by 
I can't remember a single point in my life when I didn't already know about Sonic the Hedgehog.
Ever since I arrived kicking and screaming into this world back in 1992, the character has pretty much been a constant presence in my life, with some of my earliest memories being of family parties spent sat under my parents' dining room table devouring inhuman amounts of party rings and "playing" the Sega Mega Drive games with my older brothers (who were admittedly a lot more skilled at it than I).
Growing up, my parents would get my brothers and me Sonic clothes, Sonic bath toys, and even Sonic -themed birthday cakes, and we would also constantly catch the American Sonic cartoons (like Sonic the Hedgehog and The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog) whenever they were on TV in the UK, feeding into our family's rapidly developing Sonic-Mania. This all paled in comparison, however, to our obsession with Fleetway Editions' Sonic the Comic, which, to us, was just as important as the games it was inspired by.
Fleetway Sonic the Comic (so-called to distinguish it from the American Sonic comic published by Archie) ran in the UK for nine years, from 1993 until 2002. It featured, as the name suggests, stories centred on Sonic and friends, as well as comic strips based on other popular Sega games (such as Streets of Rage, Shinobi, and Golden Axe), along with news, fan art, and reviews.
For Sonic mad fans in the UK in the '90s and early 2000s, it was pretty much an essential purchase, and thanks to my older brothers, who would buy the magazine almost religiously, I always had access to a steady stream of issues, falling in love with its stories from writers like Nigel Kitching and Lew Stringer and the art of people like Richard Elson and Mike McMahon. As a result, I wanted to use Sonic's 35th anniversary as an opportunity to chat with some of the individuals involved in bringing the comic to life, go over its history, and pay tribute to its astonishing run, which had a huge impact in shaping me into the Sonic fan I am today.
"The First Issue Of Sonic The Comic Had To Be Turned Out In A Hurry"
Looking into the beginnings of Fleetway Sonic the Comic, there is one name that typically comes up when talking about the comic's origins: Richard Burton, the original launch editor for the comic.
Prior to Sonic the Comic, Burton was already a well-connected figure in the British comic space and had already built a long and impressive career.
He first rose to prominence in the '70s for his role in establishing the Comic Media brand alongside fellow comics enthusiast Nick Landau, and was also among those who helped found the Eagle Awards — a series of British awards for comic book titles and creators. After a short stint as an assistant editor at Marvel UK in the late '70s, he then ended up taking a job at another publisher, IPC Magazines, going on to become an assistant editor and editor of 2000AD, one of the UK's most influential comic magazines under IPC Magazines (and its immediate successors, Fleetway Publications and Fleetway Editions).
As a result, when somebody at Fleetway Editions decided to launch a comic based on Sega's hit video game Sonic the Hedgehog in the early '90s, he was viewed internally as a safe pair of hands, and someone who would have no problem finding talent to fill its pages on a relatively tight schedule, being selected to be the comic's editor. In the end, he would spend three years in this role and, during this run, be responsible for recruiting some of the comic's most famous contributors, including the writer Nigel Kitching and the artist Richard Elson.
"I think it’s important to understand that the first issue of Sonic the Comic had to be turned out in a hurry," said Kitching. "Richard didn’t have much time to find people to work on the comic.
"Fleetway had fairly recently merged with London Editions to create Fleetway Editions, and I’d done a lot of work for London Editions. In fact, I was still writing and drawing for The Red Dwarf Smegazine, which started out as a London Editions comic. I imagine somebody I’d worked with at London Editions might have recommended me to Richard Burton. I had written quite a bit for them, including their Tom and Jerry comic. So I suspect that Richard Burton was looking for a writer with experience working on licensed characters and somebody put my name forward."
Similar to Kitching, Elson also had experience on licensed comics. He had previously worked on the UK Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles comic for Fleetway, under the editorship of Barrie Tomlinson, and had even contributed "the cover, a series of illustrations and a comic strip to the first UK Sonic annual." It also didn't hurt that he already knew Burton, having worked with him at 2000AD.
