|
Starline works really well because he's a pretty funny taking the piss parallel to Eggman. He's very self indulgent but it works and doesn't get dragged out and he gets shown up constantly. Seriously, dude monologuing to himself about the "Sonic Cycle"(good meta joke) and how Eggman always lets his egomania get in the way and then repeatedly making the same "hoodwink the other dangerous villain characters, they'll never find out OH NO THEY FOUND OUT" mistake is good comedy and theming. Nice character writing too, maybe one day Starline will try trusting somebody instead of trying to control them. Uhhh I mean at least as far as I enjoy these comics about Sonic 
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2022 04:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 01:39 |
|
|
Doomykins posted:Starline works really well because he's a pretty funny taking the piss parallel to Eggman. He's very self indulgent but it works and doesn't get dragged out and he gets shown up constantly. Seriously, dude monologuing to himself about the "Sonic Cycle"(good meta joke) and how Eggman always lets his egomania get in the way and then repeatedly making the same "hoodwink the other dangerous villain characters, they'll never find out OH NO THEY FOUND OUT" mistake is good comedy and theming. Nice character writing too, maybe one day Starline will try trusting somebody instead of trying to control them. There is also his bad habit of recording everything and other people finding those recordings.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2022 06:43
|
|
|
I loving love Starline, he's a great addition to Sonic's rogues gallery. I think they do a really interesting job of demonstrating the ways that he's different from Eggman and contrasting that with how it leads him to the same failures. Eggman's fatal flaw is carelessness and an inability to consider the fine details of his plans beforehand, while Starline's is an intense need for control of every aspect of his schemes and an inability to handle uncertainties - it's what leads him to repeatedly betray or undermine the people he's working with to his own detriment. Also Starline has cowboy boots with poison spurs, which is both rad and a fun in-joke for people who know about platypus physiology.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2022 15:32
|
|
|
They didn't give him the goofy flat platypus tail. Awful character design. (I kid)
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2022 18:28
|
|
|
Dr. Starline is obviously wearing some kind of tail-cover to make it look like he has a pointy, hedgehog-style tail. His flat platypus tail clashes with the rest of his aesthetic, you see.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2022 17:54
|
|
|
I hate how Amazon breaking Comixology means I can't read the books anymore, I was really enjoying this series!
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2022 23:31
|
|
|
Felt like consuming more Sonic stuff after seeing the movie so I started checking out the IDW comics. I'm about 5 chapters in and I have... mixed feelings about them. Though it's still pretty early to be making strong judgements. Mostly I just wish they'd done a reboot of the series and started from scratch instead of beginning their entire project at the end of Sonic Forces (a game I have not played and am not particularly interested in). Reading these comics feels like jumping in at issue 872 after everybody's already gone through all of their character development. It would have been nice to see these relationships form and develop organically over time instead of relying on me remembering 20+ years of games. I also think tying the comic to the games makes the world building suffer a lot and results in a lot of things being more generic than they should be. If you can't predict where the games are going to go (because they haven't been made yet) you can't define things like a world map, social structures, basic aspects of how the world functions, etc. I keep comparing this in my head to Sonic SatAM which was allowed to do it's own thing and had a much more well defined and interesting world/aesthetic/etc as a result. I could gripe about other aspects but a lot of them would be trends in western comics in general and not anything this comic is doing specifically. Things like pacing that's too tight and has no room to breathe, an unwillingness to slow down and appreciate small moments, overly busy panel layouts, an emphasis on action over character, poor fight choreography, etc. But these are more industry trends I don't like rather than things the creators are doing wrong. Gripes aside I think it's still OK? I like the lemur character I guess? I'm curious where they are going with Eggman's amnesia? I'll probably give it until the end of the Omnibus at least to see where it goes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2022 01:34
|
|
|
"Action over character" may be a complaint you maintain with most of the principle cast. While most of them are alright, there are mandates from SEGA that limit the degrees to which characters are allowed to show emotion or behave. Shadow the Hedgehog is the most egregious example of this, but it affects all of them to one degree or another. Original characters have more leeway for that so the more of them that trickle in the more the universe feels like a setting, at least for me, and it's why I've enjoyed the Imposter Syndrome miniseries.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2022 03:41
|
|
|
Agent Rush posted:I hate how Amazon breaking Comixology means I can't read the books anymore, I was really enjoying this series! Also no subscriptions for Canadians. I still can read the stuff I already bought, but the reader is worse no doubt.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2022 19:53
|
|
|
Is there any other (legal) comic site that allows for online viewing out of curiosity or is Amazon pretty much the only game in town now?
