Sonic the Hedgehog #144 [Feb 2005]
     Butler/Penders/Jensen cover: Sonic takes a flying leap into
who knows what or where while Sally and a smidgen of Knuckles
look on.
     Butler/Penders/Jensen frontispiece: a visual demonstration
of the M25YL continuity going to pieces.

     "Mobius 25 Years Later: The Die Is Cast"
     Story: Ken Penders; Art: Steven Butler; Ink: Jim Amash;
Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: John E. Workman; Enjoying The
Ride At Sega's Expense: Robert Lefler and Dyna Lopez.

     Having paid his respects to Locke in the previous issue,
Knuckles informs Lara-Su of a change in company policy: she has
the option of being the next Guardian.  Her understated response
is interrupted by Knuckles saying that her training days will
have to wait until he returns from the mission from which he
might not in fact return.  Not wanting to take "Wait" for an
answer, she tells Dad to count her in on the mission.  This
suggestion is vetoed by a higher court: Lara-Le, who's curious
about why Knuckles is rushing to invoke the "'til death do us
part" clause in their sort-of-marriage license.  Thanks to some
quick sweet talking by Knuckles, she's ready to send him on his
way toward an uncertain fate in uncertain weather.  "Haven't you
checked outside?" she asks.  "The weather's gotten considerably
worse ever since you got back."  This is news to Harry the
cabbie, who's reading a perfectly dry newspaper in perfectly dry
weather waiting for Knuckles to hop in; it's also news to Steve
Butler who drew the weather at odds with the dialogue.
     After a little banter with Sally, Knuckles notices that
Lara-Su isn't taking part in the Big Goodbye Scene.  Now, if the
word "stowaway" isn't flashing in your mind at this point, you
haven't read enough bad fiction, watched enough bad movies or
television, or read enough comic books.
     Harry conveys Knuckles to his destination, complaining about
the weather that Steven Butler doesn't draw.  Maybe if Butler had
been paid some "extra quid" over and above Archie's allegedly
dismal page rate, he'd have actually given us a visual depiction
of "this mess."  Unless Harry is referring to working conditions
at Archie generally.
     Despite the fact that we FINALLY get to see some lightning,
the ship bearing Sonic, Knuckles, and the Old Farts of Science
takes off for Mobius.  Cobar informs Sonic, in a speech that
reminded me of Professor Farnsworth from "Futurama," that "we
simply don't know enough about the storm's nature ... [to]
predict the future in regard to specifics, only generalities." 
Knuckles then freaks as he recognizes that they're in the
Badlands, "the most toxic, uninhabited wasteland on all of
Mobius." [Insert New Jersey joke here] Sure, NOW Butler gets
visually impressive!
     The party descends into the chamber where the Tachyon
Whatsis is stored.  Rotor observes that the thing has never been
tested but that it should work in theory.  That's good enough for
Sonic, however.
     Back on board the ship, Lara-Su re-enters the story.  She no
sooner gets back on-stage or on-page than she goes to pieces,
literally, the same way her old man did in Knuckles #8's "The
Gauntlet" at the hands of Enerjak.
     We get a sense of WHY this is happening as we tune in to
Sonic being short-circuited in the Tachyon Thingie; he then
disappears before the device can be shut down.  So maybe it works
like the photographs in the Back To The Future movies: if Sonic
didn't exist neither would Lara-Su.  Or something.  Which could
mean that Lara-Su may show up as a contestant on "Who's Your
Daddy?" if she ever re-materializes.
     But not content to leave things at that, and without so much
as a "Code Lyoko," Ken HAS to flash back to the placid present to
show our blissfully clueless heroes.  He also undergirds this
with some pseudo-philosophical profundity ... or is it some
pseudo-profound philosophy? ... by a determinist Echidna
philosopher named "Paracleas."  Don't expect me to buy it, I
still believe in free will.

