TheRedStranger

The sad thing is that most business now days is all about the bottom line: how to maximize profits, not the consumer. The two groups that take it in the shorts from this business practice is the workers and the consumer. THAT is why I cringe when Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting regulations get watered down. When companies merge and become corporate behemoths like we saw in history with the likes of J.P. Morgan are again being made today; too big to fail? Heck, in many parts of the economy the consumer has maybe one or two places to go for a product/service, thus they can charge anything they want for sub-standard products/services. Oh, and try to break in as an entrepreneur in some of these industries occupied by these behemoths; you'll get stomped out or swallowed up so fast it'll make your head spin.

Sega is a very big entertainment company, which Sonic makes a mere fraction of what they make even though he is more or less their mascot, and like many other companies out there they are shooting for the bottom line; like with Watto in The Phantom Menace: they only understand money; that's their language and religion anything else doesn't work too well with them.

 Don't forget that the internet's opening new doors, look at the Indie movement in gaming for example. Amnesia, Minecraft, Project Zomboid (gosh I love that game), are all heavy hitters amidst the big boys. Also note that the bigger they are, the harder they fall...remember the Great Depression? Monopolies get hanged with the ropes they sold somebody... Competition will come, and will cut you down. Look at Nintendo,n the 80's. It dominated the Gaming market with 99% of the shares after slaying Atari.  Conservative and straightlace, it sliced a complacent Atari's dope-fogged brain right off it's shoulders (the Atari today isn't the Atari of yesteryear, it's owned by some French company). Nintendo then got to powerful and joint-locked any competor by black-mailing companies like Walmart and Toy's-R-Us: "If you sell another console, we will drop all our hottest items off your shelves." It didn't work. Sega still came, saw, and conquered 65% of the market. There will always be someone that is poor, hungry, and driven to rip the throat out of some Big-Shot with his bare, unbrushed theeth. You get flabby in the bussiness world, if you get to big-for-your-britches, and you think you can't be beat, that's when you're doomed to fail. The Good Book's right "Pride Comes before destruction and a huaghty spirit before a fall." The only true security in the bussiness world is growth and flow. Like water if it sticks, it stagnates, no matter how big the pool the wealth's got to grow and flow. The future of bussiness isn't in Corporations but the aforementioned synergy between Company and Consumer, and you can see that by the sucess of creative juggernuats like Valve, which Steam-system has crippled big-wigs like Origin with fan-involvment community-building and the encouraging of the modding community with a plethora of tools (EA has been voted the consumer's worse Big-Bussiness in America twice in a row). A community of fans and professionals together to make something special will always be more profitable than the cold non-consensual, fiscal-falandering of Big-Business. There are whole groups of powerful people that love to bash on Big-Bussiness, and other companies take advantage of the bashing by appealing the bashers. For example Pepsi (who I hate) was cuaght using aborted embryo's in a Frakenstinian nightmare of reverse engineering, using Kindney's cells as taste-receptiors to measure the quality of their products . Campells, a very conservative company, vowed to never do such a thing and denouced Pepsi, their stocks raised and the gained the respect of conservative consumers. Other company's did the same with varying sucess. All it takes is consumers using their brains a bit and knowing what they are buying. Who you support will determine what progresses. If, God forbid, we all undyingly supported Sonelise, it would probably happen... 

The only issue we have is that we are using someone else's copyrighted work and are stuck in a Catch 22: if we do try to "supplant" Sega's capitalistic universe with our fan vision once we get big enough we will incur Sega's wrath and be squelched, but if we stay under the radar we won't get Sega's legal undies in a twist, however, then we won't get our vision out.

It'll be a fine balance that's needed, but the seeds are there and I can see them taking off with Sea3on (both in comic and animated), our fan fictions, and ones like E22Psi who make games that us 20 years ago dreamed could happen.

You see it right now with the music industry; they are holding on to a business model that is well over 60 years old and now with Amazon and iTunes the playing field is leveled, however that being said the bad news is that everyone can make a song and publish it, but that doesn't mean they 'should'.

