The Curious Case of the Archie Graphic Novel and Reprint Delays and other GN Hyjinks (Sonic/Mega Man GN and Reprint Release Guide inside)

[Big Panda]

39 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Great. We're only about...3 weeks or so over the release date?

Honestly Archie, what the actual fuck? I can understand maybe a few issues with Sonic's GNs because Penders, but you're fucking nonsense over the Mega Man GNs have absolutely shit all excuse.

I think you're reading the date wrong, dude. The US dating system goes MM/DD, not the other way around =P

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Ernest-Panda said:

I think you're reading the date wrong, dude. The US dating system goes MM/DD, not the other way around =P

Then why is it in the solicits for April, instead of May?

[Big Panda]

Just now, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Then why is it in the solicits for April, instead of May?

Because it's being shipped out in April, not released.

[Your Vest Friend]

So I saw one of Jon's recent posts on the leaving Archie matter, and it seemed to basically confirm that Sonic Archives is dead.

[Big Panda]

3 hours ago, Detective Reptiles said:

So I saw one of Jon's recent posts on the leaving Archie matter, and it seemed to basically confirm that Sonic Archives is dead.

Care to show?

[Your Vest Friend]

Well, I can only link it in my current circumstance.

[PC the Hedgehog]

So there were apparently layoffs at Archie at the beginning of the year, and Jon was one of them. A shame to see him go after so long, but I'm glad Disney is treating him well.

If that doesn't confirm there was probably a LOT of higher-up drama behind the scenes at Archie, I dunno what does.

 

[Kfarc]

12 minutes ago, PC the Hedgehog said:

So there were apparently layoffs at Archie at the beginning of the year, and Jon was one of them. A shame to see him go after so long, but I'm glad Disney is treating him well.

If that doesn't confirm there was probably a LOT of higher-up drama behind the scenes at Archie, I dunno what does.

 

I remember I was reading somewhere that Archie had a BIG finnancial problems, because of the previous bosses/owners. Now that high in commands has changed, they're taking their time. This could explain the delays of GN, hiatus of Mega Man, BOOMs canncelation and Sonic's delays. But looking at a big picture I HOPE everything is going on a good path. Archie Horror is coming back to life, Dark Circle too. They have at least one GN planed per month. I think it's all thaks to their New Archie line-up. Well, maybe this or next year we will have news on Archives or even Saga. I think we will get Mega Man something(GN wise) later this year. But that's mostly my predictions/speculations/wishes.

[Borvoc]

It sounds like Archie has been having a rough time of it lately. First there was the Penders thing, which is certainly costing them money (not to mention the pressure from Sega to handle the issue themselves—which is quite understandable). Then, they felt the need to reboot their main comic line but were attacked when they sought extra funding. Still thinking it necessary to reboot their core IP, they chose to do so without the extra funding and instead, they seem to have seen the need to put other books and graphic novels on hold, which is causing them grief with their fans.

All this makes me wonder if the management-level drama apparently going on at Archie is an additional issue or just the outcome of the stress being caused by all the above issues.

[Borvoc]

Okay, I wasn't sure if I should add this as a part of the thread already open regarding graphic novel delays, but it seemed a bit tangential, so I thought I'd create a new topic and let it be addressed or ignored on its own merit and/or lack thereof (do whatever you want with this, mods).

Basically, Archie hasn't printed any further Sonic Universe graphic novels post Genesis Wave. They haven't continued from where they left off pre Genesis Wave, nor have they rebooted the Sonic Universe graphic novel line to match release dates with the new line of post Genesis Wave Sonic the Hedgehog graphic novels. The "why" is probably due to money issues and the other stuff Archie has been going through recently. My question is: do you think they'll pick up where they left off or start printing graphic novels post Genesis Wave? Maybe both? What do you prefer? If they do decide to jump forward with Sonic Universe, what could they call the new line of graphic novels to differentiate them from the old graphic novels?

Some of the post Genesis Wave SU stories seemed to me to be intertwined with the current StH comics, so it feels odd to me that both lines aren't being released together in GN form.

