The Sonic The Comic Fan Survey 2013

[L. T. Dangerous]

Here's something I've just whipped up (independantly, I must stress). I thought it'd be interesting to see exactly what the fans think of STC's characters, stories and the like, past and present. This'll let us see with reasonable accuracy precisely what is most liked about this excellent comic. It's open to readers and staff alike, so don't feel put off!

Take the survey and then post any feedback you like here. Survey closes at 8pm GMT on the 1st of December, plenty of time to get some good results going. I'll be posting in-depth analysis once the results are tallied!

EDIT: Slight oversight, I left Tikal out! She's now included! Her results may be slightly skewed as a result of this.

[Charles]

I know I'm taking it!

[Mambo's Here! Look Busy!]

Done and done.

And I mean done...

*forgets to click send*

ah shiii...

[Michael]

No Cream?

[Fools in Miru]

Oct 4, 2013 13:36:21 GMT Michael said:

No Cream?

Tikal is missing too.

[L. T. Dangerous]

Tikal was added in a few days ago, as per the top post. Cream is included within Plunder's crew, I didn't feel she'd had enough appearances to truly justify giving her her own entry. More on that in the end results

[Charles]

Worse, NO BIG!!

[andy]

Really had to make use of the Wiki for some of those villains. Didn't remember any of the ones from Shanazar.

[L. T. Dangerous]

Ah, I did leave out Big and Chrysalis didn't I? Never mind. I think it's been going too long now for me to add them in. That said, there has been a lot of feedback for Big in the later part of the survey, so not to worry!

[Beeth]

Admittedly I struggled on ranking the non-sonic strips as I've never read many of them. The mid-part of that list was just franchises I liked, and beneath that down to second-bottom I literally just plonked things in randomly. My memory's really rather patchy overall for the comic at this stage, so I was going more by stand-out moments I could remember in regards to arcs and such.

[Eleonora B.M]

it's endless!!!Done, anyway

[modochi]

Uhh, I want to take it, but over half of the questions are about material I'm unfamiliar with and as such, any answer I give would be more than just a half assed shot in the dark.

[L. T. Dangerous]

Giving this a quick bump to give the heads up the survey is now closed. I'll post in-depth results either tonight or tomorrow.

[Mambo's Here! Look Busy!]

Oooh. Will there be fancy graphs and complicated looking statistics?

[Chigs!]

Pie charts that look like cakes please!

[L. T. Dangerous]

Right, then, I'll spread this over multiple posts for ease of reading. Introduction and Basic Data parts in first post, Character section in the second, Stories in the third, Comic Strip data in the fourth, and Comic overview and Next Survey info in the fifth.

Here's the data as an Excel spreadsheet and as a Powerpoint presentation.

Introduction

This will be the first of many surveys I carry out to try and put a finger on the pulse of the STC fandom. I want to stress that this survey was carried out independently without any STC-O staff member informing the line of questioning I was to give.

Future surveys will alternate in theme. In order to not risk watering down the results, this general survey will not be run again for at least 12 months and will have been suitably tweaked in the meantime. The next one will feature greater focus on the characters and plots.

In total, 28 of you took this survey. I’m going to be posting the results below and offering my comment on them. Please note that the results for some of the character related questions are skewed: Tikal was initially missed off the survey and was added in after a handful of participants had already replied, whereas Big the Cat and Chrysalis were unfortunately forgotten altogether and left off as, by the time their omission had been pointed out, it was too late to add them in as the data would be rendered too inaccurate by their inclusion.

When rating lists where respondents were asked to rank them, I decided to give points to each of the ranks. So, for instance, for the question where those surveyed were asked to rank the main cast, a first place rank would carry four points, a last place rank would carry zero points and everything in between would, naturally, carry a 1-3 point ranking respective of its place in the list. These points are then added up to get an overall score. Note that this means that characters who scored a top place in a poll with more choices get more points for that spot, not necessarily that they are more popular than characters in a poll with fewer options!