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2022 20:15
|
|
|
Larryb posted:Is there any other (legal) comic site that allows for online viewing out of curiosity or is Amazon pretty much the only game in town now? The latter. Welcome to late stage capitalism. Don't forget to renew your Amazon Prime subscription! Edit: for the Sonic comic. Marvel has its own subscription service that you can read comics from that is independent from Amazon. Certain other publishers (especially manga ones) do so as well.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2022 22:39
|
|
|
Ok, first omnibus complete. I didn’t hate it! A lot of my initial complaints still hold up. Whatever weird directive IDW has from Sega to stick to the games and keep things from getting too emotional is really dragging this series down. We just had an entire arc and literally nobody learned anything of value or changed in any real way. Hundreds of pages that aren’t ever allowed to be *about* anything. Also there are WAY too many characters and most of them didn’t need to be there. You could easily cut the cast size in half and the story would have been so much more focused and streamlined for it. Factoring that in though, I guess I still enjoyed it well enough? The twist with Eggman was legitimately good and a lot of the individual moments/panels are a a lot of fun. It’s not particularly deep or impactful but the writers seem to be having fun with it. If nothing else it’s leagues better than the Archie comics so there’s that. Onward to Omnibus 2!
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2022 22:51
|
|
|
I think the start is hurt by it having to be both a reintroduction to the whole universe but also kinda assume you already know Sonic and his whole schtick? Like, I feel like if IDW/Flynn really wanted to they could have brought it all back to Sonic 1 and Sega would've been okay with it, but also they're smart enough to know that's not what people want, especially when it's replacing a comic* that has every character in the games plus 100+ OCs Do Not Steal. They wanted to get Knuckles and Shadow and everybody from a game post-1992 in already without doing dozens upon dozens of issues to recap/retell every game's story so they just started from the most recent one at the time (Forces) and built from there while having to adjust to all of Sega's tight new rules (like yes his name is Sonic it's not a nickname, nobody has parents how about you shut up, say Mobius again I dare you I double dare you motherfucker say Mobius again, etc.) *yes, calling it a "replacement" isn't really fair since there was a nearly 2 year gap between one's end and the other's launch but that's just inevitably gonna be the way a lot of people see it. TwoPair fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Apr 12, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2022 23:42
|
|
|
TwoPair posted:I think the start is hurt by it having to be both a reintroduction to the whole universe but also kinda assume you already know Sonic and his whole schtick? Like, I feel like if IDW/Flynn really wanted to they could have brought it all back to Sonic 1 and Sega would've been okay with it, but also they're smart enough to know that's not what people want, especially when it's replacing a comic* that has every character in the games plus 100+ OCs Do Not Steal. Yeah, I've missed a few games but I knew who 95% of these people are and what their general deal is. The series loses me a bit when it directly references things like the sol emeralds or Sonic Forces lore but it's not like I'm reading this going "What the hell is any of this!?!?". The issue is that knowing in an abstract sense that, for example, Sonic and Tails are partners and good friends is very different from actually seeing them meet and grow over the course of the series. One has actual emotional weight, which is something sorely lacking in these comics. I mean, I do get ~why~ they went in the direction that they did, I just think it was a mistake. In their (understandable) desperation to distance themselves from the... let's call it somewhat awkward baggage of the Archie comics they backed themselves into a corner where it's incredibly hard to tell a real story. I mean, seriously ask yourself what would make you connect to these comics more on an emotional level. What we got here, or a slower and more deliberate reboot where we have a proper Sonic origin and then get to watch him meet the rest of the cast one by one and see them develop into the characters we know today? The answer is the second one. Which I'd remind you is what the movies basically did and they are making crazy bank atm. Also, and this is just my personal bias speaking, I'm really annoyed that we haven't gotten a proper Sonic/Tails origin story before the recent movie (and even that kind of botched it a bit) and this would have been a great chance do do that. I'm a sucker for found family character arcs and there's a ton of storytelling potential to be explored there. But that's more my personal gripes with the franchise as a whole, not something IDW is doing wrong. That said I do genuinely get why people are enjoying this series. The writers are working as well within the limitations of the project which is why I'm not saying it's outright bad or anything. Also occasionally you'll get a page like this and it's an absolute delight. (spoiler tags in case people haven't read this far)  Look at those amazing faces! LOOK AT THEM!!! readingatwork fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Apr 13, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2022 00:47
|
|
|
I have always liked Metal so him being the first arc villain was nice.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2022 03:36
|
|
|
Don't forget it's Free Comic Book Day this saturday and there's a Sonic comic in the line up A bunch of FCBD books leaked this year and the art's really nice and it's got some good jokes Digamma-F-Wau fucked around with this message at 03:25 on May 6, 2022 |
|
#
?
