Fan-Made Third Season Of Sonic SATAM Possible?

[ZariusTwo]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

It’s still possible it’s featured as part of Sonic Prime in some way.

It'd be cool if the fan animators for this were allowed to do the segments for Prime, assuming Prime gets future seasons and isn't just a one-off.

I was talking to Leo over on FB about the trailer, and how I was initially a bit cold on it because I've seen so much of what they showed here already on streams, patreon, and twitter so there wasn't much new to me, and I was bummed they didn't include certain things, but overall I've warmed to it and actually getting Crush 40 to do the theme is an impressive coup.

[Wildcat]

Ya I noticed the theme song. It’s a nice touch.

I think I have the comics that continued it but it’s been a really long time since I’ve been through them.

[ZariusTwo]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

I think I have the comics that continued it but it’s been a really long time since I’ve been through them.

Do you mean the Archie line or the comic from the fan animators? If it's the latter, they're still making those. About seven complete issues in total so far.

[Wildcat]

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

Do you mean the Archie line or the comic from the fan animators? If it's the latter, they're still making those. About seven complete issues in total so far.

The Archie ones. I got the comic on a regular basis until about the early 2000s so I must have it but they’re put away right now.

I would have kept going but stores stopped selling them around here. I’d just get them from the grocery store and such. We never had a proper comic shop.

[ZariusTwo]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

The Archie ones. I got the comic on a regular basis until about the early 2000s so I must have it but they’re put away right now.

I would have kept going but stores stopped selling them around here. I’d just get them from the grocery store and such. We never had a proper comic shop.

Gotcha. I remember buying one of the Archie comics (Bunnie and Antoine's wedding), and I always saw back issues of it in my Forbidden Planet store, but never was compelled to collect a large percentage of the run.

I ended up getting a few of the very early issues in small digest-sized books on the cheap ten years ago.

[Leo656]

I've got the entire Archie run up through 2009 or so, with much of what came after until it was cancelled.

Very mixed bag. It suffered greatly from Sega and Archie never really being on the same page as to what the book should be, who the audience was, etc. For example, audience demand was for Sally and Sonic to be officially a couple, but on any given day either Archie or Sega (it flipped a few times) would mandate that "This is a comic for little boys and they don't want romance"... Despite the audience saying otherwise. So they played make up/break up in heavily contrived fashion until the "Genesis" reboot, after which they never touched on it again. In the reboot continuity, they'd never been a couple at all, and it was stated they never would be. Suffice to say, people weren't thrilled in general.

There were other issues, that was just one of the biggest and most enduring ones. But the book was always schizophrenic; the first 15 or so issues were identical in tone to the "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" cartoon, before abruptly switching gears into SatAM territory and staying there. But even with a generally more serious tone, they often either held back from getting "too heavy" or felt forced to cram in some ill-fitting humor from time to time in spots where it wasn't warranted.

I like more of it than not, but when it was bad it was REALLY bad. I'd argue the good outweighed the bad, but mileage varies a ton on that.

[superstaff]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I've got the entire Archie run up through 2009 or so, with much of what came after until it was cancelled.

Very mixed bag. It suffered greatly from Sega and Archie never really being on the same page as to what the book should be, who the audience was, etc. For example, audience demand was for Sally and Sonic to be officially a couple, but on any given day either Archie or Sega (it flipped a few times) would mandate that "This is a comic for little boys and they don't want romance"... Despite the audience saying otherwise. So they played make up/break up in heavily contrived fashion until the "Genesis" reboot, after which they never touched on it again. In the reboot continuity, they'd never been a couple at all, and it was stated they never would be. Suffice to say, people weren't thrilled in general.

There were other issues, that was just one of the biggest and most enduring ones. But the book was always schizophrenic; the first 15 or so issues were identical in tone to the "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" cartoon, before abruptly switching gears into SatAM territory and staying there. But even with a generally more serious tone, they often either held back from getting "too heavy" or felt forced to cram in some ill-fitting humor from time to time in spots where it wasn't warranted.

I like more of it than not, but when it was bad it was REALLY bad. I'd argue the good outweighed the bad, but mileage varies a ton on that.