"Richard had been my editor at 2000AD a couple of years earlier," said Elson. "As I remember it, I contacted Richard because my wife and I were changing address and I was letting all of my previous employers know. Richard told me about the new Sonic comic he was working on; I mentioned that I had drawn the character for a recent annual, and Richard asked me if I would be interested in drawing for Sonic the Comic; I was."
Interestingly, before becoming involved with the comic, neither Kitching nor Elson admits to being much of a fan of the character's games. Kitching, for instance, owned a Mega Drive, but when he attempted to play the copy of the game that came bundled with his console, he kept dying in the second zone, deciding "it wasn’t for [him]." As a result, he put it aside and took "no further notice of it" until he was asked to work on the comic, at which point he dug it out "to see what the [rest of the] levels looked like." Elson, meanwhile, was (and admittedly still is) much more of a Nintendo guy, having always preferred Mario's moustachioed plumber and characters like Samus to Sega's mascot. Nevertheless, when he was hired, he did his best to keep up to speed with what was happening in the Sonic universe, thanks to being gifted a Sega Mega Drive console and copies of the games as they appeared.
"I was (and still am) far more interested in Mario, Zelda, Metroid and the other Nintendo games that were out at the time," said Elson. "I would borrow my nephew’s NES, and my wife and I purchased a Super Nintendo as our first console. Richard Burton sent me a Megadrive and copies of the early Sonic games as they came out, so that we could keep up with what was happening in the games. We got regular access to the new games after that."
"Looking Back, I Think I Made A Mistake By Including A Lynching Scene In A Kids’ Comic."
The very first issue of Sonic the Comic was released on 29th May, 1993. However, neither Kitching nor Elson would be involved in creating the issue. Instead, Alan McKenzie penned the very first story, Enter: Sonic, with Anthony Williams providing the art, and Tom Frame being responsible for the lettering.
In fact, Kitching wouldn't contribute his debut Sonic story until Issue 4, released in July 1993, where he wrote Day of the Badniks, a simple tale about a Badnik Sonic terrorising The Emerald Hill Zone (Elson meanwhile would make his debut in Issue 7). It's in this story that Kitching would introduce readers to his own personal take on the character — a slightly edgier version he calls "not very pleasant in some ways." This is a version of the character that has since drawn some criticism online from parts of the Sonic fan community for his cocky, sarcastic attitude and his constant insults directed at Tails (whom he frequently refers to as "Pixel Brain"). But who, ultimately, behind the bravado, clearly still cares about his friends, always rushing to their rescue whenever he is needed.
Speaking to Kitching and Elson about Sega's input on the comic, both men state that the publisher was, for the most part, hands-off, having hired another company, Copyright Promotions, to handle all its licensing in the UK. This company's job was to monitor the comic's content and ensure its creators didn't do anything that might reflect poorly on the brand. In the beginning, this relationship necessarily got off to the best of starts, with Copyright Promotions having its own idea of what the comic should be, but over time, the company eased off, allowing writers, like Kitching, to develop their own versions of the characters and break free of the one-shot structure they were beholden to at the beginning.
"Copyright Promotions had a lot to say about early episodes of Sonic the Comic," Elson notes. "A meeting was arranged at the London Sega offices where Copyright Promotions, Sega and the regular Sonic the Comic contributors got together to discuss how things were working out. Luckily, Sega sided with our view of the situation and, after that meeting, Copyright Promotions gave us a lot more latitude to tell and draw stories the way that we thought they should be done to make a more compelling comic."
Kitching adds, "In the beginning, we had surprisingly little reference material from Sega. I was given a ring binder of marketing material from Sega, but it was clearly designed for people planning to produce Sonic merchandise, such as lunch boxes, pyjamas, or whatever. Richard Burton suggested I get hold of a book called Stay Sonic. I found out later this was essentially a rewrite of a Sega document that I came across years later."
"I was really lucky that there wasn’t really much in the way of an official bible, so I was soon making up my own Sonic Universe. This lack of material from Sega was actually a blessing, allowing me to create a version of the character that felt very much like my own. To begin with, the editor kind of suggested I use zones from the games in the stories, but if I remember correctly, that didn’t last for long, and I was basically given freedom to do what I wanted. I remember wanting to create a backstory for Knuckles, so I spoke with Copyright Promotions to see if there was any official version I needed to follow. They got back to me and said they couldn’t find anything, so I was free to make up whatever I wanted."
