57 replies to this topic

[Lord Exor]

The Man is right, it is natural for a story that runs this long to descend into decay. The post ROTJ portion of Star Wars has definitely decayed quite a bit after the final death of Palpatine.

[The Man]

Need we say more, but lo and behold someone is going to jump in here to add their insightful and witty remark. At least more than one good is coming out of it.

It wasn't the atmosphere alone. Ben said it best 'the voice actors and crew really breathed life into the series.' We've done our best to continue this tradition.

[Lord Exor]

How many of you instantly know what I'm talking about when I mention the genocide in Star Wars? Took you a moment, didn't it?

Genocide is very frequent in the Star Wars mythos, especially since characters like Palpatine have a murder count that ranges above the trillions. It should be no surprise to anyone.

[Xian Shade]

I'm not so sure it's all Ian. I seem to recall his early days before Archie, when he had that 'Other-M' comic series going, violence was omnipresent in each issue that was posted. It's quite possible that Archie, having usually been a kid-friendly franchise, wishes to return to those roots.

While I admit that the dark undertones set in place by SatAM have been lost, that's also because nearly all of their problems were resolved. Last I saw (and I haven't read in years) all Mobians were deroboticized (with the exception of Bunnie because of her failing parts), Robotnik was gone (replaced by the first diabolical Robo-Robotnik, then idiotic Eggman), The king, queen, and the never-before-mentioned prince all returned... really, what else from the SatAM-verse was left? Even Sonic got his family back. Essentially, they closed off the 'dark' storyline.

Now with it out of the way, the creators have been attempting to find a decent focus. They need more readership, so who do they want to read the comics? Kids! Therefore, they focus their attention to lighthearted stories that are child-friendly (for the most part anyway) and usually don't exceed one or two issues.

Is this good? In the marketing sense, sure. The younger generation of kids don't seem capable of following a solid storyline due to ADD/ADHD, and like to read stories that begin and end in one issue. However, this alienates their older readers, and they just hope the consistent readership of those people doesn't change just because they did.

Yes, they might attract more attention. But they'll lose a lot of us because of the change. They're willing to take that risk though, since readership was declining anyway. That's the mentality of a comic industry. Sometimes story suffers because of sales.

[Ratty Randnums]

Haven't looked at this thread and should be doing homework then falling asleep but felt I should jump in.

Yeah, a lot of the darkness issues were resolved. But much of that happened after Ian came on-board -in an extremely sloppy and rushed fashion I might add. What Ken Penders could have made a 6 issue long build up in which we got to see all of the characters grow and develop, Ian gives two brain-dead entries and it's over.

-I tried to like this guy and his writing, I really did.
Most of you've probably already seen me rant about how the comic was a huge part of my childhood, how I swore in first grade around '93 or '94 I'd collect all the issues. And how I did, scraping up every bit of loose change I could get (didn't have an allowance) and spending all of my birthday/holiday money on back issues for the better part of a decade. yadda yadda. But by #193 I had to stop buying/reading in disgust. I just can't emphasize how bad it is to be able to do that.
If you'd asked me 6 years ago if the comic's writing could ever get so bad I wouldn't buy it I'd have almost certainly told you no.
I know John had a similar experience.

The focus has been shifted from the characters it was always about (the Freedom Fighters) to obscure sega characters Ian likes.
Meanwhile the characterization of the FFs (when they happen to have speaking parts) and everyone else is all over the place for the convenience of individual stories, which is just lazy. No matter how short the attention spans of kids or the demands of Archie & or Sega.


PS- SatAM *is* quite dark for a childrens cartoon. And when the comic was at it's best (Endgame for example) it could be almost pitch.

[Cheezmatt]

They need more readership, so who do they want to read the comics? Kids! Therefore, they focus their attention to lighthearted stories that are child-friendly (for the most part anyway) and usually don't exceed one or two issues.

That's the thing though, today's stories have a totally different definition of 'lighthearted' than, say, the Mike Gallagher years. More people have died in Ian's run than any writer previous. What 'lighthearted' means now is that Ian's own brand of morbid, violent or hopelessly complicated plot threads are downplayed, whitewashed or glossed over so the average reader will rarely stop to think "Hey, millions of echidnas just died" or "Did Nack just murder those dudes?" or "Charmy's suffered horrific brain damage". It's buried under a sea of bright colors, wisecracks and goofy facial expressions, which is apparently Ian's idea of striking a balance.

