RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE

Oh hey, guys. Zack from Hedgehogs Can’t Swim here. So.... it’s been a while. Some of you have left comments asking whether I was still alive, a totally valid concern considering the year we’ve all had. After I let Halloween come and go without any sort of update, you probably assumed I really was gone for good. No, I’m not dead. I’ve even been blogging consistently through the pandemic, over at Film Thoughts. My life has not been untouched by the apocalypse we’re living through these days. I’ve had friends and family come into contact with COVID. There have been some close calls but, thankfully, nobody I love has died. 

Physically, I’ve been okay. My mental health, on the other hand, has been pretty tattered and frayed this year. Ya know, nothing like a global pandemic and a government teetering towards full-blown fascism to make your anxiety flare up. I’ve been an essential worker through these end-times and it got to the point recently where I had to make the choice between my sanity and my paycheck. I chose my sanity, a decision I may or may not come to regret eventually.

Anyway, this might explain why I haven’t updated my cartoon hedgehog blog in seven months. I really didn’t mean to disappear for so long. It was not a planned hiatus. I just lost the ability to focus for a while, my ADHD and OCD fucking up my life in new and exciting ways. I considered following in the footsteps of fellow Sonic person Cybershell and totally disappearing for years on end but, ultimately, the fact that I was leaving a project incomplete was nagging at me. How am I supposed to be a fully developed and functional human being if I haven’t reviewed every episode of every “Sonic the Hedgehog” cartoon? 

So, I guess I’m back. I can make no guarantees that this project won’t immediately go back off the rails. As I write this, the future of the world is still totally uncertain and terrifying. I’ll admit, I’m feeling a little saner these days but that could change tomorrow. I know my writing isn’t as exciting or incisive now that I’m discussing the old “Sonic” cartoons and not the old “Sonic” comic books. But, for the time being, I’m re-committing to rambling nonsensically on the Internet about blue hedgehogs that run fast and fight robots for a little while longer. 

Here’s the plan: I’m going to devote most of December and part of January to catching up with IDW’s “Sonic” comic, a series it seems like I’m always perpetually catching up with. This is primarily so I can do another Best/Worst at the start of next year. Afterwards, I shall resume my reviews of “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.” I may throw in some other stupid bullshit from time-to-time as well, just to keep y’all on your toes. 

Again, I’ll make no promises that I’ll stick with this. But, for now, I’m going to give this one more shot. Yes, I’m back on the three days a week updating schedule. I hope you’re a fan of run-on sentences, faulty formatting and reading way too much into children’s media, cause Hedgehogs Can’t Swim is back. Maybe. Probably not. But possibly.