Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28986801-20170123071057/@comment-679780-20170331180350

Genesjs wrote: Mystic Monkey wrote: Genesjs wrote: Mystic Monkey wrote: Genesjs wrote: I'll just leave the short version of my opinion of this matter: Regardless of whether the comics are going to be cancelled anytime soon or not, I know I won't be buying them because I refuse to due to so out of principle, because I am unable to justify any desire I may have to continue buying them when I think about the issues currently surrounding how the comics (and by extension, their the creative liberty of their staff) are being handled after the reboot had occurred. Because of my current stance of the status of the comics, I am of the opinion that the Archie comics may ultimately be better off being cancelled outright in case no company can purchase them and acquire a license to make Sonic comics, and be able to make them without having an unreasonable amount of limitations being placed on them (and that's not getting into the nature of the limitations themselves...), because I'd rather see the comic series get cancelled ASAP so they can hopefully maintain some of the dignity it has left instead of seeing it die a needlessly slow and painful death.

I could explain in detail, but only if you want to suffer reading through an essay's worth of rambling by me. I would miss the fact Sonic had his own comic series, regardless if it's this one or that one. And I doubt Sega would look for other comic companies to continue Archies work or a successor series. Unless they personally fund or buy out Sonic the Comic Online and Mobius Legends.

If Sega did decide to make a brand new Sonic comic series and want it to take place in game canon, I hope they make the stories take place in between the games than the need to make comics based on the games. I'd miss seeing Sonic having his own comic series too, but (at least when it comes to western markets) I often hear that the comics industry in general isn't doing too well these days. A lot of even the big-name comic companies like Marvel, DC, Darkhorse, etc. have been seeing a decline in their general readership, and a lot of these companies are only able to make a stable profit by branching out into other forms of media like movies and television (don't forget the merchandise). I could go into detail on why I think that this is the case, but the short of it is that a desire of these companies decades ago to form a monopoly on the comic book industry and essentially kill off most of their competition from those earlier days, is starting to seriously bite them in the butt financially, all the while strangling a once profitable market to death and blaming it all on the little guy who'd dare to not buy their comics for any reason. Bottom line, if we're going to see a new comic book series that actually tries to last, SEGA would need to find a company that isn't in financial straits and can guarantee to them that they (the comic company) will draw in enough of a readership to at least cover whatever investments they make into the comic itself. Ideally this comic company would also need to not be currently swamped in some form of controversy, because like a moth to the flame a lot of companies will avoid anything that would put their brand at risk with consumers, and a controversy is arguably one of the worst things a company can find itself in. I'm not saying that seeing a new comic series by a different publisher is impossible, but currently I think there's too many factors at play to where seeing an ongoing series being made is all that likely. At the very least, I think something should be done about the comic book industry as a whole before SEGA, a company that isn't doing too great financially these days either, considers taking any risks with the comic books industry.

Personally, I've been happy with with the comic book series I've been reading taking place within their own canon and distinguishing themselves from the game canon, and I wouldn't mind seeing a new series do exactly that like it's predecessors before it. It adds more variety to the kinds of stories the franchise can have. If they did make a comic series based in the games' canon, then I'd prefer SEGA/Sonic Team to make some visible effort to try to incorporate the comic's stories into the games' stories somehow (like with tie-in products) so it'd give people more incentive to buy the comics as a companion to the games, and do their best to avoid contradicting the comics' canon and vice versa. Way I see it, if they're going to make a tie-in comic series to the game they should at least put in the necessary leg-work to make it all fit together, otherwise I don't see the point in even bothering with it. IDW Publishing would perhaps be an ideal choice for making a successor comic series. Perhaps. Another idea is a doujinshi series that can easily be made into a comic for western audience.