The song NOW AND THEN has stuck with me ever since its release, representing the official end of The Beatles song catalog. Very few acts ever get a chance to close the book on the sum total of their work.
I think one of the reasons the song persists in my head – beyond my enjoyment of it on various levels – is that one of the items I’ve been bothered over the years is I never really got the chance to close the book on the work I did for the Archie SONIC series. Specifically, I never got to close the book properly with KNUCKLES.
Some say the story AFTERLIFE was closing the book, but it didn’t. Not really.
Recently, while looking through my art files for various pieces, including unseen layouts and script pages to add as features to the KNUCKLES OMNIBUS volumes I’m putting together for release, I came across the script and page layouts to the one story that would close the book on my tenure with the Knuckles character: KNUCKLES TWENTY YEARS LATER.
As you can see by the layout of page 1, I wasn’t pulling any punches with this one. I open with Julie-Su learning she’s pregnant with Knuckles’s baby. At the time this page was written and laid out, I had depicted Julie-Su riding on a Streaking Pasha, and I wanted to retain that element as part of her character. It also lent a feeling that not everything operated on hi-tech in the society.
The story as originally written was also much darker, a SONIC equivalent of the film THE DARK KNIGHT, if you will.
Interestingly, the version of Robotnik seen in this story was the giant robot version seen in Chapter 3 of the SONIC LIVE! SPECIAL. What surprised me even more – and I had forgotten about all of this when creating THE LARA-SU CHRONICLES – was the sequence where Knuckles is conversing with his version of Alfred as he’s trying to figure out and understand what Robotnik’s endgame is. The Alfred character, whose name is Isaac in this story, essentially replies “Some men just want to see the world burn.”
Considering this story was written in 1999 and originally slated for publication in SONIC SUPER SPECIAL issue 9 – and I have proof – I bring this up because when I read what I wrote back in the day, my immediate reaction was I’m going to hear a lot of complaints I ripped off THE DARK KNIGHT. Sorry, but no. I wrote it first and I’m leaving that conversation in.
As I read the script, I couldn’t help but notice which elements of the story I kept and those I didn’t over the years, evolving from K20YL to M25YL to finally THE LARA-SU CHRONICLES. The main reason for the changes was that Sonic Editor Justin Gabrie wanted me to use Sonic in the story in exchange for writer Karl Bollers being able to use Knuckles in the present day Sonic stories.
The important part is that KNUCKLES TWENTY YEARS LATER represents the last KNUCKLES story I created and was paid for. While it’s new in the sense it never saw publication due to the cancellation of the SONIC SUPER SPECIAL series, it’s still part of the body of work I created and submitted for publication.
As a result, the inclusion of KNUCKLES TWENTY YEARS LATER in the KNUCKLES OMNIBUS set will mark the closure of my work on the KNUCKLES series I created and developed as a vehicle for Knuckles, his friends and family, his enemies and all his adventures. I couldn’t ask for more. I hope the readers will enjoy it once it sees print sometime by 2027 by my estimation.
I used to be willing to meet gun owners halfway but not anymore. I have grandchildren, including a grandson who started 1st Grade this week. If it’s a choice between someone’s right to own a gun or ensuring my grandchildren won’t be killed in their classroom, it’s not even a contest.
George Lucas famously got himself into trouble with STAR WARS fandom when he changed two of most famous moments of the original film, which was retitled A NEW HOPE in the altered version.
Of the two moments that infuriated fandom, Leia kissing Luke on the cheek instead of the lips ranks a distant second to his infamous decision resulting in his most egregious editorial change, resulting in Han not shooting Greedo first, which fandom has yet to forgive him for.
I bring this up because I found the initial reaction to the recoloring of pages from the story THIS ISLAND HEDGEHOG, in which Sonic meets Knuckles for the very first time, to be most fascinating.
Over the decades I’ve followed media franchises as a fan, I thought Gene Roddenberry’s decision to upgrade the look of the Klingons in STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE to be one of those “but of course” decisions. He now had the budget and time to present the Klingons as the alien race they were as opposed to some offshoot of humanity. It made sense. And fandom as a whole appreciated it. (Killing Spock, however, proved to be a bridge too far that fandom was not going to tolerate.)
When Paramount upgraded the original classic STAR TREK episodes with new state-of-the-art CGI VFX, this was yet again another decision that was a no-brainer. It made the episodes more accessible for a younger generation while original fans like myself could imagine Gene Roddenberry wishing he had access to the tech that made the FX possible.
So as I read the reactions to the recoloring of THIS ISLAND HEDGEHOG, I found myself thinking about the early days when Mike Kanterovich and I were crafting the story pitches and scripts, when we had no idea there would even be a next issue, or if there was, if we would still be working on the book. Everything looks better in hindsight, but when you’re actually living through events, you have no idea how everything will all play out.
