SONICHU

CWC Comics / No. 0 / Drawn Nov. 24, 04

BLURB: Hand-drawn premiere issue!

CHRISTIAN WESTON CHANDLER: Go! Sonichu! Go out and zap to the extreme!

SONICHU: I will! Thank you, father!

LEGAL INFORMATION: All Sonichu material are Copyrighted March, 2000-2005 by. Christian W. Chandler.

The cover of the premiere issue of Sonichu is among the most well-known illustrations by Christian Weston Chandler, and certainly the most often imitated in parodies.

This image sets the stage for the Sonichu saga and its broad themes.  The first line of dialogue is given to Chandler himself, imploring his creation to go forth like a god commanding mankind.  Sonichu is at once obedient and grateful to his maker.  As with most of Chandler’s productions involving his signature character, it is less important why we should care about Sonichu than that Chris deserves praise for having created Sonichu in the first place.

Chris is pictured here wearing his traditional red-and-blue striped rugby shirt and his precious Sonichu medallion–a clay image of Sonichu’s face attached to a chain around his neck.  This ensemble represents Chris’s traditional “look” in both real life and in the comics–during the mid-2000s it was unusual for him to be seen wearing anything else.  Chris’s right hand clutches an “S-Chu ball,” a Sonichu-themed variant of the device used to capture and contain creatures in the Pokemon video games.

As shown here, Chandler has heterochromia–his right eye is slightly greener than his left eye, which is blue. Like many of the characteristics he feels are unique, he is unusually proud of his condition.  Although the differences in his eye colors are nearly impossible to discern in photographs, the contrast is much more visible in the Crayola world of Sonichu .

Sonichu is intended as an amalgamation of the title character from the Sonic the Hedgehog video games and the Pikachu species from Pokemon .  However, for all practical purposes he is simply a yellow-colored version of Sonic with the ears, tail, and markings of a Pikachu.  His use of the term “father” to describe Chris refers to a paternal relationship between the creator and his creation, which is heavily emphasized in early issues of the series.  In his 2009 dramatic readings of the series , Chandler awkwardly avoids his own references to Sonichu being his son, suggesting that he had by that time become uncomfortable with that aspect of their relationship.

The date in the corner, November 24, 2004, indicates when Chandler completed the cover–the entire issue #0 was apparently not completed until at least March 2005.  Consider that in November 2004 Chris was 22 years old and serving a suspension from his community college.

TITLE: Episode 1: Sonichu’s Origin

NARRATION: Our story begins in an open field 5 mies from the city of Station Square, which is under siege by the Perfect Chaos monster.   While Sonic the Hedgehog ponders over the destruction, a wild boy Pikachu takes notice of the far-off destruction.

CHRISTIAN WESTON CHANDLER: I am Christian Weston Chandler, Sonichu’s creator, and author of this comic, this is his sotry and nothing less.

PIKACHU: Pika?

LEGAL INFORMATION: All Sonichu material is copyrighted, March 2000-2005 by. Christian Weston Chandler.

A source of some confusion in the Sonichu narrative is that Chandler divides his stories into both issues and episodes, so the first episode of issue #0 is episode 1, but the first episode of #1 (the second issue) is episode 4.  This becomes more convoluted as story arcs span multiple issues and episodes.

This episode (along with Episode 2) adapts the origin of Sonichu and Rosechu first presented in the April 2003 short story “ Sonichu & Rosechu… The Genesis of the Lovehogs .”  The story is designed to spin directly out of the ending of the game Sonic Adventure , first released in North America in 1999.  The game follows Sonic the Hedgehog’s quest to stop a god-like creature known as Chaos; in the climax, Chaos absorbs the negative energy of seven “Chaos Emeralds,” transforming into a gigantic beast known as “Perfect Chaos” and attacking the metropolis of Station Square.

Here, Chandler introduces the retcon that a Pikachu (who will be transformed into Sonichu) observed these events from several miles away.  The term “wild boy Pikachu” is used to indicate the animal’s sex and status; “wild” is commonly used in the Pokemon fandom to describe uncaptured and untrained Pokemon.  The dialogue “Pika?” is consistent with the speech patterns of Pokemon, who are only able to say the syllables in the name of their species.

Chris again inserts himself into the story to explain his importance to franchise.  The promise that “this is his [Sonichu’s] story and nothing less” is particularly amusing, given that Sonichu becomes a supporting character by issue #2.

The same copyright information from the cover is repeated at the bottom of this page.  It will become increasingly evident that Chandler jealously guards the ownership and proprietary rights of his creations; this idiosyncrasy has been thoroughly exploited by internet trolls seeking to antagonize him with “unauthorized” Sonichu products.

