Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[Immortheus]

Previews for StH #216 and SU #19 are up.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #216

Written by Ian Flynn, art by Steven Butler, Jamal Peppers, Terry Austin and John Workman, cover by Jamal Peppers, Austin and Jason Jensen.

"Family Matters Part Two." There's one exciting confrontation after another in the frozen waste of the Northern Tundra, as Sonic and the Arctic Freedom Fighters fight for their lives against the newest, most-threatening incarnation of the Dark Egg Legion yet! Will Rotor and Silver come to the rescue or will they be too busy finishing each other off? Then, explore a stirring, fresh look into the "Future Tense" Silver calls home in the second installment of this intriguing tale!

32 pages, $2.99, in stores on August 11.

SONIC UNIVERSE #19

Written by Ian Flynn, art by Tracy Yardley, Jim Amash, Phil Felix and Jason Jenson, cover by Yardley and Ben Hunzeker.

"Trouble in Paradise Part Three." Things heat up in this island adventure, the penultimate installment of Tails' exotic voyage! With Antoine's ultimate fate revealed, Tails and Bunnie leap into action. As they prepare for an all-out assault on the Battle Bird Armada, the villains are setting their final trap. Will the brave duo foil the fiendish plot?

32 pages, $2.99, in stores on August 25.

[Aquaslash]

I'm all for Antoine having his doofus moments. That cover brought a smile to my face.

[Flyboy Fox]

I lol'd. Antoine is a secret favourite of mine =) Sacre bleu! Let him steal the spotlight... I still love that crazy coyote.

[NiGHTS]

Poor Tails...always getting the second seat XD

[Yong]

Is Antinone missing his wedding ring or was it on his right hand? I could've sworn it was on his left, which begs the question given that his hand is just out there.

Oh yeah, must make Sonic 06 reference.

Sonic: Tails, hurry and close the gate so he doesn't get out.

Tails: Can't. I have a guy in a ducky tube on my sub.

[Dejablue]

I really like Yardley's art. But that cover looks really good. Like...better than usual for some reason.

[Mr. Mackey]

I love the cover art for both issues <3 And I'm really starting to like Yardley's artwork......

Interesting quote from Tracy regarding #216:

The brown splotch on Ant's nose is supposed to be white sunblock. Just a coloring mistake I've already pointed out. I'm sure it'll get fixed. And, yes I did forget his wedding ring! I'm ashamed of such a glaring omission. I'll see if I can't have that fixed too. I'm grateful it was pointed out.

(Source: BumbleKing Comics forum)

[Badnik Zero]

I bought issue #200 today! My first Sonic comic in 10 years.

At first I was poking around, I knew I wanted a Sonic comic but Universe didn't look like the right place to start. In fact none of them did. So I went right to the back issues box and looked there (Sonic #40 was $7.50... I have issues much older than that... these comics aren't cheap!). I chose the cheapest one that looked like a milestone issue, I'm working up from there. It's actually a really nice place to start isn't it. Sonic lists what pretty much happens in all previous issues, culminating in about 20 pages of action sequences. Universe started somewhere around #200 from what I understand, so I'll have to pick those up too. I'm excited to be back!

Edited May 19, 2010 by Badnikstan

[Saint Nathan]

Just starting the Enerjak arc in the main storyline. The entire thing is getting a lot better compared to the past issues, though Sonic in any form of relationship just seems wrong.

Oh and Eggman is just being a dick for dicks sake at this point. :\

[Blazey Firekitty]

I lol'd. Antoine is a secret favourite of mine =) Sacre bleu! Let him steal the spotlight... I still love that crazy coyote.

I'd like to think that Tails and Ant are chasing some sort of sea-roadrunner with that drill.X3

[Immortheus]

Previews pages for StH #213 are up.

HOO-RAY! BIG!

[Cortez]

The colouring on that cover is abit strange, it looks like the colourist was experimenting with art styles and then fucked it up.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

HAHAHAH!

Big is totally cracking me up with his responses.

Queen: The heathen who lives on the outskirts and associates with filthy outsiders?!

Big: Yup.

Way to go Big. You've just earned a spot as one of my favorite character...in the comics. If only they could capture that same attitude of his in the games more.

[gato]

^ Oh boy Big is awesome, I will sig that panel (in other forum) when I can

[XavierRussell]

I haven't got a Sonic comic since around 102 I think...Man what happened to the cover artist from before? "Spaz" wasn't it? His covers were always jaw-dropping and compared to what's above...WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???

^From #70, an issue I remember having. I mean Damn! What happened? The art on the inside seems like it took a dive too =(

[Toby]

Spaz began to suck, and just draws the same pose on each cover he works on. That's what happened.

[The-Master-Board]

I haven't got a Sonic comic since around 102 I think...Man what happened to the cover artist from before? "Spaz" wasn't it? His covers were always jaw-dropping and compared to what's above...WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???

^From #70, an issue I remember having. I mean Damn! What happened? The art on the inside seems like it took a dive too =(

^Pretty much, although you will be hard pressed to find many people that agree with you. Everybody seems to worship the sub-par covers of recent and the art on the inside too :\

Fortunately Spaz does do a few covers every now and then, and they are still pretty AWESOME, also a few artists who work on the inside art are pretty good, like Renae Deliz, but they don't tend to use them that much

I miss those old covers, they were truly art, compared to the stuff these day....well... The comics seem to be following the games lead in quality decline.

