Four drawings of Sonichu labeled 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 showing artistic progression

Sonichu

2004webcomicclassic

Published September 28, 2026

Sonichu is a webcomic created by Christine Weston Chandler, better known online as Chris-chan, first posted on November 24, 2004. The comic follows a yellow hybrid of Sonic the Hedgehog and Pikachu, and the amateur art plus Chris-chan's chaotic online life turned it into a heavily mocked webcomic and the center of one of the internet's longest-running trolling sagas.

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Overview

Sonichu is drawn in a bright crayon-and-marker style with shaky linework and heavy tracing of Sonic and Pokemon sprite art1. The lead character is a chubby yellow hedgehog wearing a red-and-white lightning medallion, marketed inside the comic as an 'Electric Hedgehog Pokemon' born when a wild Pikachu and a Sonic look-alike were shocked together during a Pokemon battle1. Rosechu, his pink Pokemon-hedgehog girlfriend, followed shortly after, and a growing cast of clones like Blake (originally Black Sonichu) filled out the roster1.

The real protagonist is Chris herself2. From Sonichu 2 onward, Chris inserted a fictional version of herself as the mayor of CWCville, a super-intelligent chosen figure blessed by God with a super mode activated by a magic medallion4. Storylines lift dialogue and plot beats wholesale from Sonic games, Pokemon, Dragon Ball, and Excel Saga2. Later issues drift into Chris's sex life, her hunt for a 'boyfriend-free girlfriend', and her feud with the trolls mocking her, ending in Sonichu 10 with the main characters violently killing the trolls4.

The comic ran intermittently for over fifteen years, hitting 14 fully completed issues (15 if you count Sonichu 13) against Chris's original goal of 75 to 1001. The point online is not the story: readers do not follow Sonichu for genuine enjoyment but to document what Chris drew that week, share screenshots on the CWCki wiki, and treat every new panel as fresh material for the fandom-hostile ecosystem that grew up around the author2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Personal website (viral spread via 4chan and Encyclopedia Dramatica)
Creator
Christine Weston Chandler
Date
2004

Christine Weston Chandler first drew Sonichu in March 2000 for a high school class project1. A teacher told her she could not use a copyrighted character, so she combined her two favorite properties, Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokemon, and drew the resulting mashup as a supposedly 'original' creation1. The character sat on paper for four years until November 24, 2004, when Chris used her web-programming skills to build a personal site called CWC's Sonichu Site! to host her illustrations and short comic strips1. That November 2004 launch is treated as the comic's official start date across every dedicated Sonichu wiki2.

Early strips focused on Sonichu, Rosechu, and later additions like Blake, with little reference to the outside world1. Chris then began writing herself into the pages, and by Sonichu 2 (technically the third issue after Sonichu 0) the self-insert mayor of CWCville had displaced Sonichu as the actual lead4. The comic sat online mostly unread for its first three years before trolls found it in 20074.

How It Spread

Around 2007, users on 4chan (mainly /b/ and /v/) and Encyclopedia Dramatica discovered Chris and Sonichu and began systematically mocking both4. Encyclopedia Dramatica published an article on Chris-chan that grew into one of the site's longest entries6. Chris tried to convince ED to remove the article; when that failed, she vandalized parts of it herself and posted pornographic drawings of her own characters in retaliation4. One of those drawings depicted her performing a sexual act with a real-life friend, who cut contact after seeing it4. The mockery turned into a years-long documentation project rather than a wave of drive-by trolling.

Multiple dedicated wikis appeared. The CWCki alone collected over 1,300 articles cataloging every video, tweet, comic panel, and phone call Chris produced, and it kept growing after that count2. The now-archived CWCpedia added another 899 articles, and a third wiki documenting Sonichu parodies like Asperchu ran another 620 pages7. The Bad Webcomics Wiki review of Sonichu opens by admitting a full accounting is 'an insurmountable task' because the source material outpaces its documenters2. TV Tropes carries its own page for the comic, cataloging characters, running gags, and arcs8.

The saga broke into wider YouTube attention on August 25, 2016, when Frederik Knudsen released a 'Down the Rabbit Hole' episode covering Chris and Sonichu4. That video passed 4 million views and became the entry point for many later viewers who never touched the comic itself3. Urban Dictionary entries dating from the trolling era treat the word 'Sonichu' as shorthand for the terminally-online autistic creator archetype Chris represents9. Reaction videos, retrospectives, and lore-explainer content followed on YouTube, keeping the story circulating well past the original 4chan era.

Timeline

2000-03

Chris-chan first draws Sonichu as a mashup of Sonic and Pikachu for a high school class project after being told they cannot use a copyrighted character[1].

2004-11-24

Chris-chan posts the Sonichu comic online for the first time on their personal CWC's Sonichu Site[1].

2007

Users on 4chan's /b/ and /v/ and on Encyclopedia Dramatica discover the comic and its author, launching a coordinated mockery campaign[4].

2007

Encyclopedia Dramatica publishes a Chris-chan article that grows into one of the site's largest entries; Chris responds by vandalizing it and posting retaliatory pornographic art[6].

2010

Wikis dedicated to documenting Chris and Sonichu, including the CWCki and Asperpedia, are actively growing and cross-referencing every new comic page[7].

2016-08-25

Frederik Knudsen posts a 'Down the Rabbit Hole' YouTube episode on Sonichu and Chris-chan that passes 4 million views[4].

Frequently Asked Questions