[Zaysho]

Yeah, I felt this fit with the discussion of the Archie Graphic Novel thread (and the subject of delays), so I decided to merge them together.

 

Assuming the Sonic Universe line isn't dead (and I really don't know what to make of the current situation--it's a mess), I have a feeling Archie will cut their losses and continue with the post-Genesis Wave material. It seems as time goes on, anything old continuity related just falls to the wayside and just isn't worth the hassle for Archie. Of course, I'd be pretty disappointed if that's what happened, but I wouldn't be surprised at this point.

I'm not sure what this would mean though. Some kind of rebranding/renumbering might happen to differentiate the stuff from "Pirate Plunder Panic"-onward from the pre-reboot material. I'm not sure what though. They could just not number the volumes or something, I suppose.

[Borvoc]

Thanks, Zaysho.

It befuddles me that Archie is seemingly throwing money away by not collecting and releasing at least the post Genesis Wave stories in graphic novel form, but then again, with the paper quality issues in recent graphic novels, they seem to be struggling with physical released beyond the comics themselves.

On another note, some of the Sonic Universe stuff has been so tied in with stories from the main series that it felt like they could have just been collected with the current main graphic novels to fill out the story.

After thinking about it, I also feel like Archie could also collect the post Genesis Wave stories and rebrand the collections as "Sonic the Hedgehog Universe" (or something like that to differentiate them from the pre Genesis Wave "Sonic Universe" graphic novels), and start the numbering of the new graphic novel line over at one like they did with the main Sonic the Hedgehog graphic novels so that they match up with each other.

Actually, I officially hereby give Archie permission to steal my not-so-clever idea with no strings attached.

Either way, it seems like releases between StH and SU graphic novels are going to be greatly staggered, unfortunately, assuming post Genesis Wave SU graphic novels are ever released at all. That is, of course, unless the main graphic novels get delayed at some point to allow the currently-hypothetical SU graphic novels to catch up.

The logistics of this interest me quite a bit. Story for the long post.

Edit: I meant "sorry", but "story" probably works too.

[Big Panda]

Alternatively, they could keep the original numbering. Just make PPP Volume 9 and so on.

[Borvoc]

3 minutes ago, Ernest-Panda said:

Alternatively, they could keep the original numbering. Just make PPP Volume 9 and so on.

Interesting. I hadn't considered that. That would make it hard for them to ever go back and collect back issues of Sonic Universe, but that's certainly an option if they don't intend to collect any of those stories anyway.

[Kfarc]

I don't think it's the case of Pre-SGW and/or Post-SGW. I would blame their financial problems. They just think about realising issues first. GN are after always an second place. And I think that none of those serieses are canceled. Their just on-hold, waiting for a better times.

[Big Panda]

50 minutes ago, Kfarc said:

I don't think it's the case of Pre-SGW and/or Post-SGW. I would blame their financial problems. They just think about realising issues first. GN are after always an second place. And I think that none of those serieses are canceled. Their just on-hold, waiting for a better times.

The fact they're avoiding pre-reboot stuff as much as possible even in the Digests sort of indicates it's more than just money problems. That and the few pre-reboot stories they do print have minor edits (Babylon Rising Part 1 removing Elias' name from Rotor's dialogue), which would go even further to indicate it's something legal...

[Borvoc]

35 minutes ago, Ernest-Panda said:

The fact they're avoiding pre-reboot stuff as much as possible even in the Digests sort of indicates it's more than just money problems. That and the few pre-reboot stories they do print have minor edits (Babylon Rising Part 1 removing Elias' name from Rotor's dialogue), which would go even further to indicate it's something legal...

True. Wasn't the dialog in Babylon Rising Part 1 changed even during the editing process before the comic was released? I seem to remember a story about erased or whiteout-ed text being found on some of the original papers.

I hope all this legal stuff gets solved soon. It's one thing to seek payment for your work but entirely different thing to destroy everything you had a hand in creating because of a dispute with a former employer. Then again, I think Ian Flynn rolled with things really well and potentially even turned the circumstances into a positive but using them to clean out the continuity a bit.