NARRATION: Meanwhile…

The action in this page is extremely difficult to follow, particularly for readers unfamiliar with the storyline in Sonic Adventure .  As per the events in the game, Sonic the Hedgehog confronts Perfect Chaos, and summons the positive energy to restore the Chaos Emeralds, which transforms him into “Super Sonic.”  In this form, Sonic’s body is yellow instead of the usual blue, causing him to strongly resemble Sonichu (who has not yet been created).  The juxtaposition of two yellow squiggles in the composition makes it difficult to discern what Sonic and the Pikachu are each doing, but upon closer inspection it is clear that Super Sonic is engaging Perfect Chaos while Pikachu is still on his way into the city to join the battle.  This is consistent with the action in Sonic Adventure , where Super Sonic’s approach to defeating Chaos is to run at top speed up the monster’s body toward its head to deliver an attack.

CAPTION: Ouch!

CAPTION: 15 miles away

CAPTION: Girl Raichu

By now the Pikachu has reached the site of the battle and finds himself staring down Perfect Chaos (a sweat drop in panel 1 indicates the Pikachu’s nervousness).  However, since Super Sonic is running up the length of Perfect Chaos’s body, and Chaos is pointing its head at Pikachu, our heroes meet in a fateful collision!

The resulting force creates the Chaos Rainbow , a critical plot point used to explain the origins of every Sonichu-like creature in the series.  Note the color arrangement is incorrect–red, orange, yellow, blue, green, violet, and some shade of grayish-purple.  This is a strange mistake for an avid consumer of Crayola art supplies such as Mr. Chandler.  The rainbow originates from the Pikachu’s body and terminates “15 miles away” at the cottage home of Pokemon trainer Kellie “Kel” Felix, striking her female Raichu.

Controversy arose in 2010 when Sonichu “fans” pointed out that this Raichu (fated to become Rosechu) has a pointed tail, a male sex characteristic in the species that was not introduced in the video games until after Chandler drew this page.  Confronted by allegations that Rosechu must therefore be a transgendered male, Chandler attempted to replace this page with a photoshopped version, and ultimately lashed out on the subject in a video .

CAPTION: At the cottage…

KEL: Raichu, I saw the…

KEL: Gasp!

KEL: Who are you?  Where’s my Pokemon?

ROSECHU: Kel…

KEL: Gasp!

ROSECHU: I am your Pokemon.

ROSECHU: I was hit by a rainbow, and now..

ROSECHU: I have transformed!

KEL: Oh, my!  You’re as beautiful as a rose!

ROSECHU: As a rose?  I need a new name, since I’m a new Pokemon, so, you can call me…

LOGO: Rosechu

CAPTION: Zapbud

The first three panels indicate that the Pikachu and Raichu are simultaneously transformed into Sonichu and Rosechu, respectively, by the power of the Chaos Rainbow.  Ironically, Sonichu is upstaged by his future soulmate, who is the first to be depicted in-story and the first to be named.  This foreshadows Chandler’s growing fixation on the “Eve” to Sonichu’s “Adam.”  Although Sonichu is Chris’s first “electric hedgehog Pokemon,” Rosechu is his first female creation, and she provides him with an irresistible opportunity to address female sexuality, a subject that was already of outsized interest to him.

In terms of design, Rosechu is a poorly-disguised knockoff of Amy Rose, the would-be girlfriend of Sonic the Hedgehog.  Only the Raichu tail and the blue trim on her clothing indicates that she isn’t simply Amy.  Kel is naturally astonished to see this new creature claiming to be her Raichu, since it looks nothing like a Raichu and possesses the ability to speak English.

Kel is believed to be named after Kellie Andes, one of Chandler’s high school classmates.  By his own admission, Chris put little thought into dating as a teenager, and only in retrospect realizes that maybe he had a shot with the various young ladies who befriended him in high school.  Irrespective of their actual relationship or his actual chances of scoring with her, he now considers Ms. Andes to have been his high school sweetheart.

Here Rosechu (and later Sonichu) is unusually preoccupied with devising a new name to reflect her new evolution.  In accordance with Pokemon naming conventions, once a Pokemon has evolved it is no longer considered a member of its previous species, and since Rosechu somehow knows that she is the first of her new kind, she determines that she will need a new name.  For this reason, all female electric hedgehog Pokemon are called “Rosechu,” (Bubbles Rosechu, Angelica Rosechu, etc.), although this one is not given a more specific name because she is (supposedly) the first.

Rosechu’s name is first introduced within an almost illegible logo based upon Chandler’s design of a “zapbud,” which is later established as Rosechu’s favorite flower.