Sonichu (comic)

"My Immortal has a sort of grandeur to it, since it has been (possibly) carefully constructed to be as terrible as possible. This is no parody. This is a man's life – his failures, his neuroses, his fantasies, his warped worldview, proudly displayed for the world on paper and pixels. Reading Sonichu and learning about its author is nothing less than a descent into someone's personal hell, made all the more terrible for the fact that the author intends for the experience to entertain people. That they would purchase it. There is no joy, no fun in CWCville – there is only layer upon layer of horror."

- A now-deleted "So Bad, It's Horrible" entry from the TV Tropes article, aptly describing the experience of reading Sonichu.

Sonichu is Chris's official life work, magnum opus, and largest contribution to society and culture. To most, however, it is a poorly-drawn and written comic book series about the adventures and travels that befall a fictionalized version of himself and his imaginary friends. Despite starting out as a comic about the titular character, it quickly turned into a wish-fulfillment outlet for Chris and his depraved fantasies, with Sonichu being a main character in name only, playing second fiddle to Chris's primary self-insert. Other characters include Rosechu and Chris's many other self-inserts.

The comic began on 24 November 2004 and updated intermittently throughout the next fifteen years, with its last significant update published on 27 June 2019. Chris wanted the series to last anywhere between 75 and 100 issues, although he was in no hurry to accomplish such a feat due to multiple extended hiatuses. Following Chris's incest charges, it seems unlikely that Chris will ever finish the series even if he completes his sentence.

Introduction


Chris first drew Sonichu in March 2000 after being told that he could not use a copyrighted character on a class project, so he instead came up with a TRUE and ORIGINAL character plagiarizing from two of his favorite video games: Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokémon. Later, Chris would put his web programming skills to task and come up with CWC's Sonichu Site!, which showcased his various illustrations of his pride and joy. Over time, Chris would draw new characters in his own little universe that were more blatant rip-offs of the source material that he was inspired by, such as Rosechu and Blake, and so Chris began to put together a couple of simple, single-page or two-page narratives for his growing cast of characters.

For a while, many of these comics were actually focused on the adventures of these characters, with no real references to the outside world, but over time, he would start to put himself into these comic strips. Dissatisfaction with his own life led Chris to use the comic as a coping mechanism to achieve a sense of wish fulfillment. Since he was coming up with his story (and nothing less), he could team up with his "original" creations and make things right in his idealized fantasy world.

The inadvertent shattering of his heart from Sarah Hammer, along with the expulsion from English class and the confrontation with Mary Lee Walsh, provided the impetus for Christian to kick-start the comic series in full force, turning real-life figures that he encountered into citizens and villains for him and his OCs to interact with. The series initially served as a complement to his Love Quest as a feeble attempt to link an accomplishment, or boost his own self-worth to unsuspecting prey; after all, Sonichu is "Zappin' to the Extreme!" He is Christian Weston Chandler's only son, and the first way past cooler Electric Hedgehog Pokémon!

The comics series was originally hosted on the various incarnations of Christian's homepage (as seen in the CWCipedia archive). In 2013 he began to upload the comics as albums on his Facebook page, and he affirmed in 2015, when he picked up the comic again, that this would be the place to find new pages. In September 2015 he finally began to sell printed and autographed issues on Etsy and Lulu.com. The comic was originally promoted from now-defunct Sonichu business cards, and he has since graduated to flyers. Each new addition to the series proudly sports a "To be continued..." disclaimer page. In fact, the comics are not updated with any regular frequency: in the twenty years since the character's creation, Chris has only completed fifteen issues, even though he has zero responsibilities and unlimited free time. Chris has claimed that in total, he plans to complete 50 to 100 issues in his lifetime, meaning that he's 15 to 30% of the way there.

Reader's Guide to Sonichu
"My art speaks for me."

