>>218759
We're too busy talking about NOT MUH Sally and the Nu252

Sonic>All

>>218767

I'm sure if Mega Man's retail release schedule wasn't so fucked we'd at least have a couple people pretending to have a conversation about it.

>>218768
>Pretending

Fuck you. Curse of Ra Moon is being awesome.

http://www.destructoid.com/have-some-sample-pages-for-mega-man-31-264917.phtml

>>218780
>The Nerbs were made by Angelo deCesare, the same guy who made Larry and the Arctic FFs. He also still works at Archie, so if anyone's likely to be safe, it's characters he made.

Not necessarily. They got burned bad by using Ken's chars when they couldn't find the original copy of his contract. From here on out it comes down to them being able to either find the original contract of a creator or, presumably, convince the creator to sign something new. Of course it would be a bit awkward to go up to someone like deCesare and go "So... we've been using your creations on occasion and it turns out, funny story, we don't have the paperwork legally letting us do that. Would you mind signing something to give up the right to sue us?"

There might be some creators where they have a good enough relationship they feel comfortable more-or-less doing that, but for the most part I think from here on out it comes down to whether or not they can find the original contracts or not.

>>218787
I said likely, not definitely. I mean that out of everyone who isn't Ian or Sega-official, Angelo's stuff has the best chance of being safe.

Also worth noting they're still using Tania Del Rio's Nicole design as a base for her current look, so it's not like Archie's so worried that they're running from everything that could be a potential problem.

>>218787
I think the logic in that statement was "they're the most likely to be safe because DeCesare still works at Archie and he's probably the easiest old writer to go back to and say "Can we talk about this stuff?"

Same reason they probably didn't drastically redesign Nicole.

>>218788
>>218789
...How did we manage to post the same things like that? Get out of my head, man.

>>218791
Because it's a really easy conclusion to come to?

If Tania Del Rio is relatively a new person, she's probably under the same kind of contract Ian and Tracy are.

It's also reasonable to assume that after the Penders thing Archie would have had all their current employees and work-for-hires sign an updated contract if they wanted to keep working for them.

>>218798
Well, I'd assume they did that only for those they couldn't find active contracts for; everyone else probably maintained the status quo. Ian and Tracey are recent enough that they probably have good copies and strong contracts somewhere, and anyone else working for Archie that needed it probably just signed something codifying their duties and who gets the copyright on their characters created for Archie series (hint: it's Archie.) If someone were good about it they might have been able to renegotiate their salary while they were dealing with this crap anyway.

Any contracts they had, that were proper about assigning rights, probably got copied and re-signed in quadruple, with one copy being sent into orbit and another to Siberia so they can make sure to have backups.

>>218800
>Salary
>Working at Archie

hahahahahahaha
That's not how that works, bud. I get what you're saying, but holy crap that's rich.

>>218809
Is it commission per issue or something, then?

>>218823
Yup. I'm REALLY fortunate Archie wants to throw me three books consistently.

Damn, after all this they're STILL clinging to work-for-hire? Sigh.

Of course, that's starting to creep back over at Marvel and DC too. Alan Moore was right, making movies out of comics made WB/Disney decide to shift back to shittier contracts, since they don't want to have to pay creators when their creations appear in movies.

Still, at least with the big two you can hope to get something for your reprint work. And I know that a few years ago one of the more standard contracts (according to Mark Waid at least) stated that creators would see a little Cha-Ching if their characters later got toys/multimedia, and a very small something if the characters appeared in something that sold unusually well. Every once in a while Waid got a pleasant surprise in the form of a check saying "Impulse turned out to be popular again, here's your cut".

Hey, maybe, just maybe now that Waid is working for Archie he can convince them to adopt better contracts!

Yeah, and maybe I'm a Chinese jet pilot.

>>218831
> The comics industry in general.
> Salaries
> Viable

You really don't get how this stuff works, do you? That approach only works on stuff like magazines with multiple stories (stuff like Jump over in Japan is basically the only place you'll actually see that happen) and literally un-killanle books like Batman. Even then it's farfetched because it would become a nightmare if you don't just have the same writer on the book each year.

Writing isn't a profession you seek out if you want any form of fiscal security.

>>218828
Sheeeeeeet. That sucks. If you can share and are willing to do so, do you at least get a contract that says they'll commission you for X issues? Or could each new issue you write potentially be your last?

>>218835
>You really don't get how this stuff works, do you?

As well as an industry insider? Nope. But I try to follow the info that's publicly available.
http://thrillbent.com/blog/how-dc-contracts-work/ is a very good summary of industry contracts over the years, although obviously it leaves out a lot, like how the extremely favorable Vertigo contracts are a thing of the past (hence why good new books from Vertigo are a thing of the past), Shooter's role in improving things, Lee's workarounds to try and get creators more steady money despite him having very little real power, those sleazy old checks that had WFH contracts stamped on them so that when a creator endorsed a check they signed away their rights (pic related), etc.

