Early Installment Character-Design Difference in Comic Books.
The following have their own pages:
Other Comics
- Archie Comics:
- Betty didn't begin wearing her signature Tomboyish Ponytail until several years after the series began. Her hair was usually worn down and she also wore bangs.
- Archie originally had buckteeth. By The '70s they were gone.
- Moose had an overly cartoony design in his early appearances.
- In his first appearance Kevin had Black Bead Eyes like most characters. Afterwards he was given baby blue eyes.
- Josie and the Pussycats:
- The comic started out as a Distaff Counterpart to the main Archie comics named She's Josie. Melody and Josie wore normal clothes for several years before they first put on their famous cat costumes.
- Josie originally wore her hair in a bouffant instead of a bob.
- Alexandra didn't have her signature skunk stripe early on.
- In the pilot to Sabrina the Teenage Witch Salem was a stereotypical black cat. In the series proper he was orange for several decades until a retcon occurred due to the popularity of Sabrina the Teenage Witch Live-Action Adaptation, where he was changed to black again.
- The Smurfs when they first appeared on Johan and Peewit had five fingered hands instead of their traditional Four-Fingered Hands. Their hats were also a bit pointier.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
- In early issues Sally was pink furred with black hair instead of brown furred with red hair, and in the miniseries she had red fur and blonde hair.
- Tails' fur started out as brown or burnt red instead of yellow-orange. The white parts of his fur were also yellow.
- For the mini-series and a dozen issues of the main comic, Sonic had his westernized design from Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) instead of his SegaSonic one. He would gain his full head of quills in issue 12, but wouldn't go full SegaSonic until the Sonic Adventure adaptation.
- Bunnie Rabbot's upper torso was originally depicted as orange fur with a pink belly. Patrick "Spaz" Spaziante would be the first to convert the belly area to a full on top.
- For Super Sonic's first appearance, he mostly resembled his game sprite with upturned quills and a yellow body. For Super Sonic's appearances prior to Sonic Adventure, he was just a gold Sonic.
- Anti-Sonic was initially just Sonic with a Badass Longcoat and a pair of Cool Shades — it was once he became Scourge that he obtained his iconic green fur, chest scars and flame decals.
- Sonic the Comic:
- At first, Knuckles had a white crest on his fur like in the games. Future appearances give him a metal ring that he wears around his neck instead.
- Early on Amy wore her classic outfit from the games. After being retooled as a more Action Girl character she changed clothes. Though she has dozens of clothes, she mainly wears a grey sweatshirt (with a varying amount of designs) with jeans.
- Sonic originally was drawn in his westernized design with the mohawk-shaped quills and potbelly. After a few arcs this shifted to his Japanese design.
- Porker Lewis and Johnny Lightfoot underwent Anthropomorphic Shifts early on, going from the normal animals they are in the games to Funny Animal rather quickly.
- In a plot related change, Dr. Robotnik shifted from his game design to his Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog design a few issues in.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
- In the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage) comic series, all 4 of them had red bandanas. The first animated series changed Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello's bandana colors to blue, orange and purple respectively, while Raphael kept red. They have been that way ever since.
- Tintin didn't have his iconic quiff in the first few pages of Tintin In The Land Of The Soviets. The quiff actually appears when his hair is disarranged during an action scene, and stays for the rest of his life!
- In the first issue of The Transformers, a number of the Autobots were drawn based off the toy designs rather than the animation models that humanized many of their appearances. This is most notable with Ratchet and Ironhide (placing their "heads" behind their windshields), and Bumblebee (having a fully-covered face). Megatron was also drawn based on concept art for a prototype of his Micro Change predecessor's toy, which featured a black helmet with a distinctly different design than the final toy's silver helmet. While the helmet design was corrected by issue 3, the coloration remained black for the remainder of the series. The old helmet design also appeared in his Transformers Universe profile picture.
- The early UK stories borrowed even more heavily from the toy designs, as well as the box art (resulting in an oddly gold-chested Megatron in some appearances due to the warm lighting on the upper half of his box art).
