Summer of Sonic '09: Neo Merch Zone photos galore!

Seeing as Sega memories is primarily a Sonic merchandise related blog (at least it's ended up that way), it only makes sense of provide a whole bunch of photos of the merchandise area of Summer of Sonic, so here we are!



These tiny little Sonic the Fighters plushies go for insane money, not sure why because they really are tiny and kinda cheap looking. Still, there's a Nack and Espio, which is unusual. That reminds me, I saw a guy in the queue for Nigel Dobbyn who had the much nicer full size Nack plush hanging out of his bag. Tad risky, isn't it?

The original copy of a page from Issue one of Sonic the Comic. You know, before Richard Elson came and blew these early issues art out of the water. Still neat, though.

Oh hey, it's these toys again! I almost forgot that you could buy them in individual packs like that with a stats card, as all of mine came from the box sets of 4. I don't have the Crabmeat anymore, boo hoo!

All the 10th anniversary stuff, including that CD/Coin/book set (that is actually quite cheap and easy to find), and the crazy expensive ring and laser-etched 3D Sonic in a crystal cube. Good luck finding those about!

I was three seconds from winning one of these denim jackets once. A guy I talked to who runs Summer of Sonic said it was probably one of them who beat me to it, that might be the same one, haha.

Oh look, it's that rubbish Supersonic record I have. Also look very carefully at the note about the Richard Jacques program, in the full size picture of course, your eyes can't be that good. Lol, UK:Resistance reference.

How to make an utterly worthless game worth something: get it signed by Yuji Naka.

You may recognize these. Well at least I do, cause they're on me shelf! Tee hee!

Sonic Rush shoes. Huh, new to me!

A print of a scene from Secret Rings, also signed.

Not from the merch area, but I guess this counts. These huge plastic stands have been about in game shops around the country,mas this one most likely has as it was pretty beaten up. Probably Mario fan boys throwing rocks at it or something.

Summer of Sonic '09: Meeting the S.T.C Artists

Dobbyn to the left, Kitching to the right. What a pair of Nigels!

One of the highlights of the event for me had to be meeting two of the artists/writers of Sonic the Comic, Nigel Kitching and Nigel Dobbyn. I grew up on these comics and they had a big influence on how I draw, in particular Kitching's artwork for the Decap Attack comic, who was also the writer for a majority of the entire comics lifespan, everything from the crazy Super Sonic all the way till the comic's last story ark where Johnny Lighfoot died and Robotnik lost his mind They did a Q&A session which I caught on (very wobbly) video, which I might upload later.

A whole folder full of painted goodness. There's nothing quite like seeing the originals.

This one was gone first I think. It was framed and used as a front cover.

For most of the day they were in one of the corners signing things for people and drawing them sketches too. Naturally this was one of the first things at the event I wanted to do, and while in the queue my eyes were drawn over to Dobbyn's portfolios laid out, all featuring the original paintings of the pages we illustrated for the comic. If that wasn't enough just seeing them in the flesh (er...ink?), they were for sale at £20 a page! Apparently he was selling them to fund a independent comic he wants to set up. When he drew you something/signed something, you could take a note, write your name on it and reserve the pages you want, so you could pick them up later in the day.

Take note the pages are much bigger than what they appeared in the comic, many A2 size and on card. Getting the thing home was a game of paranoia as I had nothing to carry it in, so i was holding it all the way home ready to murder anyone that would damage it. It's beautiful though, isn't it? This is one of many reasons why the British comics were much better than the American ones: hand painted art vs computer gradient coloring (well at least until the later years).

When I met Kitching I gave him a piece of artwork of Chuck D.Head I did, and he drew me a sketch, on which I requested an afro on Head noggin for some reason, just to make it unique! What surprised me when I was talking to him was finding out that he is currently illustrating pages for a Decap Attack story on Sonic the Comic online! He had a piece of art of it on his table. Sweet!

When I met Dobbyn he signed a page from one of the comics i brought with me, and I bought a page from his portfolio. I probably should have bought two now I think about, but that would have involved leaving the building to find a ATM and draw more money out. I wasn't expecting there to be anything to buy here, to be honest! One thing that made me squeal like a school girl in my mind was when talking to the pair of them: they both mentioned that they belive they've seen my artwork online before! Gleee! :D

Summer of Sonic '09: Summary

Summer of Sonic '09 was a shock to me. Why? Because it was far beyond my expectations. It was almost a little overwhelming that such an event for Sonic the Hedgehog could exist. Arriving at Liverpool Street at about 10:30am a bunch of Sonic fans were waiting up near the exit calling over anyone they could find who had Sonic related things on them (I was wearing that white Secret Rings shirt I showed you a while back).

This is when it started, before half the people sat down to draw together.

