NILES NEMO & SONIC THE HEDGEHOG IN SEGALAND-Episode 6

From the final issue of Sega Visions Magazine produced by The Communiqué Group, the Winter 1991/92 issue.  This issue featured the winner of the "Draw a Sonic the Hedgehog Comic Strip" contest, a talented youngster named Kuanray Huang (who must be in his 30's by now!).  I worked from a single photo of Kuanray, as I recall, and can only assume the likeness was reasonably accurate.  With this episode, I finally stopped using a Rapidograph pen for the lettering, switching to a broader-nibbed Micron marker, and was much happier with the result, as I also was with the improved color registration.  I think the layout for this spread was one of my very best, and there was plenty of good action.  Too bad it was the last installment before Sega took the whole project west to San Francisco with new corporate oversight, and Niles disappeared into Segaland for good.  FUN FACT: As I have mentioned in my oft-referenced interview with Ken Horowitz, the Sonic game was new at the time, and I was the first artist to draw Sonic in comic book form.  A short time later, Sega produced a small, Manga-style Sonic comic book, and over the years, many others have been published.  This two-pager was the first Sonic The Hedgehog comic appearance, however.  BONUS FUN FACT:  A few years after Niles ended, I had the pleasure of meeting one of my all-time favorite comic book artists Gene Colan and his wife at a Boston convention.  We had a long, very enjoyable chat, and I showed him some of my work, including the Niles/Sonic spread.  His very genuine and generous response was "Oh, you know what you're doing!"  I remember that most fondly, indeed.

********SUPER-BONUS SPECIAL FEATURE!!********

In a complete departure from everything I've ever done before on this blog, I am showcasing art that was produced by someone besides me!  Here is the never-before-seen "lost" Niles Nemo adventure which was plotted, scripted and produced in layout form by none other than Boisterous Bill Kunkel!  I don't know why Bill did a layout for this episode, maybe just scratching an itch, but it's the only one he ever did for a Niles adventure.  I always worked from a general script.  I recently found this two-page layout in my files.  It is reproduced here from a photocopy of a FAX, and has some rough spots.  I retouched the lettering where it was broken, but did not change it in any way, not even Bill's backwards (or perhaps lower-case) "N's."  There are a couple of places where the lettering was too broken to decipher, but you can get a good feel for the story.  This last and lost episode, featuring "Basketball Dexter," was mentioned in my Sega-16.com interview with Ken Horowitz, but at that time, I didn't even know a copy of it had survived.  Here it is for the first (and probably last) time ever!  Click the image, and enjoy!!

And there you have it!  Everything you always wanted to know about Niles Nemo In Segaland, and a whole lot more!

NILES NEMO IN SEGALAND-Episode 5 "Niles & The Ninjas In The City Of Fear"

From the Fall 1991 issue of Sega Visions Magazine.  This was a pretty straight-forward Ninja game, as far as I can tell from this adventure, with the possible exception of some robots and a big green floating head being part of the fray.  There are lots of fun action poses here, and the layout had some nice twists.  Cool Asian-influenced lettering on the logo, too.  Maybe a little too much purple...  FUN FACT: I'd long been unhappy with the color registration on these comic pages.  As I detailed in my Episode 2 "Columns" blog post, I very laboriously and meticulously applied the color to a separate overlay, which I carefully registered to the line art (using those old peel-off registration marks of yore), and yet the registration was always off on the printed art.  After seeing the mediocre printing on this episode, I inquired of Creative Director John Sprague to look into what was going on in the pre-press process.  He discovered that the pre-press people were shooting the line art on a photostat camera, and scanning the color art on a rotary scanner (state of the art in those days).  Well, anyone who's ever used a stat camera knows they are operated by cranks, gears, and pulleys and have more in common with medieval torture devices than digital technology.  You bump into it or even breathe on it, and you change the calibration.  Trying to duplicate the exact size on a separate device is a fool's errand.  Apparently, it was cheaper than a scan, but for the next issue, we finally arranged for both the color overlay and the line art to be scanned.  Little did we know that Episode 6 of Niles Nemo In Segaland would be the last!

This issue also featured the house ad announcing the "Draw a Sonic the Hedgehog comic strip and win an appearance in the next Niles Nemo in Segaland adventure" contest.  Lots of hand-lettering in that word balloon...