#read more stuff

Below the read more as per usual!

Volume 2, Electric Buggaloo.

juliamon submitted:

My best memory of the comic comes from really early on, within the first 20 issues or so (my first issue being #8, the sax-cymbal one). My very first nerd rages were due to hating Art Mawhinney’s artwork and my 10-year-old mind couldn’t understand why Dave Manak couldn’t just draw everything instead, since he was ~obviously~ so much better.

DLM X-13 submitted:

My strongest memory associated with ArchieSonic: I was 7 and I started with #0, the very first issue. I’d never even played the games at this point, but I was a big fan of anything with talking animals, so I gave Sonic a shot. I read the comic in the mall while waiting for my mother to finish grocery shopping. When I was finished, I knew that I wanted to draw comics for the rest of my life.

Other issues came and went and I copied many of them panel-for-panel (changing a few things here and there, and changing the Sonic characters into cheap knockoffs of my own creation - my main character was called “Arcade the Lizard” and his little buddy was “Feathers the Parrot” - slightly more original than recolours, anyway). The ones I copied the most were #0, #2 of the miniseries, #21, #25, the Sonic & Knuckles special and the Knuckles Chaotix special. At one point I was absolutely obsessed with trying to make a Chaotix adaptation closer to the actual game - in retrospect, I have no idea why, since it wasn’t a great game…

I stuck with the comic through thick & thin and to this day I still own every single issue ever printed - at least of the main series. I didn’t bother with Sonic X and there are now some gaps in my Sonic Universe collection as well.

And I still draw comics! Though they don’t feature Sonic or any talking animals and they’re usually not in colour. ;) I like to think that I have Sonic to thank for most of my artistic inspiration, though!

emmbee27 submitted:

Oh fuck you Jewel Osco

Growing up, like early 2000’s, my local grocery store, Jewel Osco, had a rack specifically for comic books. I recall loads of them there, Superman, Spiderman, The Simpsons (another childhood favorite of mine.). Now imagine my excitement when I saw Sonic the Hedgehog there on the rack. I had no idea what the fuck was going on in most of them. I recall coming into the comics where each issue had this weird theme on the cover of being completely white, aside from the characters on them. I think the arc around 125 is where it ended for me, after my Jewel stopped carrying it. I didn’t find out what happened to Sonic after he met Tails’ parents until a year or two later when my Grandparents got me a few back issues from a distant comic book shop. Sure, the comic was fucked up back then, but I’ll never forget my disappointment of the store ceasing to carry the comic. I swear my parents and I asked the clerks for months if they got in the new ones before we gave up.

luke-eats-mangos submitted:

If I may submit more memories, I can remember the first time I ever called “bull” on an Archie story. I don’t remember what issue it was, but I believe I was 10, so it must have been either 2006 or November/December 2005.

The story went that, during one of Mina Mongoose’s concerts, someone tried to assassinate her. Sonic, luckily, managed to intervene, and caught the assassin, Nack the Weasel. Nack insisted that he didn’t have anything against Mina, he was just doing his job: Eggman had hired him. He explained that Eggman wanted Mina dead because he had heard one of her songs on the radio, and hated it- but it he couldn’t get it out of his head. So he decided to kill Mina.

I simply could not buy it. Surely, Eggman was lying, trying to disguise a deeper, more important motive.

But nope. Eggman decided to pay good money to straight-up murder someone, all because he didn’t like their music. Sure, he’s a villain, but he sure as hell isn’t THAT villainous! And regardless of your point of view, that story was a two-parter. Which means that, yes, not only did we have to deal with such a meaningless and mind-bogglingly stupid story, but we had to watch as it was painfully stretched out into two goddamn issues!

This was the first time I ever encountered a Sonic story that I simply did not enjoy. Luckily, this was the tail-end of the Penders era, so not long after that Flynn came aboard and spooged his genius over everything.

orsonzedd submitted:

Orson Zedd plays it safe

I remember back in the day (and you may have to correct me because I enjoy being sane and haven’t read any of the old comics since I was a young lad) reading that Dr. Robotnik was going to die in Issue 50, so I decided I didn’t have a reason to read the comic anymore and stopped buying it.  Man did I luck out.

halotharfroggies submitted:

A nostalgic story

I don’t have a deep, meaningful story, but the Sonic comics are the reason I started drawing in the first place. As a 10 year old girl who, at the time, felt she had nothing she was good at, I saw the cover for issue #48 and thought “Man, I wish I could draw as good as that!” So I decided I would keep drawing until I could.

It’s kind of arrogant to think that 15 years later I can draw much, much better than that, but looking at this blog…

Anyway, that’s my story. These comics were a huge influence to me in my earliest stages of drawing, and that’s pretty much all there is to say on the matter.

RADIX submitted:

I think I first began reading Archie Sonic in ‘03; my first issue was #119, and I actually thought that Ron Lim’s rendition of the characters was a good one. >.> Didn’t have a regular subscription until the #130s, so I had to rely on Sonic HQ for more info. (So many tiny cover .JPEGs/.GIFs…)

I used to be a bitter “pessimism is realism” moron, and so elements from the comic (and the games themselves) were twisted around and mangled before being utilized in my AU-fanon thing. Eventually, though, the constant (perceived?) wall-bangers and other stupidity in ‘03-‘06 became too much and I let my subscription run out. 

