Longtime Sonic the Comic writer Lew Stringer has opened up about his years on Fleetway’s British Sonic series, revealing that he originally tried to join the comic as an artist, not a writer, and explaining why Commander Brutus was always a villain he intended to kill off.
Speaking with Time Extension, Stringer recalled submitting sample artwork to original editor Richard Burton. Burton did not think his drawing style was right for Sonic the Comic, but knew Stringer was also a writer and instead asked him to send in scripts. That change of direction led to Stringer’s first Sonic story, “Metamorphia,” in issue 30 and eventually years of work across the main strip, Sonic’s World and Amy’s solo adventures.
Stringer wasn’t particularly familiar with Sonic when he got the job. SEGA sent him a console, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and a reference guide covering the characters and settings so he could get up to speed. Although he says gaming was never really his thing, playing Sonic 2 helped, and he remembers SEGA supplying later games to members of the creative team as well.
His arrival also filled a deliberate gap in the comic’s writing lineup. Burton wanted some stories with a stronger comedic streak to sit alongside Nigel Kitching’s more serious material, even though Stringer points out that both writers already had plenty of experience with comedy. The distinction helped give Sonic the Comic its unusually broad range, bouncing between larger ongoing plots and much stranger one-off stories without feeling like every strip came from the same voice.
One of Stringer’s biggest additions was Commander Brutus, introduced through the Project Brutus storyline in issues 63 to 65. Stringer says the character was conceived from the start as a powerful villain with ambitions of his own who would eventually betray Robotnik. But being an original Sonic the Comic creation gave Stringer another advantage: Brutus could be allowed to reach a genuine end.
Robotnik had to remain available because he belonged to SEGA’s games. Brutus had no such protection, so Stringer could build his story toward a final defeat with no need to keep him around for the next adventure. That freedom appears to have stuck with him, too. Stringer names the Commander Brutus storyline as his favorite arc from his time on the comic.
His other favorites include Shortfuse the Cybernik, another character he created, and the Amy and Tekno stories. Stringer particularly enjoyed giving Amy room away from Sonic, saying it allowed her to grow into a stronger character while developing her friendship with Tekno the Canary.
Stringer also pushed back against the idea that children’s comics needed to avoid politics or heavier ideas. His approach was to write stories he believed he would have enjoyed at the same age. That philosophy fed strips dealing with corrupt authority, manipulation and crowd behavior, with Stringer arguing that children already encounter politics and world events through everyday life. Even the comic’s frequent superhero spoofs never caused trouble with Marvel, he says, because satire and parody were considered fair game.
The interview also gives Stringer’s own explanation for Sonic the Comic’s slow decline. Sonic City previously covered Nigel Kitching and Richard Elson’s memories of the series, including their frustration with Fleetway and Egmont’s increasing reliance on old strips. Stringer is just as direct about it. Reprints saved the publisher money because, as he puts it, “we don’t get paid for reprints,” but he believes filling more of the comic with material readers had already seen ultimately drove people away.
By issue 185, Sonic the Comic had moved entirely to reprinted stories apart from new covers, and it remained in that form until its final issue in 2002. Stringer had already seen a similar strategy used on Buster, and describes what happened to the Sonic comic as a drawn-out decline rather than an abrupt ending.
More than two decades later, though, he remains pleased that the work has lasted in people’s memories. Considering how many characters and stories Stringer added to Fleetway’s version of Sonic, from Brutus and Shortfuse to Tekno and Metamorphia, that affection has plenty of material to draw from.
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