I can see it going two ways initially with intellectual property controlled by big business: 1. they embrace the movement and actually benefit from fan works (like what has been happening with fan novels for eons), or 2. they can fight it and attack the fans but suffering huge losses in the process through lost sales and go the way of the recording industry. In the end no one can fight it when the market changes; just look at Microsoft, they are more or less holding on to the empire Bill Gates built in the 1980s and haven't really innovated and have been milking their windows and office cash cows. Meanwhile the market changed to where the consumer doesn't need their software anymore; sure, they are trying to enter the new markets, but their monopolistic business model of expecting the customer to come to you because he/she need your product doesn't work in today's economy.

I like how Duane Allman put it: "There ain't no revolution, it's evolution[...]" I too will keep doing what I can and eat a peach for peace.

It's already happening.

http://www.amazon.co...ocId=1001197421 (Imagine if we could do this with stuff like EoT?)

 Corpratavism is not capitalism... The centeral pillar in not corporate soverignty but consumer soverignty. They might make the stuff and price the stuff, but we have the finaly say so in the review of the stuff and purchasing of the stuff, if the stuff sucks and is not well sold, then all that work was a waste. If you want sucess nowadays, you'll need synergy. If you can get consumers further involved in production, that is awesome. People who want to see somthing happen will happily help you make it happen. It's all about merit now, how invested you are in the product. And if they can be more inviting than resisting, the better. As long as one fringe group takes over, it's going to be very productive for everybody.

"The truly signifigant art is what prepares the future." Robet Hughes.

 Note that Satam was written during the 90's after the recent death of Modernity and in the bitter hindsight of the bloody and smog-soaked tragedy that was the ambigous 20th century, a century where we almost nuked ourselves to death.  It mixed pre-modern and modern concepts into an intresting mix of Post-modern commentary. I love the concepts given in Satam and the issues the subtext tackles like over-dependence on industry and the death of culture due to a cold a cruel modernization (again I refrence you back to my previous comments in the Satam Reconstructed Post). I want to see these themes press on, despite Sega's out of touch and over-commerialized meandering and the gawdy pretense of others. A creative work lives through it's sucessions (the works it inspires) and I say Satam needs sucessions. If you guys grumble and mumble about the directions official works take Sonic's story, then I beg you to make your own works (both Fan-Fic and originals) and do your best to make something good out of it. Make something that will edify, not this egocentric fap-fodder garbage you see on Deviant Art and the like, really give people a Sonic or Sonic inspired story/painting/drawing/flash cartoon that they can get something out of, that will make them think and enflame their passion for possibility. I tell people who complain about anything in life: You are either a part of the solution or a part of the problem and if you are not working to find a soultion, then you know what side of the line your on.  

In lieu of being a kid show in a time where shows were very preachy but empty of true moral/spirtual content (Captain Planet/Page Master/ The Infamous Cartoon All Stars where Pee-Wee Herman actually talks about Crack Cocaine   ) I'd give Satam 11 for it's subtext, setting, and conception. It ushered in more of a Postmodern Subtext in kid's cartoons. I have already discussed this at length in the Satam Reconstructed page on the thematic depth of the show in compairson the trite trash that insulted my child-mind and intellgence in the 90's. Luckily there was one serious cartoon that said something edifying to kids. Themeatically it opened up somemany more crazy doors, missing magic and science, high-fantasy and time travel, and this . Despite it's flaws, I see it for what it was during it's time and don't read my contemporary prejudices into the show. I do grimace at Dulcy's one-trick-pony jokes and various other things...but I know the shows was going places, a lot more places than any show at the time had the guts for. And I don't blame the creators but the meddeling exectutives for half the kiddie elements of the show.

My Satam score: "Thank you for inspiring me...you deserve my grattitude, not an arbitrary number."

 Stranger:  "Yes! Here's the new Freedom Fighter! Nice to know ya."

 *Shakes hand at your innitiation banquet.*

*Turns to Sonic*

Stranger: "Hm, that name sounds familiar. I swear we already have an Ogiville around here."

Sonic:" I uh...wouldn't know dude."   *Scracthes his quills nervously*

Antoine( *leering over his glass*): "Just Deja Vu, I guess."

