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 has based his life on Sonic's teachings from AOSTH. He has been Chris's 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 911, 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 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 psuedo-cyberpunk Saturday cartoon to cover both ends of the kids' cartoon spectrum, an army of merchandising, and, oh yeah, 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 current cartoon is dumb enough to suck, yet not egregious enough at sucking to be ironically entertaining -- although at the very least, the Archie comic series manages to somehow not suck. 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 issue 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, literally never even mentioned again.
Tails' (Lack of a) Role in the Comics
Miles "Tails" Prower is Sonic's sidekick, and has been in the franchise inSonic The Hedgehog 2 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 he has not made an appearance in Chris' comics.
Christian has refused to include Tails in his comics, despite ripping off Knuckles and Shadow and featuring an autobot named "Prower." If his response in Mailbag 38 any indication, it is possible Tails was omitted because of the rumors (made by 13 year olds on Gamefaqs and Failgrounds) that Sonic and Tails were gay. According to Christian, Tails would be "inappropriate" for the comic.
Despite this, Chris did create a Tails-like Pokémon named Evails, though he has so far only appeared on the Wall of Originals.
Archie Comics
In the US, the official comic adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog is published by Archie Comics. The comics themselves are based on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Sonic, and is generally known for being subject to horrible plots including shallow romances and convoluted explanations for changes in character appearances (one such issue attributes a time-altering beam of energy to his green eyes and shoe buckles), and for having a fan base that basically consists of 30-year-old furries living in their parents basements. It's unknown why it's still in existence to this day, but it's no surprise why Chris would be a fan of it.
Chris has hinted at and mentioned that he is familiar with the 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.[3][4]
Sega's Reponse
After being scarred by the shitty drawn comic by Christian Weston Chandler one fan finally decided to let Sega in on Sonichu. Its currently unknown on what Sega will do about Chris.
Gallery
Chris drew this in between ages 8 and 27.
He's a street smart cop with 20 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!
...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.
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.
- ↑ http://cogsdev.110mb.com/cwcipedia/index.php/Sonichu#Conception_and_Creation
- ↑ IRC (22 December 2008)
- ↑ Mumble Chat 6