Which brings me to Edmund and Dmitri, the pivotal characters in the formation of the Brotherhood of the Guardians and The Dark Legion.
At the time Mike and I were writing the stories that lead into the SONIC’S FRIENDLY NEMESIS KNUCKLES mini-series, we were working on an issue-by-issue basis. The Dark Legion wouldn’t even exist as a concept until I had to come-up with an idea for a follow-up Knuckles mini-series.
Thus, when we worked out the plot for “A SENSE OF HISTORY Part II” that was published in SONIC issue 35, we saw Edmund and Dmitri as a version of Cain and Abel from the Bible, making the relationship that much more tragic. When it came to naming them, Mike insisted on calling them Edmund and Dmitri. When I asked his reasoning for selecting those names, he replied, “They’re twin brothers on my favorite soap opera ALL MY CHILDREN.”
Considering everything else I had already contributed to the story, I was not about to say no to Mike on this matter. I also never considered what a headache establishing Edmund and Dmitri as brothers would create for me down the road.
Which brings me to the actual purpose of retelling this bit of Knuckles’s history.
I’ve taken a lot of grief over the years about the nature of Knuckles’s relationship with Julie-Su and how some readers consider that it borders on incestuous. If you look up at the page displayed at the beginning of this article, you’ll notice all I need do is change the word “our” at the start of Panel 1 to “my”, and the word “brother” that’s also used in Panel 1 to either “cousin” or “friend”, and suddenly the relationship can not be interpreted incestuous in any way, shape or form.
Two little words creating significant impact.
I’m very much inclined to make this change, but I’d like to hear from the readers before I do.
So what do you say? You can email me your thoughts and I promise to read every one. Thanks and take care.
I know there are some people who feel I post things just to piss them off specifically or troll them in general, but that’s really not the case. I post either to inform or seek out commentary to guide in my decision-making process where my projects are concerned. I mean, if I’m going to invest time and money in a project I’m working on, I want to have some idea the effort will be worth it at the end of the day.
Case in point is the KEN PENDERS’ KNUCKLES OMNIBUS VOLUME 1 project that’s one of three projects I’m moving forward on at this time.
I recently posted two of the pages my colorist Ethan had finished to gauge what the general reaction was. Before I say anything more, I want to make it clear I was originally inclined to go with the original coloring used on the story THIS ISLAND HEDGEHOG, but after the release of THE LARA-SU CHRONICLES: BEGINNINGS, I was receiving a lot of requests about future reprint plans of previously published material.
The people contacting me stated for the most part that the coloring and editorial changes made to the stories for the SONIC and KNUCKLES ARCHIVES and other reprint collections didn’t exactly float their boat, and were pushing for something better.
When Ethan submitted his samples while expressing an interest in taking on the task of recoloring the stories, I was impressed with his approach, making the coloring match as close to the original games as possible. I was also intrigued, because on the one hand, people were contacting me to be absolutely faithful to the original color version, whereas on the other hand, some people were making out the final printed version in SONIC issue 13 to be the work of art it never really was.
A bit of back story is necessary here. Prior to the writing of the story THIS ISLAND HEDGEHOG, my then-partner Mike Kanterovich and I had already submitted a number of story pitches to Paul Castiglia, who was the Archie Editor designated at the time to deal with the writers of the SONIC stories. Paul gave us the go-ahead to turn in complete scripts for 3 stories, all of which represented the complete contents for SONIC issue 11. Once the scripts for those stories were faxed to Paul, he requested we do an adaptation of the new SONIC 3 game featuring a new character named Knuckles.
As we were writing the story, Paul was replaced by Scott Fulop, who was charged with being the new editor of the SONIC series. While Paul handled the writers, Archie Comics Editor-In-Chief Victor Gorelick dealt with the artists. Victor was never comfortable editing SONIC, so with Scott’s hiring, Paul became the odd man out while Scott was figuring out the direction he wanted to take the book in.
Since there were no inventory stories to help ease the deadline crush, Scott had to run with what he had, which meant THIS ISLAND HEDGEHOG didn’t receive the care and attention later stories would receive. As the story progressed from writing to penciling to lettering to inking and finally to coloring, it wasn’t until the story was set up on the printing press that SEGA decided the story needed to be pulled.
At that point, Scott informed SEGA he would have to pull both the cover and the story off the printing press, thereby incurring a cancellation charge as well as late fees. On top of that, release of the issue would be delayed by two to three works as Scott would’ve had to commission a new story to replace the one on the presses.
