Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog is a shitty recolor of beloved hero and comic book character Sonichu. Sega's blatant plagiarism has given renowned Sonichu creator Christian Weston Chandler many sleepless nights.
Chris claims that Sonic has been his life hero since June 1990 [sic][1], replacing The American Rabbit.[2]
History
Chris likely first learned about Sonic from watching the cartoon show Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, involving the basic plot of Sonic and Tails running around to defeat Robotnik, who was portrayed as a plump, egotistical man who would endeavor to conquer Mobius and destroy Sonic, failing spectacularly each time. At the end of every show, a small segment titled "Sonic Says" (humorously misspelled "Sonic Sez" by Tails) would begin. Each segment would involve Sonic teaching a small moral lesson for kids to learn, such as when to call 9-1-1, what to do if someone attempts to molest or kidnap you, and telling kids not to play with guns.
The show was promoted via a contest, with the grand prize being a $1,000 video game shopping spree. Chris was one of the two winners of the shopping spree and was featured in a news story about the contest, one of the biggest moments (if not the biggest moment) in his early life, spreading its influence far and wide, from his decisions to enter contests (cf. GameStop Be A Star Sweepstakes, Chop Chop Master Onion's Rap Showdown, Harvey Birdman Commercial, Pixelated PS3) to the eventual creation of Sonichu.
Apparently, at one point, Sonic was more widely recognized than Mickey Mouse. He was also intentionally designed to be easy to draw, had an incoherently random daily cartoon and a dead-serious pseudo-cyberpunk Saturday cartoon to cover both ends of the kids' cartoon spectrum, an army of merchandising, and, oh yeah, most of the games actually didn't suck back in the day. That and its enormous popularity (he likes all popular music, after all, why not all popular cartoons?) almost certainly drew in Chris.
The reason Chris remains so unerringly loyal to Sonic is unknown. As the years went by, the games became steadily worse until they fell into a randomly spawning black hole of supercrap and seem doomed to dwell within its depths forever. The cartoons both ended, were replaced by something almost as godawful as Sonichu, and the latest cartoon is dumb enough to suck, yet not egregious enough at sucking to be ironically entertaining. Many more pop culture trends have come and gone, some good, some heinously bad, but Chris has stuck by Sonic (and Pokémon) like an abused wife. Judging by the large amount of pages about Sonic-loving lolcows (autistic or not) on ED, there's obviously something about Sonic that we don't see. Given how rabid a fanboy Chris has become, perhaps brand loyalty has transitioned into a sort of fannish Stockholm syndrome.
Role in the comics
Sonic first appears in Sonichu #0 as Super Sonic battling the Perfect Chaos Monster in Station Square. Whilst battling him, a Pikachu comes to fight Perfect Chaos and is tackled by Sonic. The power of the Chaos Emeralds mutates said Pikachu into Sonichu, who then defeats Perfect Chaos.
In the following issue, he crashes into Sonichu again. After recognizing each other, they team up in order to rescue Rosechu from the clutches of Black Sonichu.
Other than being the catalyst for the creation of Sonichu and teaming up with him in the second issue, Sonic serves no other purpose. He disappears after issue 1, never mentioned again until Sonichu #11 where Robbie sickeningly refers to him as "Uncle Sonic."
Tails's (lack of a) role in the comics
Miles "Tails" Prower is Sonic's sidekick, and has been in the franchise since Sonic The Hedgehog 2 was released in 1992 for the Sega Master System. He has been featured in almost every form of Sonic-related media such as cartoons, anime and comic books. As such, many have been perplexed on why neither he nor an idiot ripoff (likely named "Prowerlo Sonichu") has made an appearance in Sonichu.
Christian has refused to include Tails in his comics, despite ripping off Knuckles and Shadow and featuring an Autobot named "Prower." It is likely Tails was omitted because of the rumors (made by 13-year-olds on Gamefags and Failgrounds) that Sonic and Tails were a gay couple. Christian said that "I just did not feel need for a Tails-like Character in the stories. I disagree with all the rumors against Tails; if you read the "Sonic the Hedgehog" Comic Book Series from Archie Comics, Tails gets a Girlfriend."[3] He later claims that he "did not feel it appropriate for Tails to be in my comic."[4]
Despite this, Chris did create a Tails-like Pokémon named Evails, though he only appeared on the Wall of Originals.