Unfortunately, my little “grimdark era” and memories of Archie are so closely intertwined that it’s hard to separate the two. :( Oh, and I would eyeball-copy or trace it at times before I figured out that it was a bad idea.

(And since NiGHTS scans have been featured here before, I might as well add: I saw an advert for the entire mini-series in one of my back issues and wished I hadn’t missed out on it, completely unaware that it was terribly written [and that the second “continuation” half was even worse].)

gryphblogzone submitted:

I had started collecting the series from issue #13 (the Knuckles debut). I stopped collecting somewhere after issue #40 because it looked like Manny Galan was going to be drawing every issue and I hated his style. Of course it got worse from there (read some online archives of Sonic Comics, saw some Shadow-era stuff and thought to myself, “Gee, I sure wasn’t missing much!”), but many years later I picked up one that Tracy Yardley did work on, and I felt like starting up my collection again.

KingKobun:

Nostalgia story

back when I was a kid I first picked up the Archie comics in a Wall-Mart. And this was back in that era when Spaz was using the Yuji Uekawa 2-D art style. It was literally at the end of the Tommy trilogy and funny enough I had no idea what was going on, but I was impressed and I kept on reading. Until after the Return to Angel Island arc. Since I wasn’t able to obtain any new comics. Oddly enough it wasn’t until 178 when I started reading again. And it wasn’t until 190 when I started buying them again, too. Since then I became a frequent reader and I still read the comics today. For some reason they’ve became addicting.

sexypinkbat submitted:

My Nostalgic Story

I had been following the comics since early 2003, but the arc I will always most vividly remember is the Enerjak arc in late 2007-early 2008. Dr. Finitevus instantly became my favorite character. My favorite and most anticipated issue was #182 because it explained Finny’s past and he looked sick on the cover (dat deranged smile). I could not wait each month for the next issue and after I read #184, I ordered older comics with Fin in them and looked through the comics I did have with him in it.

Not too many, but I'll make it worth it.

discipletroll asked:

the echidna/hogglesnog thing confused me as a kid. where'd you find that red echidna picture, anyhow?

I assume you mean the one I used for the Locke meme image, since that's around the time I got this message. It's from issue 16. I love the expression, it's just so... douche. I traced over it and recolored it so it wouldn't be in 'past-o-vision'.

chankaylore asked:

since it was just pointed out by a mate of mine, that horrormitri pic of penders seems to have the greatest of eyebrows. those caterpillars also share a distinctive likeness to sonic's in super special #8 where he got aged up, too. penders stealing from penders? it's more likely than you think.

Ah, Penders didn't write that story or illustrate it, so I wouldn't accuse him from stealing from that. I will agree however that the design is horrific. I'm very much considering writing an actual, serious critique on the design and how it can be improved, but at the same time I wonder if there'd be a point. It just makes me angry that he's shoveling this out to the devoted fans of his. I'd think that if they've stuck through so much for him that they'd deserve a bit better than dodge-burn-space-knight-man. Plus I don't like having my eyes assaulted, but that's another thing entirely.

Anonymous asked:

Have you heard about Archie comic's co-CEO shouting "PENIS! PENIS! PENIS! PENIS!" in a meeting? She's also claimed to have said, "My balls hurt." I thought this might be amomentofarchiesonic worthy.

I've heard of that! Also some shenanigans about bringing in an ex-football player and intimidating folks. I don't know the full story or what the hell is going on there, so I have no idea if those alligations are true or if this is just legal mudslinging. Either way, it's good for a laugh.

PENIS PENIS PENIS.

bartronfink says:

Thanks to this blog, I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the terribly drawn fan art floating around is actually just trying to stay true to the source.

I try not to mock fanart if I can help it, because they have an excuse (amateurs) when professionals at Archie should really, reeeaally know better than that. ... though I agree there's some terrible shit out there.

Anonymous asked:

When fans complain about the Post Genesis arc in the comics they always say the same thing "the comic's getting too dark" "Ian Flynn ruined my childhood" etc., but nobody ever mentions back when Ken Pender was writing, most of the comics were a lot darker back then. What do you think?

I think kids can handle a lot darker things than we give them credit for. For instance, see the Secret of NIMH, beloved childhood classic by many. Of course, I wouldn't say the writing of the comics is on par with NIMH, but I mean that the stories in the comics aren't as dark either. I grew up with the Sonic franchise, playing Sonic 1 when it first came out and now playing Generations. I've seen the shows, read both Archie and StC, etc, and personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with the 'darkness' level. And yes, agreed that things got pretty nitty gritty and dark during the Penders/Brollers/etc era (Penders wasn't the only writer).

Anonymous asked:

Do you know what happened to Drago? My buddy WhiteWolf wants to know.

Well, for one, he prefers to be called Draga now...

