Sonic the Hedgehog was an American comic book series published by Archie Comics, in partnership with Sega. The series was based on Sega's video game franchise as well as DiC Entertainment's 1993 Italian-American animated series of the same name. After initially beginning with a four issue miniseries between 1992 and 1993, the first full-length issue of the comic was published in July 1993. The series ran for 290 issues for over 20 years, earning a place in the 2008 Guinness World Records for being the "longest-running comic series based on a video game", and it became the longest-running franchise-based comic series in 2015, surpassing Marvel Comics' Conan the Barbarian (which ran for 275 issues) before it was confirmed cancelled in July 2017 (although the comics ceased release in January