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Pix ‘N Love Set To Release L’Histoire de Sonic The Hedgehog

One of the things I’ve always lamented about is the fact that there has never been a proper written history of Sonic the Hedgehog. Sure, the story has been touched upon by short and/or poorly made documentaries, and the English did have magazines about the history of Sonic. However, there has never been a comprehensive single printed volume of the twists and turns of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. That is about to all change…as long as you’re able to speak French.

Pix ‘N Love, the publishing company best known for their detailed books on the history of Nintendo, have decided to go to the other side of the 90’s gaming war, writing a book about the blue icon that captured the heart of a generation. Proving that there is still life in this 20th Anniversary Celebration, L’Histoire de Sonic The Hedgehog clocks in at a whopping 296 pages, covering all 20 years of Sonic’s career. I’m not going to lie, what they’ve shown so far looks incredibly nice. Just the way everything is laid out shows that a lot of care has been put into this. Take a gander at that Miles “Tails” Prower sample page. And who doesn’t love transitioning images of the Green Hill? Too bad I can’t understand a word of it. Now I understand why they wanted me to take French in Junior High.

The Pix ‘N Love guys and/or girls have also been given the blessing of Sega Japan, giving them the clout to fill the book with interviews and “never before seen art”, though just how “never before seen” we don’t know yet. Because of it being a licensed product, however, Sega of Japan gets the final say on the entire project, unable to be sent to the printers until they give the final say. Until then, the book remains finished and waiting. Since it needs the green light from the guys upstairs, I’d be surprised if some of the less flattering aspects of the history of the franchise are explained in detail. I’d be pleasantly surprised if they went that extra mile, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Even if it won’t hit the market until January 2012, the price point is all set for the Collector’s edition. It’ll set you back 30 Euros if you want that fancy cardboard cover with the blue threads intertwined. One can only assume that a standard edition will eventually come out, though who knows when that’ll be. Either way, unless you’re fluent in French, all you can do is import and look at the pictures. Word on an English version hasn’t been mentioned, though I’d be taken aback if they didn’t. Pix ‘N Love did go through the effort of translating their Nintendo material, even if it did take a couple years for the English version to come out. Hopefully it won’t take that long for the history of the most famous hedgehog to be released in these parts.

To preorder the book, along with looking at high-res sample pages, check out the announcement page on their site.

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16 Comments

  • Reply

    Great… lovely book, nice artwork…. and… it’s in French. Wonder how much poking and prodding would be needed to get an English release of this.

  • Reply

    All those pictures from the preview are all on the wiki already. :p

  • Reply

    My picture changed?

  • Reply

    And here we are in America just looking at image files of all this extraordinarily neat stuff. 🙁

    Where’s all the English stuff that we don’t have to import for +$400? D:
    (Then again I may just import this piece, the whole thing looks amazing. Just wish it were so easy to pick up a language, shame I’m not really interested in French.)

  • Reply

    Too bad it’s not in english. :\ I’d love to have a copy of this though, I wouldn’t be able to read it. :V I don’t know a lick of french and I don’t have the time to learn. I’m sure someone here would translate it though. ^_^ 

  • Reply

    You know, just saying, SoA could work with someone like UDON to bring this over.

  • Reply

    Grabbed one.

  • Reply

    Don’t be afraid, the english version of the book will be available at the same time on the english website of Pix’n Love. You can see on the Sonic Adventure 2 pages sentences in English. Enjoy !

  • Reply

    I hope we get bigger scans because I want to read them, and cool they also got Tails’ pic from the Japanese manual of Sonic 3D Blast!

  • Reply

    And that’s why us frenchies are awesome! 😀

  • Reply

    Guys there will be an english version, and if i have my sources right pix n love will do that one too!!!!

  • Reply

    How poor, looks like they just took pictures from Sonic Retro and pasted them in. plus I cant freakin read it

  • Reply

    Je l’ai dĂŠjĂ  prĂŠco.

  • Reply

    It bothers me, that in Eggman’s profile is written his name is also Ovi Kintobor. Isn’t it possible just to say that his name is Dr. Robotnik or rather Dr. Eggman? If they listed the name Ovi Kintobor, too, then it could easly happen that they also write his name were actually Julian Kintobor. And sorry if my objection destroy the world of someone, but this was created by the comics and isn’t really official.

    • Reply

      The origin in Sonic the Comic was actually created by Sega of America…back when they were trying to westernize everything, they came up with the brown hedgehog/good scientist become blue hedgehog/evil scientist storyline. Though it was never reflected in the games, Fleetway took it and ran with it. I sincerely hope that the book is only mentioning the old story as an aside, and are not trying to present it as how things are right now. Since I can’t read French, I have no idea how they are doing it.

  • Reply

    Tres belle. Je vais recuperer une copie de sauvegarde.

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