Wanna Hear The Story Behind Sonic FCBD?

By Mike Pellerito

Wanna hear the story behind Sonic FCBD?

Welcome back to our weekly chat on all things All Ages. This Saturday is the annual event in comic shops everywhere, FREE COMIC BOOK DAY. So this Tuesday it seemed like a good time to explain what exactly FCBD is and how you can get your free comic books.

As usual every Tuesday, this is the hot spot for what is hot among younger readers’ comics and graphic novels. This Tuesday is no different, but it is a little special. We are in between two of the bigger comic events geared towards the All Ages reader. One had just passed this weekend; the first annual Kids Comic Con was Saturday April 28th in the Bronx, New York. It was an absolutely amazing event and something we will get into greater detail next Tuesday. The column for past the four weeks has been guest written by Alex Simmons, the show’s founder and organizer. He himself, an excellent comic writer (among many other talents), somehow found time to put together an amazing event that was a long time coming. If you happen to be able to clap while reading this, Alex and all those who helped put this together at Bronx Community College deserve a nice round of applause!

For those not in The Bronx, you can still enjoy the other event, which is the sixth annual Free Comic Book Day held at every participating comic book shop on Saturday, May 5th. To be a part of the festivities, you should be aware of two websites:

FreeComicBookDay.com

This is the Free Comic Book Day website explaining the event as well as listing all the comics involved (please note not all comics are for All Ages). The comics are usually marked with the appropriate ages or the Comics Code seal shown here.

DiamondComics.com

This is a website offering a comic book shop locator service. You enter your zip or postal code and a list of the comic shops near you pops up. Contact the store to make certain the free comic you are interested in will be available. Not every store carries every comic. In addition, an option exists to locate comic book stores in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Archie Comics has proudly been involved with FCBD from the beginning with all-new stories and art. This year is a little different; available will be TWO all-new comics, LITTLE ARCHIE and SONIC THE HEDGEHOG.
The Little Archie comic is written and penciled by Bob Bolling, who has been working on Little Archie for years, and this might be one of his absolute best stores ever! It was really cool to see that this was the FCBD project this year. The Adventures of Little Archie from Archie Comics is a great read. Read about it is here under the recommended reading section for some more info.

The news was even better when we learned Archie Comics was going to do a second FCBD release, although it was a little surprising.

On of the true marks of a good collaboration is when the parties involved can’t seem to remember where one idea separates from another. That would be the case with this project. Randomly (possibly a Tuesday, ironically enough), the word came down that we would be doing a Sonic comic for FCBD. To be completely honest the first thought was "What happened to the Little Archie comic we were doing?" As we all now know, we were doing both, but we had to get material out for solicitation before the week’s end.

The frantic calls went out immediately. We knew Sonic the Hedgehog # 174 would be out with # 175 soon following after, and that it would be the start of a huge story. Sonic #174 was planned as possibly the last happy moment in Sonic’s life for the foreseeable future. The next several issues starting with the 175th put Sonic through some of the most difficult, dangerous and exciting adventures of his life. We wanted the FCBD issue to stand alone, but also tie into these events. Not sure where the ideas came from, but with a quick story session Ian Flynn, the Sonic writer, was able to hammer out a script that truly kicked major, well, you know. So for those keeping track, this issue falls in right before issue #174 of SONIC THE HEDGEHOG. As Ian was writing the script, the call went out to Pat Spaziante, better known as Spaz. Pat has been doing covers for Sonic for years and is one of the best artists around; he is also able to get work done in a hurry while making it still look great! With a basic idea he managed to produce a beautiful cover in no time flat. A quick call to Tracy Yardley! (he really insists that you add the "!" to his name, so feel free to yell out his name if you meet him) and he was putting pencil lead on paper so quick we got a few pages back scorched. Now mind you this was in the middle of drawing huge wedding parties, giant robots, battle armadas, civil war and everything else we could throw at him. See, told you it would be one heck of a year for Sonic! Throw in the Elvis Eggman cover for Sonic X #19, right after Elvis’ "appearance" on American Idol and we are throwing just about everything at Sonic this year.

John Workman burned the midnight oil lettering this story, as did Jim Amash who inked BOTH FCBD issues this year! Jason Jenson the colorist said he colored the whole thing on his own but he must have hired some elves or something, because he was working on SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH and latest issue of SONIC THE HEDGEHOG at the same time!

Well, we got the entire issue done in record time, approved by SEGA, and out to the printer on time (a few days early actually). Again, if you happen to be able to clap while reading this, Ian, Tracy, John, Jim, Jason and Pat and Archie Comics all deserve a nice round of applause for doing a second FCBD issue!

For those interested, Archie Comics will have several of our artists and writers out signing on Free Comic Book Day. For info, visit http://www.news.archiecomics.com/

Next Tuesday, we’ll talk about the Kids Comic Con, and how it might be the best comic convention ever!

As always it is great to hear your thoughts and hear about projects you’d like to see reviewed. Get in touch: MikeP@SilverBulletComicbooks.com

Check out some new All Ages reads on sale this week:

MAR070231 JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #33 $2.25
MAR070235 LOONEY TUNES #150 $2.25
MAR072093 MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #27 $2.99
MAR072072 SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE #18 $2.99
FEB073163 ARCHIE & FRIENDS #109 $2.25
FEB073164 ARCHIE DIGEST #234 $2.49
FEB073475 WALT DISNEYS VACATION PARADE #4 $9.99
FEB073174 SONIC X #19 $2.25

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