Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Sonic Universe -Let the Annoying Begin!

Remember the somewhat epic rant visted upon that comic by this very blog?
Well, out comes the issue (one of four) that the rant was decided to rail against. Yeah its just as bad as anyone predicted. Now, that's not your standard definition of bad, either. Certainly some things on it are good...which is...bad.

Let it be explained:
They're shelling out great art
They're making up decent plotlines
They're exploring things fans SAY they want to see (such as downtime and homelife)
They're adding emotional involvement
They're cooking up a bit of a mystery
They're maybe looking to tie up loose ends (which everyone always likes)

So why is that bad?
Because they only seem to want to do that sort of thing when SONIC CHARACTERS are out of the picture! The whole '25 years later' is one gigantic excuse to shove Sega aside and focus on their own mary sues, fanchars, and OOC nonsense. Rouge the bat? Who cares. Shadow? Make him a villain and write him out of the picture ASAP. No one wants the Chaotix around, and I'm sure Knuckles' 'kids' are 10x more interesting then he ever was. Relegate Sonic to some stupid king, make sure there's nothing AT ALL unusual about his life (yeah he married and had 2.25 kids and lives in a nice house and has trivial work problems such as nervousness aobut speech making) HEAVEN FORBID he lead an unusual life...even later in life.) All the better to usher in his clone-like children who you have free-reign over the design and actions of. After all, that's why Sally is so ultra awesome--she's NOT bound by rules so she's automatically 10x more fun to use/write for/etc. Sally is the writer's dream, Sonic is the writers' prop. (it's exactly the same thing with fan chars--you make them up, they do what YOU want and it's NEVER OOC!)

It's exactly the same thing you get with people and their "Sonic Fan Characters"
Have you seen some of the art of those things? *GORGEOUS* there's some people out there that'd make archie drown in their own tears with how good the art is compared to thiers. So again, what's the problem?

These fan people (and apparently SU) only pull out "The good stuff" for chars of their own making. Well I'm sorry I don't want a comic of "Awesome Jawesome the sharkman" and his undoubtedly great adventures with a cast of 42 new people. No, sorry, I'm here for a little someone called Sonic the Hedgehog. You might of heard of him. Or not, if you read this comic!

So it's got soooo many elements that 'the fans' love, except that...it's all BS cause the whole thing is just a giant 'what if' that can be retconned out of existance at any time, and also there's the whole "non-Sonic" aspect of it. It's also bound bound bound to share the same fanchar problem which is that they tend to multiply like bacteria and soon you can't find the Sonic anywhere. It's a giant sea of billions of animals all claiming and screeching how they're the greatest and have the umpteen-superest-powers and blah blah blah.

Remember when Mina Mongoose started? She was AS FAST AS SONIC. (almost)
Yeah and every other fan char isn't? They're all fast as or faster than Sonic. Or like monkey khan have over 9000 powers with which to whoop him and prove that this 'new guy' is 'way cooler' than Sonic. All this does is irritate people who actually Like Sonic. Sure sure Archie played down Mina and Kahn but that doesn't make them right in the first place. And of course here comes Mina again, marrying Tails and having guess what? TWO KIDS! And doing guess what? Living in a nice house! Gag me with a crowbar and a picket fence and apple pie and minivans for everyone!

Drazen (the most famous Sonic comic reviewer--he's a grownup but he's also damm good at what he does with a true intelligent perspective and is disinclined toward ranting) is also heaping praise on the arc already, which is no shocker. He knows good when he sees it, and isn't afraid to call it, along with the bad. But what about someone from outside archie?

They: "So this new comic, it's about Sonic right?"
Me: "Yeah it was looking to be good, bring in more fans of the games/X/etc"
They: "That's cool, maybe I'll pick it up"
Me: "But now they got Archie stuff back in there"
They: "What you mean that bull$#+ fur#^6 @#$^ ?
Me: "Pretty much"
They: "NM"

The outer perspective of the non-archie fan tends to be "Kiddie Crap and FurF...ttry is all that's in that comic" (its a swear used against furry people) For whatever reason Sonic & co are not considered 'furs' while the archie folks are. (I guess the archie design is different) These SU shenannigains are not going to change anyone's mind.

For a 'pick up new fans n' read the fun!' comic they sure picked the most 'out there' and convoluted back-story necicitating chunk-a-junk possible. Totally counter-intuitive, totally counter-productive. This arc will ONLY amuse archie fans no matter how much talent they pour into it.

All I can say is I hope after these 4 nasty issues are down the drain they can get back to some Sega plotlines. There's no excuses left (Whiiiiine we dun gots enuff chars 2 work wit we gotta put in de Antoines and Rotorz and monkey khan) as to why they have to keep everything focused on archiverse people only. I'm hoping they'll announce whatever the next arc is gonna be and it's going to have to be a blockbuster because...

Archie Sonic has NEVER been able to sustain 2 books for very long. Knuckles tanked on convoluted echidna history, Sally tanked because despite all the love, she's still not Sonic, Tails tanked because frankly everything about it was beyond stupid, X even tanked because it was confined to a limited plot-space/timeline--but it still did REALLY REALLY WELL. That's the catch! X did so well because it WASNT another archie. People apparently get their archie fix IN archie so much so that a 2nd archie book never lasts. Universe HAS potential to keep going indefinitely but they've got to learn to keep it separate. That's what it's FOR.

Write to MySonicUniverse. Tell them.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

ToyNetwork's Sonic License...expiring?

A plush update this week.

Hadn't had one in a while so it's a good thing that it worked out this way because there are plenty of plush fans and collectors. Plenty to see, but most are just clarifications on older things. Close up shots of more of the Fighters dolls, bead-foot Sonic who previously was only in a group shot, and a fan photo of the Super Sonic plush. Which...still doesn't look very good.



Speaking of not good...

ToyNetwork, makers of mutants and sullyers of Sonic...may have had their license expire. Someone did some investigating and it doesn't look like they're active in Sonic any more. Which is a GOOD thing, especially with their 'decal eye/understuffed nightmares' they've been producing of late. Plus, the entire Calander of Crud is their fault too. Them losing their rights to it can only be a good thing.

Who's instead?
Looking like KellyToy. Kellytoy has the ability to do all the sizes (and maybe more) that Toynetwork did, and their website does show all their wares, unlike toynetwork.

Hopefully this is good news, and hopefully it is for real.
ToyNetwork had been allowed to rampage and shoot out junk for way way too long. KellyToy doesn't have ideal dolls by any means, now that everyone has seen their inaccurate Silver, cross-eyed Cream and middling SuperSonic...along with EVERY single plush they've yet done having the way too long noodly legs. However their faces aren't disgusting or stupid like Toynetworks' tended to be, and if they do further editions of the dolls they'll likely fix the legs in short order. (As, it's believed they KNEW they'd gotten them too long, so in their official photos all the legs are curved back subtly, to make them look more proportional)

Hopefully again, this lets in a nicer new era of win-able Sonic dolls for amusments everywhere in the USA. They're also not that pricy if you need to buy instead of winning, and there's no sign of gimmickry anywhere. (no holiday garbage/lame varients for no reason etc.)

The rest of the update was mostly new shots at old things, and 2 new tees. One of them though is def. looking for another photo to help clarify just who is in the background. Blaze the Cat can be spotted (which is somewhat unusual) but there's sure to be more.

Next Week:
Looking like it could be calmer. Most of the KellyToy photos are in, and Jazwares isn't due to have anything else appear until fall. All good things, as the new page may finally be able to be added as well as some improvements...but, we'll see.