[John Roberts]

That's not striking a balance - that's failing miserably as a writer. You can't write that kind of dark only to downplay it into an episode of Sesame Street. It's down-right unforgivable as a writer and should be bloody illegal. I have not read anything of Ian's, but by the sounds of it he appears to be one of those writers that bumbles along with his thumb up his arse making a mockery of the greatest thing in this world: Story telling.

[Velvet D'Coolette]

That's not striking a balance - that's failing miserably as a writer. You can't write that kind of dark only to downplay it into an episode of Sesame Street. It's down-right unforgivable as a writer and should be bloody illegal. I have not read anything of Ian's, but by the sounds of it he appears to be one of those writers that bumbles along with his thumb up his arse making a mockery of the greatest thing in this world: Story telling.

I've not seen Ian's representation of the comic, but by Cheezmatt's description, it sounds awful.

Maybe this is something that's likely to happen with comics: they're very visual, so maybe far more emphasis is put on the way it looks than on the storytelling itself. And by storytelling I mean taking as much notice of the tiny details as the large. Life isn't all big details, even when something dramatic is going on. Small things still happen, they still make people laugh, cry, feel angry or confused or hopefull or whatever. Just assuming you can add in unrealistic 'small' things like goofy facial expressions doesn't cut it. Life's not like that - we don't live in a world of massive drama and gurning faces.

Except in the chief household.

[Lord Exor]

That's the thing though, today's stories have a totally different definition of 'lighthearted' than, say, the Mike Gallagher years. More people have died in Ian's run than any writer previous. What 'lighthearted' means now is that Ian's own brand of morbid, violent or hopelessly complicated plot threads are downplayed, whitewashed or glossed over so the average reader will rarely stop to think "Hey, millions of echidnas just died" or "Did Nack just murder those dudes?" or "Charmy's suffered horrific brain damage". It's buried under a sea of bright colors, wisecracks and goofy facial expressions, which is apparently Ian's idea of striking a balance.

Ian's mass murder is merely his version of streamlining the continuity to better mesh with the game canon; after he's done with that, don't anticipate any more of it.

Intrinsically, there is nothing wrong with mass murder in the series so long as it is treated with weight.

[furrykef]

Mass murder in SatAM, and by extension Archie Sonic, just seems weird to me, whether it's given weight or not.

[Cheezmatt]

I'd say it also depends on context and setting. And general execution of course. Ian's Other-M series had drama and misery and gravitas accompanying all the bloodshed, but it still sucked.

[furrykef]

And general execution of course.

Heh heh, "execution".

[Lord Exor]

I'd say it also depends on context and setting. And general execution of course. Ian's Other-M series had drama and misery and gravitas accompanying all the bloodshed, but it still sucked.

Given that Ian is a hack writer, it sucked because the plot and characters were abysmal.

[SatAMHOG]

SatAM was still accessible despite it's dark premise and complex characters. It had the funny characters, jokes, and so on while being serious at the same time. That's what us all love the show and keep it in our hearts. I believe everyone remembers the Snively torture session with Antoine...

[BlazeyBakeneko]

I'm pretty surprised that someone who wrote something like Other-M, which was extremely dark, from what I've heard, was hired to work on the Archie comic.

Perhaps the inconsistency in tone results from Ian struggling to fit his own preference for dark storytelling into the supposedly happy story that his superiors want. Square peg, round hole.

[Cheezmatt]

No, Ian can write cheery shlock as freely as he can darkfic. He wrote most of the Sonic X stories for one (and let's not forget the Sonic/Teletubbies crossover fic from days of old). He's also largely in control of the direction and tone of the comic. I'm afraid any issue of inconsistency is entirely his fault.

[John Roberts]

As long as he leaves Batman alone all shall be right with the world.

[Xian Shade]

As long as he leaves Batman alone all shall be right with the world.

You fool! You've jinxed it! You've doomed us all now!