Comics
Like with the cartoons, Sonic had comic adaptations up the ass, but in an even more bloated sense, as each comic series was specific to the region of the world they were released in. Japan got a series of crazy manga involving Sonic being some sort of alter-ego of a picked on misunderstood nerd (Bizarre coincidence?), Europe got a clichéd comic series published by Fleetway (the same company that once published 2000 A.D.) that appealed to the gaming demographic of the 1990s, that was more or less the glorified SEGA advertisement for the continent, and the U.S. got a comic book series based on the Saturday morning cartoon Sonic SATam. Despite the video game franchise more or less crashing and burning, the comic series is still alive and running to this day, although it's unclear if that's due to popularity or just a small, dedicated fan basis of creepy furries and SEGA's endorsement to squeeze every penny they can from this dying franchise.
Chris has hinted at and mentioned that he is familiar with this comic series, and the layout of his comics tends to replicate the style of early Archie Sonic covers. Reldnahc's calling Chris "Prime-Chan" in the comic may be a reference to the character Scourge the Hedgehog, an evil version of Sonic from another dimension; Sonic is referred to as "Sonic Prime" when dealing with inter-dimensional storylines. Chris has also been known to trace images from an early special of the comic "Super Sonic vs. Hyper Knuckles" for the basis of some of his fight scenes. Whether he still reads the comics now or not is unknown, but it is probable that he does. He has stated that he would like Sonichu to be published by Archie Comics.[5][6] If Chris still reads it, it will probably be a source of plagiarism and mass-debating for years to come.
Starting in April 2010, Sony began releasing the Archie Sonic comics for download via the Playstation Network.[7] The likelihood that Chris has purchased them? Close to 100%.
Sega's response
After being scarred by the shitty drawn comic by Christian Weston Chandler one fan finally decided to let Sega in on Sonichu. It's currently unknown on what Sega will do about Chris.
Plagiarism
Sonic the Hedgehog is a point of inspiration for many asspies, and like many of his kind, Chris unashamedly steals from all of its various canons. Sonichu is obviously a recolored Sonic the Hedgehog, but even more obvious is Rosechu, who somehow manages to be less original than Chris's flagship character.
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This article is still yet to be completed due to stress. We get a lot of stressful torture in our lives that makes us crash into slumber. Given that inspiration is a big variable, and we may have been lacking of it, this article will be completed as soon as possible, at our own pace... HONEST!
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Gallery
Chris drew this in between ages 8 and 27.
He's a street smart cop with twenty years on the force! He's a rookie straight out of academy! Together, they fight crime!
Because we all like to see our favorite heroes crossover one day! Oh wait!
Sonic looking an awful lot like Christian.
...I thought the answer was "Aim for the sourdough region"?
0-0 Geekologie Reader does not approve of Chris's artwork.
Sonic the Blowfish.
Chris makes his own unlicensed Sonic merchandise.
Hello, lawsuit.
Chris was so excited, he produced dirty, crapped briefs.
Chris still has this doll and it has seen horrible things.
See also
Sauces/notes
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog wasn't released in North America or even Japan until June 1991 - see here. Ironically, this is also a question on Chris's Sonic the Hedgehog MyBuzz quiz which Chris assigns the right answer of June 1991. Of course, there can be Rad Mobile by Sega released in 1990, but that would have not made much sense either seeing as Sonic only made a cameo appearance as an air freshener and nothing more, despite the particular appearance in that game predating Sonic's own first game. That, and Rad Mobile was a very less known game from Sega, so the chance of Chrissy playing the game during 1990 (and failing miserably at it) would be highly unlikely.
- ↑ CWCipedia article on Sonichu
- ↑ Mailbag_21#Why no Tails?
- ↑ Mailbag_38#Chris is an expert matchmaker
- ↑ IRC (22 December 2008)
- ↑ Mumble Chat 6
- ↑ PlayStation Comics Store Update
External links
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