Edited May 27, 2010 by The-Master-Board

[XavierRussell]

Spaz began to suck, and just draws the same pose on each cover he works on. That's what happened.

I'll go have a look at the last couple covers he made sometime. All i know is back in the day, those covers were all very inspired.

[PC the Hedgehog]

Spaz's art style hasn't looked good in years. Don't get me wrong, he does a FANTASTIC job when it comes to mimicking classic/modern game and Sonic X style, but his personal style has been terrible since issue 100.

I mean, compare the above cover to this:

Sonic looks ugly as sin. I'd prefer Spaz draw Sonic in the same pose on every cover to Sonic in a variety of poses looking like THAT.

[Badnik Zero]

I bought a Sonic Universe comic, the first issue. I think I like this series a little more than the main one. So what, the purpose is to focus on side-plots to generally fill out the Sonic universe? That sounds good to me. The comic looked like it'd been sat on, even though it came in plastic with a board.

What do you guys think of Yardley's art style. It's nice but also sloppy in places, like the Shadow-Metal fight should've been better. I dunno what to make of it.

[Agent York]

I have a love/hate thing with his art. On one hand it can be really expressive and full of detail, on the other as said it can be really sloppy at times.

Though the most important thing to me is that I find the stories much better and more entertaining.

EDIT: Woah... Why is everything bolded, even in my sig and below this... Am I the only one who see's it? Nothing above Dabnikz post is bolded but everything below it is...

Edited June 5, 2010 by Dusk the Alan Wake Keeper

[Saint Nathan]

Oh god, those covers. Epic as they were/are, Sonic's mouth is always the same shape, it's like he's incredibly happy that he's incredibly mad.

also I like the new art, at least it seems to be a style they settled on, instead of millions of fucking every possible style like, between two pages. It went from great to horrible within two panels sometimes I mean god just hire a single fucking artist guys.

[Illuminous_Orb]

Yardley!'s art usually fluctuates by which inker or colorist was assigned for the issue. And this is true for any artist. I honestly don't think that either inker (Jim Amash, and Terry Austin) really aren't very consistent and tend to just get sloppy themselves, which reflects on Yardley!'s work. This is especially true when you compare it to his original pages, before the inking or coloring were worked on. Although, that's not to say that Tracy isn't to blame from some criticism either. While his characters are very expressive (sometimes too expressive which can lead to some luzy faces) and his panel layouts really shine and makes sure that the reader doesn't miss out on anything in his panels, his designs for some of the characters (albeit, it was SEGA that mandated that they look more SEGAsonic like) can leave a lot to be desired, especially when he sometimes seems to gloss over some detail on many of the characters and settings that used to be there that other artists were able to get in. It can partially be blamed that his art can be a little below par sometimes because he was pretty much the only artist that Archie was able to use for nearly 4 years. That's about 23 pages per comic per month, which leads to about 40 issues, which totals up to 920 pages of work to do! I'd be exhausted and work around a few corners too after all of that.

On the other hand, it's cartoony, it's bubbly, it's very straight-forward, and ya know, it looks just like what the Sonic series should look like. So I really don't mind Yardley! all that much.

Edited June 6, 2010 by Illuminous_Orb

[The-Master-Board]

Spaz's art style hasn't looked good in years. Don't get me wrong, he does a FANTASTIC job when it comes to mimicking classic/modern game and Sonic X style, but his personal style has been terrible since issue 100.

I mean, compare the above cover to this:

Sonic looks ugly as sin. I'd prefer Spaz draw Sonic in the same pose on every cover to Sonic in a variety of poses looking like THAT.

What's wrong with that cover? Personally I prefer Spaz's rendition of SA style artwork than his original stuff, but all his work is good. That picture is awesome, sure it's a different style, but I fail to see how it is ugly?? He draws Sonic well he draws Eggman well, they have detail, they have great positioning as in the cover flows well, the colour scheme works - it portrays overall a great sense of what the issue is about, the shock and foreboding plot.

I'd love to be able to draw even remotely as good as that! Look at that triptec of issues #162,#163,& #164 that Sapz did, THAT is artwork!

What do you guys think of Yardley's art style. It's nice but also sloppy in places, like the Shadow-Metal fight should've been better. I dunno what to make of it.

I think it's terrible. Seriously, compare this:

to the picture above. It's like comparing the Mona Lisa to a childs finger painting. I can't begin to describe how bland and undetailed Yardleys style is, it puts me off the comic somewhat as I am kinda superficial and love a good cover :\

Just look at that triptec of issues #162,#163,& #164 that Spaz did, THAT is artwork! I just can't take Yardley's work seriously as a cover and can't see how anyone else can, when compared to the quality of other comic books out there this pales vastly in comparison.

[Cortez]

What do you guys think of Yardley's art style. It's nice but also sloppy in places, like the Shadow-Metal fight should've been better. I dunno what to make of it.

I don't HATE Yardley's art style but I do think he's changed the character designs abit too much. I'm still under the impression that if you're drawing for an official media you should at least imitate the official drawing style, most other comics based on existing media manage it fine so why do Archie's Sonic comics look like poor DeviantArt* comics that warp the character designs?

*Not slagging off DeviantArt as a whole because there's some fucking good artists there.

A comic drawn in the same style as the SatSR and BK cut scenes (but not coloured in that style) would be magical.