For me, I thought 2/3 of it was pretty bad. It's interesting because I felt the Archie TMNT was basically a masterpiece (even with its cheesiness) while I think Archie Sonic was a clusterf*ck overall. The melodrama ended up being way too much, particularly the Sonic/Sally drama. It wasn't just that, the romance plots in general were like this, like Sonic with Mina, Fiona, etc. The Tails betrayal arc was awful too.

It's like you said, I don't think they knew what they wanted the series to be, or who it was for. The continuity ended up being a huge mess, thus the reboot. But then the reboot felt boring, and there wasn't much to really cling to anymore either. It got canned, and went out with a whimper.

[Wesley]

Trailer’s amazing. And I’m not even a SatAM fan.

[ZariusTwo]

Official Website with option to download the Crush 40 version of the theme song

http://www.sea3on.com/

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by superstaff

For me, I thought 2/3 of it was pretty bad. It's interesting because I felt the Archie TMNT was basically a masterpiece (even with its cheesiness) while I think Archie Sonic was a clusterf*ck overall. The melodrama ended up being way too much, particularly the Sonic/Sally drama. It wasn't just that, the romance plots in general were like this, like Sonic with Mina, Fiona, etc. The Tails betrayal arc was awful too.

It's like you said, I don't think they knew what they wanted the series to be, or who it was for. The continuity ended up being a huge mess, thus the reboot. But then the reboot felt boring, and there wasn't much to really cling to anymore either. It got canned, and went out with a whimper.

Most of the lousiest romance stuff should never have even been done because the only reason it happened at all was so they could keep forcing reasons to keep Sonic and Sally apart.

Some people know this, most don't: Sally was created by Sega to be Sonic's girlfriend, just like Lois Lane was created to be Clark Kent's. She was meant to be in the games, but Sega not knowing what to do with the Sonic brand for the entire Saturn era kept that from happening (outside of the Spinball cameo). Amy was not created for that role, she was only ever meant to be a fangirl (and initially much younger than Sonic, anyway; in my head, she makes more sense with Tails because at least they were closer in age). Mina, Fiona, and all those other "fill-in" love interests were nothing but obstacles Archie editorial created to avoid pulling the trigger on the "proper" Sonic/Sally relationship. So arguably, none of that should have even happened.

When you create a character for a specific purpose, and then go out of your way to avoid having them fulfill that purpose, it's always going to feel forced and contrived. Like the Chuck Austen run of Action Comics where he put tension on Lois and Clark's marriage out of nowhere, and had Lana suddenly being a homewrecker trying to put the moves on Clark. Just awful. Stuff like that is ALWAYS awful. Don't go against the grain, let the characters fulfill their intended purpose they were created for.

So I agree that the relationship melodrama in the book was overbearing much of the time. BUT, by rights it should have been a non-factor after issue #50. That Kiss should have been the end of it all as far as "Will They/Won't They". Past that, it's not like them being together needed to become the main point of the book; the Archie TMNT book had Raphael and Ninjara together but it never overtook the entire focus of things. You CAN have characters in relationships without it "ruining" everything, as many claim it would. It just takes a decent writer.

Unfortunately, they had Ken Penders much of the time. And while I don't think he was always "bad", as he was a fan of mystery novels and spy stuff he had a strong tendency to never resolve his plotlines, and rather constantly introducing new characters and concepts while still leaving mountains of things unresolved. You assumed "We'll get to it later", but eventually you noticed that "later" never came. This led to the continuity becoming so unwieldy, and when he left - taking all of his characters and concepts with him - that forced the tepid reboot.

Before the reboot, though, after Ken left the new writer managed to wrap up a TON of the lingering plot threads very quickly. That tickled me. It showed that things never needed to get so messy at all, and that it was all the fault of One Guy who just didn't know how to come up with an ending for any of his ideas.

Penders had some good ideas, some bad ideas, and a lot of in-between. But if he at least knew how to tie off one thread before starting six more, that alone would have done a world of good.

