*sips tea calmly* Okay, as the title may suggest, this is going to be a talk about Sonic the Hedgehog; everybody favorite blue hedgehog that can run at the speed of sound and even light.
Sonic the Hedgehog, that name goes back a long time for me. Ever since i watched the Saturday Morning Sonic TV show, I was blown away by the characters, and from there i decided to start drawing Sonic the Hedgehog. Yup, that's right, i drew Sonic stuff when i first began my path to an artist, go figure eh?
Anyway that's not what I'm talking about at this point, rather im going to talk about the whole "Fandom and Franchise" of Sonic as well as a few person peeves about it.
Okay, so lets go over what Sonic is.
Sonic made its debut as Sega's Mascot for the Sega Genesis back in the 1990's with Sonic the Hedgehog, a fast pace side-scroll were you collect rings and fight the evil Dr. Robotnik from taking over the world. After it made such a big success impact on the people, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog made its appearance on the TV around 1993. Sadly...and many people can agree, this show sucked donkey balls, big ass donkey balls. Along with this...terrible show, came another, Sonic the Hedgehog, or as many fans, myself include, will call; SATAM.
Satam was a BIG turn around from the prior show, it was dark, had a great story, characters and settings, and turned a normally empty game into a master crafted show. The downside was that it was canceled as a cliff hanger at the end of the Second Season. Even today people speculate "what would have happened" if DIC (owners of the shows copyright) had continued in their production and made a 3rd season; New Plot, Characters, maybe a very tragic event (cause that's what the 3rd Season should have, someones gotta die.) You know, if you asked me, the best idea i could see for something like this is to gather the cast again (since they were a great choice) and have Dan Abbet (creator of Gaunts Ghosts in Warhammer 40K) write the screen play. If that happened, the show would take itself to a new level of awesomeness, then again that's just me.
Its rather depressing that SatAM was canceled, many people probably cried their eyes out when they found out the news, though Sonic's TV streak didn't end there; mid 1990's brought about Sonic Underground. Not related to ANY video game at all, Sonic Underground was a branch in its own direction for Sonic, but like The Adventures...it was crap.
Let me run this down, Underground had Sonic, his brother Manic, and sister Sonia, as children of the Queen of their world, somewhat of a relation with SatAM. Robotnik, along with a army of new and sleeker Robots, attacked the Queens Castle in a coup, again similar to the SatAM series. Sonic's mother then abandon her children to the streets and flees the castle, though for the first bit of the series, people believed she was dead.
((if you dont belive me, take a look at Nostalgic Critics review of these two shows, hes right as rain when it comes to describing them: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/4762-adventures-of-sonic-the-hedgehog
Undergrounds main problem was that the theme of the show was based around Music...i mean seriously, fighting battles with Instruments...
Sonic, and this is coming from miles, used a Guitar that shot lasers
Sonia, the sister (who was purple and a love interest of one of Robotniks Minions) had a Electric Piano, which also shot laser, or something. Lastly, Manic, a street smart crook of a green hedgehog (like...some other character we see in the comics *cough*scourge*cough's and sips tea*) used drums that created shock waves. The characters go about meeting various peoples and going to various places, singing songs to fit in with various themes of the episode. The other interesting thing was the appearance of Knuckles, an Echidna from Sonic 2 and Sonic and Knuckles. Knuckles was a bit of an egotistic prick, high and mighty for protecting his home turf, but very guillible and often falling for Robotniks simple schemes to turn him on Sonic. In truth, Sonic and Knuckles saw themselves as rivals; Sonic had his speed, but Knuckles had digging with his fists, allowing him to match Sonic's speed to a degree as well as a keen trait for setting traps. If i may be so bold, Knuckles is one of my fave Sonic characters.
It made little sense to watch this show, in fact, the plot line was almost non-existent. The overall idea i figured was for Sonic and co to defeat Robotnik, find their mother and bring peace back to their world, but i can recall so many "filler" episodes that went completely off the beaten path. Overall, Underground was the show that really turned me off on Sonic.