     HEAD: It's taken a year, but Ken has reached a climax with
M25YL and the "disappearance" of Sonic.  Sort of.
     Since the appearance of this story, there have been some
fans who have wondered why Ken should wrap things up this way,
without even a "To Be Continued" text box to let the fans know
that such a momentous development will be addressed again ... at
some point or other.  All you have to do is fast forward to the
Sonic-Grams where Mike Pellerito assures Siany Gregory that "we
will be doing some more M25YL ... in the future!" with an
exclamation point but without saying when they plan to get around
to it.  My guess is it'll come up in conjunction with S150.
     So what will we have to deal with in the meantime? 
According to the preview media, a lot of stand-alone stories, a
major story arc featuring Sonic/Shadow/Metal Sonic for some
reason, some filler items ("Ever wonder what it's like to be a
Swatbot in Dr Robotnik's employ?"  Not really, no.), and some
more crap featuring Tommy Turtle.
     The final two panels may have been intended as a poignant
suggestion that as momentarily (and uncharacteristically)
carefree as the lives of our heroes and heroines may be at the
present, they're all in for a boatload of trouble in two and a
half decades.  Cute idea, but I don't know if it truly works in
practice here.  I, for one, found it hard to believe that the
characters COULD find a carefree moment in their lives the way
the comic's been scripted lately, especially the Return to Angel
Island arc.  Sonic's relationship with Sally is still on the
rocks, Knuckles is estranged from his dad; why should these
characters catch a break NOW just so Ken can have a nice "ending"
to his story?  Perhaps it would have been better to have let this
cliffhanger simply end ambiguously with a suggestion that it will
be resumed some time in the coming year.
     Ken, to his credit, tries to keep his future vision of
Knuckles, Sonic and their respective families in keeping with the
past continuity.  And frankly, if it weren't for that, it's an
open question as to whether anyone would stay interested.  When
he wandered off into world-building in "Slumber Party," the
pacing stumbled badly.  And here, his ending is obviously the
weakest link.  It's too ambiguous and doesn't offer even token
assurance that Ken will deal with these matters at a later date.
     And assurance is what the readers need.  I remember that
Lara-Su's introduction in this comic was accompanied by some
major fan buzz.  They knew she was coming and were waiting to
greet her.  Now with her sudden disintegration (Doesn't anyone
disintegrate starting with the head rather than the extremities? 
And do they really have enough time to process and comment upon
what's happening to them?), Ken just simply takes her off the
table.  I rather doubt that she's making the time trip in tandem
with King Sonic, because that would beg the question "Why her and
not Knuckles or one of the Old Farts of Science?"  This turn of
events is not what the Lara-Su fan base was hoping for, and
having to endure Editorial's Delphic silence for the next few
months isn't going to be easy.  Head Score: 5.
     EYE: One more time: everybody talks about the weather in
this arc, but Steve Butler doesn't go out of his way to depict
it.  You'd think that he would be able to whip out some of the
old Will Eisner "spritz" that was one of the visual signatures of
the recently-deceased comic pioneer.  Other than that, it's great
visuals in the service of a story that's momentarily decided to
take a vacation.  Eye Score:9.
     HEART: "Father's Day" would be a tough act to follow under
any circumstance, and this story has that burden on its back from
the beginning.  It makes a good move by shifting the emotional
focus onto Lara-Su where (if I may editorialize) it should have
been all along.  But then her pluck at stowing away is rewarded
by her ambiguous ending, which is something of a gut-slam to the
fans who thought that she was finally getting her props.  Since
everyone else is more or less going through the motions to get in
place for the Cliffhanger Ending, there's not much else to engage
the readers emotionally.  Heart Score: 4.

     "Love and Loss"
     Story: Romy Chacon; Script: Jonathan Gray (uncredited), Art:
Jonathan Gray; Ink: Michael Higgins; Coloring: Josh Ray;
Lettering: Jonathan Gray (uncredited); Archie Governing Council:
Mike Pellerito, Victor Gorelick, Richard Goldwater, Robert Lefler
and Dyna Lopez.
     Every now and then a story appears in the comic that is
truer than its content, a story that reveals the inner workings
not only of the characters but of the creative process.  And
thanks to Jonathan Gray's online diary of his working for Archie
Comics in general (http://chipandwalter.adiversions.com/), this
will act as my point of departure for what has to be the most
special review I've ever done because, for once, the curtain has
been completely pulled aside.
     Jonathan has summed up his work on other stories for the
comic using such phrases as "This book was very fun to do for a
number of reasons. Overall, as far as finished product goes, I
think this is one I'm most pleased with so far."  For his work on
"Love and Loss" he states it eloquently in one word:

"AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!"