Even at the best of times, it got to the point where you realized as a reader, "They're not ever going to resolve This or That", and it became hard to stay invested.

I never meant to stop picking it up, though. I had to stop buying all comics for a bit in like 2009 or so, and so I missed a huge chunk. I always prided myself on having a complete run of the series before that, though, so I'm still very much hoping to fill in the remaining holes. I really did not like anything post-reboot but I'm so close to having the full run is all. One-shots, mini-series... Up until 2009 or so, I've got everything. By far one of the most complete runs in my entire collection.

[DarkFell]

I'm happy with the progress that the SatAM Season 3 crew have been making so far.

As for The Archie Comic run, I stopped not long after it crossed into Sonic Adventure territory. The bishojo art style was a turn off for me.

Ken Penders mucking with the storylines within the comic, often gave me headaches. The Knuckles side comic was wasted on a lot of dumb ideas and The Dark Legion often overstayed their welcome.

Things got interesting when The Freedom Fighters went to space to stop a space ship that harbored an old foe or two. After that, I pretty much went for the back issues.

[Wildcat]

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

Gotcha. I remember buying one of the Archie comics (Bunnie and Antoine's wedding), and I always saw back issues of it in my Forbidden Planet store, but never was compelled to collect a large percentage of the run.

I ended up getting a few of the very early issues in small digest-sized books on the cheap ten years ago.

You mean these? I have 3 digest books.

[Leo656]

That Sonic Adventure adaptation was TERRIBLE. But to be fair, a ton of that was Sega's fault.

They were so needlessly adamant about secrecy since the game wasn't out yet in America, they only gave Archie a Japanese copy of the game to work from. Not only were there some differences in the Japanese version from what would eventually be in the American version of the game, but more problematic was the little fact that nobody at Archie spoke Japanese. So they were forced to use a 1999-era translation guide to adapt an essentially unfinished version of the game.

It was ALWAYS going to be a huge clusterf*ck considering they had the unenviable task of explaining why Sonic's planet is suddenly full of human beings now when that was completely contrary to the comic's established canon, and furthermore, having to explain where the Freedom Fighters were and what they were up to during the events of the game, since obviously the game did not feature them at all. But even aside from All That Mess, the fact they barely even had a proper version of the game to work from to start with meant it was probably not going to turn out well. They were metaphorically writing blindfolded. "AND by the way, try and juggle this other stuff that's not in the game, too."

Thankfully, after that disaster they never even tried to adapt the games into the comic continuity again, until the reboot. They were just too dissimilar, and Sonic's video game canon is by far an even bigger mess than anything the comic's became. I understand wanting synergy, but if it doesn't work then It Doesn't Work.

Taking characters and elements from the games and tweaking them to fit into the existing canon, while clumsy at times, worked WAY better than literally trying to Square Peg/Round Hole it the way they did with Sonic Adventure. There's a reason many people consider that one of the worst arcs in the entire series. It was botched from the word Go.

As for the art, for me even though their styles were wildly different I always like Art Mawhinney and Pat Spaziante the best. Mawhinney was a storyboard artist on SatAM, so naturally his stuff was like the cartoons put to paper (even though his Sonic could be a bit "chubby" very early on). And Spaz just had a fantastic level of detail to his work, far more dynamic and less cartoony than anyone else who ever drew the book. Spaz is more my taste, but I like Art almost as much just for being so "on-model".

I know most people love the one whose name escapes me, who drew the book's entire latter-day run and then went on to do the IDW comic. But their style is too "simple" and cartoonish for my taste, and I HATE how everyone has feet bigger than their head. I wouldn't say their art is bad but it's not for me, or at least it's not my preference.

The book sure did have some bad artists, though. Ron Lim is probably everyone's all-time least favorite. I know he was a competent hand at Marvel before he got the Sonic gig, but he had no business ever being put on a "furry" book. His anthros are f*cking terrible, he simply cannot draw them well, and that's 99.999% of the cast of characters.

Going from Pat Spaziante to Ron Lim was like going from getting a blowjob from a porn star to sticking your dick in an electric pencil sharpener. I said what I meant and I meant what I said.

