Video game character and Sega mascot Sonic the Hedgehog turns 20 this year, and his comic book will be celebrating with a special 20th anniversary issue in #225.
Archie Comics’ press release notes that Sonic is “the longest running continuously published licensed comic of all time” and holds the record for the “longest running video game inspired comic.” It’s also the longest running comic book about a speedster not named the Flash. Second place is Impulse at 90 issues (including #1,000,000). (Admittedly, there aren’t many to begin with.)
In fact, since DC has relaunched The Flash several times, Sonic may actually take the #1 spot in a couple of years, measured by number of continuous issues. The current records are:
- Flash vol.1: 246 issues (#105-350)
- Flash vol.2: 232 issues (#1-230, #0, #1,000,000)
- Flash Comics: 104 issues (#1-104)
With #225 coming out this summer, they’re only months away from passing Wally West’s series, and will pass Barry Allen’s just two years from now!
Sonic the Hedgehog #225 hits comic shops on June 1, and newsstands on June 7, 2011.
It doesn’t really make a difference regarding when Sonic overtakes the Flash, but didn’t Wally’s series last 247 issues? Unless you’re not counting the issues after The Lightning Saga for some reason.
Hazards of blogging on the phone. I meant to include a note about that.
Yes, I’m leaving out the issues after The “Lightning Saga” for this tally because we’re measuring continuous publication, not total number of issues. The Flash stopped at #230, and didn’t start up again with #231 until a year and a half later.
So the continuous run started in 1987 with Flash #1 and ended in 2006 (or was it late 2005?) with Flash #230.
Even if you ignore renumbering and new titles, there’s still a gap between the end of The Flash and the launch of Flash: The Fastest Man Alive.At best, you have a 31-issue run starting in 2006 and running through 13 monthly issues of Flash: TFMA, 1 issue of All-Flash, and 17 more issues of The Flash until the end of 2008, and another gap before the start of Flash: Rebirth.
I don’t think they are right about Sonic being the longest running continuously published licensed comic of all time. Off the top of my head, Walt Disney Comics and Stories ran 263 issues at Dell without any breaks, and I would consider the Gold Key/Whitman issues to be part of the same run, so that goes to issue 499 (Whitman actually went to 510, but 499 was the last monthly issue before Whitman’s distribution problems lead them to start publishing irregularly). And I don’t know if that’s the longest, it’s just the first one I thought of…