Introduction, and what this is all about
Hello, and welcome to a blog dedicated to Sonic the Comic, a long dead magazine series featuring Sonic the Hedgehog, published by Fleetway fortnightly between 29 May 1993 and 9 January 2002.
You may have come across the blog Thanks, Ken Penders (run by Bobby Schroeder), which is essentially a deep-dive retrospective covering Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog series (and which I highly recommend reading), and somehow nobody has done the same for it’s more obscure British counterpart. So, I decided why the hell not do it myself, and here we are. But I really don’t want this blog to be just a cheap imitation. I want this to really introduce people to a corner of the series that has never been very well known by most Sonic fans. I want to show people why I’ve held a strong enthusiasm for years for this stupid magazine, and why I still go back and read it as a 26-year-old college graduate who should be doing something better with his time. This page is hopefully a short introduction to Sonic the Comic, and what it was all about.
Names
So, what is Sonic the Comic (STC)? Or Egmont? Or Fleetway? What do these terms mean? In summary, Fleetway Publications was a magazine company purchased by Egmont and merged with London Editions. Egmont is massive Danish company that’s been around since 1878 (if you’re European, you’ve read something or other published by Egmont throughout your lifetime). Sonic the Comic is of course the name of the magazine itself.
A Brief History of STC
Sonic was already quite popular in the British Isles by the beginning of 1993, with indigenous media containing the hedgehog already existing, including the guide book “Stay Sonic” (keep that name in your mind, because it would play a crucial part in the story of what was to come), and the Official Sonic the Hedgehog Yearbook (featuring the very first appearance of longtime STC artist, Richard Elson).
It was only a matter of time before something bigger would come from these books, and so Sonic the Comic (STC) was born, largely through the oversight of former 2000AD editor Richard Burton. It was a magazine rather than a comic, for though of course there were the four comic strips found in each issue (the first always focusing on Sonic, the others initially showcsing other Sega franchises such as Shinobi and Streets of Rage, but these would eventually all be given over to Sonic stuff), but also a range of other features, including game reviews, fan artwork and more. There was even a mascot, Megadroid, who was, well...a sentient Droid who was a Mega Drive (Genesis for the Americans). Due to being a magazine, the formatting was distinctly larger than the standard for an American “floppy” comic, being 8.27” x 11.69” in size. STC constantly interacted with it's audience, including contests, exclusive interviews pin-up posters, and even candies were packed with some issues (I wouldn’t recommend eating any on any eBay purchases)!
While STC started off as a relatively innocuous series of strips ranging from admittedly mediocre to poor quality, the strip quickly built up a robust canon where, parallel to Sonic SatAM and Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog comics, Eggman (of course he was called Robotnik in the west back then) managed to take over the planet Mobius (the western name for Sonic's planet back then), although STC did it in its own way:
Prominent elements from the early games were incorporated from the very start, such the Emerald Hill Zone being Sonic’s base of operations and the Metropolis Zone being the Centre of Robotnik’s operations, and the main foes Sonic and friends fought were Badniks (the western name given to the robots Sonic battles in the games), which were powered by ordinary animals. No Roboticization or SWATBots to be found here. As such, there was a very distinct feel from what was happening in America, and the intertwining mix of game and original elements (in my opinion at least) gave a much more endearing setting than Archie and SatAM, which seemed to go out of their way to ignore the games as much as possible. For somebody whose favourite game of all time is Sonic 3 & Knuckles (or maybe Sonic CD, I go back and forth on that), this was extemely appealing to my young eyes, and I’m sure it was for the original readers of the series.
The STC universe would be continually built up, filling it's world with a wide variety of characters and settings that managd to walk the tightrope of being unique, yet still feeling somehat they could have fit in the original Mega Drive games. In fact, there are concepts in STC that I'm surprised haven't made it into the games yet, such as a character trapped in a super-badnik which defects (Shortfuse was kickass):
Or the situation of Sonic's close friends becoming badniks themselves:
All the same, there were the WEIRD characters (and there were a lot of weird characters) who would never ever appear in a game, but were awesome for their own reasons, such as Captain Plunder and his gang of sky pirates, but that's a tale for later.
