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No. 218614
>>218599 SEGA has competent lawyers. When Sonic first came out, nobody could have predicted it would stay hot so long. Archie got what turned out to be a pretty sweet contract, promising that they'd get exclusive rights to Sonic comics (well, in America at least), and that they'd have the first shot at comics of any Sonic spin-offs like Knuckles or Tails. SEGA got into the habit of just renewing the contract over and over a little before it was due to expire, because for a long time there was no reason for them to object to the terms. But because nobody thought a video game comic would last that long, Archie got sloppy keeping track of their talent's paperwork. Then Ken was able to sue SEGA, and SEGA let their contract with Archie expire for apparently the first time ever, giving SEGA a chance to negotiate a way crappier contract where Archie no longer has exclusive rights and has to pay more up front (even though they know SEGA can now turn to IDW and say "wanna make a 'Sonic Boom' comic?" which would cut into Archie's sales). And that's just the stuff that DIDN'T get all blacked out in the documents available through Public Access to Court Electronic Records. Jon Goldwater's affidavit is basically "Let me tell you how badly Ken damaged relations with SEGA. In 2011, because of Ken, we had to make a new contract and [whole page of text redacted]. See exhibits [exhibits redacted]." There could be a bunch of nastiness we don't know about. We don't know.
Or maybe SEGA had a change of heart and offered a nicer contract recently (I doubt it).
SEGA might be drowning Archie in mandates, we have no way of knowing, and if they WERE then it's unlikely anyone would tell us. But the new contract probably put Archie at least slightly on edge anyway. If the cute little baby monkey suddenly turns into a 700lb gorilla with a machine gun, it doesn't NEED to say "gimme all the bananas".
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