Archie Comics Part 2: The Sonic Boom

Ever wonder how a blue video game hedgehog became the star of the longest-running licensed comic book in history? The saga of Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog series offers a fascinating glimpse into the intersection of gaming culture, corporate licensing, and passionate fandom.

Born during the heated console wars of the early 90s, Sonic was Sega's answer to Nintendo's Mario. As we journey through the comic's unexpected evolution, we uncover how what began as a simple promotional tie-in for a Saturday morning cartoon grew into a sprawling universe with its own distinct mythology. The Archie Sonic comics survived for over 20 years through video game booms and busts, multiple animated series, and even Sega's exit from the console hardware business.

The podcast explores the three distinct eras of the comic, from its lighthearted beginnings to the chaotic middle period where multiple writers with conflicting visions created a narrative roller coaster. We dive into the controversial "Endgame" storyline that nearly killed Princess Sally and sparked massive fan protests, and the later "golden age" under writer Ian Flynn that many consider the creative peak of the series. Perhaps most dramatically, we unpack the unprecedented legal battle with former writer Ken Penders that forced a complete continuity reboot, erasing 150+ issues of storylines.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's so many different types of gravy and it
just adds so much flavor andnuance to things.
No, I raw-dogged that stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Are they in the proper approach pattern for
today?
Negative All weapons Now Chargethe lightning field.
In that vein, I'd like to quotesomething here so that we get

(00:39):
everything on the record.
This comes from the ArianaGrandeana grande song, side to
side, which, if you didn't know,is about getting fucked real
hard and not being able to walkafterwards I didn't.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm gonna look this up while you're, while you're
telling these in.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
It is a drop-in from nikki minaj who says quote yo
this, quote Yo.
This is the new style with thefresh type of flow Wrist, icicle
, ride, bicycle, come through,yo Get you this type of blow.
If you want a menage, I got atricycle.
All these biflows is my mini-meBody smokin'.

(01:19):
So they call me Young NickyChimney Rappers in they feelings
, cause they feel in meparentheses, murder.
I give zero fucks and I gotzero chill in me.
Poignant, I think, and timely,classic.
Really, it's the great bard.
You know, it's like treadingthe boards at the globe, you

(01:39):
know what does she mean, though?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
I don't understand we really need to break it down in
a scholarly fashion tointerpret.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
We could then get into the desire to have
intercourse, either duration ordepth of field, or fervor, that
thus causes pain afterwards.
Is this a desirable aftereffect?

Speaker 1 (02:05):
right, yes, and is it actually pain, or is it sort of
like the the desirable, youknow, exhaustive?
I mean, this is a rich textit's like the jungle ulysses,
ariana grande it's definitelyulysses for whom the bell tolls,
and then and then side to sideKetrin and Leroy.
But so far no beetles have beenkilled because of side to side.

(02:28):
But you know, the day is young.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Ringo watch out.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Ringo's still out there.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Glad we got it.
We got that squared away.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
In case there was a deposition later.
Sausage salad and side to sides.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
The three S's really.
That's the name of the episodeyeah, and side to sides the
three S's really that's the nameof the episode.
Yeah, welcome back to DispatchAjax.
This is Jake, I'm Skip.
We are coming back to this.
Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
No, no, you go bro.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
No, no, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
No, I didn't have anything.
You have an idea?

Speaker 2 (02:57):
This is Midwestern podcasting no, you go.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
So our last episode we were getting into the history
of Archie comics and we're kindof slowly making our way
through them, getting a sensefor who and what they are and
why they have been so impactfuland so long lasting.
At the end of last episode wecame up to the tail end of the
80s, so we're going to jump into the 90s and follow along here

(03:26):
.
So in 1990, we got adultversions of Archie and his pals
starring in a live-action TVmovie.
This was Archie to Riverdaleand back.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
I remember these movies coming out.
I forgot these existed.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, yep, that was a TV movie directed by Dick Lowry
, who did all that stuff thatyou love Of the Spice Empire.
You know, the guy who didSmokey and the Bandit 3.
Oh the third, best, one Secondassistant director pickups on
Piranha.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
So you know, wow, exalted Just the best of the
best.
Tommy popped it on that one.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Indeed, I need to get rid of the side by side stuff.
So that featured grown upversions of the Riverdale gang
and aired on NBC Right Did notdo well.
No, surprisingly.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
I remember that being a really interesting thing,
because this was in that veryspecific period in which Tim
Burton had very successfullyadapted Batman, then Warren
Beatty tried to do his DickTracy thing, and so they thought
this strange sort of surrealnouveau technicolor onscreen
adaptation of these propertieswould work.
Only Tim Burton seemed to bethe only one that figured that

(04:43):
out would work.
Only tim burton seemed to bethe only one that figured that
out.
So maybe the flash tv show,maybe, but they were so weirdly
grotesque sort of pantomimeversions like of archie.
I remember thinking it was likeso bizarre that nobody looked
real, everything seemedartificial, like they took
actors and then did them up tobe these characters without them
looking that way, naturally,you know well, not as much as
like a dick tracy of the sametime.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
But uh, there were no flat tops well, no, there were.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
No, there were no little faces or or anything.
But I felt like it was in thatsame vein.
It was like the made for tvversion of that, where it was
like badly conceived trying toto make these people look the
way they look in the comics butin real life, through makeup and
prosthetics, instead of justcasting a redhead, you know,
which you could have done veryeasily, you know, that kind of

(05:29):
thing.
That's what it felt like.
I remember it was just reallygrotesque and trying too hard.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, it also didn't help that they were dealing with
.
They made them all embattledand unhappy characters who were
dealing with stuff like divorce,struggling with their jobs,
like real adult issues, thingsthat would will come back on
this pod dealing with Archie ina bit Right, but it didn't ring
true to the longtime Archie fansat the time.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
It kind of felt like a weird cynical writer who's
upset about his station in lifeand was like what if they were
like how I've gone through mylife, you know?
Or like, yeah, I bet today he'dbe all divorced and he'd be
unhappy and his job would suck,Just like all of us.
It doesn't have anything to dowith the actual characters, and
also not one of those like, well, we have to make it sort of
like a realistic, groundedupdate, Like they tried to do

(06:15):
with Christmas Story.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Christmas Story, yeah it did not work, as many things
in the 90s were panning out forArchie were panning out for
Archie.
Another thing that didn't quiteland was despite what was going
on around them in the 40s andin the 90s.
John Goldwater had said thatArchie comes in as sort of the
antithesis of the Superman, asArchie should be a champion of

(06:38):
the everyman.
But superheroes at the timethat Archie was created and in
the 90s were the thingdominating the market and the
comic book shelves.
So it didn't really raise anyeyebrows when Archie had
licensed their MLG superheroesin 1981.