STC also took several game characters in a unique direction. Sonic himself…we’ll get to later, as that’s a whole thing on its own. Tails got to star in a good number of stories that come off as just strange due to what we know about Tails now, but in the west he wasn’t a genius back then. He was just Sonic’s main sidekick, and it was cool to see him go it alone and get out of predicaments his own way, and slowly build his confidence and experience until he was just as competent a fighter as Sonic.
Amy was treated particularly well in STC, and evolved quickly from the hostage role she would play in the CD storyline into quite an adapt fighter, who became more or less the leader of the resistance when Sonic wasn’t around. Ironically, she eventually became much more mature than Sonic. This was, in my opinion, somewhat progressive for the time, especially in a medium largely targeted towards young boys. She also had the advantage of having a rather unique personality, than just being a doll to spout “girls can do anything!” which was the typical route for female representation in the nineties.
She also had a completely unique weapon in STC, a crossbow, which only served to distinguish her from her other counterparts:
As the number of Sonic games began to adapt lessened, STC began to go its own direction, focusing, similarly to SatAM on Robotnik's hold on the people, although unlike the former, STC always took more a "people's revolution" stance on the response to Robotnik, which I find more in line with my tastes than in the American stuff:
Eventually Robotnik would be deposed (and slowly lose what little of his mind he had left) and the Sonic strips would slowly become increasingly bizarre (though no less good), but we'll get to that when we do.
Why does this blog exist?
My first reason is that STC is a woefully overlooked part of the Sonic universe, particularly compared to its American literary contemporary, which started at a similar date. Archie of course outlasted STC by a good long while, still producing content well into the 2010s and has a more or less spiritual successor in IDW which of course is going at the time of this blog beginning While Archie is still a pretty visible section of the Sonic fan base, STC is more of a cult item, with only a relative few in the know. The STC fanbase is a niche of a niche.
Archie mainstays like Sally Acorn and Bunnie Rabbot are still relative household names for many veteran fans of Sonic and still get requests to appear in the games from those much more optimistic than any of us should be, while characters of STC origin such as Grimer, Shortfuse the Cybernik or Tekno the Canary are hovering over the brink of complete obscurity and are just a step above those poor souls like Anton Veruca or Carrie the Coypu (who??). Even Sleet and Dingo are probably more well known than the former.
While Archie staff like Ian Flynn, Patrick Spaziante and Tracy Yardley are (rightly) revered names, the extremely talented names behind the Fleetway comics, including (this is by no means an exhaustive list) head writers Nigel Kitching and Lew Stringer and artists Richard Elson, Nigel Dobbyn and many more are woefully unknown and deserve infinitely more credit than they get. And unlike…a certain person (him who shall not be named, although his name starts with a K and ends with “en Penders”) who worked for the Archie book, the staff under the Fleetway were and are of a modesty rarely seen these days. My job is to get you more aquatinted with both the real and fictional names mentioned above.
The second is to address some of the stereotypes the series has received over time. Chances are, if you’re a causal, or even more hardcore Sonic the Hedgehog fan, you’ve seen bits of pieces of Fleetway material with no context. The first, and by far the most well known is Super Sonic:
First, his name is “Super Sonic”, not “Fleetway Super Sonic”. Fleetway is the name of the publisher, as we covered above. With that out of the way, even if you’ve never picked up a single issue of STC, you’ve seen this panel. So why does he want to destroy everything? Why are his eyes red swirls and why is he flashing the teeth of a typical middle-aged Yorkshireman? Unlike how he’s depicted in…well, essentially other continuity, Super Sonic is a power-crazed maniac who is hellbent on destruction and causing as much suffering and turmoil as possible. We’re definitely going to cover the reason for why this choice was made when we come to that bridge, but in retrospect, it definitely opened the door for more story choices than with the “normal” Super Sonic, and added a very interesting tension in whenever Super Sonic appeared, it was as much a danger as it was a blessing, and as the story continued, the danger aspect would continually outshadow the blessing aspect. Super Sonic would distinguish himself from essentially every other Sonic antagonist in that he was less a typical villain and more a force of nature that simply had to be survived rather than defeated, and this would be emphasized when he became a being separate from Sonic rather than just the dark side of his consciousness (definitely stay tuned for that part of the story).