May 6, 2022 03:14
|
|
|
Final Imposter Syndrome is out. Looking forward to 50.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 09:43
|
|
|
Digamma-F-Wau posted:Don't forget it's Free Comic Book Day this saturday and there's a Sonic comic in the line up Any way to read it online yet? MonsterEnvy posted:Final Imposter Syndrome is out. Looking forward to 50. Just checked it out, can't wait for the clusterfuck 50's going to be! I wonder what Eggman is piloting there? I'll totally mark out if it's an OG Death Egg Robo.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 20:51
|
|
|
Agent Rush posted:Any way to read it online yet? it's on the usual comic reader sites (Amazon Kindle harnessing the desiccated the corpse of comixology, ios); it's also on IDW's website, though the image quality is not good
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2022 20:57
|
|
|
The covers for #50 look so ridiculously good and I don't know if my comic shop guy is gonna let me reserve more than one of them but god drat I'm gonna try https://twitter.com/SpiritSonic/status/1524551340608790531?s=20&t=ZBNl67n7hnRgk3FvxJewWQ https://twitter.com/vp_pinto/status/1520065396677783554?s=20&t=eInNWLOqtaq1PgBp2rTthw https://twitter.com/MattHerms/status/1519308760581386242?s=20&t=ZBNl67n7hnRgk3FvxJewWQ
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2022 05:54
|
|
|
Reading the recap/character pages of Imposter Syndrome, I only just realized that they have Kit listed as having a full name and a nickname (Kitsunami "Kit") just like Miles "Tails" Prower. It's a cute nod to how Tails is Kit's template. Kit doesn't get a last name though, poor lil' fella. That last cover is pretty fuckin cool I gotta hand it to them TwoPair fucked around with this message at 16:21 on May 12, 2022 |
|
#
?
May 12, 2022 06:16
|
|
|
Other covers as well 
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2022 07:08
|
|
|
I enjoy the art of some of the other artists, especially Evan's, but Adam Bryce Thomas is always a delight. I feel like he has such a good understanding of space and perspective, every scene feels weighty with him.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2022 16:01
|
|
|
OK, finally got around to finishing Omnibus 2. Was not expecting this much body horror in a Sonic comic. I'd say that this one was a fair bit better than Omnibus 1 due in no small part to it not trying to be an epilogue to Sonic Forces anymore. Many of my complaints still remain but it's definitely a step in the right direction. One thing I noticed that bugged me this time around was the worldbuilding. The environments are generally well drawn but the world feels very haphazard and lacks any sort of cohesion. In fact the writers seem to actively go out of their way to keep things fuzzy on that front, most likely because they will need to be able to account for unknown future locations that they may need to include when new games come out. How exactly is this world supposed to work? How do the cast fit in it? What does the world map look like? Why is there no military/government to respond to Eggman's weekly attacks that occasionally crack open the planet? This wasn't an issue in the genesis games where the wold just needed to be a series of interesting places to do loops in but now that we're trying to have a coherent narrative with characters and emotional stakes and such it's starting to stick out. Again, I understand why they went with the route they did, but I'd have really preferred they start fresh with a new story and world unconnected to the games so that they could establish and explore things properly without needing to bend the story around games that haven't been written yet. Still fun overall though. I'll probably read the next chapters once I can figure out how to do so.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2022 21:53
|
|
|
readingatwork posted:OK, finally got around to finishing Omnibus 2. Was not expecting this much body horror in a Sonic comic. I'd say that this one was a fair bit better than Omnibus 1 due in no small part to it not trying to be an epilogue to Sonic Forces anymore. Many of my complaints still remain but it's definitely a step in the right direction. We get a map later on.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2022 05:02
|
|
|
Ah drat Issue 50 has been delayed a week.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 23:43
|
|
|
on the bright side they're bringing back the Annuals https://twitter.com/IDWSonicNews/status/1527590676392820737
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 23:52
|
|
|
I’m guessing a big part of why the worldbuilding feels haphazard is because the Sonic games’ themselves have had haphazard worldbuilding for a while now, vaguely implying weird things like alternate worlds and a total lack of humans. Now Ian’s writing a game and one of the first things we’ve heard about it is that the world makes sense again, with separated islands of humans and animal people, so presumably that’ll be brought to the comic as well eventually.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2022 15:35
|
|
|