- Chris

How-to and Overview


To start off, the comics don't appear to have a consistent numbering system in place, this can make it tricky to organize them. For example, the Sonichu series began with issue #0 instead of #1. Chris also decided to assign one of the books as "Issue #12-9" to avoid associating his Pony OC Nightstar with the number 13. The book itself was originally going to be "Issue #13", with Planet Dolan as the subject matter instead. Despite that, there was an actual "Issue #13", but only for a bunch of vaguely connected ideas brainwashed into Chris by the Idea Guys with no actual narrative in sight. The numbering of every subsequent comic book continues from there. Adding to the confusion are the "Specials", which were numbered separately from the main comics.

Adding to the confusing numbering system, Chris uses a bunch of television lingo when referring to his stories. Each issue up to Issue #12-9 contained multiple separately-numbered "episodes" and "sub-episodes". Due to the incoherent narrative structure of the stories along with their inconsistent numbering system, readers often lost track of which story happened in which issue. For example, Black Sonichu (now known as Blake) was introduced in Episode #4, which was the fifth story in the overall series and the first story in Sonichu #1, which was in turn the second comic. Further confounding matters were the Sub-Episodes about Chris's Love Quest, which appeared in issues #0-4, and again were numbered separately from the main stories.

Issues #0 and #1 featured Sonichu as the unchallenged star of the series, with Chris as a supporting character also appearing in the backup strips. By issue #2, the comic had abruptly transitioned to Chris encountering people from his real life in shitty anime battles. Token attempts to tell Sonichu stories and introduce Sonichu spin-off characters were made in #3, but all pretense was dropped in #4-#7 as the series becomes a vehicle for Chris, as the leader of a heroic band of recolors, to battle against a college dean, a group of ineffectual security guards, store managers, and later on, Internet trolls and other people who made fun of the comic. Originally it was mostly innocent and harmless, being the by-product of a simple man with a childish imagination, until it became an outlet to call out trolls, explore his depraved sexual desires and live out his violent revenge fantasies.

The comic series was presented as if it were a cartoon or anime (which might explain why the comics mimic visual effects that work in an audiovisual context but fail on paper), and was encapsulated into seasons with various episodes (or "series", for our European friends). Sonichu #10 was intended to wrap up the "first season" of Sonichu. This opened a can of worms as to the current vision of the comics: was Sonichu intended to be the hit action/adventure soap-opera TV show that is broadcast in CWCville, or was it the historical documentation of Chris's and Sonichu's life and times? Perhaps it was destined to be the Gospel from the Stay-at-Home Autistic Virgin Male, hallowed be His name. Either way, it remained unanswered whether Chris continues on with the series because he has a vain, misguided belief that some TRUE and HONEST soul would consider these as "storyboards" for proper licensing and production.

Art imitating life
Sensing some criticism for the self-centeredness of his work, Chris wrote himself out of the series toward the end of Sonichu #7, trapping the Chris character in the Time Void so that the storyline could focus on other characters. Despite this, Sonichu still served as a strong Mary Sue character, as seen in Sonichu fighting 4-cent garbage.com in Sonichu #8, as well as the clear Sue tendencies of Reginald Sneasel.

He returned from the Time Void at the end of Sonichu #9, giving all non-Chris characters approximately one issue to have the spotlight to themselves, during which they mostly talked about how much they loved Chris and hoped he would return safely. On the final page of the issue, Chris claimed that he would write himself out of the series permanently, giving his characters the opportunity to shine on their own. He went back on this promise almost the moment he made it — issue #10 is one of the most Chris-centric of the entire series.

Following the theft of his Medallions of Fail by Blanca, Chris immediately released a new comic adapting the theft into his canon and explaining that the TRUE source of his power lay in his Amnyfest Ring. Since this story was necessarily set after Chris escapes the Time Void, it was deemed a special preview of Sonichu #10, despite the fact that Chris had at that point not finished Sonichu #8 nor begun Sonichu #9.

Chris started Sonichu #11 in December 2009 and completed Sonichu #10 in February 2010. He produced a revised ending to issue #10 in October 2010. After a long inspirationless lull, he began churning out new pages of Sonichu #11 in September 2015.