(06:59):
And DC then launched itsimprint Impact Comics, using
these heroes, as Archie was likelooking like.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Let's's stay relevant , let's give the kids what they
want right now I'm really gladyou brought that up, because I
wanted to talk about impact.
In the previous episode we hadtalked about how these
characters do pop up every likecouple of decades, or every
decade or so.
It's funny that they throw itall out there and be like okay,
fuck it, dc, you do it yeah,similar.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
In the early 90s they were looking for again more
ways to boost sales and likewhat else can we do with archie?
Let's do some weird sci-fistuff.
Kids like that right now.
So let's do things like archie3000 or jughead's time police,
which give you some whoa really,really bizarre storytelling I
have never heard of this.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
This is a period I am oblivious of.
Okay, well, it didn't last long.
No shit lasted about as long ascherry 3000, cherry 2000 is
pretty good say jughead's timepolice lasted a whole six issues
.
Can we get john claude vandamme to star in this?

Speaker 2 (07:58):
and archie 3000 ran from 1989 to 1991, a total of 16
issues.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Over two years Wow, or three years.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Really banging it out .
And if you ever happen to findany of these the stuff's weird,
all right, it's just out there.
But this is kind of what youknow Archie was doing.
It was trying to like movingaway a bit from comics.
We're kind of like getting intonew ways of selling these
things, you know with ourdigests, you know on different
shelves, but we still need tostay relevant.
We need to try and findsomething, a hook that's going

(08:30):
to last.
And when those didn't pan out,they went with licensing.
First you had a small run ofTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Now this is licensing.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
The cartoon show.
Not the Laird and Eastman stuff, but the cartoon.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Okay, no, it's the cartoon version of the
characters and the show done incomic form.
It's kind of this weird comicturns to cartoon, turns back to
comic Weird Ouroboros.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, it's the high school musical, the TV show, the
musical movie, yeah.
But I mean you could see whythey wanted to do that
Kid-friendly, sanitized versionof the comic of Ninja Turtles
turned into that cartoon, and soyou could see why that would
appeal, they would think, to thebase of people who liked the
sort of kid-friendly Archieaesthetic in Gestalt Stoltz.

(09:26):
But I think their biggestproblem in this point is that
they're sticking too much to theaesthetic and framework of
Archie as it had been and tryingto shoehorn different stories
into that framework instead ofsort of rethinking the whole
thing.
That's possible.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
And the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that Archie
did did last 72 issues so itran a while.
That worked well and it didwell.
They didn't do a whole lot ofprint so they're kind of tough
to find On the secondary market.
They do pretty well but it'snothing in comparison to their
biggest licensed property, thatwould be Sonic the Hedgehog.
We're going to go down ourlittle furry blue rabbit hole

(09:58):
for a bit as we get into Sonicthe Hedgehog.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Let's refrain from using the words furry and hole
in the same sentence from now on.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
As I get further into this Archie, Sonic stuff.
That's going to be impossible.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
It is explicitly in there.
At some point, Jake literallybecomes a furry.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's not my thing.
I've got friends that arefurries.
You know that.
Have at it, you know.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Apparently they party hard.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Tough to clean up up.
But that's not my thing, it'snot for, it's not for us to know
.
It's like the differentbarbecue sauces.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
I may not agree, but you know, enjoy your meat
however you like it if you'reusing that analogy to be like I
prefer my mascot sex this wayinstead of the way that they do
it.
Maybe it's just more like hey,it's a spectrum and good luck.
Luck and Godspeed.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Godspeed.
I mean that's pretty fast.
Let this thing last Sonic the.
Hedgehog man.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
That's a different type of ring that he's going for
.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
So many things we could say there.
I'm not going to worry about it.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
So we're in the early 90s Right now.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Whoa, everything's neon.
All of a sudden, wow, jake andI are in the early 90s.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
It's pretty bodacious .

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Everything is teal and tastes like blue raspberry.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Oh, I've got to open up my Trapper Keeper so I can
tell you the rest of the scripthere.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Then I drew a yin and yang symbol on it in Magic
Marker.
Yeah, we haven't moved on tothat S.
That was on everything.
I was literally thinking thattoo.
It was either that or the NNY.
It was the next step.
I got to get home to my beanbagchair and a clear plastic
inflatable recliner.
I bought it at 7th Heaven.
Babylon 5 is going to be onsoon.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Got to jump in there.
The arcade systems are cominginto the home, so we have
Nintendo.
Right now is the only gamethat's really kicking ass in
town.
They've been doing really well,and Super Mario Brothers 3 is
the best-selling game of alltime when it comes out.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
As seen in the Wizard .
Yeah, Do they do Super Mario 3?
It premiered in that the firstfootage of first gameplay anyone
had ever seen from that game.
It was a tie-in with that movie.
They showed in the trailer.
We need to put a pin in that.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Let's come back to oh yeah, the wizard sometime with
a power glove and everything.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, that's something I'm surprised we
haven't talked about very much.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Well, you know it's out of sight, out of mind, but
come back, gentle listener, andyou may just hear about it
sometime soon.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
It's an interesting turning point.
This is when the console warsstart, where we're trying to
enter the home market.
Autority's already had severaliterations of their home
consoles the Commodore 64,intellivision, coleco.
They're all sort of on the sameplane.
But this is where the momentwhere Nintendo starts separating
itself from the rest.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
At this point, Nintendo's the dominant force in
the market, but there is ayoung upstart that may try to
challenge them, a little companycalled sega or, most
appropriately, in theircommercials it's just not
picking up on the microphone.
I never know what you're sayingI'm not falling for this again,