Sonic: "Yeah...yeah, Dijion Vu." 

*Antoine shakes his head as Sonic shuffles akwardly off to the buffet for a chili-dog*

 Stranger: "Well Mr. Maurice is acting weird today."    "You think he knows we really know?" 

Antoine: "Non, non, ses jambes sont rapides, mais son cerveau est lent. I say let 'em stew in it. After all, zhe mooch didn't go cooking anything for zhe potduck."

Stranger (correcting): "That's Potluck, Tony. And yeah, he did. *Points to Antoine's fork, placed in his mouth* Those mashed-potatoes. *Sips drink* I can totally vouch for him, you know...*Munches down a cocktail dog off Antoine's plate* Afterall, I had to lend him a stick of ...  margarine." 

*Antoine.   Spazes.   Out.  _- _ - _ -  *

Stranger: *Pats you on the back* Anywho, welcome to the team!    *Sips drink as Antoine begins wiping his tongue with a table cloth, while rambling in French.*

Stranger (off-screen) "Oh, try not to let these guys - um - quirks get to you...that, and the Roboticizor." *Walks off to pester Sonic.* 

Antoine (*rambling and spazing back and forth the banquet*): "It's inside me! C'est à l'intérieur de moi! Get it out! Get it out! Sally, sauve-moi de ce poison!"

Now it's your turn to try harder, Red.   

Oh! A Fan Comic? Perhaps you would be intrested in showing you work, or bouncing your ideas around with us: http://sonicsatam.co...pic=4873&page=6.

I think Sega doesnt wanna admit that its fan base is the older crowd...

And mostly American or American leaning when comes to continuity. SoJ and it's ethnocentric puppet-mastery over SoA (the people who made Sonic who he is) and now Archie is a choice that is killing the company and trying to kill Sonic, via incomptence and cultural/demographic ignorance of their own market

 

Probably because all the other Sonic continuities take place on Earth or some form thereof, so calling it Mobius makes the Archie continuity stick out like a sore thumb these days.

 

Archie's been the only active continuity other than the games for quite some time now, and it already is quite distinct from the game continuity, given that so many of the characters, many of them major, are not in the games. As long as characters like the Freedom Fighters are in the comic, it will never mesh with the game continuity. Getting rid of Mobius therefore doesn't accomplish much in that regard. It does, however, potentially alienate older fans who grew up with the term. It was a fun bit of nostalgia that wasn't doing any harm, and its loss in official media feels like one of the final death knells of the old Western canon.

 

No the death knell to Sega. It's people like Bytor, the classic fans, that made Sonic as popular as he is today and now SEGA is spitting on their childhood icons with pointless revisionism. Let's face it. Sonic's fanbase is mostly adult know, little kids are too busy playing COD and GTA because their parents don't know nor care any better. Sonic is for the teens, twentysomethings, and older. SEGA was trying to apeall to the crowd years ago anyways. It's our wallets that keep their hearts beating, they better respect that fact.

Olá e bem-vindo, companheiro combatente da liberdade!   

My mother has done missionary work in Terisinia, I've been slowly picking up the language eversince (knowing Spanish and Latin helps).  Anyways, welcome again. I hope you enjoy our humble little community to the full.   

Did someone mention a sexy Antoine? Would that look Menace's avatar?

 

Nah.

Manly.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For several years, anti-SatAM fans have complained about Sally being naked and requiring some type of attire to cover her up.

I doubt there have been too many complaints about this. Probably just a small vocal minority at most. I believe her sexualized appearance (which has been a problem now and then ever since artists like Pat Spaziante got ahold of her) is more of a concern than nudity per se.

So FINALLY, when this day happens, Sally gets fully clothed while Antonie is literally stripped naked and yet nobody has a problem with that?

Because Antoine doesn't look sexualized. And thank God for that, really.

 

Agreed.

 

That always bothers me.  Why is it okay for male characters to run around naked but the female characters have to be clothed?  

 

Honestly is it not just as bad when characters obviously feel embarrassed when caught undressed or underdressed? 

