Dear Megadroid

Wow! The Sonic strip just gets better and better looking. I love that first panel. Really inventive.

I was at the Moniaive Comics Festival near Dumfries on the 6th and 7th of September, doing a lot of sketching and workshops and I was amazed to find out just how popular these characters still are. I must have done about 30 Sonics, Tails and Knuckles all together, as well as two Dr. Zacharys, although I have to admit that I’d completely forgotten that Zachary had that great big gun thing in place of one of his arms.

Someone recently asked me where the inspiration for his cyborg look came from and I remembered a half corpse/half cyborg character from Marvel in the seventies called Deathlok who I think must have had a strong influence on me when I redesigned Zachary.

It’s really nice to see him resurrected, although I would have liked to have seen something a bit more inventive done with him. Love seeing those robots, too – done very nicely.

I remember when the first robot appeared in the strip, I was living in Croydon, so took the artwork in to the STC offices in London personally. I’d painted a few dents in the robot artwork because the robot was supposed to be very old and Deborah thought there was something stuck to the paper and tried to rub it off! Ah, how we laughed.

If anyone gets the chance to see an animation called Laputa, the Flying Island by Hayao Miyazaki, you might notice some inspirations there, too!

I do miss drawing these characters sometimes, and comic strips in general. Its not confirmed yet, but I might have some news about me and another famous British comic soon. I’ll let you know.

By the way, in case any of you don’t know, Roberto’s ‘Manuwahi’ strip is on the Dark Horse Strip Search web site now, with colouring by me. Everyone please vote for it when you get the chance (unless, of course, you hate it!).

Cheers
Nigel Dobbyn