(12:59):
jake so, like I said, nintendo'sbig on this scene, but sega,
sega's coming out.
They have this killer hardwarethat they think can beat
Nintendo.
They can beat them in speed,they can beat them in graphics,
but they don't have something toreally sink their teeth into
and sell to the masses.
That's when they get a pitchfrom the tech team, these

(13:20):
artists Naoto Oshima andprogrammer Yuji Naka.
Now they had an idea, so Segasnapped them up and, with some
refining, created their newmascot for the system Sonic the
Hedgehog.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Because Nintendo had Jumpman, which was the character
in Donkey Kong, who then laterbecame Mario.
It's a me Mario, An Italianplumber ridden by a Japanese guy
.
Is it cultural appropriation orjust stereotypes?
I couldn't tell you.
The latter, I think, but that'sfine.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Sega found its Mario in Sonic, yeah but their Mario
with their upbeat music, thebright visuals.
Sonic's design and his cockyattitude were really like that,
pushing the boundaries of whatvideo games could be in the home
.
But it was done in a way thatparents were okay with.
It didn't make himuncomfortable and you know, like

(14:11):
some other games that we spokeabout before, if we're comparing
it to mario, both you know sidescrollers on the platform.
But this was slick, it waspoppy, it was an upgrade from
what Mario could do.
It was fast, adrenaline-basedand exciting, which a lot of
people felt Mario wasn't.
I didn't play much Sonic.
I don't really know much aboutSonic, so this is kind of a bit

(14:33):
of a rabbit hole for me to tryto decipher this and then
regurgitate it to you guys.
I do not know.
Sonic didn't play.
It was a little too fast for meas a little kid and I didn't
have friends that had Sonic.
The few people I knew that hadSega systems.
They were more like I wastalking to Skip earlier about
Earthworm Jim or Altered Beasts.

(14:54):
It was more that stuff Didn'treally play Sonic, the Genesis
stuff.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
As it goes along, it gets increasingly more complex
and graphically intense.
It gets increasingly morecomplex and graphically intense
and you still have your whatthey now refer to as
Metroidvania side-scrollingadventures, which is a pretty
common standard thing duringthis era.
They really start playing withthat form and like Earthworm Jim
would be later Genesis stuff,Altered Beast would be early

(15:21):
Genesis stuff or leftover fromMaster System.
So like there's this momentwhere they finally realized Are
we talking like no?

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Jack Required kind of vibe, or is this?

Speaker 1 (15:30):
Well, basically, like they finally realized what the
capabilities of the hardware areand they really started and
game developers really startedpushing, expanding what that
could do.
Right, yeah, I was just makinga Phil Collins show.
Yeah, I know I don't like PhilCollins.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Oh good, Just no selling.
Appreciate it.
You want to chop me up with anaxe while we're at it?
Do you read Sutter?

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Cane Do.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
I.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
It'd be a sledgehammer.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Skip likes to think that he's cooler, I was.
What they did think was coolwas Sonic, as they had a number
of spinoffs that would beproduced for American audiences.
They did games, merchandise,books, cartoons, anything they
could license.
Sega did it.
And this starts for DIC's firstouting, which is simply titled
the Adventures of Sonic theHedgehog.

(16:19):
This was a cartoon that beganairing on september 6th 1993.
Again the starred sonic alongwith his buddy tails and they
would fight dr robotnik and hisgoons scratch and grounder.
Now this is kind of a soniclooney tunes kind of vibe to the
show.
It did well enough to inspire aspin-off game dr robotnik's
mean bean machine tails theyintroduce.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
His name is Miles Prowler, as in miles per hour.
Ah, man.
In the beginning of each ofthose games he's credited as if
he's a real person and he hadtwo tails and he could do
helicopter stuff.
But he was the companion toSonic, also in the original
version, dr Robotic.
His name is Dr Eggman,translated from Japanese

(17:04):
originally, because he isegg-shaped, and the origin story
, as printed as a comic bookinsert, was that Dr Robotnik was
doing some sort of experiment.
He experiments on animals andhe did some sort of experiment
where he gave this hedgehog someenhancing drug or whatever, put
him on a treadmill and then heactually ended up going so fast

(17:26):
that, like all the stuffexploded and he quote went
cobalt and became blue, and thenit also caused Dr Eggman slash
Robotnik to go insane and thenuse all of his scientific
rigmarole to create cyberneticcreatures out of normal animals.
And so the point of those gamesis you have to like save the

(17:49):
animals and turn them back intoorganic animals, from being
cyborgs, like they're Borg orsomething.
Well, you need to know that,because now we get into Dr
Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine,which is literally just Dr Mario
, but a more fun game.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Right.
So there are many things fromthis show that stuck around,
things like sonic's love ofchili dogs, uh, which has stayed
around with the franchise eversince.
Such a weird thing.
Yeah, you know, adventures wasoriginally supposed to be the
only dic show but apparentlythey had some problems with
their network and needed tocreate another show.

(18:22):
This show eventually becameSonic the Hedgehog yeah, or
Sonic the Morning, sat AM forfans on the message boards and
whatnot.
This always confused me.
This began airing the same theywere at the same time.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Sat AM.
No, just the fact that therewere two shows.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Right.
This began airing the samemonth as Adventures, but it was
a huge departure from the wackytone of the other show.
Instead, dark Robotnik is areal, legitimate threat.
He had taken a hold of theplanet and was converting most
of the inhabitants into mindlessrobot cyborg slaves and,
instead of Sonic being a solohero, he was now part of a rebel

(18:59):
uprising, part of the FreedomFighters who are working to
fight Robotnik.
Despite the intense andunfathomable odds.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Put those two shows on paper side by side.
Which one do you think appealsto you and I more?
The Terminator-esque futuristic, post-apocalyptic thing, or the
one where they run around andtalk about how flowers are
pretty or whatever?