If STC ever had a breakout character, it would be Super Sonic. This is the guy who gets to appear in badass fanart made by people who don’t know a thing about STC otherwise, and who gets to appear in all the clickbait YouTube videos about how those “wacky Brits” handled Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s even broken out of the literary medium and has appeared as a popular mod in Friday Night Funkin’. But even though he’s the most well-known, he’s not the only piece who has slipped out into the greater Sonic fanbase.
The other thing STC is semi-known is for Sonic being well…a dickhead. Much more abrasive than in any other continuity, his behaviour ranges from unusually rude quips to his close friends…
…to full out abusive tirades that could cause a double take, even from regular readers:
And that's not even mentioning his favourite insult towards his best friend:
Is Sonic in STC a dick? Yes, he is. A massive one. The head writers (Nigel Kitching especially) have openly talked about this element of Sonic’s character in interviews several times. Kitching said he wanted Sonic to be a flawed hero and said that he thought it would be an intriguing idea for Sonic to be unable to express his emotions openly. So, he hides his fears and frustrations in snarky tirades and sarcasm. He hides his vulnerability in an inflated ego and really, he seems to be talking HIMSELF up more than anybody else half the time.
So, it’s most definitely a different portrayal and honestly a very nice change of pace from the laid-back Sonic of the games, or the insufferable “dude with a tude” thing they were going with in North American media of the time. But let’s cut straight to the point: this will always be a polarizing version of Sonic to follow, and I’m not going to act like everybody should love him. But at least understand what he is. He’s not that nice and the universe around him is aware of it. The story is fully aware that he's going overboard a lot of the time and is regularly chastised by his friends for it. And he does in fact apologize (or least attempts to) for what he says to Porker (we’ll get to know who the hell that is soon) above. Let’s also remember the location and time period of the comic we’re talking about: 1990s Britain. British protagonists, whether in children or adult media always had a certain bite to them that they just don’t have elsewhere. A good ribbing between your mates was, and still is the norm there. Sonic was the rude big-shot kid on the playground who would still stick up for you against the big bully no matter what kinds of names you called each other. And sadly, heroes of that kind aren’t too common anymore.
And that's not the end for Sonic's character. He does mature massively by the end of the magazine's run. Why does he? You'll just have to wait and see.
So, whenever you see ridiculous parodies like this:
You can tell the artist to stuff it, firstly because Sonic himself would, and secondly because they've clearly not read the magazine.
The third reason is perhaps the most important, in that, this is my Sonic comic. Despite being an American born in 1999, STC holds an infinitely greater level and nostalgia and fondness to me. I think the first issue I got my hands on was number 7, which immediately got me hooked on the series, both due to the stellar artwork, and the working of game elements into a substantial story:
I practically learned to draw Sonic based on Richard Elson’s sketches, and despite moving into my own style as I aged, I feel there’s still a level of aggressiveness in my own very amateur Sonic art that is owed primarily to Elson. Kitching’s style of writing is still the benchmark in my head when I read any piece of Sonic literature, official or fanmade. While I find the original SEGA of Japan continuity to be the most interesting of all for the sheer potential it holds (I’ve always wanted a comic or cartoon that adheres to it and nothing else), and it’s actually the 1996 Sonic OVA the contains my favourite portrayals of the basic characters, STC to a good extent is still what appears in my head when somebody mentions “Sonic”. Was it high art, or the comic to end all comics? No, certainly not. But it was damn good for the time and still holds up today if you’re willing to accept some British quirkiness here and there. And even though it’s all subjective, I think STC was a superior product to what Archie was doing pre-Ian Flynn. It was certainly more consistent in terms of quality, both in terms of writing and art, and there are some legitimately amazing things to be found in this series, many of which are unknown to most of the Sonic fanbase. There are so many elements, both cool and utterly bizarre, such as Sonic and Robotnik’s origins, the Brotherhood of Metallix, the Drakon Empire, Amy being a badass etc. that I can’t even get into here because this is supposed to be a brief introduction.