Charlie Brown couldn't have said it better.
     Let's get the "plot" out of the way first: it's basically a
look at the letters that appear in an advice to the lovelorn
column, "Love and Loss," part of the weekly Knothole News
newspaper (motto: "We bring the nuts to you!"  Yeah, well nuts to
you, too!).  We get thinly-disguised letters from Bunnie, Mina,
and Amy Rose, as well as a dummy letter from Sally who is
actually the "Dear Aly" who writes the column.  But describing
the plot in this way is like saying "Moby-Dick" is about a marine
mammal.
     Admittedly, this is pretty thin soup from the beginning.  So
Jonathan Gray, realizing that "many pages needed to be rewritten
... personally requested this story having read the original
while drawing [Return to Angel Island]."  Editor Mike Pellerito
agreed to let him take a crack at it.
     If you have Internet access you might want to read
Jonathan's commentary as a companion to this story; it's located
at http://chipandwalter.adiversions.com/jongraywb/sonic144.html.
If not, I'll do my best to rephrase his experience without
missing the highlights.  And lowlights.
     The opening gambit, where the Knothole News arrives and is
quickly scooped up by a mob of Mobian females so that the news
dealer can supply some needed exposition in dialogue with Sasha,
a kitten and one of Rosie's charges, underwent little change.  A
reference to Hope in Rosie's dialogue was dropped, and the stream
in the mid-ground of one of the panels on the first page was
supposed to be a cobblestone road.  Also, Jonathan's laborious
rendering of the hearts in the background of each page was
replaced by a more uniform tile pattern of hearts.  There was
also far more black space in Jonathan's artwork, such as the wall
over the fireplace in the next to last panel on the second page
before Josh Ray converted them to shojo manga pastels.
     But let's look at the dialogue before we get down to
business.  Whereas the writers for the comic have contented
themselves to use standard English and mangled accents for
characters such as Antoine and Geoffrey (when the writers 
remember that they DO speak with accents), the nameless newsie
speaks in a looser colloquial English, saying things like
"Wozzat?" and "Yeah, a' course" and "Call me silly.  I ain't
silly."  Even Sasha asks Rosie "Didja" get a copy of the paper.
     In the past, some of the dialogue has been a little too
proper if not frankly overwritten; I'm thinking especially of
Sally's dialogue as an alleged child in "My Secret Guardian" and
HawkHawk's horribly overblown Marvel-style declamations in
"Freedom Fighters of the Galaxy," though the latter may have been
a goof on the Marvel house style.  Jonathan has injected some
much-needed naturalness into the comic book's dialogue.  This is
closer to actual speech than what the comic book has usually
delivered.  It's clear from this first official foray into
writing that he's brought a welcome gift for dialogue to the
comic.
     Too bad he doesn't get to use it much as we plunge into the
letters themselves.  The first one is from Feeling Terribly
Alone, aka Bunnie.  Her complaint is that she's still not over
Antoine.  Aly tells her to communicate ... not the easiest thing
to do since Ant is part of the Royal Hiatus which is why Sally is
tending the front office.
     That may sound simple enough, and according to Jon this
letter needed less tweaking than the rest.  Not that there
weren't SOME changes: "Instead of concentrating on how Antoine
would get verbally nasty with Bunnie, this was edited in the end
thankfully and replaced by myself and Mike with Bunnie mentioning
how Antoine once loved her for who she was and not what she
looked like.  Aly's reply was also changed to reflect certain
script changes...."
     The art, despite Jon's loose and comedic style, is neither. 
Despite the dispassionate tone of the letter, Bunnie is falling
apart like a biscuit in a blender.  Aside from one panel where
it's unclear if she's taking what looks like a suitcase down from
a closet shelf or putting it away, the layout is simple and
powerful.  I've said this once before about a panel featuring
Princess Sally in the "Brave New World" special and it bears
repeating now: if you don't want to crawl into that last panel
and give that girl a hug, check your pulse.
     We then segue into a letter from Singing The Blues, which of
course means it's from Mina, and it posed a problem in the
original: "the way it was worded IMO left an opening for another
possible love triangle rehash...."  And Jon knew the fan scene
well enough to realize that "dredging that monster up again is a
BIG FAT OMGWTF ARE YOU THINKING NO-NO"!
     Solution?  We still have a love triangle, but the geometry
has been relabeled.  Jon's method of giving "the Love Triangle
Saga the proper closure it never really had" (and never WOULD
have if the worshipers of Loose Continuity had anything to say
about it) is to change the Sonic-Sally-Mina triangle into a Mina-
Sonic-Ash triangle: "I changed the letter to reflect on her
internal conflict between Ash and Sonic and provided a way for
her to finally make up her mind."  
     It was a brilliant solution to the problem in that it put
the burden of choosing on Mina's shoulders rather than on
Sonic's.  And thanks to Jon's artwork we see that while Mina
thinks Sonic is way past cool, she thinks that Ash is "todo
caliente," which is my dime-store Spanish way of saying "a total
hottie."  Suddenly the contest becomes no contest.
     This is underscored by Mina's blowing a call in to Ash
wanting "to talk," and arranging a midnight rendezvous.  "The
scene," Jon informs us, "was also changed entirely.  What was
originally a panel or two turned into six ... because I felt the
reader needed to see that Mina was actually making a concerted