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, with the chili dogs, With the chili dogs Behind
the tasty freeze.
Oh, jack, you don't know nothing.
He's a cougar, so this also.
That's the cougs.
This also introduced otherbeloved characters, including
the first prominent femalecharacter of the franchise,

(19:43):
sally and Bunny, and it is stillthought well of today.
This ended after a coupleseasons, but it teased potential
continuation with a new villainand a third.
But a third season never cameto be.
Many of these unused thirdseason concepts did trickle down
into the next iteration ofSonic storytelling.

(20:04):
Next iteration of Sonicstorytelling.
Now, the show was popular withfandom, but the creators still
had plenty of stories to tell inthe world.
According to one of the show'swriters, ben Hurst, at least
part of the blame can be laid onthe redheaded stepchild of the
90s Sonic cartoons, sonicUnderground, now Sonic
Underground.
It was the last of the DICcartoons and aired at the very

(20:27):
start of 1999.
Underground differs radicallyfrom its predecessors in both
tone and plot and bears very fewof the hallmarks of the
franchise, save for Sonic.
Right, sonic is depicted ratherdifferently here than other
stories and the world burningaround draws very little from
the games around the time.

(20:47):
There's magic amulets andprophecies and class inequality
and a band and identicalsiblings and trying to find a
lost mother, there's a lot goingon whether or not it's a
cartoon on paper.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
That's a show that, like you and I, would have
watched in syndication.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, yeah, it's possible, but you know I don't
know how much of like the gemand the holograms inspired Sonic
band I'm super into.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, that's kind of lame yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
According to Hearst, who is recounting his time on
the show Underground, was cookedup by DAC in an attempt to
capitalize on music royaltiesand potentially profit from the
show's songs.
Hence the creation of the band.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
So this is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
coming out of their shells.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
tour of Sonic, archie did it first, then the Turtles
did it, hanna-barbera did itmany times.
Archie leads the way, carriesthe torch, forges the path.
Apparently this show wascreatively bankrupt churn job
with a bunch of inexperiencedfreelancers hired on the cheap

(21:54):
to produce and bulk with noenthusiasm or vision, perhaps
not without all merit, but itseemed to lack creativity and
execution.
But this wouldn't be thedefinitive version for many kids
at this time of the character.
No, that would come in alicensed deal with Archie Comics
.
That would prove so strong itwould make Archie's version of

(22:18):
Sonic the longest running comicbased property of all time.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Licensed property into comics?

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yes, yeah, licensed property into comics.
Yes, yeah.
This series, this comic series,was originally designed as
promotional tie-in to drum uphype for the upcoming cartoon.
Now.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Gardens of the Galaxy writer, mike Gallagher, who had
just wrapped up a three-yearstint at Marvel, was at the time
penning ALF.
That is a resume that I wish Ihad.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
I mean, think about that for a second yeah, he was
writing a comic based on the ALFsitcom.
Now Archie Comics had picked upthe license to Sonic and seemed
to think that Gallagher wouldbe a great fit here.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
But he kept smashing watermelons.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
They contacted him to see if he'd be interested To
hear him tell it.
He was a little thrown off byit.
To see if he'd be interested Tohear him tell it.
He was a little thrown off byit.
He'd never heard of Sonicbefore, but he was excited to
work with Scott Shaw who theyhad already gotten nailed on to
do the pencils and he was hungryfor work, being a freelancer,
so he agreed.
Archie Comics said hey, great,you have one week to send us a

(23:26):
finished script.
Here's three page Bible aboutthe characters in the series.
So hey, go make it happen.
Gallagher did manage to make ithappen.
He turned it around in time andthey began a four issue
miniseries that was latercollected into a volume called
Sonic, the Beginning.
Now this is kind of a weirdcollection of stories.
Most part you get what you'dexpect a handful of zany

(23:48):
episodes with the gang kind ofbattling Robotnik's scheme.
But then you'd get.
But then the final issue waskind of a what-if-else world
where Robotnik grew up withSonic.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Aw, they're doing the old Daniel Craig Spector thing,
come on.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah, yeah Weird.
But you know that.
You know, guy had the threepage.
You know here's like what Sonicis and he made up, you know,
four issues on the spot.
So you know, you know, doingall right.
The miniseries did pretty well.
Archie Comics officiallystarted publishing full length
monthly Sonic comics starting inJuly 1993.

(24:30):
Now Archie Comics Sonic firstshipped out then, meaning it
actually predated the show thatit originated from.
That's pretty funny.
Make that make sense.
Yeah, yeah, sense, yeah, yeah.

(24:51):
Now the comic was acontinuation of gallagher's work
on the miniseries in a lot ofways because gallagher himself
stayed on writing the stories.
Unfortunately, scott shaw didnot migrate with him to the book
.
He was replaced by dave mannick.
Uh, and sonic morning cartoonshows storyboarder art mawini,
among many other people, ofcourse, his name is art yeah,

(25:13):
many of the early issues areagain zany, episodic things, you
know, vehicles for puns andkind of some mean spirit of
humor.
It was kind of like you know,blue elf in a lot of ways how it
started.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Now I really want to go down a rabbit hole about what
blue elf would be like.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
So many different ideas here hey, can we get a
blue elf for the table please?

Speaker 1 (25:44):
oh man, I can barely walk today.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
I got a blue elf last night he's walking side by side
and I can barely walk today.
I got a blue elf last night.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
He's walking side by side, Two side but yes, yeah,
again, totally.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
It was odds at odds with the cartoon.
Now, that was going on, but thehigher ups wanted to be silly
and lighthearted.
That was going on, but thehigher-ups wanted to be silly
and lighthearted as the storygoes.
Despite barring characters andstory elements from the Saturday
morning cartoon, the writerswere instructed to stay more in
line with the comedy and overallvibes of the first cartoon and

(26:21):
the first comic miniseries.
This is how we ended up withstuff like the series opening on
Robotnik, the heartlessmilitary dictator who enslaved
an entire planet, beating up apiñata of his teenage nemesis,
grumbling about how much hehates Sonic the Hedgehog.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Is it a piñata in that sense or an effigy?
I would imagine an effigy,unless it literally candy falls
out.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
I think literally candy falls out.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Okay, all right.
Well, that answers that on itwith a yeah no, it's his kids in
the era.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
And yeah, okay, fair so by september 93 the saturday
morning cartoon was airing, butpeople immediately gravitated
towards that.
The saturday marketing was thefirst bit of sonic media
available to American fans toactually have a story.
The next closest thing to thatwas a minimalist cut scenes in

(27:13):
Sonic 3.
That wouldn't hit shelves untilFebruary of 1994.
Now, while the Saturday morningcartoon isn't exactly grim,
dark, it's definitely consideredmore serious in tone to the
early Archie Sonic.
Now it's really impossible totalk about Archie Sonic in any
way without eventually circlingback to Ken Penders.
This is where we get.
If anybody knows about ArchieSonic, ken Penders is a

(27:37):
lightning rod, we might say atouchstone.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Is he the Jim Shooter of Sonic?