Around the same time however, and dating back to 1993, Sonic Comics were making an appearance, co-created with Archie Comics in New York, Sonic comics took the feeling and story of SatAM and made it more "downplay" in a sense more child friendly and understandable. For the first few editions, it was along those lines, but as they got into the teens and higher, the story began to show its "darker" side. Many plots and plans made themselves known and the comics were able to bring the same luster SatAM had with a whole new story line and plot. The comics really made it fun to enjoy Sonic, having back stories on all the key players as well as using its own plot devices. By issue 50, the comic had seen itself almost surpassing SatAM in terms of longevity and story, but that was all to change. In fact, they also made so many side stories, mini-series and single release issues that it add a new flare to the already awesome cast (They had a Tails Series and even a Princess Sally series.) They even made a Knuckles Series that was made of two 3 part mini-series, and a main series that lasted 30+ issues until it was wrapped up at Issue 32.
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When Sega began to release sonic in the Late 1990's and early 2k, they put in a new cast of characters to replace all the others. Sonic the Hedgehog for Dream Cast was the first rebirth of the old Sega games, it added a 3D look to a classic and made the game quite interesting. It also added a new cast of Characters, such as Amy Rose (Sonic's "self proclaimed" girlfriend), Big the Cat, and E-102 Gamma. It also brought back old faves like Tails, and Knuckles.
Sadly, Sega didn't have much to continue to compete with the Video Game giants, and eventually was merged with Nintendo. After, Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle made their appearance, bringing in Rouge the bat, a treasure hunting bat who had a thing for Knuckles, and Shadow, Sonics "Evil clone" and even allowed for Robotnik (At this time Eggman) to be playable.
Eggman...god...that names pricks me in more ways then id like. From the sadistic, dark dictator to a whiny fat guy who always chickens out and makes crummy robots...geeze its like they rebuilt Robotnik off some...other show...damnit.
Suffice to say, its these games and characters that changed the whole franchise, many people dont even recall what SatAM was or the characters because these new ones were given far more credit now that Nintendo was pulling the strings. Whats more, they came out with yet ANOTHER show to co-exist with these new games, Sonic X. Sonic X has Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy Robotnik, and eventually Rouge and Shadow, taken from their world to ours (though the resemblance between the cartoon and "our world" is not even close.)
Sonic is taken in by a rich family were he spends his days living and fighting Robotnik. When Rouge arrives, she is taken by GUN, the "Military" power of this world. GUN is like the US army in so many ways, and at one point they even engage Robotnik's Island base with a squad of Special forces (including Rouge) and a fleet bombardment (So epic, it put the D-day landing to shame.*coughs*)
Anyway, im not going any deeper into this, suffice to say, Sonic went downhill, and they continued to make crummy games and increase Sonic X with crazy plot lines and useless characters. As the words of a great game Critic once said "Sonic should be taken behind a shed and shot." Hes been done to death...and that's the end of it.
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Now...with that lil history lesson settled, lets get to the second topic, Sonic Art.
Sonic Art is the main stream sonic fan art, from character sketches, comics, stories, even mature subject matter, it all goes there; so big, that it seems more like a cult then a fandom. People worship Sonic art, those who can do it well get known, and those who cant get brutally criticized.
The real problem with sonic art is that there is very little originality in the characters, most are just re-makes of existing characters and there is little alteration in the style from the comics and what people draw. I too had been at fault with this, trying to copy the style of Sonic already shown to me, but ended up taking my own turn on that. Don't get me wrong, its not like everyone copies every detail, many artists put their own unique twists on Sonic and draw them in a style completely of their own. Still, its far and few to see many of them maintain that, but those that do are able to do it very well.
I guess my biggest peeve is that there is little creativity with Sonic art, everything is already done and any new character types people may come up with tend to spawn a stable idea that people will complain about. For example, lets say i draw a new kind of creature in sonic style, and a 100 people see it, immediately that "my style" of sonic character, and anyone who may copy is is ridiculed for it. My friend who is a comic artist mentioned "Sonic art is very limited, there is always a lack of creativity and uniqueness within the style since everything is already been created and people simply copy what they can, adding a bit of flare here and there."
In truth I have seen such things, people making simple recolors of Sonic or other characters, adding a new shirt or hairstyle on a existing frame. Admitting, i used to have a blue tails recolor, until i realized that it was to simple and decided to re-create it in a new style (only months later to find someone actually did make a recolor tails in blue...)
That's another problem, if you have the talent and skill, it wont matter if your character is Tails with one tail, taller and blue, your style masks the lack of creativity and your work is admired for how nice it is, not originality.
Okay, now I'm beating a dead horse, to sum up, Sonic art is a bit of a double egde sword, its an easy style to learn and replicate, its a hard one to make unique and put your own twist on it.
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