i'm back at it now that i've got free time again, i didn't think there would be anything to say about issue 3 of the main line when i opened it, but the second story in this one is the one where they introduce Bunnie Rabbot, its got the same energy as all of these early issues, but i'm glad to see her get an honest intro instead of just being dumped into a scene like she was always there

this issue is where you can see the roots starting to fall into place, its still goofy cartoon humor, but they begin to build on the references from previous issues more and acknowledge their own continuity

mainly in the way that Sonic uses a part from the roboticiszer they stole from the Bunnie story to defeat the latest threat

any time now i'm just going to open up the next issue and realize that they are committing to a full on story-line

i read issue 5 earlier and it had nothing worth reporting on, then had a nap and now i'm back to report on issue six, which is again just more silly bullshit, but it referances sonic spinball in the first story

the second story though... is a sonic version of a christmas carol

but! its also got two firsts in it: its the first time they officially call Rotor by his new name (instead of Boomer), and it seems like its the first appearance of Snivley in the comic

whelp, Bunnie just made a joke about how she's a "sax symbol"

also this is the first issue where all of the freedom fighters are just incidentally together without any of them NEEDing to be there, and they actually pull their weight in the narrative instead of just letting sonic fix everything

i feel like every issue of this book in the early days actually shows a lot of development on the meta-level

these issues both introduce throwaway characters, Betty Butterfly, and "the Nerbs"

i always like finding details like this when reading through the backlog of something, I can't help crossing my fingers and hoping that some writer way down the line rereads these old books and tries to incorporate them back into the story

also issue 10 was the first time that they didn't have to include any single-page comics for filler, though that could be because they needed more ad space

getting around the first story's goofy time travel bullshit, the second and third stories in this issue introduces Cyril the Eagle, and Larry Lynx (the super jinx), two characters that i'm positive come back in future episodes

at the end, the way that sonic proves that larry is no longer unlucky is by having him win 50 games of chess in a row, a game that is famously not based on luck even a little bit... 🤷

ooooh, this is awesome, Knuckles is finally on the scene, and you can really tell how much sonic 3 influenced the stuff in this issue

also this might be the first time that i've read the word roboticize in the comics, i can't recall reading it before now

i think i've read this issue a hundred times, its probably one of the first issues i ever had; i still have a battered, ripped up copy of it sitting on my bookshelf

some very classic shit in here, i've looked at these panels so many times they are burned into my brain

also the filler pages in this issue are a three-page comic that they wanted people to write in the dialogue and sound effects themselves and then send them in for a contest, imagining doing that gives me anxiety

this is maybe the first issue that has really bucked me (in a good way) the first story is about the freedom fighters getting stuck in a virtual world made by robotnik, and then sonic literally hacking his way out; it tricks you into thinking that they have beaten robotnik and that sonic and sally are getting married, my jaw dropped until they revealed the truth

the second story is (finally!) starting to show off nameless background extra freedom fighters

oh fuck i hope Harvey Who comes back in a later issue

holy shit, i didn't even notice that they finally shifted sally's design to the one that i know! no more bubble-gum pink and black hair, back to classic brown and brown

looks like the change happened in ish 16

oooh, story two is an allusion to the princess sally mini-series, that's coming up pretty damn quick on my schedule

uhm, fucking excuse you? sonic and sally are actually getting married????

ohh, ok

it was a play they were putting on that centers around a wedding... i guess i don't get it

also another princess sally story in pt 2, and this one has Rosie! sally's nanny! the only actual adult in knothole village! hahaha

yoooooooooo... shit is finally getting GOOD...

also, i get to read my first super special in this line

this shit reads like he wrote it almost entirely on his own...

like i'd put good money down that there was a point where he added a ton of detail to this, and some other editor waltzed in an collapsed it down, it just has that look

this one is almost 40 pages long, and also its awesome so far

they are going through a dungeon to try and find some kind of birthright left for sally by her teacher, and nicole is finally in the comic! i totally forgot that nicole was a magic computer from space...

holy shit... okay, that's a trip

nicole is from a future where the freedom fighters have won

okay, so story 2 was only three pages long and it was some silly bullshit where i had to read half of the text backwards

and the last story is a cute one about tails saving a sonic fan convention from robotnik

this was a pretty good special edition in my opinion

just two more main-line issues and then i'm on the sally mini-series

so issue 19 is the infamous "Night of 1000 Sonics" in which sonic summons versions of himself from parallel universes in order to fight an out of control Robotnik from one of those other universes

and after reading it I find myself salivating to know more about Mummy Sonic... alas, we are told nothing about him or where he comes from, but here's a quick and dirty collage of every appearance he made

also, a personal story about this issue:

my parents took me on a camping trip when i was 8 years old, i remember we went to this little drygoods store that was on the campground land and they had a comic book rack (that's the last time I ever saw a comic rack casually tucked in a little store like this) and there were two issues of sonic, and this was one of them, i must have read them ten times each on that trip

also i got hives from running through tall grass, haha

yoooooo, Geoffrey St John is in this one! fantastic, and apperently the freedom fighters didn't know that there was a resistance movement in Robotropolis the entire time? juicy

okay, on to the princess sally mini-series!

okay, so something weird happened around the time of the In Your Face special... there's like this moment where reading this comic goes from being a chore to being FUN

and this mini-series, and all of the sally substories, seem to be where that concept really cements itself earnestly

this whole mini-series was such a blast to read that I didn't think to stop to post about it between issues

like just to put a pin in this... the first 20 or so comic books in this series were not fun to read, its taken me more than three days just to get 28 issues in because reading one issue full of shitty jokes that couldn't make a child laugh would make me feel s o t i r e d that i would have to stop after only reading a couple

and now i'm like i'm over that hump, and i'm starting to feel like i can enjoy this, its great

these comics were great to read

wow, this was a fucking weird one...

firstly it contains the attached panel, which is horrifying

secondly... they just killed robotnik... i mean there's absolutely no way he's going to stay dead, but i'm impressed that they killed him this early, because they make a HUGE deal out of killing him after the death egg saga

i let a few slip by without posting about them, they were mostly filler issues

issue 25 is the sonic boon tie-in, Amy Rose and mecha sonic make their first appearance

i kind of wish they hadn't added Amy in this early, because they do some... weird stuff with her in the ensuing issues, but that's all to come...

also 25 starts doing the weird avant garde paneling thing, where there's no clear delineation between two panels, we'll see that a lot more

this is another one that i have a battered copy of on my shelf, a fun little comic

you can see how they are pushing towards more knuckles spin offs here too

also this one comes after the sonic boom tie in but its got a lot of sonic 3 & knuckles in it (sonic boom was '96, sonic 3 was '94)

so the sonic specials usually act as tie-ins for games, but I had no idea that triple trouble was a game until i looked it up a bit ago...

its an 8-bit sonic game that was on the game gear, and honestly it looks like garbage... 8-bit is not enough bits for sonic

this comic tie in is also pretty lackluster

the first story features knack the weasal and basically reconciles the story of the game in the comic world
(cont.)