Sonic the Hedgehog Vol. 1 with Adam Samtur
We’re back with another episode of Trade School! This time, we’re talking about Sonic the Hedgehog Vol. 1! Our host this week is Adam Samtur!
Find Adam at: tabletop-now.com
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Edited by Case Aiken
Scored by Bret Eagleston
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Outline
This section outlines the key discussions and events from the meeting focusing on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise and its evolution.
Sonic's Cultural Impact (00:00)
Sonic the Hedgehog was launched on June 23, 1991, and became an instant cultural icon, comparable to Mario.
The character represented 90s culture with themes of speed and coolness, appealing to a generation of gamers and fans.
Sonic's popularity led to a surge in merchandise and a broader fanbase beyond just gaming.
Notable events include the 1992 Thanksgiving Parade incident, where Sonic's balloon caused injuries, yet his popularity continued to rise.
Archie Comics Licensing (01:22)
In fall 1992, Archie Comics secured a licensing deal with Sega to create the Sonic comic series, following the UK’s initial comic.
The first American Sonic comic was released on November 22, 1992, coinciding with the speaker's birthday.
Initial comic issues had various production errors, including miscolorations and incorrect character names, due to limited information from Sega.
The transition to more mature themes in the comics mirrored the audience's growth, with new writers enhancing story arcs and artwork quality.
Personal Journey with Sonic (04:05)
The speaker began collecting Sonic comics after receiving their first issue as a birthday gift, leading to a complete collection by 2016.
By that time, the Archie Sonic series became the longest-running comic based on a video game, with 290 main series issues.
The series was canceled in December 2016 due to legal issues and mismanagement, ending a 25-year run.
Transition to IDW Publishing (08:15)
Following the cancellation, Sonic switched to IDW Publishing in April 2018, with Ian Flynn continuing as the main writer.
The new series has successfully created unique characters and storylines, maintaining a strong presence in the market with 125 issues published.
Despite past controversies, the franchise continues to thrive, showcasing adaptability to changing audience and market demands.
Transcription
00:00
Welcome to Certain Point of View's Trade School, where each episode a different host talks about a comic book trade paperback that they loved and why they love it.
00:08
Let's do it to it. Keeping up with the Blue Blur no character quite encapsulated the 90s culture of the sarcastic adrenaline junkies better than sonic the Hedgehog, aka the Blue Blur. Racing onto the Sega Genesis on June 23, 1991, Sonic became an instant icon as recognized as Mario before him, and for a time represented the mood of my generation, going fast and looking way past cool. Doing it was how I wanted to feel as a kid, and a chili dog or two never hurt anybody either. Sonic's popularity spun off into a subcultural phenomenon as companies began merchandising the Hedgehog in a mad frenzy to captivate on his growing fandom among gamers and the larger worldwide audience.
00:50
Sonic Mania hit a Peak around 19921993 around the same time, his balloon at the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade knocked into a lamppost, injuring several people and causing it to deflate dramatically, becoming an iconic kind of curse parade catastrophe. Still, Sonic's popularity continued to skyrocket as his ever growing supporting cast tails, knuckles, Dr. Robotnik, shadow. Way too many more to mention here proved that the Cobalt Crusader was way more than just a video game mascot. And then in the fall of 1992, Archie Comics editor Darrell Edelman, along with David Soberkleit, son of Archie president Michael Soberkleit, took a chance on a licensing deal with Sega to create the second Sonic the Hedgehog comic book, the first being a cult classic from the uk.
01:39
Meanwhile, Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic book known to fans as Archie Sonic was based on the not yet released Saturday morning cartoon known to fans as Satam, the Edgier of the Blue Blur's animated shows at the time, with a shocking amount of information kept confidential by showrunners and licensee Sega, the Archie writers, artists and editors nonetheless managed to release the first American made sonic comic on November 22, 1992, which just so happened to be the day after my eighth birthday. More on that to come the original Sonic miniseries issues zero through three focused on the SATAM cast, mainly Robotnik versus Sonic and the Freedom Fighters, Tails, Antoine, Bunny, and of course the Sonic's on again off again girlfriend Sally Acorn.
02:25
But with so little info to go on from the show's creators and strict editorial rules from Sega, the comic began its run with miscolorations, wrong character names and an off tone Animaniac style episodic adventure. More akin to satam's animated contemporary the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, which premiered around the same time. This Looney Tune of his show was perfect for me as a kid of seven or eight when it came out. They were silly, predictable little stories with some lessons, some dated puns, and surprisingly sexualized characters. Then as I got older, SATAM became my preferred show with its more mature tones, better quality animation and surprisingly sexualized characters. This coincided with thematic and artistic maturing of the Archie Sonic comic book.