The end of STC
So, what happened to STC? Unlike Archie, which (at least to public eyes) ended suddenly, STC died a slow and rather sad death. Budget cuts at Egmont were already affecting the comic as early as 1997 (before Issue 100 even) when magazine length was shortened from 36 to 32 pages. From Issue 133 onwards, one of the four strips would be occupied by a reprint, being optimistically marketed as a "Blast From The Past”. Two further strips were replaced by reprints in Issue 155 and 157 respectively, leaving just one strip of seven pages to tell any new stories. Nigel Kitching left presently, leaving Lew Stringer the sole writer for some time. However, Kitching would return by issue 175, with him and artist Richard Elson finding out somewhat suddenly they had just ten issues to wrap up any loose ends they wanted, for the comic would be going full reprint after Issue 184. The two produced a great, if truncated, adaptation of Sonic Adventure with a very bittersweet ending.
Starting with Issue 185, the magazine would go full reprint. Fleetway’s logic to start reprinting strips in the first place was due to their marketing strategy of the “five-year cycle”, this reasoning being that most of the original readers for the comic had moved on, so it was appropriate to reintroduce older stories to get newer readers up to speed. It was an extremely unpopular decision, and rightly so, as there have been comic series that have long outlasted STC who never made this choice whatsoever. The comic would continue in this state, with the only new material being Elson’s covers on the outside, and fan art and Q&A in the “Speed Lines” section on the inside, although even these features were spotty and didn’t appear in every Issue. The last ever issue was 223, with the first two pages dedicated to Nigel Kitching reminiscing on his time working for STC.
But, fortunately, STC isn’t quite dead. On 29 May 2003, Sonic the Comic Online (STCO) posted its first issue. STCO is an online continuation of STC, and when I say continuation, I mean the real deal: issues containing multiple strips continuing loose ends from the original magazine and continuing to build up the world of STC. It’s been termed "unofficially official" as it’s been quite highly endorsed by original members of STC, including Kitching himself, and he’s contributed stories to several issues, which can be considered canon to STC. Unfortunately, the website has been rather glitchy over the past few years, which has hindered the posting of new issues, but please give all the members of the team over there your support, as they are just as talented as the original STC group, and they are doing it simply because they can. I haven’t read every issue over there yet myself, so that’s as much a new experience for me as it is for you.
There’s also another prominent STC fanwork I want to bring up here: Sonic the Continuation, started by Deviantart user Tom Campbell, who goes under the name of Okida, whose first page appeared 26 October 2013, and is still producing it to this day with the help of artists Dreamcastzx1 and ProfessorZolo. I’ve been keeping up with this one since I first found it, and I honestly can’t praise it highly enough. It also continues off from where Issue 184 ended, but goes in a WAY different direction, adding in all sorts of insane elements that at first glance you think wouldn’t fit at all, but it only makes you want to keep reading to see where the hell it all goes. It’s brilliant, and extremely well made.
It should also be said that many of the big names from STC do make very (occasional appearances) in official Sonic media now and then. Kitching got the (well-earned) privilege to write pages 13-18 of IDW’s Sonic the Hedgehog’s 900th Adventure, and you can immediately tell his style apart from Flynn or anybody else in that special:
And Elson is sometimes asked by SEGA to make some banging art, just as good as what he was doing back then. He also was asked to do one of the alternate covers for the 900th Adventure, and once again, his style is unmistakable (according to Elson himself, there was some pushback from SEGA of Japan, but thankfully he got his way):
So STC still does have an impact on the greater Sonic franchise, little as it may be.
Okay, I think this introduction has gone on long enough, so that’s where we’ll end things. Now start reading the actual blog!
