Sonichu Non-infringing Sonichu

Marvin

Marvin

Christorical Figure
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Feb 9, 2013
I've said this a lot before, but I think people really hype up the copyright problem in Sonichu.

Like, on its face, Sonichu seems like a huge copyright disaster. It seems saturated with pokemon references and characters ripped entirely from all the children's media that Chris has absorbed over the years.

But if you look at it a bit closer, very little of these ripped off elements penetrate the actual plot of Sonichu. Like Chris will mention in a comic that a character is a pokemon trainer, and then go on for five pages to fight with some trolls in cwcville.

So the topic of discussion is: what needs to be culled for Sonichu to be non-infringing?

I went through Sonichu #0 and took some notes.

So, obviously, the elephant in the room is Sonic and Pikachu.

First of all, Chris will need to come up with a new origin story for Sonichu.

There's also the issue of the pokemon elements throughout the comics. That could be fixed by replacing pokemon with some new monster fighting cliche. There's quite a few of them already. (Pokemon, Digimon, Monster Rancher, etc.)

In the Sonichu comics, replace "pokemon trainer" with "brutal hateful slave driver". And replace "pokemon" into "abused underground dogfighting creature". Problem solved.

Pages 1-7
  • Obviously going to need to ditch Sonic, Pikachu and the perfect chaos monster
  • This is where we're going to need the new origin story
Page 10
  • Punchy's pretty obviously a Knuckle's ripoff
Page 11
  • Flame the sunbird should be replaced. Edit: Apparently Flame isn't a direct ripoff. He might be OK to leave in.
Page 18
  • This ad is questionable
Page 19
  • Zapdos should be replaced
Page 20
  • Naitsirhc as Giovanni's son (and the team rocket references) will need to be fixed
Page 22
  • More Pokemon stuff
Page 30
  • Shin Ye Ha Me Ha is questionable
Page 44
  • S-Chu ball should be removed
Page 45
  • Gamecube ad is questionable

Gonna post on later issues some other time.

Any thoughts? Was I too lenient?
 
Last edited:
  • Autistic
  • Like
  • Dumb
Reactions: boixosnois, Gagamaru, Shokew and 5 others
Most Distressed Distaste said:
I thought that would be the reason, but I think flame is a much safer design than sonichu. He's just a red bird and to be fair, it's not like Kazooie is much more than a red bird herself.
Click to expand...
Oh, I thought Flame was directly lifted from somewhere. Nevermind then.
 
Sonichu #1 notes

Overall: This book makes lots of references to Giovanni and Team Rocket. They're mostly in text, but in a few panels (page 13 for example), you can see a red R on Naitsirhc's shirt.

Page 1
  • He removed Robotnik in the retcon, but he didn't remove his name in the text. It still says Robotnik.
Page 8
  • Is spin dash a pokemon thing? Edit: As @SteelPlatedHeart notes, spin dash is a Sonic thing.
  • Heh, also, Chris uses km/h for some reason.
Page 11
  • This pokemon ad should be removed.
Page 12
  • Pretty sure this map was ripped off of pokemon.
Page 15 - 20
  • This whole interaction between Sonichu and Sonic will need to be rewritten.
Page 21
  • Pokemon TCG ad will need to be removed.
Page 24 - 33
  • This whole fight involving Sonic will need to be rewritten.
Page 34 - 36
  • The Amy-Rosechu interaction will need to be removed.
  • Heh, claiming Silvana was just pretending to be Sonic doesn't mean Sonic doesn't appear in the comic.
Page 36
  • Sonic's gonna need to get kicked out of the band.
Page 45 (S-9)
  • Remove the gamecube ad.
 
Last edited:
  • Agree
Reactions: Trilby
Sonichu #2 notes

Overall notes: I'd worry about Sonic's spin thing clashing with Sonichu's running motion in page 1, but Sonic has never done that, right? Like, he always does a full body spin? (I'm not much of a gamer.)

Page 7
  • Heh, is Chris (unintentionally) mocking Sonic's goofy mono-eye? Like with the "see from my perspective" frames? (Not copyright related, just funny.)
Page 9
  • Might want to remove the Axe ad.
Page 14
  • References to Giovanni.
Page 20
  • Yugioh reference
  • Heh, also, "he was jealous for me? that's so sweet!" I think Chris was trying to use comic voodoo to induce emotions in his target.
Page 22
  • Are these pokemon moves?
  • Curse ye ha me ha probably should be removed.
Page 24
  • The got milk ad probably isn't an issue, but I'll make note of it.
Page 38
  • "In the name of Christian Chandler's heart, I shall punish you" So, if Slaweel hadn't identifed this as an anime line, I might not've guessed Chris stole it from somewhere. That's a Sailor Moon line, right?
  • Heh, also I was concerned that "double double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble" was a line from some movie or something, but apparently that's a line from Shakespeare, which means it's public domain. Chris (accidentally) did something right here.
Page 43 (S-7)
  • Shin-ye-ha-me-ha, again
  • Also whatever attack Sonichu is doing.
Page 45
  • Another gamecube ad
 
Marvin said:
Sonichu #1 notes

Overall: This book makes lots of references to Giovanni and Team Rocket. They're mostly in text, but in a few panels (page 13 for example), you can see a red R on Naitsirhc's shirt.

