>>43545
>Serious Question: What is the appeal of Sonic comics?
The games have a lot of story that is only implied or lightly touched upon, and the comics could theoretically do more with it. However, most of the comics just end up doing their own thing. Still, they do get to explore the characters more, and the characters are a big part of the appeal of the series. Sonic was designed to be the coolest character ever, and the comics show him doing more stuff.
The Archie comic series functioned as a continuation of the Saturday morning cartoon series from the early '90s, so if you like that series, the comics are where you can get more of it. Well, at first it's like an alternate version of that series, with the tone of the "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" series from the same time, but by issue 28 or so, it's deliberately trying to be a continuation of the cartoon. It gets retarded, very retarded, but it has its appeal. You get wrapped up in the story and characters. And eventually, once the current writer, Ian Flynn, gets hired, it becomes interesting to see him try to steer the ship back toward being something like the games, while still respecting all the crazy old comics lore that had built up.
The current IDW comics are supposed to be in continuity with the games. That's part of the appeal, to see adventures that happen between the games. At first, I would say they did a very good job taking ideas from the games and mixing them up and putting them together to show fans some cool stuff and make some interesting stories. I have been getting bored of it lately, but there are still interesting stories here and there. In two months, they're finally going to introduce Sage, from Sonic Frontiers, so I'm interested in seeing what they'll do with concepts from that game. It certainly added a lot of lore that could make for more interesting original stories.
There is also the UK's Sonic the Comic. It has a bunch of really weird lore and interpretations of characters, yet in many ways also stays closer to the games than the Archie comics did. It starts off with really terrible art, but after a little while the art actually becomes excellent. Their interpretation of Sonic's personality is really entertaining, and their stories are just generally really cool.
So I guess that gets to the point that actually the appeal of all of these is that they're comics, and some of them are actually good comics. I was already a major autist for the games before I got into the comics, but now I've read all of them, and just by sheer volume, I've come to see Sonic as as much of a comic series as it is a video game series. Of course that's silly, but there are so many damn comics that you just get immersed in them. There is a lot to get lost in, over 1000 issues.
Also, even though Archie and Sonic the Comic both have their own continuities that are quite different from the games, when you read them all, and play all the games, you realize they aren't so different. Even though they don't mesh together perfectly, they still expand the world. The Brotherhood of Metallix from Sonic the Comic is awesome and a cool concept for the franchise, even if it doesn't fit in the game universe. Also it's a really cool story regardless.
There are also manga, and some of them are neat. The recent "Sonic and the Blade of Courage," as well as the "Shadow: The Jet Black Hedgehog" manga by the same author both nail the tone of the series and tell neat little adventures. The manga from the early 2000s is a funny little gag manga that actually does provide some laughs. The manga from the early '90s is actually where Amy and Charmy originated, which is neat. It's actually a series of like eight different manga that are based on the same outline and characters, which is very different from the game, but some of the stories are still neat. I've been trying to read them recently, but yeah, part of it is I'm interested in seeing the early development of the series, since this manga was actually influential to it. Their interpretation of Sonic, while having a different story, seems to get what the character represents better than most other adaptations.
Also, there are tons of Sonic cartoons, and the appeal there is the same, seeing more stories with the characters. Some of them are also just pretty good shows. Adventures and Boom are pretty funny cartoons sometimes. SatAM looks good and the second half of Season 2 has a pretty cool arc in it. The OVA has really nice animation and fun characters to watch. Underground has Bartleby. Sonic X Season 3 is a fun shonen anime, even if it is just a ripoff of Dragon Ball GT (but Sonic rips off Dragon Ball Z anyway, so this makes perfect sense). Prime gets kind of interesting in the last episode or two, I guess. Part of the appeal of Prime was that they acted like it was in the main continuity, but also it was fucking boring through most of it, so whatever. Sonic X Seasons 1 and 2 were also boring. Just thought I'd mention them.
>tl;dr: The appeal of the comics and cartoons is seeing more stories with the characters. Also sometimes they're just actually good stories regardless.
>Maybe if they were all episodic one-offs I'd be tempted to pick one up now and then, but a drawn-out story just doesn't appeal to me.
Sounds like just a stylistic preference. And that doesn't have to do with Sonic comics. Almost all comics have been long arcs for decades now. I agree it can often be a problem though. It's obviously not as accessible as it should be. But when Ian Flynn finds some clever way to bring together multiple arcs that had been building up for about 200 issues released over a decade, and you actually read them all and understand it, it's awesome.
>>43554
The reboot wasn't even really a reboot though. The story did continue from where it was. Flynn was already getting rid of the echidnas, and it just so happened that the issue where the reboot happened was the one where he was getting rid of the last few anyway. And that's the way it should have been. He was trying to make the comics somewhat resemble the games, and by the time the "reboot" happened, he had gotten pretty close, so the changes weren't that big a deal. I guess Geoffrey St. John suddenly disappearing is notable, but he's the worst character ever, and I don't think anyone really missed him. His story, which was really Naugus's story, did continue, as Naugus kept appearing.
If you read the leaks of the Archie issues that weren't released, when the comic got cancelled (some of the issues are even finished, but others are only partially complete), it seems like the next arc was going to have the Freedom Fighters split up and go their own ways. There's a whole complete issue about just Antoine (and Sonic) doing his own thing, talking about how he is needed elsewhere. It almost comes off as a farewell issue. So it's like Flynn might have finally been getting rid of the Freedom Fighters, which again would make the comics more accessible to people who like the games and want to actually understand the tie-in comic. But more importantly, it provides a bridge between Archie and IDW. You can just say that arc where the Freedom Fighters break up takes place right before Forces, which leads into IDW.
Of course the problem with this is that they just replaced many of the Freedom Fighters in IDW. "The Restoration" is blatantly a replacement for The Freedom Fighters group. Jewel is Nicole, Lanolin is Sally. Even Belle seems to be just a much lamer version of Bunnie. There's some big ape mechanic guy who seems like Rotor. I just don't see a direct analogue to Antoine, even though he's the best one (frankly, he and Bunnie are the only ones that I like at all). But thankfully these replacement characters seem to be gone after the last arc, and they at least haven't shown up the last few issues. Not that these last few issues have been that great.
But I'm still getting my hopes up that the series will get back to its old appeal of actually using concepts from the games well and doing actually interesting action/adventure stories once they introduce Sage. They seem to be acting like that might be a bit of a shakeup, like maybe a different era will be starting. And I complain, but the recent arcs about Fang were pretty cool.
The thing about long-form storytelling in comics these days is that it's just the norm. If you can find a four or six issue arc that doesn't require autistic knowledge of reams of continuity, then that counts as a modern "standalone" story. The Fang miniseries is the closest you'll get recently. Or the special issues like the Chaotix 30th Anniversary Special, which was only a couple months ago. IDW's Special issues are generally standalone.
Also, you say the game stories are usually oneshots, but I think a big part of their appeal is that they did build on each other. Even the Genesis games did, hence "The Death Egg Saga," and then Chaotix and Sonic Adventure both stem directly from that. Sonic Adventure 2 is somewhat standalone, but still references older stuff and really relies on it, to the degree that it doesn't explain it, it just expects you to know the Emerald Shrine and stuff like that. Then Heroes and Shadow directly follow Adventure 2, and '06 sort of works as an epilogue. THEN Sonic stories became very standalone.
>>43553
Sonic 2 hits a good balance of arcade-y action from Sonic 1 (which it improves upon very significantly) and more exploratory depth found in CD and 3&K. And of course it has excellent graphics and sound, and like someone mentioned, the manual has great art and an interesting story.