Speaker 2 (27:42):
comics.
You'll find out in due time.
But but you know, coming backto a recent episode where we
discuss the life and times ofone jim shooter, we kind of
eulogized recently deceased nowken pender started working on
archie, sonics and issue 11.
He was a writer and contributorall the way up to issue 159.

(28:04):
Good, he also yeah, he alsowrote various of the special
issues and most famously all ofthe Knuckles, the Echidna solo
books, which ran for 30 issuesthemselves.
We will get further into someof the legal issues with Ken,
but we'll just kind of likewe'll work a little bit through

(28:27):
Ken's ideas for the series hereNow.
As Ken tells it, his start atArchie was uneventful.
A collaborative of his, mikeKantrovich, had been tipped to
write the comic, having neveragain, never heard of Sonic the
Hedgehog.
But he did give it a shot Inthe interest of brainstorming.
Mike called Ken, who recognizedSonic as his son's favorite

(28:49):
character, and he decided he'dpitch a few stories too.
Kantorovich departed the seriesand Kenders, for whatever reason
decided to stick around.
That's not quite clear.
What made him decide to stay inthe book.
Kenders has famously admittedto never having played Sonic the
game and not caring about himin the least.
But Kander's stuck around forobviously a great long while.

(29:11):
Now I don't think Archie neverhad a formal lead writer until
later down the line when MikeGallagher unofficially filled
that role for a decent stretchof time.
Following his early time in thebook, gallagher's relevance to
it would sharply decline.
The rate of his contribution tothe book took a nosedive
following issue 50, withstretches up to 20 issues with

(29:33):
the story showing up outside theoff-the-panel gag comic that
appeared on the comics letterpage.
Officially Gallagher's finalstory was printed in issue 185
as a backup story.
Now this is generally acceptedas something that archie itself
would do.
Publisher wide archie in theearly days were known for buying

(29:53):
up stories in bulk and justpublishing whenever they needed
a little bit of filler for theircomics cheapskates.
Again kantrovich, who broughtpenders on.
He stayed up until issue 38 andhe'd work pretty close with
penders.
But when he left pend's kind oftook the reins.
And this again is when kind ofsome of the controversy and
stuff starts to pop up.

(30:14):
Now he did write many of thesolo series Sally, a popular
Sonic character, back inFebruary 1995, tales in October
95 and Knuckles in May of 96.
October 95 and Knuckles in Mayof 96.
Sally or Princess Sally.
Alicia Acorn was initiallydrawn up as the female lead of
the cartoon and a love interestfor Sonic.

(30:34):
She was voiced by Kath Soucyand she served as the leader and
the tactical.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
She was the man at arms of their rebellion.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah, Of the of the freedom fighters.
So she was kind of like thehead.
She was in fact the franchise'sfirst female lead character,
just barely beating out Amy Rose.
Sally was portrayed as beingcompetent and clever and really,
at least by the fan base,thought of as a great character.
But Ken Penner's didn't reallythink so.

(31:04):
So when Ken Penner's took overhe started to deteriorate the
way she was characterized.
He didn't want to commit tohaving her be Sonic's love
interest and wrote her as bothkind of clingy and nagging and
standoffish.
The feminist perspective yeahwell, in the three issue series

(31:25):
that he wrote about, Sally, awayfrom the main, cast on a side
adventure with yet another groupof freedom fighters, she was
accompanied by the infamousJeffrey St John, a character he
wrote and Penders came up withthat he would later claim that
this character took Sally'svirginity, quoting it as the one
story that he could never tell.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Uh yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, it wasn't good and fan reception reflected this
.
The comic sold pretty poorlyand no one ever officially
explained why.
But Sally was a popularcharacter.
She was also a girl which, in alargely male-dominated
demographic, you know, maybecaused some hesitancy by they
also kind of like drew Sally tokind of look up like a generic

(32:12):
furry.
I don't know if you know whatSally looks like, but here is Is
she not the pink one?
A picture of Sally.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
I remember the pink one, oh, okay, what Really?

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah, I think Sally was kind of like a chipmunk
furry kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
I mean, she was sally acorn she's like a, like a chip
, and dale's character yeah what?
Uh, I don't know this isbizarre era for sonic too.
It like this is what a weird,what a weird time all right,
yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
So when we get to 1997 and things weren't looking
too good for archie sonic, thecartoon really the, the mother
series for the, the book in alot of ways was canceled back in
94 and dropped syndication byits home network.
Abc's entire animation block hadgotten a chop in favor of
churning out disney cartoonswhich they don't make anymore

(33:03):
yeah, sonic was trying to holdoff against the marketing god of
mighty morph and power rangers,but it wasn't enough.
Now it had also been some ofthe last major sonic release for
sega, being sonic 3 andknuckles, it seemed that sonic
mania was beginning to die outas the sonic comic was careening
towards cancellation, whichseemed inevitable.

(33:25):
Archie lost a good deal of itscreative team's contracts in an
unspecified warehouse accident.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
What, what.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah, I don't know.
So they all drew up quotereplacement contracts which were
hastily rewritten without muchthought put into what went down
on the paper and was signed.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Okay, so I understand .
If it was like a labor disputeor something, a warehouse
accident, what does that mean?

