Sonic the Comic

Sonic the Comic
Cover to Sonic the Comic #125, art by Richard Elson
Publication information
Publisher	Egmont (originally Fleetway) Sega Europe
Schedule	Fortnightly
Format	Finished
Publication date	1993–2002 (as STC) 2003–present (as STC Online)
Number of issues	266 total (184 original, 39 reprints, 43 in Online continuity)
Creative team
Writer(s)	Nigel Kitching, Lew Stringer et al.
Artist(s)	Richard Elson, Mick McMahon et al.

1993–2002 (as STC)

Sonic the Comic, known to its many readers as STC, was a British children's comic published fortnightly by Fleetway Editions (the merged companies Fleetway and London Editions, which progressively became integrated with its parent company Egmont until it became known as Egmont Magazines) between 1993 and 2002. It was the UK's official Sega comic, featuring stories about its mascot Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters, as well as comic strips based on other Sega video games. The comic received praise from fans and has since then gained a loyal cult following.

Sonic the Comic's original price was 95 pence, increasing to £1.35 by the final issue. The comic generally contained four comic strip stories, each usually following different storylines and being written and drawn by different writers and artists. The first was always a seven-page story about Sonic himself (except for #148 which began with the Tails strip), and in the earliest issues, the remaining three would involve a different Sega game character (see list below). Later, the Sega backup strips were supplanted by stories focusing on supporting Sonic characters such as Tails, Knuckles, Amy and Chaotix. The anthology "Sonic's World" featured a variety of events in the STC world not covered by the main character strips.

The different strips could at times contrast heavily with each other, with different strips aimed at different age groups or with a different balance between comedy and drama: the humour-based Decap Attack strip could appear alongside the darker and more violent Streets of Rage strip. Lew Stringer has stated that majority of readers were aged between five and ten and many strips were written with this in mind: "That doesn't mean that older readers can't appreciate the stories and artwork of course but it's worth bearing in mind that if the stories sometimes seem juvenile, it's because they are. Having said that, it doesn't mean we can be sloppy because we're 'just' writing for kids".