On June 23rd, 1991, Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog, a fast-paced side-scrolling platformer for the Sega Genesis console, and the character took the world by storm.
Sonic has since spawned dozens of games, five different animated series, with a sixth in the work for Netflix, and, of course, the 2020 live-action movie starring Ben Schwartz, James Marsden, and Jim Carrey, with a sequel set for 2022.
Still, Sonic has never quite recaptured his early 90s shine. At that time Sega was a real contender in the console wars with Nintendo, and Sonic — as the company's mascot — rivaled Mario in popularity.
But whether it was Sonic's in-your-face, Xtreme 90s attitude or the difficulty of translating his high-speed adventures into 3D, the character's popularity didn't translate into staying power. While Mario remains an icon of gaming, Sonic has become more of a novelty, with perhaps his biggest legacy existing in the world of online fan art.
Sonic's iconic and relatively simple aesthetic makes him tempting subject matter for many amateur artists, leading to some amusingly bad sincere fan art, as well as a whole meme culture of intentionally bad and disturbing work, often with references to 9/11, Christianity, and fascism.
But while much of this intentionally weird Sonic fan art has sexual elements, it can be hard to find the line between the ironic and the sincere. Because Sonic and his supporting cast — Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Shadow, and of course Dr. "Eggman" Robotnik — are also major players in the world of fetish fan art, rivaling My Little Ponies in the world of "rule 34" artwork.
It's along that blurry line — where the amount of effort and detail involved start to cancel out any of the artist's claims of irony — that things get truly disturbing. And if you think that Human Centipede taught you everything you need to know about body horror, wait until you delve into the twisted depths of Sonic fetish art involving impregnation, vore, inflation, diapers, macrophilia, tickling, and blood play, that will leave you asking "dear God, why?!"
Was an entire generation of budding artists traumatized by seeing the Sonic float stabbed through the eye and deflated in the 1993 Macy's Thanksgiving parade? Or did the creators of the 90s Sonic children shows deliberately implant these strange predilections in the developing minds of their young audience?
In either case, it's such a well known phenomenon that the Twitter account @BadSonicFanArt has over 25,000 followers. the result is a disturbing world that it's probably better not to look into... Seriously, we filtered out the truly NSFW stuff, but it's still pretty rough. Are you sure you want to see this?
You've been warned...
Buff Sonic
In what seems to be a sincere bit of strange fan art, Deviantart user Ginkaze has reimagined the cast of Sonic as a bunch of bulging bodybuilder types who look to be built for brawling rather than speed. It's definitely pretty sweaty, but it's also the least upsetting image in this slideshow, so there's still time...
▲Gotta go fast sculpture
We've been unable to track down the artist behind this incredible Sonic sculpture, recreating the original "gotta go fast" drawing in true "Sanic" fashion. Never before has a child's drawing been brought so convincingly to life... only to beg for the sweet release of death.
▲Sonic sims
In another example of bringing Sonic out of the cartoon realm for some godforsaken reason, these modified Sims by deviantart user teensimlish represent Sonic and his hedgehog girlfriend Amy Rose. Their brighlty colored flesh and dead eyes seem to say "try to run away, I dare you..."
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Back in 2013, artist R.J. Palmer created this disturbing "realistic" Sonic as a joke. And maybe it's worth a laugh if you can get past the creepy little hedgehog teeth, and the bright blue fur blending into weirdly human musculature. But by 2018, when the first teaser images for the live action Sonic movie came out, it didn't seem so funny anymore...
▲Shädman's Sexy Sonic
Speaking of the live action movie, the fan response to the original character design, followed by the redesign, spawned some interesting art... particularly by infamous adult artist Shaddai Prejean, AKA Shädman. He had a character redesign of his own, editing various movie stills to give the cartoon hedgehog more feminine features in addition to a large butt and breasts...
▲Sonic Transforming Into a Woman
Speaking of feminizing Sonic, there is various artwork showing Sonic transforming into a human woman. Some of it is far more explicit than this example of Sonic turning into Hatsune Miku by artist SquirmsDWorms. But what makes this one special is the look of confusion and terror on Sonic's face as his body begins to change in a process that is clearly beyond his control. At least it's not trying too hard to be sexy...
▲Sonic and Shadow
Cobaltpie, previously AkaiDahlia
What did I just say?! Dear lord! At least they're just eating cake...
▲Sonic and Shadow Blood Play
No! Stop it! Drinking blood now? And Sonic is pregnant?!
▲Vanilla vs. Amy Vore
The pregnancy thing seems to come up a lot in this fan art, actually. But the even weirder variation involves vore -- wherein one character swallows another, often in response to some minor annoyance — and we're given a view of the swallowed character inside the swallower's stomach.
In this piece by DeviantArt user Prawny151 Sonic's girlfriend, Amy Rose, has been swallowed by the bunny character Vanilla, and Vanilla has given some of Amy's clothes to Sonic to wear, which Amy — who is actively fighting against her confinement, and is presumably being digested alive — thinks is "actually pretty hot."
Still, as weird as it is, it's not nearly as disturbing as those previous images. It seems like we've finally gotten through the worst of it...
▲Why didn't you listen?!