 

 

 

Ever since I read this from Ian Flynn:

From: http://ianpotto.devi...-Mill-333572974

Are the new clothes coming from parental complaints over Sally's nakedness?
For pity's sake no!  Yes, there are people out there who would object, but they are of the smallest minority (and need a new hobby).  People getting hot and bothered about "nude" cartoon animals (both for and against)  are the furthest thing from my mind.  These aren't fully realize anthropomorphic entities, they're colorful cartoons with passing likenesses to human anatomy.  For the love all things sensible, would somebody think it racy if I put a couple of parentheses next to each other?  ( ( - woo! Scandalous!

Is there a level of hypocrisy in how nudity is treated between male and female cartoon characters?  Sure.  Is it unique to SONIC?  Not by a long shot.  Folks can debate all they want about the morality or political repercussions, but on our end it's very simple: SONIC-females are fully clothed, ergo Sally now wears clothes.

 

 

... I cannot help but be reminded of this:

 

http://www.dailymail...vered-meat.html

 

 

Yes, women are bad but polygamy and religious holidays like Ashura are okay (don't look that up if you're squemish or believe in the sanctity human life). That makes as much sense as putting ice in your oven to cook popcicles. 

 

I'll go with Proverbs 5:18-20 instead for my morals pertaining to the subject. Just sayin'. 

 

 I don't mind Sally in the vest and boots only. She's a cartoon character... What are we going to do next give Bugs Bunnie parachute pants and Daffy a Burka? 

 

As stupid as it sounds, some people who hate Sally Acorn complain about how she was naked. I feel with this redesign, those haters will shut the hell up. It's like SEGA is saying "Hey Sally haters! Sally is fully clothed now! Happy?!" It's also because this "New Mobius" is just like the games, and all female game Sonic characters are fully clothed. Plus, her design is 20 years old now! It's not like giving Sally clothes hinders her character. She's still the same Sally. I don't get why people are still complaining.

 

 

It's not that I'm complaining about her new look; I'm actually looking forward to see Tracy Yardley's artistic take on it. I was just commenting of the double-standard of how genders are handled.

 

 I know. I am trying to get at the same thing. 

 Did someone mention a sexy Antoine? Would that look Menace's avatar?

 

 

 

 

For several years, anti-SatAM fans have complained about Sally being naked and requiring some type of attire to cover her up.

I doubt there have been too many complaints about this. Probably just a small vocal minority at most. I believe her sexualized appearance (which has been a problem now and then ever since artists like Pat Spaziante got ahold of her) is more of a concern than nudity per se.

So FINALLY, when this day happens, Sally gets fully clothed while Antonie is literally stripped naked and yet nobody has a problem with that?

Because Antoine doesn't look sexualized. And thank God for that, really.

 

Agreed.

 

That always bothers me.  Why is it okay for male characters to run around naked but the female characters have to be clothed?  

 

Honestly is it not just as bad when characters obviously feel embarrassed when caught undressed or underdressed? 

 

 

 

Ever since I read this from Ian Flynn:

From: http://ianpotto.devi...-Mill-333572974

Are the new clothes coming from parental complaints over Sally's nakedness?
For pity's sake no!  Yes, there are people out there who would object, but they are of the smallest minority (and need a new hobby).  People getting hot and bothered about "nude" cartoon animals (both for and against)  are the furthest thing from my mind.  These aren't fully realize anthropomorphic entities, they're colorful cartoons with passing likenesses to human anatomy.  For the love all things sensible, would somebody think it racy if I put a couple of parentheses next to each other?  ( ( - woo! Scandalous!

Is there a level of hypocrisy in how nudity is treated between male and female cartoon characters?  Sure.  Is it unique to SONIC?  Not by a long shot.  Folks can debate all they want about the morality or political repercussions, but on our end it's very simple: SONIC-females are fully clothed, ergo Sally now wears clothes.

 

 

... I cannot help but be reminded of this:

 

http://www.dailymail...vered-meat.html

 

Yes, women are bad but polygamy and religious holidays like Ashura are okay (don't look that up if you're squemish or believe in the sanctity human life). That makes as much sense as putting ice in your oven to cook popcicles. 