Over the course of the comic, to tell more compelling stories, the creators of Sonic the Comic would constantly invent new characters, including Freedom Fighters Johnny Lightfoot and Porker Lewis and original enemies like the skypirate Captain Plunder, the scientist-turned-pink mutant Megatox, and the power-hungry crime lord Lord Sidewinder. However, it didn't stop there; the comic's writers also took some of Sonic's existing characters and changed them from their video game counterparts to create more storytelling possibilities.
A perfect example of this is the comic's depiction of Super Sonic, who was portrayed in the games as a more powerful version of Sonic but in the comic as Sonic's evil split personality, who emerges whenever the character is under extreme stress and doesn't care whether his friends live or die. Making his appearance in Elson's debut issue, in the story Super Sonic, the character would make sporadic appearances throughout the comic, including in the three-part arc Running Wild, which led to his eventual separation from Sonic into his own unique entity.
"I assume [the idea to make Super Sonic evil] must have been Nigel’s idea," said Elson. "I had no contact with him before that script arrived on my desk, so I contributed no story ideas until later in the run when Nigel and I were communicating on an almost daily basis. The swirling eyes on Super Sonic were my idea, though. I took them from political cartoonist Ralph Steadman - who regularly used the eye spiral device to make characters in his drawings look slightly unhinged."
Kitching said, "I remember just liking the idea that he was out of control and really dangerous. A bit like the Hulk, I suppose. I wanted him to be terrifying and there being no doubt that he would kill just for the fun of it. Most of the stories I wrote for Richard Elson to draw would begin with us talking on the phone about ideas. Rich was going to have to draw this stuff, so it seemed like a good idea for him to contribute some ideas – which he certainly did. As an example, the idea to split him off from Sonic [in later issues] was down to Richard Elson. That was great because now Sonic could face the evil version of himself. You’d never be allowed this kind of freedom with a licensed character nowadays. Sega were really relaxed about the comic following its own course.
"That being said, I did a few things that caused some upset", he continued. "There was one Knuckles story that was set in a version of the Wild West – a cowboy story. I was having fun with cowboy cliches, so of course Knuckles was in a saloon. Having Knuckles in a pub upset somebody, even though he wasn’t drinking a beer or anything. But by the time this was picked up on, it was too late, and there wasn’t time to change it. In the same story, I had a lynching scene, and again this wasn’t picked up on until Nigel Dobbyn had completed the artwork. In this case, a change was made, and the rope was moved from Knuckles’ neck to his waist. I have to say that, looking back, I think I made a mistake by including a lynching scene in a kids’ comic."
"Sonic The Comic Was Probably The Most Enjoyable Job I Ever Had"
As the '90s progressed, Sonic the Comic only grew more popular, even amid editorial changes (which saw Burton pass the baton to the comic's assistant editor, Deborah Tate), giving rise to several memorable arcs, including loose takes on Sonic CD and Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and a ton of original stories.
This includes Lew Stringer's memorable Project Brutus arc (63-65), which saw Robotnik's assistant create a second-in-command for the villain with Robotnik's personality, who immediately betrays the evil doctor (because of course, that's what it would do); Kitching and Nigel Dobbyn's Knuckles-related side stories, which saw the appearance of Doctor Zachary, another surviving Echidna, who has knowledge of Floating Island's history and is not what he initially appears to be; and Easy Target (87), a ridiculous Tails-led story by Stringer and artist Carl Flint where the twin-tailed fox is encouraged to assassinate Robotnik with a sniper rifle (yes, really!).
To fans of the comic, everything seemed to be going from strength to strength, but behind the scenes, budget cuts would eventually lead to the comic's undoing, with the news, game review, and game tips sections being removed, pages constantly being cut, and more and more reprints finding their way into the comic each month, before it became reprint-only as of issue 185. Fortunately, though, before that happened, it concluded with perhaps one of the best arcs in the entirety of the comic's run — one which was loosely inspired by the events of Sonic Adventure.