So many Sonic fans in one place is pretty surreal. 

Getting there at about 11 there was a big queue already waiting at the door of the Truman Brewery (well, part of it, It's a big old place that's quite often used for collage shows). Once it opened the queue was very speedily sorted out, it split up inside for people who reserved tickets and those who didn't. Not really sure what difference that made, but there were plenty of those art books to go around. The artbook is the same size and shape as a mega Drive manual and has a small collection of assorted artwork from both old and new games. It's very nice, especially for a freebie.

Even the DJ had dyed blue hair and Sonic ears! What kind of alternate dimension is this?

The stage screening one of the many fan animations.

There was little touches like this everywhere. Neat.

The huge room had various areas dedicated to games, artwork, merchandise and comics, as well as a stage with a DJ playing every Sonic song you can think of, even scraping the bottom of the barrel with Right said Fred's Wonderman (which had a Pirate Sega themed music video) and SuperSonic dance Attack! On the stage they had events every hour or so including two performances by some guy Bentley Jones (don't ask me) who sang a lot of things in Japanese for some reason, and got a few laughs when he sand 'My name is Sonic'.

Two of the few cosplayers that were about (the Robotnik is a mate of mine). take a wild guess which one won a Xbox 360 for their costume.

They also had competitions for a fan art (and there was a LOT of people at tables drawing for most of the day), cosplay and a quiz show type thing, all of which won various Sega bits and pieces and consoles for the top winners in some cases. A couple of times they also screened fan animations that got a lot of laughs too. maybe I should cook something up if I get time by next year's event. Apparently this venue is a lot bigger than last years event which I missed, and while it was busy it was never overcrowded to the point where you couldn't move (manily because so many were sitting down drawing).

Whoever that is playing Dynamite Headdy (and pretty far into it): you are awesome.

People weren't allowed to video footage of All-Star racing, but I presume photos are ok, not that I got a good one or anything.

The gaming area had a row of Xbox-360's running a Ultimate Mega Drive Collection as well as some of the newer games like Unleashed and Superstars Tennis. Two guys from Sumo Digital were there with a Playstation 3 running a recent build of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, and there was a Wii and DS in the corner set up to Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics. I didn't get time to play any of these because every time I got in the queue for a few minutes something would happen up on the stage and if I had to choose playing a game that will eventually be out and a one off event I'll pick the one off.

I did however give the Sumo Digital guys Steve Lycett and Travis Ryan this doodle I did on the train journey there that they had a good laugh about. We had a quick chat about anal fanboys and growing up with Sega games. I did watch others play in two player, though. A lot of people were picking Alex kidd, good on 'em He's spacial attack is jumping into his old helicopter! When the Q&A session asked the audience who they'd like to see in the game, I suggested Opa Opa. Who wouldn't want to drop 16 ton weights on characters' heads?

The merchandise cabinet. I'll have a whole article about it's contents later.

I have a few articles planned to write up over the next day or two about the event, including hopefully some videos I took, and of course lots and lots of photos!

Summer of Sonic 09 this Saturday

We will be bringing you loads of photos, info, maybe even some video clips of this Saturdays' Summer of Sonic event taking place in London. I'm personally looking most forward to meeting Sonic the Comic writer Nigel Kitching, a guy who's Decap Attack artwork was a big inspiration to me throughout my childhood. Another STC artist, Nigel Dobbyn, will also be there as well as two guys from Sumo Digital currently making that Sega All-Star Racing game. The SOS website has also revealed that a rather fancy art book will be given away, in their words 'designed in the style of a classic Mega Drive manual'.

If you're attending, you might just bump into me there wearing a "HELLO. I AM THE GAGAMAN." badge.

10 inches of Metallic Hedgehog Awesome

Jazwares, the guys who have made quite a few Sonic action figures as of late such as the Werehog and pose-able figures, are later this year (apparently September, but you never know with these things) releasing this rather ace looking pose-able Metal Sonic.
It's the old Sonic CD Metal Sonic too, not that rubbish thing in Sonic Heroes they called Metal Sonic. The guy seems to be making quite the come back as of late, also showing up in the new Mario & Sonic Olympics games, and of course there was that smaller mighty mugg style figure of him from Comic Con too not long ago.

The First4Figures Statue is out!

Well it only took over a year but the 12" Sonic statue starting shipping out last week from all online shops that sell it (Forbidden Planet, Play.com, Play-Asia I presume, and a few others). Only 1500 have been made, so wherever or not pre orders gobbled all of those up or not is unknown but I've got mine and it's numbered 693, either that means they've been sent out at random or they're almost (or already) gone! Who knows!