I'll go with Proverbs 5:18-20 instead for my morals pertaining to the subject. Just sayin'. 

 I don't mind Sally in the vest and boots only. She's a cartoon character... What are we going to do next give Bugs Bunnie parachute pants and Daffy a Burka? 

 

 

I don't see any depth in the comic characters AT ALL. The mandates don't cut it for me because even very recent arcs have shown Ian has a lot more flexibility with Sonic than he let's on, he is allowed to angst and have clear bouts of temper. The only mandate for him crying was that he couldn't outright bawl his eyes out, which is a genuine breach of character, it's not their fault he made a completely over the top arc where Sonic's family is erased from existance. Most of the times Ian takes Sonic out of his comfort zone he actually goes too far and converts him into an unlikable douchebag (even the games have shown ability to make Sonic flawed without making me want to punch his lights out). And don't get me started on the STC version.

 

Characters can feel emotions, but it means very little if they don't have a unique personality to vent it through. No one in the comics has quirks or distinctive defects, they're just soldiers or everymen going through the motions. Those that aren't get 'developed' until their personalities are redundant and they become the same (eg. Antoine and Monkey Khan). Most of the time the plot moves the characters rather than vise versa, while exposition and generic angst forms their 'development'. I can personally see SEGA's reasoning in limiting the characters treatment, since the comics go to such ridiculous lengths concerning shock value and taking their characters completely out of context. That's cheap development at best.

You forget that this is a Monthly comic.  Storylines can't go too deep otherwise you waste too much time in one area.  Storylines can't last forever because fans lose interest waiting month after month for stuff to happen.  In a cartoon that updates weekly, you have less gaps between chapters/episodes.  Stories last longer because they stay with the viewer longer.  

 

On top of that Characters have to grow.  Antoine started as a coward, but grew out of it as the story progressed because he became useless on the team.  Now Antoine still shows a bit of his cowardice at times but for the most part he's a lot braver.  Khan is the opposite.  Khan is a rather rambunctious and bravado character with no second thoughts (more like Sonic than Antoine) however as he grows he's become more deep character discovering that this method usually brings him trouble. 

 

And lastly, Sonic was more unlikable in SatAM than in Archie Comics.  Heck in SatAM Sonic rarely ever learns from his mistakes.  

 

 

I actually remember feeling more character depth from light hearted kids shows like Friendship Is Magic and Thomas and Friends than I do serious complex arcs we see in Archie.

Because Rotor, Bunnie, and Antoine, heck even Tails had so much panel time in the cartoon that they got real development.  

 

Again in it's a monthly comic, certain things that work well on a weekly cartoon show don't work the same in the comic. 

 

Also, don't get me started on how Underdeveloped and wastes of space over have the cast of Thomas and Friends are.  The only real characters are Thomas, Gordon, James, and Henry.  Everyone else is just fudging those four's personalities.  

 

You stole the words right out of my minty-scented face-hole. Indeed we got limits on what we can do with a monthly comic.

It's called making an "Expy". Or an export. Segasonic is notorious for this. 

And let's remember to give examples and sources to our arguments now guys... Write with a Missouri mentality, "show me yo' moves!" Show me. You can't make accusations like that witout evidence, I assume you have some?

 Go ahead, get started on STC Sonic. Just be prepared for Mike to sweep in the thread and to swoop down on you with all the fury of a thousand fans. 

I have it for Dreamcast

Don't you mean?

 

I do think that works but as said it would have been more effective if Sally had the same development as Sonic and shown coming to accept that sometimes she needed his support too. In this sense, both approaches learning to work together than against each other, rather than just one learning to co operate with the more reasonable one.

 

It might just be down to the fact that as you said, Sonic's moments were a lot more conspicuous than Sally's, being a full display of his key flaws and how detrimental they could be (complete with a standard episode Aesop), and so generally ended up with him looking like a bumbling fool. Sally's errors were more subtle, so she never really undignified herself like that or was made to face the same degree of humility concerning her shortcomings, and so lacked the same vulnerability as him. I think that's what some mean by the whole 'perfect' thing, even when she is flawed she never falls flat on her ass like Sonic does. As said before though, it's not as if any of the other Freedom Fighters went through this either (par Antoine, but he rarely ever learned from it).