03:15
With the onboarding of new writers, more coherent story arcs and world building, not to mention more serious artwork and tones, both figuratively and literally. They were finally using the correct colors as per their SATAM counterparts. The comic's maturity level continued to grow with its audience, namely me. My journey with Sonic began with the very first game, Sonic 1 in the summer of 1991 and I immediately began to idolize, mimic and collect all things Sonic. I couldn't get enough of this eye rolling from foot tapping, 4th wall breaking, blue Speedster. He was way past cool and wasn't even trying. As I mentioned earlier, I discovered my very first issue and the first issue of the Archie Sonic comic book Issue number zero of the original miniseries at a local toy store just after my eighth birthday.
04:05
And by the way, that first issue even had a quarter issue preview book which I now also own. Anyway, once my mom got me that issue zero as a birthday present at that toy store called Big Top on Weaver street in Scarsdale, New York still exists to this day, I began to hunt down every new issue I could get my hands on. This was before I knew that subscriptions were a thing. Eventually, as in years later, I had amassed a full collection of everything Archie Sonic. By the end of the comics run in 2016, I owned every main series issue, every spinoff, every miniseries, graphic novel, special, crossover event adaptation, free comic book day, pretty much everything with the Archie Sonic logo printed on it, and even some things that only exist in my home.
04:51
By around that time, around 2015, Archie Sonic had surpassed Conan the Barbarian as Guinness Book World Records longest running comic series based on a video game, with a whopping total of 290 main series issues. Sadly just short of the 300 mark when it was abruptly and unceremoniously canceled in December of 2016, nearly 25 years after its premiere after years of lawsuits and mismanagement. But more on that in a moment. Back to me. After I graduated college I discovered that Archie's offices were located less than 10 minutes from my parents house where I was living at the time. So I took a long shot and called their office phone number to inquire if they needed someone with editing or proofreading experience from a small liberal arts college.
05:37
And to my great surprise, the next day I received a call back from none other than Archie Comics President Michael Soberkleit Ripley telling me that I would get the job for a salary that sounded good at the time. That phone call led 3 1/2 years working deep within Archie Sonic World, learning storylines months before the books hit the stands, getting directly involved with the comic and the characters, even getting my name in a few books and work was a pleasure. I got to spend time with my childhood best friend and personal hero, geek out as an adult with my coworkers and a few years prior when Ken Penders began penning the series, the comic had stepped it up to a young adult level showing death romance and yes, more highly sexualized characters, but much more complex highly sexualized characters.
06:29
Again, I felt that the comic was aging up with me, my hero was growing up right alongside me and the fan base cutting back to 2010 or so. Shortly after firing Beloved by most Sonic writer Ken Penders, who had created and copyrighted dozens if not hundreds of original Sonic related characters and plot lines, Archie sued Penders in an effort to keep those characters in the Archie Sonic brand, to keep this to case's time limit for this episode. This ended up in some massive litigation in which Archie ended up firing its entire legal team giving up after years of lawsuits which ran up to all levels, Penders left with all of his characters.
07:11
And although Archie strived to bring back the essence of the comic through new characters and new plot lines, there were so many obvious loose plot threads and weird off screen deaths, including massive population teleportations off screen in the case of Knuckles entire race. Still, many of us loyal fans hung on and the series trudged forward for a time, albeit without Pender's IP characters who were some of the best in the series. Sadly, this sucked and mostly just hurt the readers like myself by the way. Penders then went on to sue Sega and later on insinuated copyright infringement in the recent Sonic the Hedgehog movies from Paramount.
07:54
Anyway, years after I left Archie to pursue theater in the Big Apple, just ask the lawsuits and controversy between Ken Penders and the folks at Archie, along with increasing scrutiny from Sega and just general mismanaging of story plots which ended in not one, not two, but three reboots, Sonic eventually switched hands to IDW Publishing in April 2018, still under the pen of Ian Flynn, who had been at the helm of the Archie Sonic comic for over a decade at that point, has now been the main writer and visionary behind the Blue Blur's comic book adventures for around two decades, and he's also written a bunch of stuff for some of the video games and other materials that have come out over the years.
08:37
And despite lawsuits, mandates from showrunners and Sega, constant updates from new video games and TV shows, and of course now the movies, Flynn has managed to stick through the rise and fall of his share of Sonic universes, but thankfully has created a completely new cast of characters unique to the IDW brand, which is still going strong seven years later at a whopping 125 issues under its belt if you count spin offs and Specials. And now, 35 years after I first met him, I still collect this new breed of Sonic the Hedgehog comics. And while I may not be as closely connected to my childhood hero as I once was, I still see all the movies, all the TV spin offs. I collect whatever comics of his I can and of course I continue to hold on to my cherished and complete Archie Sonic collection.
09:28
So chillax, enjoy a chili dog or two and happy reading.
09:35
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10:21
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