Honestly, a lot of the weird-rear end, confused world-building of the series can be traced directly back to Sega treating Sonic more as a mascot and less as a media property. If the mandates we've heard of are anything to go by, the executives are both really stringent about how Sonic can and can't be portrayed, but also really averse to associating any specific details to him and the world he lives in. Like, when the whole "two worlds" situation came up and was apparently canon I feel like the series could have made that work despite the incongruities it presented regarding earlier titles in the series if they had just committed to it. Instead it was just stated to be canon by the higher-ups and the games just avoided the issue of if Sonic and the other anthropomorphic animals live in a world alongside humans or have their own reality. The series just needs to pick a lane and commit to it for the worldbuilding
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 22:28
|
|
|
Ian Flynn himself has mentioned that he dislikes the term "mandates" (which was first used by Penders late into his run) because it implies a hard set of rules that must be followed, when in reality the situation is more that (as standard with any licensed piece of media) whenever Sega reviews a comic script they generally note if there's things they want changed, and Sega's exact whims can vary and shift over the years. Notably the change in publishers gave an opportunity for Sega to form a different dynamic with IDW than they had with Archie (whose dynamic hadn't actually changed that much from the 90s to when it was cancelled; though notably when the Sonic Universe book was launched, since it was a "new" book, it was being overseen by Sega of Japan vs the main book being overseen by Sega of America); Ian has noted that while there's some ways where IDW Sonic is more tightly controlled than Archie, the closer involvement with Sonic Team has actually allowed for a lot of other factors being loosened, with there being a bunch of things that Ian said he wouldn't be allowed to do back at Archie that they're okay with at IDW. Not to mention the closer relationship with Sega means that actual Sonic Team artists have involvement and input on the designs of the major new characters.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 22:45
|
|
|
Digamma-F-Wau posted:Ian Flynn himself has mentioned that he dislikes the term "mandates" (which was first used by Penders late into his run) because it implies a hard set of rules that must be followed, when in reality the situation is more that (as standard with any licensed piece of media) whenever Sega reviews a comic script they generally note if there's things they want changed, and Sega's exact whims can vary and shift over the years. Notably the change in publishers gave an opportunity for Sega to form a different dynamic with IDW than they had with Archie (whose dynamic hadn't actually changed that much from the 90s to when it was cancelled; though notably when the Sonic Universe book was launched, since it was a "new" book, it was being overseen by Sega of Japan vs the main book being overseen by Sega of America); Ian has noted that while there's some ways where IDW Sonic is more tightly controlled than Archie, the closer involvement with Sonic Team has actually allowed for a lot of other factors being loosened, with there being a bunch of things that Ian said he wouldn't be allowed to do back at Archie that they're okay with at IDW. Not to mention the closer relationship with Sega means that actual Sonic Team artists have involvement and input on the designs of the major new characters. That's always felt like a lie on Ian's part as the character writing and world building since the IDW jump feels way more constrained and limited in what it can do than Archie ever was
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 23:04
|
|
|
drrockso20 posted:That's always felt like a lie on Ian's part as the character writing and world building since the IDW jump feels way more constrained and limited in what it can do than Archie ever was One of the most direct examples Ian's cited is the fact that Sega was open to having Sonic be infected with the metal virus in the first place and for such a long term period of time. Like with the major exception of Shadow (in issues 19-20; all Ian needed to do to tweak how Shadow was written in issue 31 was make what he was saying into an internal monologue), the Metal Virus saga as a whole apparently didn't require too many notes and revisions from Sega. I feel like it's worth noting; a decent amount of the differences in characterization between Archie and IDW were actually present back in the Archie reboot Digamma-F-Wau fucked around with this message at 23:17 on May 23, 2022 |
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 23:10
|
|
|
Digamma-F-Wau posted:One of the most direct examples Ian's cited is the fact that Sega was open to having Sonic be infected with the metal virus in the first place and for such a long term period of time. If anything I feel the whole Metal Virus Saga was a mistake both in how long it was(which made it a miserable slog to endure) and how early into the run it was done(that's the kind of story you do when you're 4 to 6 years into a comic's run, not something you pull out barely a year into a comic's run when the world is too unestablished for the audience to really give a poo poo about it possibly being destroyed, especially when by the very nature of it being a licensed comic meant the threat had no real fangs to begin with)
