Turtleneck attacks! Art by Adamis and Pete Murphy
An Unconventional Convention! is a complete story that featured in the Sonic The Comic Con Special. The story was the first in Sonic the Comic Online history to be published in print before going online, an honour it shares with Stories from the same issue, and was (also with Stories) the first Sonic the Comic story since Point of No Return! to hold that distinction. In Memory was published in print the previous year, but appeared online in issue 261 first.
Staff[]
- L. T. Fletcher - Story
- Adamis - B&W art (pages 1-4)
- Seumidh MacDonald - B&W art (pages 5-7)
- Pete Murphy - Colours (pages 1-4), lettering
- Matt Dittmer - Colours (pages 5-7)
Story[]
Sonic is the guest of honour at the first ever Sandy Bay Zone Sonic Con, also attended by his friends including Tails and Amy- and he's bored senseless! Tails chastises Sonic for being ungrateful and rude to patrons but Sonic complains about spending a day "at the nerd emporium" not being his idea of fun. As if to prove his point, he gives Tails a tour of the convention hall, which features events such as Porker signing his memoirs and Knuckles performing atrociously bad stand-up to a baffled audience. Just as Sonic thinks his day can't get any worse, who should show up but his old friend Sally Acorn- not a problem in itself, except she's brought her news camera with her and is catching Sonic in the midst of all the geekery!
Sonic tells Sally he'd much rather be battling bad guys and, as if on cue, an enormous Turtleneck Badnik bursts through the convention centre walls! Much to the chagrin of the assembled heroes, however, their attacks bounce right off the huge robot. A group of fans come up with an idea- many of the convention attendees have come dressed as their favourite Mobian heroes and they decide to trick the Badnik into thinking they're the real deal! Unable to tell the difference, the Badnik overloads as cannot comprehend more than one target being the "same" individual! With a huge explosion, its head rockets off and the fans all cheer. Knuckles tells Sonic this proves the fans weren't so bad after all. Sonic, modest as ever, asks Knuckles what he expects with a role model like himself!
Trivia[]
- The number of artists may seem unusually high for a seven-page story, but this was a decision made to best display a wide variety of Sonic the Comic Online artists.
- The name "Sandy Bay Zone Sonic Con" was chosen as a soundalike for San Diego Comic Con, the most famous comic convention in the world- fitting as this story would debut at a comic convention, Sonic The Comic Con.
- Chuckles With Knuckles is the name of a feature in the Knuckles Knock-Out Special. The jokes in the feature are known to fans as being particularly groansome, hence the reference.
- Knuckles gives a joke set-up but no punchline is given on panel. This is a private in-joke between certain members of the Sonic the Comic Online team. Suffice to say, the punchline itself is in no way suitable for a children's comic!
- Turtleneck was designed by Seumidh MacDonald who also named him, though he goes unnamed in the story itself as the script left the Badnik's design to the artist's discretion.
Timeline[]
As noted by "continuity obsessed Boomer" Norris Wimple in the first panel, this story takes place between issues 120 and 121. This was in order to not cause problems with contemporary continuity at the time of the issue's release.