This saw Grimer (Robotnik's assistant) release the seemingly unstoppable entity Chaos after Robotnik gave up his pursuit of Sonic, leading to Chaos going on a destructive spree through downtown Metropolis City. The arc kicked off in issue 175 of the comic with The Coming of Chaos and would become one of the more emotional stories featured during its run, including the death of the original character, Johnny Lightfoot, who had been a regular since Issue 8.
"Yes, that last ten-issue story is one of mine and Rich’s favourites," said Kitching. "This was the first time I was allowed to plan a story over ten issues (I think it was ten). It actually was an easy pitch [to kill Johnny]. I had a new editor, Andy Diggle, and his background was 2000AD. He was quite happy for me to have Johnny die in the story. Again, Sega had nothing to say about it.
"A few of the fans weren’t happy and thought I really shouldn’t have killed off one of the regular cast. But I had a point to make about the dangers of being a hero, and I thought it was handled well."
What was particularly notable about Johnny's death was just how brutal it was for a children's comic. In contrast to what you might expect, the character wasn't given a drawn-out death or a dramatic sacrifice. He is simply hit, falls down, and never gets up again; it's sudden, shocking, and something I honestly couldn't believe when my brother told me about it upon its release, believing it must have been some kind of cruel joke.
Elson told me, "Sonic the Comic was probably the most enjoyable job I ever had, and that last Chaos story was probably the most enjoyable thing I did while on Sonic the Comic. It’s one of the very few things that I’ve done in comics that I am still fond of. There was a real momentum to the Sonic story at the time because I think Lew [Stringer] was doing some great work leading up to that final adventure.
"Andy Diggle came on as editor and brought Nigel back to write it. I’m pretty sure we knew that we only had 10 issues before the comic went full reprint, so it was lovely to have plenty of time and space to give the comic a fitting send-off. We also had only very vague details of the game we would be following, so we brought in a lot of our own ideas. I particularly enjoyed Nigel’s nihilistic take on Robotnik and Grimer’s frustration at Robotnik’s personality change. The death of Johnny has been mentioned a lot since; it was probably the emotional high mark of the series."
The last official issue of Sonic the Comic would be issue 223, released in December 2002, which featured a reprint of the old 4-part story The Evil Empire, about Sonic being taken prisoner by the Drakon Empire, alongside a new open letter to fans from Nigel Kitching.
For those involved with the comic, there was some frustration with the way things ended, with some believing the comic could have lasted longer if it had been managed differently. But overall, both Elson and Kitching look back on the time fondly, glad for what they were able to achieve and the legacy it left behind on a generation of kids.
"I think it was short-sighted of the people in control of Sonic the Comic to make the comic all reprints," said Elson. "They assumed that the original audience had outgrown the comic so that the reprints would seem fresh to new readers, but the audience had grown with the comic and had little interest in rereading previous adventures. Once the reprints began, the decline in sales was inevitable. I am still convinced that there could have been many more years of interesting and exciting new stories produced for Sonic the Comic.
"Saying that, though, I am constantly thrilled that people still feel affection for the work we did on that comic. I’ve met a lot of Sonic the Comic readers over the years (all lovely people), and I am grateful to all of them for their enthusiasm, support and kind comments about work we did so long ago. I am particularly thrilled that so many ex-Sonic the Comic readers have become talented creatives and are producing great comics for new generations of readers."
"When it happened it just seemed inevitable," added Kitching. "Obviously, I was sorry to see the comic go, and I believe that if Fleetway had managed things differently, the comic could have continued for longer. But I’m not really one for looking back on stuff like this. What I really remember is all the fun I had when the comic was doing well, and I was kept really busy. I worked with some great artists like Richard Elson, Nigel Dobbyn and Mick McMahon. It was also great to work alongside Lew Stringer, who wrote some fantastic stuff for the comic. And finally, we were lucky to have really supportive editors, starting with Richard Burton, then Deborah Tate, who was the editor for most of the comic’s run. It felt like I was basically working with friends."