Cheaper paper in the newer books still points toward financial issues on top of (maybe, at least in part, because of) the legal issues. I guess I'm glad that Archie has been rolling the comics and main graphic novels out as well as they have been, but it would be nice to get all the other graphic novels moving again as well as getting the Mega Man book back (if it's not too late for that at this point).

[Big Panda]

What? No, nothing in the original comic was edited.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

7 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

True. Wasn't the dialog in Babylon Rising Part 1 changed even during the editing process before the comic was released? I seem to remember a story about erased or whiteout-ed text being found on some of the original papers.

I hope all this legal stuff gets solved soon. It's one thing to seek payment for your work but entirely different thing to destroy everything you had a hand in creating because of a dispute with a former employer. Then again, I think Ian Flynn rolled with things really well and potentially even turned the circumstances into a positive but using them to clean out the continuity a bit.

Cheaper paper in the newer books still points toward financial issues on top of (maybe, at least in part, because of) the legal issues. I guess I'm glad that Archie has been rolling the comics and main graphic novels out as well as they have been, but it would be nice to get all the other graphic novels moving again as well as getting the Mega Man book back (if it's not too late for that at this point).

You're thinking of Endangered Species/Chaotix Quest, both of which were forced to go under massive rewrites because of Ken Penders.

[Borvoc]

3 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

You're thinking of Endangered Species/Chaotix Quest, both of which were forced to go under massive rewrites because of Ken Penders.

I'd have to look it up again. It was something like where you could see the indentation from erased letters on the original page—nothing major, just a word or phrase here and there that referenced anything that Mr. Penders could potentially claim ownership of. Only minor stuff like this got changed while the book was still on it's way out. I should really re-find that...

[Your Vest Friend]

I know we've had people explicitly show us the changes for Endangered Species by purchasing the original pages, but did anyone do that for Chaotix Quest, perchance? We know that the fonts were different and all but signposted changes, but I don't recall finding out what the original dialogue was.

[Borvoc]

That was a rather arduous google search. Thanks to Ryannumber1gamer and Detective Reptiles for mentioning that it was Endangered Species I was thinking of. I probably couldn't have found it otherwise.

Here's what I'm talking about:

Full explanation is here. I found it very interesting that it wasn't just the collections and reprints that were being edited but the some of the comics themselves as they were being released. I don't remember anything like this being found for Chaotix Quest, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Edit:

The Mobius Encyclopedia has a reference to things being edited in this issue (StH 243) under the wiki's Background Information section for the issue. The following interesting information seems to have been added to the wiki by Rystrouse on May 1, 2015‎.

Quote

The issue contains several pieces of rewritten dialogue, done so to avoid referring to certain characters and concepts being directly referred to by name. One can even tell which pieces where rewritten as the font in several speech bubbles change from the standard font seen throughout the rest of the issue, in some cases the change even occurs in mid-sentance, implying last minute changes to the pages themselves. Some of these rewrites include referring to the Dark Egg Legion as "Eggman's Army" of "Eggman's Troops", or calling Albion "The Echidna Homeland".

Edit 2:

More info at lostmedia.

[Borvoc]

I couldn't find much on Chaotix Quest, but this page on lostmedia was interesting with just a few notes on what was changed. Mobius encyclopedia also has a bit of information on what seems to have changed in this arc's issues: 46, 47, 48, and 49. I haven't found any visual evidence of things being changed last-minute like we have for Endangered Species, though.

[Kfarc]

 We have  a schudle for Archie Action realeses in August. http://comicsalliance.com/archie-action-releases-for-august-2016-solicitations/ We have here: Sonic Super Digest #17 and volume one for Sonic Boom called "The Big Boom". Also we have a crepy "&Knuckles" Variant for new Sonic Universe. I'm still waiting for Mega Man: Master Edition.

[Borvoc]

2 hours ago, Kfarc said:

 Also we have a crepy "&Knuckles" Variant for new Sonic Universe.

Ha ha. That's actually pretty awesome. Team Chaotix are in their Sonic Heroes flight formation. You can tell the guys at Archie know their source material when they make little jokes like this.

Was Mega Man: Master Edition ever given a release date?