You're right that secure jobs for creators clearly don't really exist in the comics industry, but Marvel/DC have improved things since 1985 or so, so their contracts aren't just a flat-rate-payment. Royalties, reprints, creation rights, etc. got put into play.
(And WB/Disney seem to be trying to turn back the clock to undo that http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/04/16/digital-first-comics-and-straight-work-for-hire-contracts-with-no-royalties/ )
But as people like Steve Bissette and Colleen Doran have attested to (along with a couple guys that worked on the Red Circle 80s push whose names I forget), most of the improvements that happened at Marvel/DC (and Charlton before it folded) didn't happen at Archie. Ken weighed in on the state of things between Marvel/DC vs. Archie back in 2010
http://www.tssznews.com/2010/07/09/penders-flynn-elaborate-on-archie-sonic-comic-row/
Had he stuck to just seeking royalties for reprints, I suspect people would have a very different opinion of him now. The Lara-Su Chronicles were a pretty bizarre deviation from the usual fights over creator rights.
I'd vaguely hoped that with everything that had happened the last few years, Archie might've seen the wisdom in adopting more favorable contracts for creators, but if it's still just lump-sum payments and nothing more then I'm not sure what it would take to serve as a wake-up call for them.

Still, beats the days when Marvel strongarmed Kirby into signing over the Captain America rights for ONE MEASLY DOLLAR.

>>218845
If anything Ken has, most likely, struck a blow towards creator rights if anything. I couldn't see a situation where what he did would ever help anyone, and now readers and creatives alike have more or less been shit on for petty reasons that could have easily been circumvented.

Of course, that doesn't mean anything to the kind of person whose worldview is essentially "Fuck you, got mine."

Hey Ian, have any thoughts about Res Circle? I feel like all the hype and excitement is gone since its been over a year since the Brain Emperor cliff hanger. The Fox as neat but its a side story with really nothing to do with NC

>>218848
Probably not much he can say, since he could hardly say anything negative about the change from "spring 2013" to "spring 2014," and it's starting up again in just a few months so he wouldn't want to give a lot of way. I'm not sure you can assume that The Fox is unrelated though, the character ages seem to match up with what Ian is doing - Fox II got aged up to be "I've got a teenager" old, just like most of the Mighty Crusaders were before Brain Emperor left those teenagers orphaned.

>>218847
Yeah, his actions make it more likely, at least to me, that property owners will take a tighter grip over the work done for them instead of trying to do a nice compensation/royalties system. There really isn't anyone that comes out ahead in this scenario, but I don't think Penders has realized that; even if he wins both cases, he's built up such hatred within the community that only his most ardent fans will buy whatever he makes. The community will shun his Chronicles (not that they were interested in the first place) and now no publisher will touch him for fear that even with an ironclad contract, he will still try to take them to court and cost them money.

I don't know if he was trying to make a point, or just make money, but either way he now bares the black mark.

So are the the Mario and Sonic games canon to the Nu252?

>>218853
>"I don't know if he was trying to make a point, or just make money, but either way he now bares the black mark."

Probably both, with how often he goes on about how evil big companies are and how the little guy deserves everything no matter what.


>>218855
>"So are the the Mario and Sonic games canon to the Nu252?"

Yes. The big twist coming at the end of Countdown to Chaos is that it's actually the start of a Super Mario Galaxy adaptation.

>>218855

>>218855
No. Because if crossover games count, that would mean that characters like the Heavy, Ulala, and Vyse would be part of Nu252, which...

...I mean, Yes.

Speaking on the Red Circle thing, I kinda thing it was a bad decision to base it on the existing Red Circle universe. As someone stepping into it with no prior knowledge of Red Circle (and from my understanding there hasnt been a Red circle since the 80s so thats probably a good chunk of people reading it) its kind of annoying having these back logs about events that happened ages ago. Its kinda like "lets bring these guys from the 50s, 60s, and 70s back, but instead of revitalize them and rework them, we'll just pick off where we left off thirty years ago and hope everyone remembers what happened. Is there even a fanbase for the old stuff?

>>218866
>Is there even a fanbase for the old stuff?

The "Red Circle" output for the 30s/40s/most of the 50s was pretty generic. Not bad or anything, but nothing really standing out either (although The Shield beat Cap to being the first patriotic superhero).

Late 50s/60s they brought in some serious talent in the form of Kirby, Ditko, and the like, and we got The Fly. Then the Red Circle sorta fell off the map. There were still some anthology books done under the Red Circle label, adventure/horror stuff, and some of that was good, but even that died off.

