Sonic the Hedgehog and Archie break up after longer than you thought they were together for
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.
The headline says it all, really -- SEGA and Archie Comics' relationship has come to an end, meaning that Archie has ceased publishing their Sonic the Hedgehog based comic. If you have tears, prepare to weep them now.
The most surprising thing about this news is just how long the Sonic the Hedgehog comic had been running for -- until the series had some issues cancelled late last year, there had been no breaks in the publishing of the comic for 25 years, making it the longest continuously running series of comics in American history. Even the issue numbers haven't had a reset or anything in all that time, despite how naturally large and convoluted the Sonic comic canon and list of characters has gotten over the years. That's both a pretty impressive achievement, as well as a pretty fiendish trivia question for you to set at your upcoming quiz nights.
Still, over the past year it was clear that SEGA and Archie were having certain problems in their relationship, the sort that you might go to a counselor about, or book a holiday over -- what with the missed issues and the lack of explanation as to why they were missed, it seemed as though Archie were gradually pulling a Milton on the Sonic the Hedgehog comic, relegating it to a desk in the basement. So really, the news of the comics cancellation doesn't come as much of a surprise for fans.
So, what of the future for the Blue Bullet's adventures on the page? Well, it's probably not so bad -- no-one should expect that these stories will come to an end. Sonic's still got name value, he's still got a young market, and apparently the comics weren't even particularly lousy performers or anything -- the reasons why SEGA and Archie's partnership broke down are not clear at the time of writing. This weekend marks one of the biggest events in the worldwide comic calendar, the San Diego Comic Con, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility for SEGA to announce a new home for the comic as soon as this weekend. So don't worry too much -- the adventures of Sonic, Robotnik, and all the other characters that aren't named Sonic or Robotnik will very likely still be available on a newsstand fairly close to you sometime in the near future.