Basic Data

Of the 28 who took the survey, 24 were male and 4 were female. 96.43% were aged 18-34, the rest were under 18. The vast majority of respondents were from the UK, but others included residents of the USA, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal and Italy.

A great many respondents said the year they first read STC was either 1993 or 1994, meaning many of the comic’s fans have been with it since the start. That said, a lot of respondents gave post-2003 years as an answer, meaning their first introduction to STC was via STC-O.

Almost two thirds of those who took the survey had not supplied anything for STC-O that had been run within the last two years, meaning this was more readers than current staff.

[L. T. Dangerous]

Characters

When asked to rank the STC main cast, the results came in as follows:

Sonic: 78pts
Knuckles: 76pts
Robotnik: 48pts
Amy: 48pts
Tails: 40pts

Knuckles and Sonic were a very close call for first place and it seems most of you put one or the other in first or second place. Perhaps more notably, Tails and Amy did far less well. I was honestly expecting Robotnik to come last but the fact he tied with Amy and outranked Tails surprises me.

The secondary cast were ranked as follows:

Super Sonic: 128pts
Chaotix Crew: 126pts
Grimer: 114pts
Porker: 110pts
Shortfuse: 98pts
Tekno: 83pts
Johnny: 81pts
Tikal: 35pts

Some very interesting voting here, with Grimer getting lots of first place votes. Tikal got an awful lot of last place votes, though it’s worth stressing she’s by far the least developed of the secondary cast and the only one in this list who has had more adventures in STC-O than STC; she was an incredibly minor character in the original comic’s run. Porker and, unsurprisingly, Super Sonic did very well out of the voting too, as did Chaotix. Tekno suffered a lot of sixth- and seventh-place rankings in this one, more than last place votes for her, which would suggest she’s not been written off by the fans entirely but there’s probably a feeling that her star could be shining brighter. Admittedly, she hasn’t been seen in some time, which could have damaged her chances a little here. A good spread of votes for everyone else, really.

The tertiary cast were ranked as follows:

Plunder: 385pts
Kintobor Computer: 341pts
Blaze: 262pts
Dr. Kintobor: 257pts
Ebony: 250pts
Silver: 236pts
Shadow: 233pts
Pyjamas: 224pts
Ultimax: 219pts
Shadow II: 213pts
Rouge: 206pts
Fabian: 196pts
Bodger: 185
Norris: 175pts
Green Hill Folk: 166pts
Babylon Rogues: 148pts
Dunzi: 61pts

Captain Plunder was the runaway winner here with 14 of you voting him into first place and the Kintobor Computer wasn’t far behind him. Interestingly, the human Kintobor did quite well out of this too. Most characters got a good spread of results, so there’s probably not much to worry about here, though Dunzi took a hammering with 15 last place votes.

The notable villains ranked as such:

Metallix: 504pts
Dr. Zachary: 459pts
Brutus: 403pts
Drakon Empire: 388pts
Nack: 376pts
Sidewinder's Gang: 340pts
Metamorphia: 323pts
Chaos: 319pts
Vermin: 259pts
Vichama: 258pts
Trogg/The Dark One: 241pts
The Family: 223pts
Max Gamble: 204pts
Death-Trap: 183pts
Roubal: 158pts
Kane: 154pts
Col. Granite: 146pts
Kupacius: 146pts
Agent X: 138pts
Set: 98pts

Do note that I left out the comedy villains in the League Of Super-Evil Villains. This was just for the real nasties. Max Gamble might be a fool but he’s still bad through and through! Also please note I chose to put Trogg and The Dark One together because The Dark One hasn’t appeared without Trogg’s involvement and the two have a master/servant dynamic.

Anyway, the runaway winners here were the Metallix characters with 19 top place votes, which isn’t terribly surprising. Dr. Zachary scored pleasingly high here as well. Roubal and Death-Trap’s low scores could quite possibly be put down to them not being fleshed out as well as their competitors in this question, yet I have to admit I’m impressed that they managed to outrank some of the characters we saw a fair bit more of, especially Roubal who’s only racked up one story in STC history; obviously a testament to the creative team. Set had the most last-place votes, but he also had a decent spread of higher positions- arguably the downside to him being so associated with a poorly received story (more on that later).