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 23:29
|
|
|
Evan Stanley's also talked about how the closer relationship with Sega has made things easier. Anyways in other news https://twitter.com/TailsChannel/status/1527660962785935361?s=20&t=JGM2o1HnZFio4x-cZbKSxw https://twitter.com/IDWSonicNews/status/1527506510636408837?s=20&t=JGM2o1HnZFio4x-cZbKSxw https://twitter.com/IDWSonicNews/status/1527506974736121856?s=20&t=JGM2o1HnZFio4x-cZbKSxw https://twitter.com/IDWSonicNews/status/1527507585879838720?s=20&t=JGM2o1HnZFio4x-cZbKSxw Man I've missed the annuals; I know the classic special last year was basically an annual in all but name and also really good, but the way it was good was different from how the annuals were good.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 23:41
|
|
|
Digamma-F-Wau posted:One of the most direct examples Ian's cited is the fact that Sega was open to having Sonic be infected with the metal virus in the first place and for such a long term period of time. I should clarify that when I'm talking about "mandates" I mean that less in the context of the licensed comics specifically and more how Sega allows the characters to be used in media as a whole, including the video games. As I've said, Sega has a weird relationship with the Sonic series in that they seem really permissive about some things, and really stringent about others with little rhyme or reason to it. They also have a weirdly non-committal attitude to establishing some sort of mainline continuity or canon for the series, which leads to odd cases where most of the spin-offs and adaptations take place in these far more fleshed out and defined settings than the mainline games do. It honestly feels like most of the actual video games take place in their own separate, little worlds, but Sega won't come out and commit to it.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2022 00:11
|
|
|
Pigbuster posted:I’m guessing a big part of why the worldbuilding feels haphazard is because the Sonic games’ themselves have had haphazard worldbuilding for a while now, vaguely implying weird things like alternate worlds and a total lack of humans. Now Ian’s writing a game and one of the first things we’ve heard about it is that the world makes sense again, with separated islands of humans and animal people, so presumably that’ll be brought to the comic as well eventually. Thought you meant Ian J Quartery for a hot minute and got very excited. Comics Ian writing a game is pretty cool too though. I’ll be interested to see where he goes with it. KingKalamari posted:Honestly, a lot of the weird-rear end, confused world-building of the series can be traced directly back to Sega treating Sonic more as a mascot and less as a media property. If the mandates we've heard of are anything to go by, the executives are both really stringent about how Sonic can and can't be portrayed, but also really averse to associating any specific details to him and the world he lives in. I’ve always liked the idea of making these games like Zelda titles. Just start from scratch and do something completely new each time.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2022 01:02
|
|
|
"The previous 2 games are canon" is the sonic rule that does the best balance of having some continuity while also not letting that constrain the story too much, imo
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2022 15:41
|
|
|
ninjewtsu posted:"The previous 2 games are canon" is the sonic rule that does the best balance of having some continuity while also not letting that constrain the story too much, imo I would just add "Sonic Adventure 2 is somehow always canon" because Shadow keeps showing up.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2022 16:53
|
|
|
Honestly outside of 06(which retcons itself out of existence anyways) most of the games have so little in the way of plot I see no reason why one would need to remove any of them from continuity Indeed if it weren't for that idiotic and artificial divide Sega has between "Classic" and "Modern" Sonic and how that mucks up what can be used it probably would have been best to do the IDW series as a from the beginning reboot instead of placing it post Forces and resulting in them not actually being able to use much from the games at all
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2022 20:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 01:39 |
|
|
TwoPair posted:I would just add "Sonic Adventure 2 is somehow always canon" because Shadow keeps showing up. I mean just because knuckles keeps showing up doesn't mean they keep referencing the events of sonic 3. Sonic adventure 2 is canon for sonic heroes and shadow the hedgehog. The next game, sonic 2006, presents a shadow that has experienced the character growth of shadow and heroes, but never brings up Maria or even the ultimate lifeform stuff iirc
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2022 20:57
|
|