Re: Comments on Sonic 35 (spoilers)

From: William Graham <uug_at_sago.cuc.ab.ca>
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 96 04:58:26 MST

Well, I just picked up Sonic #35 today, and am reading the reviews on the
list now. He was hard to catch this month! He sold out really faaassst
at the comic stores I usually find him (within 3 days of arrival), but
thankfully the 4th location I tried had one copy left. I better renew
my subscription right away! :-)

Ron Bauerle <BAUERLE_at_engr.erie.ge.com> writes:

> I agree with Quozl that 1 billion rings is a bit much.

Maybe if you count all the copies of Sonic games sold, times the number
of times each one has been played, times the number of rings Sonic collects
each time he runs, you might come up with a number close to 1 billion.
Maybe even a U.K. billion. (10^12 rather than 10^9 :-)

> This story seemed a bit too strongly based on the games for me.

I rather liked the premise of "Ring of Truth", it was like a glimpse
into the Mobian supernatural. I was in suspense for the whole story,
not knowing _what_ to expect -- as anything could happen!

It was kind of cool to see things from the early issues again,
like Dr. R's Checker Wrecker Ball (but called his Mega-Maceball this time).
I think it bears certain similarities to the Amiga Boing Ball (from the
first Amiga demo, Boing! The colour scheme is different, though).

> But the Manak/Koslowski art was OK...

Yep, it looks like Manak has been taking hints from Spaz, like interesting
viewing angles. His artwork lends an "early issue" feel to this story,
which ties in very nicely with some of the fundamental developments for the
Mobian world mythos shown in this issue.

> Other references from other shows: "Big Bird", and "hokey smokes"

Maybe they are expressions Sonic picked up from being in two TV shows
himself? :-) B.B. and Rocky & Bullwinkle have become part of N.A. culture.
(I've been watching R&B again since I noticed YTV was airing it at 4:00 AM.
Turns out I was missing half the jokes when I saw it as a kid. :-)

> The quasi-King James English didn't do much for me, but I suppose it was
> sort of "mandatory" (if not consistent: "thous and yous" were intermixed).

Yeah, it bugged me that Gallagher didn't get the grammar quite right. Unless
it was intentional. Since "ye" is plural, the 3rd Walker is addressing the
_readership_, as well as Sonic. And I'd wager that the boon we have been
granted is the Sonic Movie. :-)

"What hidden meaning am I supposed to get from this?" and "Nothing is hidden
-- only unseen!" could then be interpreted (for us) as "This story/issue
contains some _mondo-major_ hints!".

And then there's this SonicQuest -- it sounds like a story arc for future
issues of the Sonic comic, but could it be the Movie instead? (How can you
tell I'm getting really hyped up about the Sonic Movie already? :-)

> Page 12: I thought a sideways figure-eight was the symbol for infinity, not
> > eternity, but maybe I'm splitting hairs...

So Sonic isn't that great at math...

> Page 13: The 3rd walker's answer reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode
            [with a mathematician and the Devil]

Cool! So being good at math doesn't help one much when talking with
supernatural beings.

> > But what's a "triple helix"? That chain didn't look like a helix
> > at all to me...

In the panel in the middle of page 10, are we looking along the axis of 3
chains twisted around one another? It's hard to tell, so I just took
Sonic's word for it. I wonder if a triple-helical DNA-like molecule,
that can encode information and triplicate itself, could really exist?

Linked rings have all sorts of magical overtones. ("The Linking Ring" is
even the title of a magicians' journal.)

> New editor Fred Mendez...
                                   
I noticed that Freddie is also the editor of _Street_Sharks_, which seems to
have replaced Sonic in 7-11's around here. :-( (And also in the canned pasta
department of the grocery stores.) At least it has a "Sonic Checklist" page.
Makes sense in light of the Street Sharks cartoon, I suppose.

> Rather weird Anime/video game-like representation of Sonic and Tails on the
> last page...

That must be a _huge_ hint, about something. Characters in Virtua Fighter are
rendered like that, so it's probably a hint about Fighting Sonic. Characters
in computer-generated animation (like ReBoot) are also modelled in wireframe,
which looks something like this page too, so maybe the Archie Sonic team got
to see some of the work-in-progress on the Sonic Movie.

 - William Graham - a net.freedom-fighter for a free Mobius! -




Received on Thu Apr 04 1996 - 11:34:52 PST