effort to call ... Ash and ... should see all the reactions from
Ash as he talks to her....  I felt this approach was a lot more
personable than the standard 'Let's date' call the original
had...."
     If I have any reservations about this sequence, it's that
all it would take would be an arch of one eyebrow to turn Ash's
expression from "Cool, I think she likes me" to "Cool, I think
I'm gonna get lucky!"
     Silly me!  This is an Archie Comic book!  If none of the
kids at Riverdale High have gotten lucky over the past half-
century, then Mina is in absolutely no danger of trading in her
sports bra for a nursing bra any time soon.
     So, on to the letter by Wishing For Love, aka Amy Rose. 
According to Jonathan, this letter was "[one] of the largest
rewrites of the entire story.  Beside the last line and the first
two lines, everything else in between was totally thrown out." 
And why was this the case?  Consider the following: "The original
letter, while concentrating on Sonic, also had Amy throwing hints
at Tails which was just TOTALLY out of left field and OOC IMHO."
     But wait, there's more: "As a character all her own, Amy has
never really been developed in the book, and since this is really
the first time we've ever gotten into her head at all I wanted to
make it worth something. Naturally her longtime crush on Sonic is
paramount but how would she feel considering she's in-between an
acerbic Sally and a lovestruck Mina? So that's the point of the
original letter I decided to concentrate on. If that was me, how
would I feel. While Amy's reaction to Aly's response was the same
as it was originally written I also took some time to tweak Aly's
response to show that Amy's gonna always do her own thing
regardless. The 'Buy a clue' line was all me though."
     You know, I never, ever, EVER thought I'd read where a
writer for the comic complained that some action or speech by a
character was OOC, shorthand for "out of character."  Bushels of
horror have been perpetrated on these characters without regard
as to whether anything OOC was happening.  It's been years since
Sonic #61's "Outback Gut Check," and the memory of Mike
Gallagher's having Barby Koala declare her lust for Tails STILL
creeps me out!  Perhaps it's because Jonathan Gray came up
through the fan ranks rather than by way of the comic industry's
old boy network but here we have an artist given a chance to
write and guess what: he GETS IT!!  A story such as this one HAS
to be character-driven, and he gets it!
     His line about how "Amy has never really been developed in
the book" deserves the Understatement of the Year Award.  This
comic has been absolutely awful when it comes to character
development, which has been one of my most consistent gripes
since I started doing this on a regular basis.
     Then again, almost anything would look good compared to the
potential horror of what (justly) landed on the cutting room
floor.  Any Rose and Tails?  No freakin' way!!  I'm surprised
that wasn't nipped in the bud by Leffler and Lopez, the Sega reps
of record.  Killer zombie hamsters would have made more sense
than Amy Rose and Tails!
     This letter is definitely lighter in tone than the two
preceding, and while Jonathan doesn't engage in the exaggerated
gestures that seemed sometimes out of place in his Archie work,
you can tell he's having fun here with Amy Rose's "gag me"
gesture in response to what she's reading.  Great.
     Now we come to the Sally letter, which Jonathan admits he
"had to rewrite ... a number of times before I was finally happy
with it."  "Sally's [letter] was the hardest to do" because
"[t]he wording in the original was cliche and rather than focus
on what was one of the most volatile plot points since she was
tossed off a building ... I didn't think [the fans] would be
happy with any kind of approach at all.  The real problem was
coming up with a way to tackle this issue without splitting Sonic
and Sally permanently, making the gap an even wider one, or not
doing anything about it at all thus turning this whole section
into a space waster."
     Since Jonathan found himself facing the fact that Sally's
blow-up at Sonic in S134 came out of nowhere with no real
motivation whatever, "I used her letter and 'Aly's' response to
it to get inside Sally's head and not focus on this sudden mean
streak, but rather [to focus on] WHY she made the decision she
did."  Of course, this makes way too much dramatic sense plus it
completely violates the laws of Loose Continuity, which explains
why we haven't seen it in the comic since Sally dropped her drama
bomb 10 issues ago.  "Sally's primary dillema [sic] is that she
wants to be happy and can very well accept her responsibility as
a princess - but when she tries to mix the two suddenly she finds
constant conflict. Living her own life isn't as natural to her as
leading a rebellion or leading her people because that's all
she's ever known since being a small child. So now she's on the
road to discovering how to do that. And that's the way of
thinking that I took when I wrote her letter/response. I can only
hope that in some ways it worked."
     When, WHEN was the last time any of the writers were able to
discuss any of the characters with this level of comprehension? 
This is how the FANS think about the characters, maybe not with
the same level of sympathy (in the case of the anti-Sally
faction), but with that kind of depth and maturity.  This is why
there are times I want the fans to revolt and take over the
comic; it's obvious that the professionals are beginning to lose
a step.
     And if you don't believe me, consider what was supposed to
be the final page of this story, where Sally reveals that she
planted the letter as a dodge.  Here is the original ending by
faux-Romy.  Brace yourselves:

"In the original ending, Sally broke the fourth wall and began
talking to the reader. DIRECTLY from the script: (P1) 'Oh hello,
were you expecting someone else, perhaps?' (P2) Oh, the letter
from me? To throw anyone else who may think Allie is Sally. (P3)
After all, my secrets are made public for all the world to see.
Well, maybe not all my secrets. (p4)Why do I do this in my free
time? A girl's got to have a hobby, you know.' END. And yes -
that's the original ending to Love and Loss WORD FOR WORD."

     Jon admits to being "indifferent" about the ending.  For me
it was utter disbelief verging on a strong impulse to crumple up
the page and swallow it so nobody would ever have to look at it
again.  And Archie PAID for this?!?  I'm sorry.  This is
painfully bad writing!
     So Jon asked to rewrite the story and Mike did what any
conscientious editor would do and green-lighted the rewrite.  The
first time Jon kept the breaking-the-fourth-wall conceit out of
wondering how far he could go.  
     End of story?  The fun was just beginning.  Several weeks
later Mike tells Jon that the page has to be redrawn.  As the
conversation continued, Mike and Jon realize they're on the same
page (as it were) concerning the need to tighten up the writing
of the page even more.  Jon's rewrite is available for your
inspection as a WordPad document through his site.  It didn't get
into the comic because ...

HURRICANE FRANCES ATE MY HOMEWORK!

     In what has to be the weirdest twist in the tale of any
writer's quest, Jon ... well, I'll let him explain:

"Since I was at my cousins house for the weekend, I mailed off
both page 11 and the newly drawn page 10 the day after Francis
had hit Atlanta and thought nothing of it. But in what is
probably the most bonehead thing I've ever seen, Mike called me
up to inform me that when he got the package Page 11 was ruined
in the rain. I asked him how and it seems that the package had
arrived just before a holiday. Whoever delivered the mail to
Archie left the package out in front of the building on the
stoop. That's simple enough, right? Well - by that time Hurricane
Francis had dwindled down into a major thunder/rainstorm and hit
New York/New Jersey THE DAY MY PACKAGE ARRIVED. Since no one was
available at Archie to pick it up due to the national holiday,
for three days Pages 10 and 11 were rained on. And the only
reason that Page 10 survived was because Page 11 was sitting on
top of it in the package. Both pages had to air out in his office
for several days before Mike Higgins could even touch them."
     OK.  Seems clear enough.  My guess is that at the less-than-
palatial Archie Comics HQ (basically a warehouse with editorial
offices on the second floor), there's a mail slot that will
accommodate regular #10 mailing envelopes.  But this can't be the
only time someone has had to mail artwork to them.  So I have to
wonder: IS ARCHIE COMICS SO STINKIN' CHEAP THAT THEY WON'T EVEN
POP FOR THE RENTAL ON A FREAKIN' POST OFFICE BOX???
     "With a ruined page and deadline for print fast
approaching," Jon continues, "Mike did the only thing he could do
and amalgamated the second ending with the page designed to fit
the original [breaking the] fourth wall ending ... considering
everything else, Mike Pellerito is a miracle worker because I
would have spontaneously combusted on the spot after dealing with
everything else."  I can relate.
     Two small details need to be pointed out.  There is no
credited letterer in this story because for the most part none
was needed.  "Aly"'s replies to the letters appear in an obvious
type face such as Courier or Times New Roman.  As for the letters
themselves, they were done in one of the several "hand-written"
fonts available.
     With all due respect to people such as John E. Workman, I'm
surprised that the American comic industry still employs
letterers.  Japanese manga went to computer-generated type
decades ago, but that was mainly due to the complexity of the
written language, which incorporates Chinese characters or
"kanji," two different phonetic scripts, and the occasional Roman
alphabet letters.  Pick any letter, ANY letter, upper or lower
case, from the letters to Aly and you'll find that they're
absolutely identical.  You can use this same trick to expose what
appears to be hand-written junk mail from marketers and so on.
     Finally, there's the ending, which all things considered is
good.  But there's just something weird about a story that deals
with relationship problems and then has nobody in the story
actually relating with anybody else, except for Mina and Ash. 
Everyone else is off in their own space doing their own thing.  I
can't help but think that if Sally was perceptive enough to
recognize where her friend Bunnie was coming from in her letter,
that she'd actually show up on Bunnie's doorstep and BE THERE FOR
HER instead of just letting it go.  And she could have done so
without blowing her cover as "Aly."
     But that's just armchair quarterbacking on my part.  Jon
Gray deserves the admiration and respect of Sonic readers for
letting us know just how much of a nuthouse it can be while still
asserting that "COMIC BOOKS ARE FUN!!!!"