Lastly, you were asked to suggest characters from the Sega games you’d like to see appear in STC-O. There were a wide range of responses to this one, but the most notable ones were Orbot & Cubot, Marine the Raccoon, Yacker and, most interestingly of all, a wide variety of people variously suggesting Gamma, Omega and the other E-100 Series robots.

[L. T. Dangerous]

Stories

Respondents were asked to rank various status quos and storylines in STC history. They were each scored on a ranking of 0-5 (where 1 is Poor, 5 is Excellent and 0 was for readers to select if they weren’t familiar with the story).

Here’s how the status quos scored by average ranking:

R.B.R. (Issues 9-100): 4.79
Post-R.B.R. (Issues 101-148): 3.75
Post-Shanazar (Issues 166-184, 224-250): 3.5
Mobius at War (250-Present): 3.11
Shanazar (Issues 149-165): 3.04
Pre-R.B.R. (Issues 1-8): 1.89

Unsurprisingly, Mobius R.B.R. came out far and away the winner here, but many of you also liked the post-R.B.R. and post-Shanazar stories. Robotnik in a position of power drove a lot of stories, but it also seems you guys were keen on Sonic and co having all other manner of adventures. Sonic as the underdog definitely won the vote, however you look at it. I’m most surprised to discover that the Shanazar setting scored so poorly, though this could be attributed to the reprints taking up all the back-up strip space meaning a drastic change of plan was necessitated and the story ended up taking a hugely different direction to what was originally planned, culminating in a very hasty ending. Only three status quos scored “below average” or worse, those being Shanazar, Mobius at War and the pre-R.B.R. days. In fairness, there isn’t much to go on in the space of the first seven issues and many of the stories weren’t great, so I can see why that ranked bottom. The Mobius at War setting has been the source of much discussion on the forums- given the comic’s current schedule, this is the slowest of all the status quos to progress. It remains to be seen exactly where things are headed or what, if anything, will follow it up.

The game tie-ins rated as follows by average ranking:

Sonic & Knuckles (Issues 47-53): 4.39
Sonic Adventure (Issues 175-184): 4.32
Sonic 3 (Sonic The summer Special 1994, Issues 33-38): 4.18
Sonic CD (Issues 21-28): 3.93
Sonic Adventure 2 (Issues 228-238): 3.75
Sonic 3D (Issues 104-106): 3.68

A lot of votes in this one suggested the readers hadn’t read these stories, but, pleasingly, each of them received notable “excellent” votes. Flickies’ Island is a bit of an anomaly as it doesn’t follow the game plot very much before wildly diverging from the path after only three issues, bringing in the Drakon Empire storyline. That said, many of you still thought very highly of those three issues! Notably, the Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation was incredibly loose, even by STC standards, which may have worked against it a little here, rather than the quality of the stories. Sonic & Knuckles remain a firm favourite, taking place as it did during not just one of the comic’s hottest periods but a time when Sonic was at his peak.

The original storylines the comic has created score like so by average ranking:

Metallix/Brotherhood of Metallix (Recurring from issue 22-Present): 4.57
Robotnik Reigns Supreme (Issues 123-125, 127-130): 4.32
The Final Victory (Issue 100): 4.29
Super Sonic splits from Sonic (Recurring from issues 80-184): 4.21
Commander Brutus (Recurring from issues 62-82): 4.18
Knuckles' World Tour (Issues 74-99): 4.11
The Drakon Empire (Recurring from issue 108-present): 3.86
The Nameless Zone (Recurring from issue 16-present): 3.57
Game Over (Issues 171-174): 3.39
Zonerunner (Issues 35-38, 48-51): 3.25
Silver hunts the Iblis (Recurring from issue 255-present): 3.18
Sonic the Fugitive (Issues 239-present): 3.07
Tails and the Ultimax (Recurring from issue 253-present): 2.93
The Ring of Eternity (Recurring from issues 134-156): 2.9
Agent X (Recurring from issues 12-132): 2.79
Shanazar (Issues 149-165): 2.75
Tekno & Shorty (Recurring from issue 245-present): 2.21
Time Zone (Issues 160-169): 2.07