Hiatuses
Chris has regularly lost motivation to draw comics throughout the run of the series. Without a single job held for the past 18 years, he has all the time in the world and only lacks a drive to create.

Along with the abandonment of the CWCipedia in 2010, Sonichu 11 was put on hiatus later that year. Chris claimed that the trolls drained his creativity and scared him away from drawing any more Sonichu.

"I have not ended Sonichu; I only lost inspiration to draw, thanks to the people online."

- Chris in 2010, on the hiatus of Sonichu 11.

After five years of Chris sporadically mentioning the possibility of continuing the comic, on 4 September 2015, he finally added new content to Sonichu. 11 new pages were added to Sonichu #11 that day. He said that new pages would be added "maybe every other week". 27 pages were uploaded in 2015, but these updates were not to last; no pages were uploaded in 2016. Chris claimed that ADD and dementia were responsible for his inactivity.

In June 2017, Chris began making regular updates to the comic again, completing Sonichu #11 that month and Sonichu #12 in October. Chris announced that Sonichu #13 would be an unofficial crossover with Planet Dolan but was scrapped after he had a falling out with DoopieDoOver. In its place, Chris announced Sonichu #12-9. 12-9 would be based around My Little Pony and feature a new self-insert of his, revolving almost entirely around ponies.

Partway through the development of #12-9, Chris's work on the comic broke down. Before #12-9 had been complete, Chris began working on Sonichu #14, which was to return to the normal Sonichu setting. He soon spilled paint on the first few unfinished pages and sold them on eBay for a quick buck, presumably scrapping his work once again. Chris apparently still intended to complete #14, as he announced Sonichu #15. The comic was intended as a remake/reboot of the early issues. This was derailed after Chris found the fancomic "Rosechu's Story", which he began to plagiarize instead of making an original story for #15.

Sonichu 15 was put on hold when communication with the Idea Guys began. These trolls made Chris illustrate their own narrative, which heavily focused on the politically incorrect, retcons, and generally horrible, unfunny things. Several pages were leaked in January 2018 by Kiwi Farms users in contact with the Idea Guys. After months without updates, Chris revealed in May 2018 that he had continued to work on #16, but was hesitant to release the nearly-finished comic now that he realized the Idea Guys had such an influence on it. Sonichu 16 was sent to Patreon supporters in fall of that year.

On 26 June 2019, Chris uploaded eight new pages for a new issue of Sonichu designed to be a sequel to Sonichu #16. Two days later, in a Patreon post, he would renumber issues #14, #15, and #16. Sonichu #14 would be moved to #16, Sonichu #16 would be renamed The Awakening of a CPU aka The Idea Guy Corruptions, (later renamed to issue #13 ) and the new issue would be numbered issue 14.

Sonichu #17 was later revealed to exist, but only its cover has been seen. It appears to be influenced by the Idea Guys.

Issues 14, 15, 16 and 17 are incomplete, and Chris has not updated any of them for around two years as of 2021.

On 11 September 2020, when asked what he felt were the best Sonichu issues, he would reply with (in no particular order) Sonichu #0, Sonichu #12-9, and Sonichu #15 (all of which are origin stories for a self insert character).

Currently
Like all people, Chris was at his most productive when he is motivated. The unfortunate truth is that much of Chris's motivation in earlier years came from trolls and being trolled. He has created hundreds of videos under the influence of trolls; the same could be said for the Sonichu comics. While Chris claims that the stress from trolls prevented him from writing comics, the opposite is likely true. Sonichu issues 8 through 10 were all created during the classic trolling era, and they happen to be some of the longest comics Chris has ever made (each one around 100 pages long, compared to the usual 50-or-so page length for Sonichu comics). After those, Sonichu 11 was finished eight years after it was started, with no content in it relating to trolls. Much of the content in issue 12-9 is inspired by Jessica Quinn and the Idea Guys (who ostensibly began their mind games with Chris in order to get him to work on his comic more frequently), all of whom are trolls. The Idea Guys were even able to force an entire issue out of Chris on their own, due in no small part to their emotional manipulation and extortion of him. The only outlier of a comic post-classic-trolling-era is Sonichu 12, which was finished in half a year and had nothing to do with trolls; Chris's motivation to create #12 stemmed from his burgeoning relationship with the LGBT community.