     DATA-FILE: The Acorn Royal Family.  So what do you do when
the last page of your back story gets rained on and you're one
page short of a comic book?  Data-File to the rescue!
     This is a cheap way to bring the newbies up to speed on a
plot point or two. Unfortunately, it gives us the What while
easing off on the Why.  We knew nothing about how Elias and Meg
(aka Megan) got together or even who the father of Alexis is. 
The Data-file does nothing to shed light on any of the Loose
Continuity nuggets of the past, which would have made the page
helpful and not just a waste of space.
     The artwork, however, is just a hair short of unforgivable. 
It's an uninspired pastiche of drawings including some lifted
from a number of the "magazine-style covers": Elias was lifted
from the cover of S121, and Sally from S123.  The drawing itself
is uncredited, which is understandable because I don't know who
in their right mind would WANT to be saddled with this work on
their resume.  I've seen Jon Gray's concept art for Ash and know
that he had to lose the arm tats before he could see the light of
day.  Tattooed fur is one thing, but a furry with a five-o-clock
shadow?  Wassup with THAT?!?  It doesn't just look like dirt, it
looks ridiculous!  I know this was an emergency, Mike, but next
time try running a Data-File that actually contains data.

     Fan Art: Seven more examples including Sonic and Tails at
the beach by Scott Moore, Sonic Battle Tails by Edward Richman,
and Sonic and Shadow with anorexia by Isabel Melendez.  Then
there's Jessica Malanowski's drawing of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles
and Amy with someone else's hair.  I'll be the first to admit it:
I don't get the joke.

     Sonic-Grams: I'll just hit the highlights from Mike: Tails
will be featured in S147-151, presumably NOT married to Mina or
courting Amy Rose; and there'll be a Sonic X mini-series coming
in the summer which will be violently attacked by some readers if
the writers managed to work Chris into the script.  And kudos for
the library references.

     Editorial: Even Mike Pellerito concedes that "Tails and Mina
marrying seem[s] almost impossible" but that didn't stop it from
getting into the comic.
     Mike then proceeds to embarrass himself by declaring "Yours
is the opinion that really matters!  If all the fans of this book
demand that we put Sonic in a dress, you can guess the blue blur
will be in a dress."
     I was a little concerned when I first read this, but then
realized that Mike wasn't being exactly straightforward about his
willingness to be a vox pop whore.  For one thing, there's no way
to get "all the fans" to agree on pretty much anything, let alone
wanting to see Sonic in a "La Cage aux Folles" crossover.  Then 
there's the little matter of Gorelick, Goldwater, the Sega
Licensing reps, and the Comic Code Authority to make sure Sonic
in a dress is the LAST thing that will appear in the comic. 
Finally, Mike says "You can guess the blue blur will be in a
dress."  Not "you can BET...."  We can make that guess right now,
and it would be a wrong guess, in any event.  So don't read too
much into the editorial, gang.
     Off-Panel: when I was in college they didn't toss pencils at
the ceiling.  They tossed gummi bears.  More interesting color
effect.