Not really gonna take many photos of it seeing as First4Figures provided plenty themselves on their website, including a 360 degree spinny picture thingy, unlike the vinyl toys which we only saw one or two photos of until they came out. Mind you while those figures were around £10 each, this resin statue comes in at at least £65. Ouch, my poor wallet!

It comes with this card that let's you reserve 'the next statue in the series' with a code. Gulp! Another one?

Still it's quite nice, though I wouldn't say £65 nice for most people to splash out on. I'm not sure why they changed the eyes from the early version, but oh well. I do like the Green hill stand though, gives it a unique touch and it's hand numbered at the bottom of the stand too.

I have so many Sonic statue/figure type things now I've had to give them their own little shelf area now. Some will say I've tainted this image by throwing the Werehog figure in there, but he might get thrown aside from this lot when the new Metal Sonic figure come sout in a month or so (I'll post a promo photo of that later if you haven't seen it yet). I also have that Comic Con metal Sonic on it's way from America thanks to Barry getting me one. :)

"...shite."

Sonic's Shoes Blues

No, this is not a review of the Little Golden Book Sonic's Shoes Blues. Though as a kid I could relate with Sonic's predicament as I too wanted a pair of Sonic shoes.

Since first playing Sonic the Hedgehog I've wanted a pair of bright red and white striped shoes. Of course, SEGA never made an official pair of Sonic shoes, so I'd have to settle for shoes like the ones seen below.


Over the years my interest in finding Sonic-like shoes waned and I passed up "close enough" opportunities like the SOAP Scorchers and red and white Adidas.

Sure, Sonic wore SOAP shoes, but they didn't look anything like these.

Then, today while shopping with my girlfriend I encountered some pretty cool Sonic-like shoes! The Cole Haan Men's Air Granada II come in a nice reddish-brown and feature a beige stripe. While they aren't bright red and white, they have a muted color scheme that suits my age and they were half off. So I picked up a pair and took embarrassing photos of my feet! Enjoy.




Close enough. :)

Sorry I haven't posted much here lately.....

.....life got a little "challenging" recently, but things are improving rapidly now and the normal fun service will be resumed soon!

Sorry I haven't posted much here lately.....

.....life got a little "challenging" recently, but things are improving rapidly now and the normal fun service will be resumed soon!

Another lazy commercial videos post!

The 'Genesis' is 20 years old from it's American release this week so why not?



This is a promo video presumably from 1989/90, before Sonic had even shown up. It's pretty long as it's a collection of commercials stringed together, but at least skip to 3:27 for the hilariously bad Stallone impression the narrator makes when talking about Rambo III.

This one is from Australia sometime around 1994/5 I'd imagine, when dodgy looking 3D animation like this was all the range. Vaguely interesting notes: the Ren & Stimpy footage shown is from an early beta build of the game, which you can find floating around the 'net' (which according to this Sega created). The beta is extremely basic with almost non existent level design and backgrounds. Also, when it talks about turning into Super Sonic in Sonic 3, doesn't that sound an awful lot like who currently voices Sonic in the modern games? Just a coincidence of course.



And yes, if you didn't already know in Australia they really do pronounce Sega as 'See-ga'. I wonder if the Aussie version of the Sonic games changed the logo voice to that. Probably not. This ad above for the master System is mainly notable for the rather ace rendition of the After Burner music. I also like how you could rent a Master System console in a sweet Sega branded suitcase of sorts.



Oh hey, here's some more Pirate TV ads I haven't linked to before! Above is a musical number about the Cyber Razor cut, and below is a rather bizarre shower scene Game Gear ad. Still my favorite Sega ad campaign of the lot.

Mega Drive/Master System Stand: I'm nuts.

Chalk this up as one of the craziest Sega related purchases I have ever made. The game shop I bought it from said they paid £600 for this back when the Mega Drive was the best selling format at the shop (15 years or so ago I'd imagine), and I got it for the starting bid of £50 one morning a week ago on a whim on eBay.

My dad picked it up all the way from Chester yesterday (he does a delivery job driving all over the country, so he picked it up while he was up that way), just in time for the consoles' 20th Anniversary since it's American 'Genesis' (ick) launch. To say it's big would be an understatement, it's 190cm tall and 56cm across, so about the size of our freezer. At first it looked a bit like the Leaning Tower of Pisa until this morning I figured out that you have to twist each shelf around until they lock in place. It's currently sitting in a room that isn't used much because there is no way it's going up those stairs, and there probably isn't anywhere to put up there anyway.

It has a big square weight at the bottom so it doesn't fall over, and Sega logo stickers on every side. It's not really much to look at until you fill it up with games though, right?

I have just over 100 Mega Drive and Master System games in all, and this thing can hold up to 140 (160 if you include the very top, though they'd probably fall off when you turn it up there). But enough talk, more photos! Click to enlarge yadda yadda..