The usual candidates for all-time great stories top this list off, as you can see. Most interestingly of all here is how highly the Silver storyline is regarded, even though it is only on its second part. This speaks highly to the way the storyline has been crafted and certainly suggests the readers are keen to see more Silver. Time Zone ranking at the bottom likely come as a result of half of it taking place during the Shanazar storyine and the unwieldy shoehorning in of Amy Rose into that story.

[L. T. Dangerous]

The Comic Strips

Respondents were asked to rank the various comic strips STC has had over the years.

The strips set on and related to Mobius ranked as follows:

Sonic the Hedgehog: 316pts
Knuckles the Echidna: 286pts
Tails: 216pts
Sonic's World: 199pts
Super Sonic: 179pts
Chaotix Crew: 174pts
Captain Plunder: 173pts
Amy Rose/Amy & Tekno: 146pts
Doctor Robotnik: 131pts
Blaze the Cat: 105pts
Double Sonic: 96pts
Silver the Hedgehog: 93pts
Tekno & Shorty: 72pts

Note that this question asked people top rank the quality of the strips, rather than the importance. While Sonic and Knuckles were a hard call in terms of their characters, their stories were much more cut and dry. Sonic got 19 first-place votes for this one, though Knuckles got the most second-place votes with 14. Note that the Silver strip’s low scoring can probably be put down to only one story being published under that title. Again, note that I forgot to include Big in this one.

The Sega Superstars strips ranked like so:

Decap Attack: 458pts
Streets of Rage: 360pts
Sparkster: 346pts
Shinobi:340pts
Kid Chameleon: 312pts
Eternal Champions: 278pts
Ecco the Dolphin: 254pts
Megadroid: 245pts
Ristar: 228pts
Golden Axe: 226pts
Pirate S.T.C.: 214pts
Wonder Boy: 173pts
Marko's Magic Football: 172pts
Mutant League: 159pts
Shining Force: 143pts
Shenmue: 127pts
House of the Dead: 127pts
Panzer Dragoon: 118pts

To the surprise of absolutely no-one, Decap Attack ran away with first place with 23 of your putting it in the top spot. This can be attributed to its long-running nature and, most importantly, its great sense of humour. A lot of STC-O’s stories here ranked quite badly, though this could be down to a number of factors- in the instance of Shenmue and Panzer Dragoon, both stories were written as a prologue to a larger story that has yet to appear. In those instances and for House of the Dead, many forum users expressed unfamiliarity with the source material and also stated they didn’t read the stories because of that, which may have skewed things a little.

There are numerous Sega Superstars stories from the comic’s original print run which have yet to re-appear in STC-O. Respondents were asked to state which stories they would be happy to see return. Here are the results of that question:

Streets of Rage: 13 votes
Kid Chameleon: 13 votes
Shinobi: 12 votes
Ecco the Dolphin: 9 votes
Eternal Champions: 8 votes
Shining Force: 6 votes
Golden Axe: 5 votes
Pirate S.T.C.: 5 votes
Wonder Boy: 3 votes

Some really interesting results here. I would never have imagined Ecco would rank so highly. SoR coming out with a tied first isn’t that much of a surprise as the setting is a good way to generate plots, the same could also be said of Kid Chameleon. The bottom four scoring so low could be attributed to a number of things: Shining Force has, for a while, been seen as one of the more unusual adaptations due to the liberties it took with the game plot; Pirate S.T.C. has always been notoriously divisive; Golden Axe and Wonder Boy have never been renowned for their quality- Wonder Boy in particular is almost a punch-line on the forums. Personally, I’d be happy to see many of these stories come back and I’m glad to see I’m not alone.

