Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Archie Sonic in Trouble? Sonic Cafe & More

This week sees another double-size update...
As things continue to flow in. Next week will be similarly double size. After that, hopefully things go back to normal, because it's good to be able to put focus onto something during an update when...

There's something big like Sonic Cafe
In Japan, there's the concept of a 'temporary cafe', where a normal restaurant gets "re-themed" into promoting something else for a period of time between a month and usually a few months. This means it will have decorations, window stickers, posters, cardboard standees and....themed food on the menu. After the promotional period of the thing ends, the cafe/restaurant returns to normal or switches into a different promotion. That kind of thing doesn't happen in the USA, and it seems like not in Canada or Europe anywhere either.

Sonic Cafe:
The cafe "Sweets Paradise" (I guess, that's what's written on the wall) got taken over for a 25th anniversary Sonic event recently & the photos have begun to appear so Gear will (of course) be covering it because it is certainly a 'Sonic place'. The first item actually went up this week, a souvenir lanyard.

Archie Sonic Comic in Trouble?
This has been going around lately when for some reason (note: nothings been proven on this, the 24th publish date) the year subscriptions to the comic were taken away from the website. People calling up about it got a dubious answer "we won't/can't say why its gone" which everyone interperate to be smelling like trouble--hence the news articles.

But why would it be?
It's selling ok. Universe is ok too. Note: OK. Not fabulous but not horrible either. Comics, as a whole aren't doing as amazingly as they once were. There is, of course, more competition from stuff like pads, digital subscriptions and the general internet being entertaining. But, as far as anyone knew, Sonic was fine on sales.

Time to refer to an older blog post!
Archie Trouble With Characters is relevant here. It explains what is behind the Ken Penders trouble. He wants to reposess Mammoth Mogul or something. However, more news says that he's telling others who worked for Archie book to attack it as well, over their 'created characters' that they made up to add to the story. Whether or not it's right to attack is up to what TYPE the contract was, and if anyone lied about it before it was signed. That's the important bit. They MAY be justified but they MAY not.

Why has no lawyer looked yet?
I guess because lawyers are too expensive? I don't know. You'd think they'd buy an hour of time to inspect the contract type and whether they were even attackable at all if everything was on the up and up--because then the attackers wouldn't have a leg to go on & they'd just go away.

Why attack Archie?
I guess if you needed money and were sure you were right. But why tell others to go too? If you were sure Archie was sinister, and tricked the people & shouldn't be allowed to get away with being bad. The problem is, nobody's confirmed WHO is actually right. So why not put the subscriptions back up? Is something else going on?

Naruto Hockey Sonic:
He won't bring justice to the issue but he will bring laffs to bootlegs.

Next Week: More Japan items, the Sonic 25th Cafe for sure (so look out for food photos--always fun to see!)