Speaker 2 (33:54):
That's the craziest thing I've ever heard, I assume
there was some fire in theirwarehouse and they lost the
contracts that they had, all oftheir comic staff.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
And nobody had any digital copies or Well we're
dealing with the 90s.
You store everything in onefile folder and then, when your
dog eats it it's gone like yeah,but the other party didn't have
their own copy of the contractI do not know, but this will
what the fuck?

Speaker 2 (34:22):
we'll come back up later what are the other
possibilities?

Speaker 1 (34:25):
That is the craziest thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
I think we need them.
Contracts to fall off a truck.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 (34:32):
It's stuck in the middle with you playing.
They've got the artist tied toa chair, put a pin in that.
That's going to come back tothat later.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
So these Archie Sonic comics aren't doing well and
some of the writers at Archiemade a decision Rather than
sitting around waiting for theaxe to drop, they were going to
try to give this big, dramaticseries finale and let the
characters and the creative teamgo out on their own terms.
Everybody wanted the comic tokeep running, but at least this

(35:02):
way, if and when the Sword ofDamocles does fall, the fans
will have the ending and someclosure before things wind down.
At least that's what KenPenders had in mind.
This arc is largelyacknowledged as being primarily
his baby, and pretty mucheveryone in the know says that

(35:22):
he is the only writer to haveworked out on every issue in the
arc.
Major plot, beats and arc werewritten by him, save for one big
change, which again we'll we'lldiscuss later now.
I was hyped up in previews andlater pages.
The in-story build-up waspretty minimal, if not
completely non-existent.
Archie number 46 had some vague, ominous foreshadowing, but

(35:44):
then smash cut to archie 47.
They were launching into thefour issue arc about the grave
final battle that was going tobe happening.
Almost like if you were readingyou'd be like wait, did I miss
something?
Uh, it just kind of jumped intoit, the freedom fighters and
their allies.
Sally goes on ahead as Sonicrushes off to go do something
else, blah, blah, there's God.

(36:05):
As Sonic rushes off to go dosomething else, blah, blah,
there's God.
I'm just looking at my notesand, man, there's no way I'm
getting through all of this.
There's so much that I don'teven know.
There's a lot of thesecharacters that I don't even
have any grasp of, so I'm justlike talking about them.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
This sounds like a weird Reign of Fire type or like
some sort of TerminatorApocalypse thing rain of fire
type, or like some sort ofterminator apocalypse thing.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Okay, and so in this end game, which is what they
called it sally dies jesus.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
I imagine a comic cover of sonic holding sally's
broken body crying like thecrisis on infinite earths number
what was it sick yeah, imaginethat, at least the way that ken
wrote it.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Nobody really cares, fair enough.
The fandom was very unhappy andvoice of displeasure.
Some fans took action andprotested.
Archie and sega were bombardedwith letters, fan protests and
petitions of varying tones, fromangry to heartbroken, but all
were unified in the desire tosee sally return to life.
In the pages of archie sonicthere have been multiple

(37:08):
explanations for Sally's death.
The consistent throughline,though, seems to be that a
discomfort Sally's ability totake Sonic down a peg which Ken
didn't like.
He killed Sally off because shequote cramped Sonic's style and
made him a second banana.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Wow yeah, mm-hmm, somebody's a divorced dad, dad
yeah, there's a lot.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
He also reinstated sally's father, king maximilian
acorn, to the comics, whichusurped sally position and made
her unnecessary well, she's awoman, so she's usually
unnecessary according to thislogic ken would then spend most
of his time the next yearworking on the in-production
knuckles comic, which left himvery little time to progress his

(37:53):
story, which we will get to,you'll hear about in a mini
episode about the replicantsally that he wanted to make
what is this lore we're dealingwith here?
I know.
So this left the story to theother archie sonic writers, who
already had their hands fullwith their own plans, and was
eventually smashed and gottenrid of by editor justin gabrys

(38:16):
requests that the end game havea happy ending, or at least one
that didn't ruin a year-longmislead.
There are also rumors that segawere at least responsible for
saving sally, starting citingmarketing plans for her down the
line, which does make sense.
Sally was the mascot for SegaWorld Sydney, where she also
starred in a live stage showcalled Sonic Lives in Sydney,

(38:40):
and so they didn't want theirfursuit mascot done away with.
Oh, wow, ok, before they couldutilize her.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
This alone is a lot.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
A live stage performance, oh boy yeah, okay
well I so many things I'mcurious about now despite end
game essentially being seen asawful by the fan base, it did
stir up a lot of attention forthe sonic comic and sales
numbers began soaring in.
An an ironic twist, that verycomic was intended to serve as
the series finale had insteadgiven the book the boost it

(39:11):
needed to become a fandom andindustry mainstay for the next
two decades.
But this sales boostingexplosion finale was a bit of a
double-edged sword.
They'd drawn a lot of pressattention but they'd done so by
killing off their main villainand changing the comic status
quo.
Robotnik dead and a whole lotmore to come.

(39:31):
This allows us to break upSonic Comics into three big
parts.
You have the early section alot of one shots around 20 to 25
.
The comic started to become alarger storytelling vehicle
Around Sonic.
Issue 25, Amy joins the comic.
This builds up to issue 50,which is Endgame.

(39:52):
Also, this is where they starthaving arcs and spinoff comics.
At this point this isessentially supposed to be the
end, but Sega wanted to fixthings, so afterwards they kept
expanding the stories and sidecharacters into more complex
stories.
Starting with issue 60, thingskind of go off the rails.
Archie contracts out positionsinstead of a standard writing

(40:15):
and drawing team.
So every three to four comicsthe story and art are
significantly different.
It's also here that the comichas some of the wildest and most
unique plots and art styles.
The three or so main writerswanted the comic to go in vastly
conflicting directions.
So in one comic we are doingone thing.
Two comics later we abandonthat arc entirely.

(40:37):
Characters are here one day,die the next when someone else
takes the wheel.
Then the original writer isback and boom, they miraculously
survived secretly and are back.
The longer the narrative gets,it gets super confusing and most
of the game tyrants are crammedin, only making things worse.
Now here we get some arcs.
Sonic and team go to schoolwith humans.

