Sample from my letters.

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I thought I would share with you one of my letters.  I guess I wanted to give you an idea of what I hope your attitude towards Archie Comics is.
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James Porter

(for security reasons, this part has been removed)

porterjamesh@gmail.com


Saturday, September 20th, 2014

Michael Pellerito

Archie Comics

(for security reasons, this part has been removed)

Dear, Mr. Pellerito

I am writing about the changes made to the Sonic The Hedgehog comic your company owns the licensing rights to. As I know you are aware, following a still fairly recent legal mess involving one of your former writers, Mr. Ken Penders, you had your contract with Sega rewritten, and a new series of mandates put in place for the comic, resulting in a reboot of the comic that saw the old continuity, and the story lines and much of the characters therein, completely removed. Characters removed from the comic include not only every character created by Ken Penders, but also characters created by other former writers such as Karl Bollers and Mike Gallagher.

 

I will begin by saying that I understand the reason why you did this. After all the legal problems visited on you by Ken Penders, you decided to play it safe and remove as many characters from the comic as you could, so as not to have more lawsuits visited on you by other former writers. However, this action may have been somewhat premature on your part. Do you know for a fact whether or not you are allowed to use characters created by Karl Bollers and Mike Gallagher? I know you can't use characters created by your writers with ties to characters and elements created by Ken Penders, but what of characters that don't? Would you be able to convince Sega that you can still use them?

 

I recommend that you send someone to go through all of your files and start looking for any/all Work For Hire contracts and other pieces of paperwork needed that says you can legally use characters created by other former writers. If you find any, present them to Sega, and see if you can convince them to let you can use the characters in the comic. I recommend doing this because if you do, it could help you to smooth things over with all the fans who were angered by the reboot.

 

Now, let me say that I am aware that this does not sound like something you would be interested in doing at this time. I would imagine that after a massive legal mess like the one you found yourselves in with Ken Penders and Sega, you would more than likely be more comfortable to let the matter rest as it currently is. However, I would advise against this. With all that has happened with the comic, many fans of the comic as it was before the reboot are not pleased. The previous continuity contained many characters that had managed to endear themselves to your readers over the 22+ years they have been in it, and said readers will not be willing to let it all go so easily.

Mr. Pellerito, I hope you have given what I have said some consideration. It would do you well to try and smooth over the anger from the fans as much as you can. I know you wouldn't want to risk more legal recourse from Sega, or even from former writers, but leaving the comic as it is now will only cause the anger from the fans to continue. I hope you consider doing this, as trying to placate at least some of this anger could help you out.

 

That is what I have to say to you on this matter. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I hope you have given what I have said some consideration.

 

Sincerely


 

James Porter

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