Then in the 80s they had a big push and brought in some people that really knew what they were doing to do "modern day" stories using the old heroes. If you can't find anything you like from the 80s books, notify your family. They deserve to know that you're clinically dead. Storytime related.

Unfortunately Archie seemed to have this idea that if they just threw good creators at their old properties, they'd be competing with DC and Marvel on equal footing in no time flat. When that didn't happen they pulled the plug and got into the habit of just selling someone the Red Circle rights every few years, while doing the occasional "Know Your Red Circle Heroes" story in their books, pretending the characters were still in use by them.

>>218872

>>218873

>>218874

>>218875

>>218878

>>218879

>>218880

>>218881

>>218842
Technically, I live issue to issue. I could walk away in the middle of a story arc, or they could drop me tomorrow. ...y'know, when I put it like that, it sounds terrifying - haha.

>>218848
Actually, the Fox is VERY connected to New Crusaders. A lot of what's shown in the first issue - his wife, son, the Grin Men, Mr. Smile - are all from materials I prepared for "Dark Tomorrow." And I've had solid plans for the first 24 issues. Beyond that, I dunno. It's out of my hands.

>>218866
You'd be surprised how many folks are die-hard fans of the 80s stuff and felt teased by the two DC revamps. The beauty of picking up from the old continuity is that there's tons of room to tell new stories that are perfectly accessible. And if you're the type that likes to drown in archaic comic lore, that's there too. There really wasn't a need to revamp the old stuff.

>>218768
The trouble with the latest issue is that it's entirely awesome. Makes it hard to pick one part to praise. EVERYONE has a crowning moment of awesome.

Well, maybe not Bubble Man. But even Plant Man gets to be awesome in this story.

Is it true the Sonic OVA was originally planned to have 6 to 8 episodes?

I'm sure I read this somewhere, but I can't find any source to confirm one way or another.

>>218899
>Rush learns to walk on his hind limbs
>Nobody notices

Being Rush is suffering.

>>218866
The New Crusaders reminded me of "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes." There's a lot of backstory in that cartoon that explains that there are a ton of supers in the World and they've been at this for years. In New Crusaders, we see that there was this old generation of heroes and they had villains and stuff, but I didn't need to know every single storyline to know who these people are or what they were doing.

>>218872
>>218897
Thanks for the story time. I'm sure you guys will change my mind on this after I get a chance to read this. Now I'm getting excited for Dark Tomorrow again. Hopefully the Fox will keep coming out in time to keep an appetitie whet (or I just dont forget) when DT comes out

>>218899
I'd say it's not that there was any one moment that screamed for attention, just lots of nice little touches. Gemini-Man arguing with Gemini-Man, Wily To The Rescue, the general creepiness of the bots under Ra Moon's control, the "MEANWHILE..." scene with Light and other Robot Masters

The Ra Moon arc's been great.

I wonder... did Antoine EVER wear his old uniform in the new continuity, or has he been shirtless all along?

This is the sort of question that haunts me now.

>>218899
The real trouble with the latest issue is the schedule means a lot of people don't have it, or don't want to talk spoilers. All the feedback sounds positive and the art looks like it's improved, but damn if the suscribers or shop get to see that yet.

>>218924
You may as well ask if Sally was pink in the new continuity.

Super Special Magazine 9 is out for any of you eager to read up about the new continuity.

>>218964
Does he have to redo the entire timeline from scratch now?

>>218964
Does anyone buy this thing? theres always huge stacks at every store I go to that sells it.

>>218976
No idea, but it'll get a few sales until someone finally leaks the darn thing.

It's official.* Sally can shoot laser beams from her hands.

*Not actually official yet.

>>218964
It says things about the new continuity? I'll be buying the magazine again it seems.

>>218986
Nothing major.
Mostly cosmetic junk and semi-spoilers.

>Promise new content that tells us about the new universe
>Wow its fucking nothing

Do you not want people to buy these Magazines? Where's the CONTENT?

>>218997
The magazine is just a preview of their other books for kids. It literally exists to advertise, rather than sell itself.

This is the most substantial content they've ever given us.

>>219000
More substantial than the original timeline in issues 1-4? please. I'm gonna need to see proof of that.

>>219002
>The timelines
You mean the blurbs of retcon text that didn't actually explain much of anything and are completely wasted now? Yeah, I'd say previews of Black Death and Eclipse alongside a few hints toward big future events is substantial in comparison.

Now, what WAS substantial in the past were data files. Stuff like when they talked about the history of Enerjak. Stuff like that's vaguely touched on in the original timeline, but not much.

>>219002
The one clearly made for the Encyclopedia but reused to try and shove some reason for people to buy the Magazine?