(40:59):
Okay, that happens for twoissues and then is never talked
about again.
You, you get a whole lot ofmultiverse Sonic stuff, also
trying to explain how humanslive in Station Square with the
Starry Night but are never seenon the surface of Mobius.
Sonic has a bunch of differentgirlfriends.
Then we see Sonic be banishedto a distant planet for five

(41:20):
comics and then sent back.
This kind of goes on and onlike this up until the second
kind of big break in the comicsis around issue 160.
So about issue 150, the writingjust gets off the wall.
Plus, Ken Penders has hisseries canceled, Archie stops
the multiple captains nonsenseand promotes Ian Flynn, the

(41:42):
permanent writer.
The next issue is used tostabilize the comic storyline as
well as bring in what manyreaders consider the best of
archie comics.
Characters like shard andscourge become mainline.
Several song story arcs,including one of the most
memorable ones, the rise ofmecca sally, are put in here.
It then starts getting reallyintense and you get on the brink

(42:04):
of major turning points in thestory when the lawsuit which
we'll talk about in just aminute forces Archie to make
major adjustments to the comic.
Everything gets hardcore,rebooted, Hundreds of characters
are dumped from the lore andeveryone's backstory gets reset
Again.
Put a pin in that.
We will be back to it in just asecond.
I just want to get through thislast thing.

(42:24):
The third big change is what'scalled New 252.
The comic has good writing andart from peak Archie and gets
back to the Freedom Fighterscore and the characters plot out
right out of the games, asrequested by Sega.
Archie made a good job tryingto get the comic to work again
with Sonic Unleashed and LostWorld storyline.

(42:45):
But the more lawsuits andlacking sales mean the comic
kind of stops suddenly around190.
You get Sonic Universe thatstarts up alongside this.
Now this has a lot of thestories from the main comic
characters that are given screentime while not clogging up the
main comic line.
It's like Shadow and Team, DarkStories, Chaotix, Silver, a lot

(43:08):
of concurrent stuff that tiesin with the main Sonic thing
storyline.
The sonic universe then rebootsat the same time and equally
ends at the same time that themain comic does.
Why does the main comic end andwhy do we get all these reboots
?
Most of this is because of thelawsuits.

(43:29):
Online you're going to find awhole lot of people discussing
about ken penders and theselawsuits and you get it like
back and forth, depending onwhich sides of the fandom that
you find yourself on.
Essentially, Ken Penders hadbeen working on the comic and
essentially Ken saw that theywere utilizing some of the stuff

(43:51):
that he had written and thecharacters that he had worked on
and were putting him in theSega games and using them in
different licensed properties.
And he had looked at his newishquote contract not the original
one he signed but the new onethat he had signed after when
they hastily wrote one up andwas like, wait, no, all of these

(44:14):
things are mine.
I own the license to all ofthese and I should get royalties
for all of this stuff.
And if Sega or anybody wants touse this, they need to pay me.
Now they went through aprotracted legal battle that
lasted a while and man, there'sso much about that.

(44:35):
But Archie sued him when hetried to collect royalties for
all of these things.
Archie ended up losing and hadto settle with Ken Penders.
Now there's a.
There's a lot like he wastrying to get money from Sega
and Bioware and Archie Biowarethere's a lot in there, Go check
.
Yeah, they were working withSega at the time.

(44:57):
He claimed a lot of stuff, alot of the stuff with Knuckles
like he claimed it as his own.
He then tried to take some ofthose characters he had made or
written the definitive versionsof and make his own stuff
outside of Archie Comics orSega's thing.
But after the lawsuit Archiewas out.
We don't know exactly how muchmoney Ken got from this, but it

(45:21):
must have been somewhatsignificant or cost prohibitive
and they were kind of in legallimbo with some of the stuff
they did.
So that's when you get the bigreboot, up until like that, 150
issues that Ken had been writing, they erased all of that, all
of the characters, all of thebackstory, 150 issues that Ken
had been writing.
They erased all of that, All ofthe characters, all of the
backstory, everything that hehad been involved with.

(45:43):
They essentially wrote out, sothey wouldn't have to deal with
any of that.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
That's a Sonic drama right there.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Oh, oh yeah.
There's a whole whole lot ofthat.
Again, archie were unable toproduce original copies of the
contract with Penders, nor thoseof any other artists they had
worked on Sonic, with, whichowed them up to future lawsuits
and are in after the 2013lawsuit with Penders was ended
in 2016.
Scott Fullop, who had been awriter on the Sonic comics after

(46:14):
Penders, he started suing forthe same stuff.
Eventually, his claims weredismissed in the defendant's
favor, saying that they didn'thave sufficient evidence for
their claims against archie.
That's fucking crazy.
This is a ton of stuff going onum at this time.
So they rebooted all that stuff, got rid of ken pender's

(46:35):
weirdness, his weird Naziinfluence stuff, his weird
Knuckles, jesus allegory stuff.
Oh wow, his weird furry sexstuff that he had kind of put in
there you should never letforum posters run an actual
franchise.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
I mean, that's what it is.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
I mean, this is basically just like 4chan or
like reddit, like like fanfiction in nutbags running an
actual franchise yeah, after thefact he got pissed, that like,
uh, eventually another companytakes over and pender's says you
know, that's all derivativesocial justice warrior vomit
that they're writing.
I mean, you kind of get an ideaof what he's all about.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Oh, god damn it too woke, you also get uh around
this time.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah, you know, archie sales are are declining.
They do a big when worldscollide.
That is this big crossover withsonic universe and and sonic
gives them a boom, but then they, they crash.
So eventually sonic ends with,I think, issue 275 and, due to
the lawsuits and the sales dips,you have archie focusing their

(47:48):
time and money on differentthings and it's also rumored
that sega's was asking too muchmoney to re-up their licensing
deal with Archie.
So Sonic then moved to IDW andif you look at the sales charts,
they massively overperformedthe best of what Sonic was doing

(48:10):
.
Sonic generally, you know, inits best of times in the 2010s
through 2015,.
In its best of times in the2010s through 2015, maybe they'd
get up to 12,000, 15,000 issuessold.
When IDW Sonic started, it shotup to around 22,000.
Wow, it did come back down toaround the 12,000 to 15,000 mark

(48:32):
.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
But in general they were doing much better than
Archie was able to do for muchof their run, which explains why
now, why you see idw trying todo the sonic justice league
crossovers and all that, yeah,in 2008, sonic the hedgehog was
outselling many of the corearchie titles.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
They even were able to do into the 30 000 unit range
, according to some websites.
That's a big number.
I don't know if I saw thatarchie comics digest Digest,
which again we're targetingdifferent fan bases.
They were generally outsellingSonic and the main Archie Comics
, usually doing about 10,000units.
Again, pretty big numbers.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
But when IDW?