Lastly, you were asked to state which Sega properties, if any, you’d be interested to see in STC-O that have yet to have an adaptation within STC’s pages. Lots of varied and interesting results here, but most popular was Jet Set Radio. Behind that were NiGHTS, Alex Kidd and Phantasy Star. Any of those would be worthy additions to the STC fray, but so would some of the other suggestions received. The bottom line is that Sega franchises are really rather excellent!

[L. T. Dangerous]

The Comic

Lastly, those who took the survey were asked some questions about the comic itself.

Firstly, respondents were asked who their overall favourite STC writer is and the clear winner was Nigel Kitching. Almost every single vote was for Nigel K, but Lew Stringer also notched up some support too!

Secondly, respondents were asked to pick their overall favourite STC artist and, again, the winner was clear from the off in the form of Richard Elson. This one had a wider spread of responses, however, with STC artists past and present scoring points.

STC-O’s most beloved writer was determined to be Ed Reynolds, the online comic’s first chief writer and original editor. Ed’s writing continues to influence STC-O to this day and it’s no surprise he performed so well here. Behind Ed in second place and the highest ranking member of the current STC-O team was Seumidh MacDonald, with Tom Huxley and Jamie J also scoring multiple votes.

STC-O’s most popular artist was a bit closer but, ultimately, Adamis just managed to top the list, with Zak Simmonds-Hurn and Stephen Davis right behind him.

The survey asked respondents for their all-time favourite story and while it’s hard to pick out a clear-cut winner, it is obvious that anything featuring the Brotherhood of Metallix scored highly. Robotnik Reigns Supreme was also much-loved.

The survey also asked participants to choose their favourite story from STC-O alone. Again, this one is really too varied to call (which is great!!) so I’ll let you see for yourselves in the detailed data.

Readers were asked to pick their least favourite story from all of STC’s life. Amy’s Secret Past notched up a lot of votes on this one- once again, it comes back to people finding the story to be a confusing smear on established continuity. Come Crashing Down! also ranked quite poorly for reasons most people on the forums will already be aware of.

When asked if they would keep reading STC-O, participants almost overwhelmingly answered positively. There were one or two who were unsure (and one cheeky staff member pretended to hate the comic!) but overall this sends a very positive message about STC-O’s reader base.

Readers were asked if they could make one change to STC-O what it would be and why. This received many various responses but most were keen to see a smoother release schedule, greater focus on overarching plots and an conclusion to the Sonic the Fugitive storyline.

Lastly, people who took the survey were asked to leave any parting comments they may have had regarding the comic, past or present. Most were celebratory of the comic’s standing legacy or offered “keep up the good work” style compliments. One or two requested more comedy strips and, again, improved focus and one respondent from Belgium offered “Adamis is awesome”. Can’t argue with the facts, eh, Boomers?

The Next Survey

The next survey will be carried out in 2014 and will feature more focus on the characters of the comic in order to determine more specifically which storylines people would like to see followed up and which they want written out as well as what strips and characters people would like to return.

[Chigs!]

Amazing work, thanks so much for putting this all together!

[Michael]

Great stuff, LT!

[andy]

I note that one person suggested a strip based around Columns.

[Adamis]

“Adamis is awesome”

Oops that was me. I was in the middle of writing a joke about myself (that would have ended like "...at screwing things" or something as silly) but I kept switching tabs to chat with a friend of mine. That's embarrassing LOL.

Decap Attack: 458pts
Streets of Rage: 360pts
Sparkster: 346pts

I've been pushing our writers to have something for Sparkster for one or two years !

[andy]

Dec 2, 2013 20:11:32 GMT Adamis said:

Decap Attack: 458pts
Streets of Rage: 360pts
Sparkster: 346pts

I've been pushing our writers to have something for Sparkster for one or two years !

Seconded. You'd be good on that one.