 

In my opinion the writers at Archie during the Mobius 25 Years Later time were doing the fans and characters a disservice. For me the best "future version" was in issue #20 I believe; we saw Sonic and Sally essentially like they are in SatAM, but now have two little ones to care for, and I can guarantee with those two as parents they would be cared for.

I completely agree: their relationship in whole M25YL arc is psychologically flawed; as they say in the business: "A man marries a woman in hopes she will never change, and a woman marries a man in hopes that she can change him, but neither one will happen." That's kind of an over-simplistic way of looking at, but it does fit the majority of the time.

 

A big flaw in the Sonic comics that can't be helped is the lack of ultimate character progression. Ian has admitted that nowadays he can't write "Sonic crying" or "retreating" he has to be a AAA-Bad-butt  all the time, extra Swartzsenager hold the humanity please. Every time Sonic gets a genuine moment of character growth (which does sometimes happen), SEGA flips out and bites sharply at Ian's typing fingers. I hate that for him. Archie/Satam Sonic is an actual character people care for, not a card board cut out like his SEGA's counterpart. He actually has wants and fears, and is not some flower-sniffing mary-sue like in '06 and Sonic X. He isn't bound by the monster of the weak formula (*cough* Sonic X *cough*) and is a giant one-liner spewing Deus Ex Machina for the world.

 Sega's thinking is as fallacious in this regard as it was with constantly upgrading hardware in the 90's. Tell me, when a person  that you care for has been hurt or setback, do you abandon him and swear fealty fickly to another franchise? Sonic is no woobie Anakin Skywalker, we know he can kick it in overdrive well enough, but if he doesn't actually have something to gain and something loose personally, we shouldn't really care. For that matter I love the way Sonic is portrayed in STC, arrogant, brash, and sometimes an egocentric jerk that was blessed with great power that inflated his ego as well as his sense of righteoussness and heroism. After being humbled by his own lack of control (super sonic is a psycho in that) and losing people he cared for he began to grow up a bit and gradually learn of consequence. What a great lesson for kids! To me that is the best progression you could give the character through out the series.

 Now let's bring that back to Sally. One great thing about Sally is that she can have these moments, especally because she's very relatable to us thus open to more sympathy, which makes her likeable, which makes her profitable for Sega. However SEGA is a boiling, festering crap-caked crock-pot of bad decision makers (if they just heeded the wisdom of Sega of America, we would probably be soon playing Sonic Adventure Four on our Dreamcast 3's).  Sally is as human as us on the inside, she has no powers but has a strong will and prowess to contend for what she wants. She is an underdog that we want to root for.  Look when she breaks down in frustration in front of "Ken" (Khan) after Sonic saves her in Journey to The East. She is miffed at herself for becoming a hostage and we she doesn't want to be a damsel (*cough* SegaAmy *cough*). Again, great lesson for young women. We later get a jolt of satisfaction when she goes all choleric on Fiona and takes her frustrations out on her gut with a swift fist. She won't be walked on, and she won't let others walk upon people she cares for (this instance Tails). At that moment we empathize with her. She's got flaws like us and wants some stability in a flawed world, and she is willing to go through hell to get it. We care for her and learn from her. And we care for characters like STC Sonic who trip over their own huburis despite their heroism. Because we have all been there one way or another and sometimes these stories make lightbulb go on as see similar things play out in our lives.  A good character gives the reader something to learn and apply to their own lives from the stories given. If you can pull that, the entertaiment becomes edifying to the reader. SEGA, give your audiences something they can keep with them. Give that something they can relate to and learn from. Progress video games as an art form and stop breeding these sicophantic SonAmy fans with your memetic junk-food and give them Sally, and that doesn't even have to be a romance, a close friendship with the overtones of that possibilty would do perfectly.   

Let's play fun-fact. 

Rules are simple you tell a fun-fact from or about your life.

 I'll go first.

Sonic-fandom runs in my family.  My baby cusion was given the middle name Miles, in honor of the master of cute himself Miles "Tails" Prower.