Well, the Archie Sonic titles have been suspended for the past 5-6 months (with many issues already completed and just awaiting publication). Archie got into some hot water with Sega and were using the time during the suspension of publication to try and negotiate a deal with them.

Sega's announcement yesterday was just a forgone conclusion; most readers pretty much accepted that Archie wouldn't be releasing the remaining issues and had lost the license.

Sucks for the readership, to be sure, though I can't blame Sega for pulling the license so abruptly and not giving Archie the opportunity to tie its narrative up. Archie's incompetence got Sega dragged into multiple lawsuits in the past few years; Sega just said "enough is enough".

How is that? What happened?

Short version:

-Archie gets rid of Sonic writer of many years Ken Penders
-Sega releases RPG game for DS where they dwell into story more than their usual games
-Ken Penders says Sega stole his ideas
-Sega says "lol no"
-Ken Penders sues for his "original characters" which are just amateur palette swaps of Sonic/Knuckles
-Archie shows photocopies of the contract during court; They laugh and Penders wins
-Sega is pissed at Archie for being so stupid and puts restrictions on what they can do
-Ken Penders now legally owns palette swaps of Knuckles and friends, decides to make a comic with said characters


It really sucks for fans and Penders was an a-hole but the failure of Archie at everything here is just hilarious. Sega did not renew the license and the "longest ongoing series" has now ended. Read the long version of the story tho, it really is something else.

And don't forget the most recent twist with Scott Fulop trying to get in on some of that creator's compensation action, though perhaps without the weird fan-fiction:
http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Scott_Fulop

Ken Penders on Twitter argues the TV success of Riverdale diminished Archie's enthusiasm to pay contract money for licensed character books.

Oh yeah, I know. I meant more before the hiatus/cancellation. Wasn't it a case of letting the license lapse? There are usually negotiations during stuff like this, right? Though I'm assuming it was a license lapse, since whispers went about of negotiations where Sega wanted more money for the license and Archie wasn't having that. We know so little, Sega could have just yanked it for all I know.

The only thing they were doing I was that interested in was Mega Drive, but I was waiting for the trilogy to be completed to get it in trade. That's not even going to happen now. So it's a big shoulder shrug for me.

It's worse than sdp is making it sound. Penders, frankly, had no business winning that suit, but Archie is apparently a freaking zoo with a legal department staffed by chimps, because they couldn't handle basic contracts, something that's been causing them headaches. Penders isn't even the only one to try it, either, as Scott Fulop filed suit as well, either last year or in 2015. As far as I know, that hasn't gone anywhere thus far, ending up in legal limbo, but it's another lawsuit Sega might be dragged into.

Archie's been in a lot of legal hot water over the past five years, not just from Penders or related to Sonic; there were some scandals relating to CEO's and other things that didn't do them any favors, PR-wise. As Dr. Spengler noted, it's not that shocking that Sega decided they'd had enough, because the company is a magnet for trouble right now.

It's just the characters he made for the Knuckles series, I believe. Which is why when he talked it up, he mentioned Not-Knuckles as being dead or something. Penders, I assume, is not a complete moron; I doubt he's going to put himself in a situation where he's hedging so close to an established character he could be sued. Especially when he's already poked the bees nest.

I'd take anything he says with a grain of salt.

Question for Dan. Had "Year of the Turtle" been allowed to progress into bigger and better things (or at least, an ongoing thing)... would you have been inclined to eventually revisit characters or story threads from the previous TMNT Adventures' comics?

Actually gets a bit hairier than that. After Penders saw success with his lawsuit, another Archie writer, Scott Fulop sued Archie and Sega this year. That was the last straw that made Sega pull everything. Can't say I blame them.

Edit: Adam beat me to it!

It would have ended gracefully if 'Forever War' ever got published. I would have been fine at that point.*sighs*

It ended fine either way. Whatever The Forever War wound up being, I don't think it would have wound up nearly as good as some people think in their minds.

No one (including Steve Murphy himself, he says) even knows what "The Forever War" is or was about. There is literally no way to speculate whether it would be good or bad.

Haha, I love the fact that Murphy is so honest about the storyline being so opened ended. Makes me think they just chose cover previews based upon layouts that looked cool but figured out the details of the story as they went along. And, if I remember, Murphy never approached Forever War as if it was going to be a finale, right?

All I wanted from The Forever War was some final Shredder story or closure. We got that in Year of the Turtle, so that's why I don't really care anymore that it didn't happen. Of course if they greenlit it right now I'll buy a copy the day it comes out, but that's besides the point.

One of my first threads in the drome was about getting into Archie comics and one of the responses was "There is no better time than now to get into Archie since the Forever War is finally going to be published" :lol: Found the thread.

Goddamn, 2005. I can't believe that was 12 years ago now. I was only like what...20 years old back then?

Where does the time go, sdp?

I'm honestly shocked an American Sonic comic lasted that long, even before I knew it caused two lawsuits.

That's sad. From the Twitter response I get the feeling a reboot is coming which will annoy existing fans no doubt. I get the impression Archie have time to complete any storylines.

In comparison our Fleetway Sonic The Comic was incredibly rushed when it was cancelled.

Nah, dude. Archie hasn't produced any Sonic comics since January. Everything just stopped abruptly, as I assume that's when the license lapsed/was yanked. They can't make anything, otherwise the completed issues they have sitting around would already have been released.

It's not that it was "open ended," it's that he (claims) knew what it was when it was time to write it the first time around... and now has completely forgotten what it was. When he was going to write it the second time, at Mirage, he was starting over from scratch and claimed to have had an outline he'd freshly written for it. He then claims he lost that outline, and subsequently forgot everything that was in that, too.

I didn't know Jason Bourne wrote TMNT comics...

I am not in any way trying to throw shade here, but is it possible he's just saying that to prevent you from doing it yourself?