Speaker 2 (49:08):
started.
They're selling around 21,000copies, really kind of blowing
old Archie sales, which had beendeclining over years, to
dropping under 10,000 copies anissue by 2014.
So legal disputes, loss of focusand declining sales and IDW
freshness took Sonic out ofArchie's hands.

(49:30):
But Sonic was a big mover forArchie comics for many, many
years.
Again lasted over 20 years ofgiving them consistent sales,
maybe not always hitting thehighest highs that they wanted,
but it was, like I said, thelongest ongoing licensed
property in comic form, reallykilling it and, I think, allowed

(49:52):
Archie to sustain in some ofits leaner times through the
late 90s and early 2000s, beforethey had some big changes,
which is what's coming up.
Yeah, sonic was never likeindustry leader or a flagship
necessarily for the book, but itdid provide them with a
consistency and a fan base fanbase.

(50:20):
I think it allowed them to tapinto a fan base that may not
have been as aware of archiecomics before them and allowed
them to keep sales consistentenough to stay afloat as a
larger entity and I do thinkthat is kind of ironic because
as much turmoil and lawsuits anddrama that mired that franchise
, that that series, and still itwas the only constant thing in

(50:41):
Archie sales.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Well, I mean, there were, Archie still was selling
other things, and we'll get to alittle bit of what else was
happening with in the 90s intothe 2000s, before Archie really
turned a corner and didsomething completely different.
It certainly does do that.
It certainly does, yes, yeah,we will finish up our what was
supposed to be a single episodelook at Archie Comics.
History, as we so often do,became at least a three-parter.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Because the stuff's there, the material's there.
Yeah, we didn't plan on itbeing this long, but when we dug
into it, there's a rich historyhere and it's more, much more
complex and complicated thaneveryone gives it credit for,
unless you really understand theindustry.

(51:26):
So it's an interesting deepdive.
It goes from family drama,nostalgic stuff to pseudo scott
mitchell rosenberg stuff, mixedwith jim shooter and stan lee,
and and then now we haven't evengotten into the renaissance of
Archie yet, which is the nextand final phase of this.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
Yeah and dear listener, we will cover that on
next episode, yes, of DispatchAjax and we hope that you have
enjoyed this weird, weirdoffshoot deep dive into Sonic
lore.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
But mostly Sonic comic lore.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Yeah, yeah, mostly Sonic comic lore, yeah, lore,
yeah, yeah, mostly sonic comiclore.
Yeah, we essentially didn'ttouch the video games at all and
offhandedly discussed thecartoons.
Not even like the movies.
That's probably the biggestthing about sonic.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
now you got the movies and live action yeah, but
the movies are like the thing Icare about the least, so
whatever yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
No, I don't really have any affinity for Sonic,
much in general.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
It's a whole universe in and of itself that has
literally nothing to do with thevideo games.
We'll address that later.
It gets deep and dark.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
And we're not even in Ken Pender's search history, so
I don't really have much of askin in the game.
It does seem like he may bemore of a negative influence.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
He sounds like Zack Snyder in that sense.
Yeah, he encouraged a huge fanbase, but it may be against what
everyone else thinks about thefranchise.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Just like Zack Snyder , Like yeah, yeah, not good, not
good at all, but you know, whatwe do hope is good was this
episode and the next episodethat will hit your earwaves
quite soon.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
And, quite frankly, we hope that most of our
episodes are good.
Just like to throw that outthere.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
It's a hope, it's a prayer, but we hope that you
guys have enjoyed them and, ifyou wouldn't mind, like, sharing
, subscribing, perhaps evenrating us.
Five blue holes on the podcastapp of your choice furry furry
holes ideally.
Furry blue holes fbh.
On the podcast app of yourchoice ideally, apple podcast's

(53:36):
the best way for us to get heardand thus seen.
It really gets our name outthere and gets some buzz, some
word of mouth.
It lets the bots on X follow us.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
The Russian neo-Nazi bots.
That's our biggest demographicapparently.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
I love how they've officially come out and said
that officially, there are morebots on Twitter now than there
are humans.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Oh, absolutely Everyone knew it.
Now they just can't deny it.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Well, I know.
But like now they likeofficially.
If they're like officiallysaying they've crossed over,
like the 50% mark, then you knowit's like 90%, 90%, yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
It's great.
It's great.
The world's great Doing great.
Everything's going really well.
The world's great Doing great.
Everything's going really well.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
We're loving it, but until AI, which is also a
podcast, truly takes over andruins your feed and all of your
podcasts.
We're here for you, fellowhuman.
We're still people, we promisewe're not replicants.
I promise.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
So are we human or are we dancers?
Dancers, I mean, that's tough,that's tough.
I'm going to go with human.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
You would, though.
That's why we can't trust you.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Hey look, I may be more human than human, hey hey.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
I got a dragula.
All right, yep, why not Allright right dig through those
ditches before, um, before youslam into the back of my dragula
, what should the rest of theaudience, the second dirtiest
thing you've ever said to me,twice, two things in this one
recording.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Please make sure that you have cleaned up after
yourselves to some sort ofreasonable degree.
Make sure you have kept yourwaitstaff, your bartenders, your
KJs, your podcasters.
Make sure that you support yourlocal comic shops and retailers
.
And from Dispatch Ajax, wewould like to see, we would like
to say Godspeed, fair Wizards.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
No, I want to see.
I want to see it.
Please go away.