Realizing the cost of pulling the story outweighed simply letting it run, SEGA capitulated and the story was published.
From my perspective, there were numerous flaws with the story, chief among them the coloring as well as artist Dave Manak not correcting my mistakes in the layouts, to say nothing of inker Jon D’Agostino’s approach to the inks. But you get what you paid for. Colorist Barry Grossman was as professional as they come, but he was only getting $20 a page for coloring, and Archie was more interested in volume, not quality. Barry was never supplied with the proper reference to go by for coloring the SONIC stories. Likewise, Jon D’Agostino was content receiving $55 a page inking Dan DeCarlo’s Archie pages, but balked when asked to take on SONIC for the same page rate. Even with the extra $20 per page he received, Jon was a journeyman who simply cranked out to meet a page count for the bottom line on his paycheck.
When reviewing the pages with Ethan, he pointed out the corrections he felt needed to be made, and as you can see in the corrected page 11 displayed above, I approved Ethan removing the foliage in the background in the panels where it was clear our heroes were inside Robotnik’s ship instead of outside in the jungle.
Ethan’s samples also were rendered to establish further continuity with the games, including making Tails appear more like his game self. While I had no issue with the change, my app programmer Patrick pointed out as much as he liked Ethan’s coloring and some of the changes he made for the sake of consistency with the games, including Tails design, he hated the idea of losing Dave Manak’s approach and asked me to at least restore Dave’s interpretation of Tails.
After Patrick expressed his sentiments, I knew a much broader reaction was called for, and so I posted two of the pages featuring Ethan’s recoloring to gauge the general reaction. What I came away with was the following:
Overall, the reaction to Ethan’s work was overwhelmingly positive. If I was surprised by anything, it was the greater appreciation of artist Dave Manak’s work that resulted from the recoloring. Going forward, as Ethan was already 2/3rds of the way recoloring PANIC IN THE SKY, I told him to continue doing what he had been doing, especially with regards to Tails, but commencing with all the stories following, he was not to make any changes to any penciler & inker’s work unless he had my prior approval.
With regards to those who want to see the stories with their original coloring, THIS ISLAND HEDGEHOG will feature its original coloring with no changes when it sees print eventually in SONIC OMNIBUS VOLUME 1. (And no, I’m not saying anything more about this because that book is at least two to four years away from seeing print.)
The main changes going forward will be evident with the cover art, featuring the removal of all Archie-related trade dress. The KNUCKLES covers especially will only feature the KNUCKLES LOGO when printed individually. That said, as a special feature, I’m looking to see the covers of KNUCKLES THE DARK LEGION 1, 2 & 3 collected as one image and printed as a foldout with the logos. The same applies to the covers of KNUCKLES THE ECHIDNA issues 4, 5 & 6.
Lest anyone expect everything in the KNUCKLES OMNIBUS to be recolored to the extent displayed in the current samples, based on the timeline set for this project, that’s simply not possible.
Right now, I’m working on the book layout, figuring out how many pages I need for the additional material that will be included in the book so I can provide a page count to the printer so we can begin to work on the specifics including shipping and pricing. I anticipate if all goes well that pre-orders for the book will begin sometime mid-to-late September.
The book itself has 20 weeks starting now to get into shape to ship for the printer, as we’re looking to turn over the final digital files to the printer by mid-January with an eye to having copies on hand available for Wonder Con 2025 in late March and throughout the convention season.
While everyone who orders a copy of KNUCKLES OMNIBUS will have the ability to select which version they wish to order, I will be reminding people of one condition required to be in the running for a copy of this cover version:
As there will only be 100 copies featuring the above-displayed cover, it will be sold on a 1st come-1st served basis only to those who previously purchased a copy of THE LARA-SU CHRONICLES: BEGINNINGS. If someone orders this and is not on the list of previous buyers, their money will be refunded.
I feel this is the fairest way to handle the limited availability situation considering the amount of people who have already purchased BEGINNINGS.
Also, anyone wanting a signed copy can purchase a signed bookplate they can then place inside their book once they receive their copy. The only other way to obtain a signed copy will be by purchasing the book at one of my convention appearances.
This book will be the first time I supply a Certificate of Authenticity with a Mobian Line publication.
In addition, I am also working to get THE LARA-SU APP ready for release sometime later this year, which will include additional pages from SHATTERED TOMORROWS as well as at least 2 or 3 new Data files.
Once the app and KNUCKLES OMNIBUS are released, my focus will be solely on completing SHATTERED TOMORROWS for release sometime late 2025 or early 2026 at the latest.
As usual, if anyone has questions regarding something I didn’t address in this post, feel free to email me. Thanks for all your support and take care in the meantime.