[DarkFell]

Art Mawhinney and Pat Spaziante were good artists, and so was Scott Shaw. Heck, I even liked Dave Manak's art style. Manny Galen's illustrated Death Egg Saga was pretty good, and Steven Butler wasn't doing too shabby when he started out into the series. Jim Valentino did some awesome penciling work for the Knuckles comics for a few issues.

Harvo did okay with a couple of issues. James Fry did his odd manga-style pencil work, and that eventually put me off from the comics. Ron Lim did an awesome B & W splash page for one issue ..and then that was it. Well, quality-wise anyway.

As for the untranslated version of SA1, I actually played a demo of it at a game store. It was an experience but I didn't feel much of the hype for it.

As for the confusion that resulted from Archie Comics trying to create the SatAM / Sonic Adventure hybrid world and storylines, you definitely hit that nail on the head.

[ZariusTwo]

Couple of updates from Sea3on's patreon

-Pitch bible is almost done
-They'll be in attendance at the Licensing Expo and hope to talk to SEGA
-A media outlet has conducted an interview with them
-It's hoped the rest of the pilot will be handed off to a proper studio when funded.

Ian Flynn, head writer of the franchise, also wished them luck on his BumbleKast but also cautioned that all it takes is one executive to have a bad day to kill it.

[Leo656]

I was disappointed they swapped Scott Shaw! out for Dave Manak early on, I'm sure there's a story there. I'm sure they brought Scott on since he was a "veteran" after doing all the Captain Carrot stuff for DC over the years, but he only did the initial mini-series before Manak took over the ongoing with the first issue. Manak did a decent job at almost-replicating Scott's style near-perfectly but it was a bit more rough around the edges.

Those other names take me back. As a kid though it was frustrating that the book seemingly had no consistency on the art front. They cycled through artists so frequently that it had a negative effect on the visual continuity. It got to a point as a reader where from one issue to the next you didn't know WHAT you were gonna get.

[Wildcat]

Wow so their intention is to have Sega revive it? That’s cool. Sonic Mania started as a fan project so it’s not far fetched imo.

Only thing that might interfere is if they already have plans for the SatAM universe/characters.

I know people think Sega doesn’t care at all and wants to forget them but I’ve never believed that.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

Couple of updates from Sea3on's patreon

-Pitch bible is almost done
-They'll be in attendance at the Licensing Expo and hope to talk to SEGA
-A media outlet has conducted an interview with them
-It's hoped the rest of the pilot will be handed off to a proper studio when funded.

Ian Flynn, head writer of the franchise, also wished them luck on his BumbleKast but also cautioned that all it takes is one executive to have a bad day to kill it.

Just don't mention Ken Penders in any way, shape or form.

[DarkFell]

Penders is too distracted from the laughter and jeering that he got from the fans by trying to start some sh*t on his Twitter account with the Sonic 2 production team ...y'know because they 'stole' his echidna tribe characters.

Ken really needs to deflate his ego.

[Leo656]

What do you expect? The guy won a lawsuit he had no goddamn business of winning and forced a company to abruptly sh*tcan their long-running series and start over. I'd have a chip on my shoulder, too, if I was that idiot.

I still can't get over that the people running Archie were so incompetent they couldn't even file paperwork properly, or establish a simple "work-for-hire" agreement's existence in court. That whole deal should have been an easy slam-dunk for Archie; when a comic book company hires you to work on a book, especially a book based on a licensed property, anything you create becomes property of the company, not the creator. EVERYONE knows that. Unless your contract specifically establishes and states creator ownership, the company retains all ownership rights to every character and concept you come up with while working for them.

And all Penders had to do was say, "Nuh uh!", and he won, because some idiot at Archie couldn't remember where they put a piece of paper, essentially. And so 25 years of canon gets thrown out and can't ever be referenced again. Because Ken Penders thinks anyone cares about his idea for a comic about "The Adventures of Not-Knuckles and His Not-Sonic Friends". Which they don't. Nobody f*cking cares, Ken.

What a f*cking joke. Every time I even think about this sh*t I start getting heartburn.