So hey, whatever happened to that Afterlife with Archie zombie book? I was and still am really interested in reading that.

>>219016
The second issue's not out until next week, but yeah it's pretty good stuff. It's got a very tense horror atmosphere that I usually don't think comics can replicate.

>>219016
I'm not sure how they did it - maybe it's the "wholesome" image that Archie had built up, or the way the characters have lasted so long that we all kind of know them and they have a timeless feel, maybe it's a fantastic ear for dialog and feel for pacing, maybe it's the art, maybe it's all the above - but the stuff that's come out so far has made for better and creepier horror than any comic I've read in yeeeeeeaaaars.

'Sgood.

Hey guys.

>>219016
What do you mean, what happened? It's out. It's actually interesting. The dialogue seems a good step up from the usual "Archie" fare.

>>219037
Might've been nice to spoiler the thumbnail....but I gotta say I am actually interested in this guy.

He already looks a ton more interesting than any of the Black Arms games designs.

>>219037
He looks way better than I thought, the description made him sound terrible. That guy looks like a fun baddie minion.

Name's still dumb, but I guess with Black Arms that's what you expect.

>>219044
What description?

I don't know why people are ragging on the name so much.....all Sonic characters have these kinds of names. If he's supposed to be in theme with Shadow, I can't think of a lot of options that wouldn't get the same reaction. Dark? Umbra? Shade is already taken (even though thanks to Penders we'll probably never see her).

Plus this is based on a group of enemies that were lead by a guy named BLACK DOOM. I mean c'mon....

>>219046
PENUMBRA!

Nope, people will think of bras and Penders.

>>219046
Doesn't start with an "S". Sonic, Shadow, Scourge, and Eclipse. You lose the alliteration. Sorry, seriously should've selected Sombra.

>>219049
The S names only apply to the hedgehogs... he's not a hedgehog. If anything he looks like the Black Arms mutated a dark chao.

>>219049
I hope your alliteration was intentional. Anyway, I just imagine Bronies rising up in an angry wave if something else used "Sombra."

>Sonic
>Shadow
>Silver
>Scourge
>Shard

How the flying fuck did I not notice this.

>>219053
>Amy
>Not Samy
>Fails at being a Hedgehog

So Sally's superior? Spectacular.

>>219055
Only guys get the S.

>>219056

>>219057
I know what I said.

>>219052
I feel like this would just lead to stupid jokes. Sum-Bra the Alienthing. Sombrero.

>>219058
Slander!

>>219059
>I feel like this would just lead to stupid jokes.

In SONIC?

>>219046
Eclipse the Darling is a dumb name. I get what it's going for and I agree that it fits the Black Arms. It's just silly.

>>219070
I dunno, he seems like a darling to me. :3c

>>219057
>that body
Terrifying

>>219073
It's Rouge with a Sonic head, weird hair, and weird clothes.

>>219071
>>219070
Well that seals it, he's Eclipse the Darling from now on.

=3

>>219074
>Weird hair
What's weird about it?

>>219085
It's outrageous, I tell you.

Hey, Mega Man 34's solicit came out!
>The road to the next big mega-crossover starts here
fuckfuckFuckFUCKFUCKFUCK

>>219128

Oh for fucks sake.

>>219128
Ugh.

>>219128
Shadow of the Moon sounds interesting, and "the next big crossover" appears to just be something involving X. Possibly him paying a visit to the past?

Poor Wily. This is why you don't trust strange alien tech you find laying around. Well, at least he's learned his lesso...

Oh for crying out loud.

>>219135
I've been begging for Sungod to fight Ra Moon since we first heard they were adapting SAR.

Behold, the true face of horror.

>>219137
I don't remember this being in SSS15.

>>219138
That's because we've all scrubbed it from our memory so it wouldn't drive us to madness.

>>219137
>Like a sixth of the picture obscured by a giant fucking bar.
...why?

This is it! The issue every Mega-fan has been demanding! The debut of Mega Man X! But first, in 'Shadow of the Moon' Part One: Mega Man joins a research team seeking the truth behind Dr. Wily and Ra Moon. But how far will they get when Shadow Man goes on the attack? Then, in 'The X Factor' Part One: jump 100 years into the future as Dr. Cain discovers Dr. Light's final, greatest creation - Mega Man X! Featuring pencils by the returning Mega Man art legend Patrick 'Spaz' Spaziante! The road to the next big mega-crossover starts here, featuring an exclusive Mega Man X variant cover by superstar artist Ben Bates!

>The road to the next big Mega-Crossover
>Mega-Crossover
>Cross Over
>X Over

>>219136

Maybe in six years when the comic finally advances far enough to do that.

>>219141
I would be really happy if it was that.
Better than a Classic/X crossover this soon.