Re: Sonic 33, was: AIEEE, etc.

From: Ron Bauerle <BAUERLE_at_engr.erie.ge.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 10:34:26 -0500 (EST)

>From: Benny7dude_at_aol.com

>Regarding your question concerning Sonic's circulation ("is over a two-thirds
>return rate normal and/or acceptable, or is this bad news for Sonic"?):

>The answer is: don't worry! Sonic is in fine shape.

(breathes sigh of relief :^))

>Just the other day, we were looking at total numbers for Sonic (including
>newsstand outlets, comic shops, subscriptions, Toys-R-Us packs, bookstores,
>and foreign sales--English language copies make it into such places as
>Australia, India and Malaysia) and the average sale is a number that most
>comic publishers would love their titles to have (and this includes many
>once mighty Marvel and DC titles whose sales have dropped way below Sonic).

Rec.arts.comics.marvel-universe has been a bit busy lately :^)
And DC should worry too, since the only titles I was buying from them were
the Star Trek comics, and now that Paramount's yanked that away from them,
they won't be getting any of my business... (the recent Superman's haven't
looked too bad from the skimming I've done, but I really don't want to
learn a whole new post-Crisis continuity, that still tries to suck in the
pre-Crisis stuff and does a bad job of it). But I'm getting off-topic...

I can't help but compare Marvel's and DC's problems to the Hollywood
situation: even though the box office shows that the general public
prefers G/PG-rated family-type movies over the R-rated blood and boobs
slop, they still keep churning out the latter - I guess it's low budget
enough that it makes enough money to justify it. I think there's a similar
parallel to the superhero stuff: I liked the 60s/70s/early 80s stuff but
all this "relevancy" and "grim" stuff turns me off - if I want that, I'll
watch the news or read the paper...

>All things considered, I think it's fair to say that Sonic is one of the
>best-selling titles on the market. In fact, we are now meeting to decide
>what Sonic specials we should publish this year (any suggestions?)...

More stuff like Princess Sally's miniseries!!! More Bunnie!!! More action
tales and not kid stuff like the germ story in #33! I'm rather neutral on
stuff like Knuckels/Chaotix - I find it detracts from rather than enhances
the Freedom Fighter theme, but if the Sega-heads out there (er, no offense :^))
want it, that's OK I guess...

Assuming the Sonic Sat. AM show is gone for good, why not pick up where it
left off? Maybe you can get a hold of the writers for it (Allee and Hurst?)
and see where they were planning to take it? But maybe that's a bit much,
since you'd have to deal with a post-Robotnik universe, and I don't know
that you're out of ideas for the one we've got now (but please do better
than "McRobos" :^))

>Hope this calms your fears...

It does; thanks!

Ron Bauerle

Received on Mon Jan 29 1996 - 11:16:11 PST