Yep.

jackelbeaver asked:

Did Archie never get the memo that Sonic was supposed to be "cool" and not "pathetic"?

They got the memo, but I don't think they understood the implications.

Anonymous asked:

Thank you for clearing up about the colour thing. =) I didn't think you were a hypocrite; I was just a little confused, is all. Luckily I've had a little more colour theory education, which is always good.

Glad I could help- try not to take anything I say as gospel though. I'm a flawed, flawed human being and while I joke I'm sure there are instances where I am actually hypocritical.

Anonymous asked:

Can I just say I actually had to look up the Lara-Su artwork to make sure it wasn't something you took from deviantart? It looks like a badly-edited Echidna fan character. Also, I read the forum posts and it seems like he's making an "original" story with this character. That /can't/ be right, can it?

That is correct. For details on that, you'd need to check out his own page. You can find lots of information on what it is he's planning to do there.

Anonymous asked:

Penders and his lackeys are too amusing for their own good.

I sway between finding humor in it to being revolted a lot. It's a bit like a train wreck where all the victims are clowns.

theoldaeroplane asked:

I know it's probably pretty late in the game to be asking this, but (unless I'm blind) the Penders posts don't have a tag--would you be able to go back and tag them, or maybe start? I'm loving them and I'd like to be able to link them en masse to people!

Thankfully I haven't been putting up stuff on him for very long so it was easy to go back and do some quick tag work. Should be in order for you now, look for the tags "Ken Penders" and "Ken Penders Art Apocalypse". I'm thinking that maybe when I have the time that I should go back and tag everything with pencilers, inkers, issue number, etc.

kelibi asked:

Sorry to bother you again but I just has this sudden thought,Do you know who else like Ken Penders.. - declares his fancharactes to be his own and deny that Sega kind of owns them? - whose comics is heavily inspired ''' and used material from other franchises ? who wants to sue people for using HIS ''material''? Who also owns a heavily marry sue character? and the only difference is, this man does not get paid for it and he is a way worse artist then Penders. ( which isn't that hard) Chris CHAN!

I've heard the comparison but I personally hesitate to make it myself, as I see a fair amount of differences between the two. For instance, I don't believe Mr. Penders soils himself.

Anonymous asked:

Do you dislike Sally??

Drama is exploding over your posts of Penders' promo art over at his forum! It also looks like Kenny's trying to cover his tracks over you calling his quality into question. Please, tell us your thoughts on this development!

Oh, that? I'm enjoying that. Detail response under Read More.

So, it looks like the high resolution image I linked to previously has been deleted. Why I can't say, but if it was me, I'd say embarrassment.

Thankfully, I still have the image saved on my computer for fact checking. Lets go on to what's being said:

BobR Says:

You know, Tylinos, taking a raster image designed to be viewed at 1200 dpi, and blowing it up to an equivalent of 30 dpi or less, is not a good method of showing quality. In addition, your software converted it from the original jpg to png, so there's the added conversion noise your software itself added. The only way this would work would be if the original image was a vector drawing, and you used a vector tool to resize it. BTW, how did YOU get the full-sized raster image, considering Ken only sent that to a few specific people and it wasn't for redistribution?

I did not blow up the image- that is the size the image was at, period. Secondly, png is well known for being a loss-less saving method for images. It's used by a lot of folks who do work with pixel and sprite work for that very reason- it doesn't change or alter pixels or add compression dirt. It's also why I used that file type for the portions of the image I saved- because I didn't want to misrepresent even a single pixel. Any mangling of the image is from it having been saved as a jpg to begin with by Ken, as jpg is a filetype that's known for loss and image dithering.

BobR Says:

*LMAO!* Oh, I know that pic. First, it was a quickie render (note it has the F1 in the name) as a test. Two, an alternate test image was created (change the F1 to F2 in the file name) for a second test. The first F1 image was deleted when the F2 image was made. Three, that particular image was still too big for proper posting on the site's message board, so the smaller version, Lara-Su_Promo.jpg, was created that was actually displayed. Note that both the F1 and F2 images were no bigger than 300KB. The original high-resolution jpg is 1.5 MB, with the actual Photoshop file weighing in at over 50 MB. Anyone who claims that is the original "high-resolution" image is an idiot who has no idea what they're talking about.

Guess what? I have this file saved on my computer, as do several other folks, which means they can back me up and verify this:

This file is 10.3 MB in size, which is obviously bigger than 300 KB AND of the size being claimed for the high rez. So what is this image and why is it so big?

But the original isn't up now, is it? So you can say whatever you want. But it doesn't change that the information is out there.

Julie-SuRvF1.jpg was a 10.3 MB (10,848,018 bytes) sized image, and the only way I had altered it was to crop portions of the original, full size image to demonstrate the image quality.

Oh, and by the way, if you shrink the Julie-SuRvF1.jpg 7200 x10800 pixel image down to 533 x 800, it is becomes a twin image of the promo that was released.

And I don't even care about if Ken Penders owns whatever copyrights. I care about crappy art being shilled out to the masses. This is crappy art.