Page 1
  • He removed Robotnik in the retcon, but he didn't remove his name in the text. It still says Robotnik.
Page 8
  • Is spin dash a pokemon thing?
  • Heh, also, Chris uses km/h for some reason.
Page 11
  • This pokemon ad should be removed.
Page 12
  • Pretty sure this map was ripped off of pokemon.
Page 15 - 20
  • This whole interaction between Sonichu and Sonic will need to be rewritten.
Page 21
  • Pokemon TCG ad will need to be removed.
Page 24 - 33
  • This whole fight involving Sonic will need to be rewritten.
Page 34 - 36
  • The Amy-Rosechu interaction will need to be removed.
  • Heh, claiming Silvana was just pretending to be Sonic doesn't mean Sonic doesn't appear in the comic.
Page 36
  • Sonic's gonna need to get kicked out of the band.
Page 45 (S-9)
  • Remove the gamecube ad.
Click to expand...
Spin dash is a Sonic thing.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Marvin
Marvin said:
Page 38
  • "In the name of Christian Chandler's heart, I shall punish you" So, if Slaweel hadn't identifed this as an anime line, I might not've guessed Chris stole it from somewhere. That's a Sailor Moon line, right?
Click to expand...
  • Yes. "In the name of the Moon, I shall punish you" was one of her battle cries in the English dub.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Marvin
Chris seems very adamant about "George Lucasing" his beloved Sonichu comic, all for the purpose of removing copyright issues. The tricky part here is taking the main character (who is very obviously a recolor of sonic, with the description of being an electric hedgehog pokemon) and changing everything about him. His origin, name, species, attacks, and looks are all a derivative of pre-established intelectual property that Chris doesn't own. Don't let Chris tell you otherwise, but Rosechu is a carbon copy of Amy Rose. I'm not saying its impossible, but requires a good amount of creativity to retcon Sonichu into being a truly "original" work. And knowing Chris's track record with being creative, I don't see it happening.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Shokew, Trilby and LordCustos3
IBAfan69 said:
Chris seems very adamant about "George Lucasing" his beloved Sonichu comic, all for the purpose of removing copyright issues. The tricky part here is taking the main character (who is very obviously a recolor of sonic, with the description of being an electric hedgehog pokemon) and changing everything about him. His origin, name, species, attacks, and looks are all a derivative of pre-established intelectual property that Chris doesn't own. Don't let Chris tell you otherwise, but Rosechu is a carbon copy of Amy Rose. I'm not saying its impossible, but requires a good amount of creativity to retcon Sonichu into being a truly "original" work. And knowing Chris's track record with being creative, I don't see it happening.
Click to expand...
I'll give it to then that they're at least making something of an attempt. Hell, we've got actual new Sonichu pages this year, any things possible.
 
IBAfan69 said:
Chris seems very adamant about "George Lucasing" his beloved Sonichu comic, all for the purpose of removing copyright issues.
Click to expand...
If I had to guess, I would say it's probably the opposite. If I know Chris, I would imagine he's extremely resentful of even the tiny changes he's made thus far.
IBAfan69 said:
The tricky part here is taking the main character (who is very obviously a recolor of sonic, with the description of being an electric hedgehog pokemon) and changing everything about him. His origin, name, species, attacks, and looks are all a derivative of pre-established intelectual property that Chris doesn't own.
Click to expand...
I'm (gradually) going through the comic and what I'm finding is that most of these things are in the text, not the artwork.
IBAfan69 said:
Don't let Chris tell you otherwise, but Rosechu is a carbon copy of Amy Rose.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Rosechu would be one of the trickier characters to deal with in Sonichu. She's probably the biggest problem with the artwork in the comic, in that she is identical to Amy Rose, but she's threaded through all parts of the comic. Now compare her to Sonic; Sonic appears a handful of times and he can easily be edited out.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Trilby
This is what Sonichu would have to look like to avoid copyright infringement

TD2RS_WM3J.png

http://www.bitstrips.com/series/G618/?subsection=0&page=6
 
  • Winner
Reactions: Jewed Hunter, Pina Colada, boixosnois and 4 others
While Sonichu is a total rip-off, it's not like Sonic himself was a particularly original character. Games from the 90s are full of those "cartoon animal WITH ATTITUDE" characters. Really, for most of it, all you'd need to do is change the names of things. The result would still be hugely derivative, but so is a lot of entertainment out there.

I did consider writing a Sonichu fanfic that would basically be an attempt to rewrite the whole thing without copyright problems. The idea I had was that the creatures would be "Chus," funny little four-foot tall furry creatures, each of which has their own special power. Then I realised I'd wasted an hour trying to write fanfic based on an awful webcomic and sat with a shotgun in my mouth for the rest of the evening.
 
  • Agree
  • Feels
  • Disagree
Reactions: LordCustos3, Sanae Kochiya, Shokew and 3 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back