Simply put, Chris had no real reason to be writing and illustrating new Sonichu comics, which quite bluntly have always been an exercise in boosting his self-esteem rather than an exercise in creating a coherent narrative for his own characters. The relative innocence of the original Sonichu comics (before trolling) has long since been lost, and Chris's has generally been less productive on a creative level than since the ousting of the Idea Guys. A lack of long-term relationships has left Chris's motivation for art stagnant, while his delusions festered. While it was not impossible for Chris to complete any of his unfinished Sonichu comics, it was unlikely he would do so without making a change in his life. And anyone that though that they should be that "change" in his life would quickly learn that trolling Chris is a bad idea.

Following Chris's arrest and pending trial for his incest charges, it seems highly unlikely that the comic will continue under Chris. Even presuming that he gets out of jail, the fact that he's virtually unemployable and can no longer make money off of platforms like Patreon, which would be the only way he could ensure a stream of income for himself. The number of people willing to financially support Chris has also decreased considerably in light of what he's done, even if he could find a platform that could financially support him. It seems that the days of zapping to the extreme have come to a close for good, although with that in mind, there's nothing to stop the True and Loyal Fanbase from creating fan continuations or other fan works of their own.

Special editions
These special issues were one-offs intended for specific audiences, but subsequently obtained by trolls and publicly released.

Approved fanfictions
On 17 December 2019, Chris uploaded a complete set of the Sonichu series, including comics 0 through 13 of the main series, but also two fan comics that he has officially endorsed, to CWCville Shopping. Not being derived from his own geinus, they are a step below TRUE and HONEST Sonichu canon. Nevertheless he has sanctioned them as mostly true to his vision, and is exploiting these fruits of others' labors financially.

Marketing
In his August 2009 résumé, Chris stated that his dream was to "get me paper-published with a comic book company like Archie, Marvel, DC or Dark Horse comics". He finally made this happen – sort of – in September 2015, when he discovered and put a bound copy of Sonichu #0 for sale for ten bucks. A print version of Book #1 appeared the following month. Although his Lulu account disappeared from public view after about a week, he continued to offer the books (autographed upon request) on Etsy. He made routine updates on Facebook.

A recipient of the first issue provided a review:

As advertised on Etsy:

Printed and Autographed Sonichu #0 Comic Book
On 23 September, Chris edited the first paragraph of this description to read:

In the second week of October, however, his Lulu account went down, and he had to change this again:

Printed and Autographed Sonichu #1 Comic Book
The description text was more or less identical to that for Sonichu #0.

Printed and Autographed Sonichu #4 Comic Book, plus rant against online dating
Chris veered into an off-topic rant on online dating in the description.

Future plotlines
Over the years Chris has dropped a few hints about specific plotlines. At one point he stated, "METAL SONICHU is NOT a secondary character; HE will be making his return as a MAJOR VILLIAN after Book 11 Possessed by the soul of Count Graduon." He later elaborated, "Count Graduon will be the Major Villain beyond [Sonichu #10], possessing the Metal Sonichu that crashed on the moon back in Book 1. The issue may also move to RuleCWC: Chris has said that "Darkbind and Zelina will be fighting Clawdorf with great sword and bow/arrow battles."

There may also be a lack of Great Director intrusion: "After Book 10, I will be making LESS personal appearances in the pages, as having done so was a big mistake, because I had got carried away with the trials and tribulations in my life, real and online, that it completely messed me up."

Since then, Count Graduon and Metal Sonichu have only reappeared once in Sonichu #12, RuleCWC has not been seen since Sonichu #10, and Chris broke his promise to cut down on his appearances in the comic with Sonichu #13.