Comix Zone/Development

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Comix Zone development
Missed release date(s):

Like several projects at Sega Technical Institute, Comix Zone was approved for development after a pitch from employees, in this case from Peter Morawiec. Morawiec, like several of STI's employees were fans of comic books and thought the medium complemented video games^[1], so went about making a short demonstration video to convey the basic concepts across.

The video, like several of Morawiec's pitches was likely produced with the Amiga graphics program Brilliance, and starred the "geeky-looking" "Joe Pencil" fighting some generic comic book enemies. Marketing suggested the character's name be changed and that a sidekick be introduced, which became Sketch Turner's pet rat, Roadkill^[1].

While the pitch for Comix Zone came before Sonic Spinball, the game was put on hold and the team forced to concentrate their efforts on Spinball for the 1993 holiday season^[1]. While "on hold" this usually means "scrapped" in game development terms, the project was revived when Tom Kalinske recalled its existence and his interest in the project^[1].

Howard Drossin created all the music in game, inspired by the rock bands Soundgarden and The Breeders.^[2] Howard had got a grunge band together to produce a pack in CD, however this was changed at the last minute by marketing^[1]. Drossin also provided many of the voices in the game, or grabbed friends and colleagues from the office to make recordings^[3].