme talent Tracy Yardley as well as a Flash Forward Zone (as opposed to our usual Flashback Zone) which I wrote to showcase some of our upcoming stories and characters and a letters page with letters supplied by the pros themselves- not to mention a stunning back page by STCO superstar Zak Simmonds-Hurn.
The day brought some really wonderful memories with it, including a frankly astonishingly good Captain Plunder cosplay among other characters (Amy Rose and Super Sonic were also seen) and plenty of moments of real camaraderie from the STCO team. Getting to meet some of the STCO team I’d never spoken to in person was its own treat- Pete Murphy, Kate Hayward and India Swift were three of the team members I was most looking forward to finally meeting, though I’ll admit I haven’t met anyone from the team I can’t get on with in person!
On a personal note, however, there were a few moments that really stood out to me as special. The first being when I was stood on the door, handing out free gifts to attendees and Richard Elson came downstairs asking if he could take a look at the comic- naturally we obliged and gave him a copy to keep! It was the moment I realised the comic the team had worked so hard on would be read by the people who had inspired us.
On a similar note, I remember being taken aback at Nigel Kitching tracking me down for a chat. Now, I have to admit, STCC is the third time I’ve met Nigel and we have chatted here and there via Facebook, so it’s not as if he’s a complete stranger, but it seemed very back-to-front that the man whose work I grew up adoring- one of the two men who inspired me to want to become a writer and who has greatly influenced my style (the other being STC’s own Lew Stringer)- would come to find me for a chat! Surely it should have been the other way around! Nigel had been swamped with fans all day and I was immensely humbled that one of my idols would take the time to come over to me to have a one-on-one talk.
Another deeply humbling part of the day was being asked to sign the comic by some of the attendees. I was more than happy to fulfil their request. When I thanked one of them, though, I was given one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever been afforded- I was told that I was just as important to the comic as the others who’d worked on it over the years. I can’t even begin to fathom that being someone’s belief though, I suppose on balance, I have joined a very select group of people to have their work published in the comic. It was really excellent that a couple of guests were asking me where we were going with certain plot lines, having faith that I could supply answers, and it was killing me to keep the lid on some of them! I really hope that, in future, not only can I continue to see my work published in the comic but also that it can live up to the fans’ high expectations of STC.
Those expectations were at the forefront of the day and you could feel it in the room. The comic originally went out of print 11 years ago before moving to the online medium in 2003. And even though it’s had its ups and downs over the years, the fans’ love for the comic has never died. More than one person commented on the day that it was astonishing that a comic based on a licensed property has engendered such love for so many years after its first issue, a truly rare and remarkable feat in comics.
I can only hope that the fans left the day as happy as I did. I’ve yet to hear anyone say anything bad about the day (aside from me about my own rubbish podcast bit, that is!) so that fills me with confidence about the possibilities of future events. One thing is absolutely for certain, however, and that is that a hall full of people sent a very clear message on that wonderful day: this comic has a lot of life in it yet. Here’s hoping I get to enjoy it!
