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Description
THIS IS NOT MY CHARACTER!!!!! This is one of the new characters from the Archie Comics Waves of Change Arc.

I must say, my first impressions of the character design were extremely poor. However, this has nothing to do with the design of the character at all. Personally, I knew most of the aquatic characters from the comics as still being the original animal, but intelligent. We saw this with the Killer Whales that Robotnik had as his aquatic legion and with some of the more obscure freedom fighters. One was just a clam that had eyes and could talk. They maintained the idea that the event that kickstarted sentience in Mobius' fauna and sometimes flora did NOT mean that they grew legs and arms. I understand the idea for these new characters to have shapes that fans might be more familiar with, and it's perfectly fine.

Having said this though, Archie provides a strong example with this as they are showing sympathy to the Sonic fan artists out there who try to make new unique characters but get ridiculed by people saying they are too similar. I will say, there is a heavy saturation of hedgehogs, foxes, echidnas and the like. Heck, people ignored the official wolf designs and made them shorter and look like Sonic or Tails. Then again, what other standard did people have before now? Most characters seemed like Sonic look-a-likes in basic body shape.

But now, Archie Comics is showing leeway for people to not only branch out, but explore by making the standards more easily accessible, as you can see here with Razor. Granted, people have already made aquatic mobians, but the didn't seem,...different. Here, Razor has the basic body shape of most of the characters of the Sonic series, but his snout is clearly elongated. He is also simply named Razor the Shark. I think this might be a way to allow fans to adjust the body's shape to fight different species that fans might make.

There is also a Betta fish, Manta, Angler, Puffer, Mantis Shrimp, and a number of other species that can be used as guidelines for new characters. Regardless if Archie did this intentionally or not, it sure helps the fans. And it also causes the argument of most "haters" invalid, as an OFFICIAL COMPANY is taking this approach, as opposed to the original comics that straight up drew mobians as anthropomorphic or even just smart feral animals. If anything, standardising this shape helps characters standout when before, they would just be remembered as a wild animal and that's that.

There will be people complaining that this isn't true, and you may be right, but then again, I'd attribute that to having more personality or importance to the story. Remember A.D.A.M.? Yeah, me either. See what I mean?

To draw this to a conclusion, while my first impressions weren't too good, I am very glad they decided to go with this approach. The characters were memorable and more distinguished than other things I've seen. I look forward to seeing what else the writers at Archie Comics have planned.

P.S.
Sonic Boom still sucks.

Description
THIS IS NOT MY CHARACTER!!!!! This is one of the new characters from the Archie Comics Waves of Change Arc.

I must say, my first impressions of the character design were extremely poor. However, this has nothing to do with the design of the character at all. Personally, I knew most of the aquatic characters from the comics as still being the original animal, but intelligent. We saw this with the Killer Whales that Robotnik had as his aquatic legion and with some of the more obscure freedom fighters. One was just a clam that had eyes and could talk. They maintained the idea that the event that kickstarted sentience in Mobius' fauna and sometimes flora did NOT mean that they grew legs and arms. I understand the idea for these new characters to have shapes that fans might be more familiar with, and it's perfectly fine.

Having said this though, Archie provides a strong example with this as they are showing sympathy to the Sonic fan artists out there who try to make new unique characters but get ridiculed by people saying they are too similar. I will say, there is a heavy saturation of hedgehogs, foxes, echidnas and the like. Heck, people ignored the official wolf designs and made them shorter and look like Sonic or Tails. Then again, what other standard did people have before now? Most characters seemed like Sonic look-a-likes in basic body shape.

But now, Archie Comics is showing leeway for people to not only branch out, but explore by making the standards more easily accessible, as you can see here with Razor. Granted, people have already made aquatic mobians, but the didn't seem,...different. Here, Razor has the basic body shape of most of the characters of the Sonic series, but his snout is clearly elongated. He is also simply named Razor the Shark. I think this might be a way to allow fans to adjust the body's shape to fight different species that fans might make.

There is also a Betta fish, Manta, Angler, Puffer, Mantis Shrimp, and a number of other species that can be used as guidelines for new characters. Regardless if Archie did this intentionally or not, it sure helps the fans. And it also causes the argument of most "haters" invalid, as an OFFICIAL COMPANY is taking this approach, as opposed to the original comics that straight up drew mobians as anthropomorphic or even just smart feral animals. If anything, standardising this shape helps characters standout when before, they would just be remembered as a wild animal and that's that.

There will be people complaining that this isn't true, and you may be right, but then again, I'd attribute that to having more personality or importance to the story. Remember A.D.A.M.? Yeah, me either. See what I mean?

To draw this to a conclusion, while my first impressions weren't too good, I am very glad they decided to go with this approach. The characters were memorable and more distinguished than other things I've seen. I look forward to seeing what else the writers at Archie Comics have planned.

P.S.
Sonic Boom still sucks.