@Casshern, Wow a new item of screen saver style art. Awesome! There seems to be a few items in that style which we haven't seen much of. For example, this one: Hopefully more of it will surface in the futre.
Great news, looking forward to it! Whoa, I had never seen that one either. What's going on in that pic, are Sonic and his friends looking at a hologram of Little Planet? Have people even made an effort to rectify that? Anyone asked Sega staff and former employees if they could provide Harmony scans, at least of the covers and illustrations? Say, I've been curious as to where the scans we have came from. Official Japanese Sega site? Edit: Found more Harmony pics in these links: https://twitter.com/1re1/status/799530992797151232 http://sonic623.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-260.html It seems the covers were released as cards as well, likely sold separately. Perhaps these pics and info could be added to the Sega Retro wiki? Anyway, have people looked for these cards? They may be our best bet for getting high quality scans of these illustrations.
Not only was Harmony Japan only, but it stopped in the 90s. I don't think anyone has ever asked a SOJ employee from that era about this and even if they did I highly doubt they'd give them up to be scanned.
Sega Freaks Those crappy Harmony placeholders come from a shoddy page scan of Sega Maga issue #1. There might be more coverage somewhere. You'll have to brute force the archive to find out. We're sitting on a lot of information that we don't understand. I honestly recommend jumping in and mapping out this stuff, because even if it doesn't solve this problem, it'll likely help with others.
Have these pages from the Sonic the Hedgehog Book been shared here before? There are a few that aren't on the wiki.
Here's an artwork I found posted by one of my Twitter mutuals. I don't think I've seen that art of Sonic anywhere before. One of the replies speculates it's a vector from an episode, but I personally don't remember a genga like that in any of the 78 episodes I've seen. Sonic does have a great pose here, though. Spoiler
Guess you're right. It's extremely unlikely that the fandom could possibly convince someone of helping out by scanning or loaning their personally owned magazines, so why bother asking? :v: I would gladly take a look if I were better at reading Japanese =/ Huh. Don't recall ever seeing that pose either, although it reminds me of Sonic's pose upon landing on the floor at the end of the first opening, but the angle is different.
Other important Japanese magazines that we need to find, scan, and archive are Megadrive FAN, Mega World, GG Wave (Game Gear Wave), Sega Maga (Also known as Sega Magazine in the earlier years of publication), and Sega Jack, as well as some rare pamphlets that are one or two pages that show rare art and early screenshots of upcoming Sonic games. I've been meaning to start collecting all of the Megadrive FAN and Beep! Megadrive magazines but I don't have enough money to start collecting them just yet. I would like to collect them and scan all of them for preservation. I've been searching and trying to find some rare scans and pictures from these magazines for the past couple of months now. I've found some interesting things but I would really like actual scans of them. Maybe if I spread the word about these rare magazines I can get some more people to help me with my never ending search of rare Sonic artwork and prototype screenshots. I really feel it's very important to archive and preserve this old and obscure history of Sonic. Another magazine worth looking into that had some rare information, artwork, and screenshots in it is the early 1990s editions of Famitsu magazine. Megadrive FAN Magazine Mega World Magazine GG Wave Magazine (Game Gear Wave) Sega Maga (Sega Magazine) Magazine Sega Jack Magazine Megadrive FAN is an old and long running Japanese gaming publication that goes as far back as the 1980s. In fact the rare Sonic 1 Manga debuted in this very magazine as three separate volumes included in three separate Megadrive FAN magazines. This magazine along with BEEP! Megadrive are long running magazines and are the best sources for rare Sonic artwork and prototype screenshots. Megadrive FAN and BEEP! Megadrive are the more common and easier to find of the rare Japanese magazines. Mega World Magazine is a lot more obscure and harder to find. It is a smaller magazine almost akin to a pamphlet and would consist of 4-8 pages. These mini magazines are well known for their original, cute, and very rare artwork of Sonic on their covers. GG Wave (Also known as Game Gear Wave) is another very rare and obscure magazine. This magazine I've only recently discovered and it's also a sort of mini magazine that covers upcoming games for the Sega Game Gear. It's earliest issues span around 1994. Sega Maga (Also known as Sega Magazine) and Sega Jack are two rare and more obscure magazines that came out in the late 1990s in Japan. They were both given out for free as mini magazines in Sega's gaming centers such as Sega Joypolis and Sega World between 1996 - 2001. These magazines are harder to find and more obscure because they were only found at gaming centers in Japan and so there probably weren't as many printed as the mainstream magazines. They are small magazines that have rare artwork, exclusive interviews, news on upcoming games, and pictures of merchandise for Sonic. Famitsu Magazine There's also this magazine that talks about Sonic CD and the Sega Megadrive. It's dated June 4th, 1993. I know absolutely nothing about this magazine though.
Not sure what this has to do with magazines given out internally at Sega. I'm not saying it's impossible, but would involve getting in touch with SOJ employees from the 90s, who historically have not wanted to answer our questions, and getting them to talk about something that we potentially shouldn't even know about in the first place. At most I'd expect something like a "Oh yes, I do remember that.". If I remember correctly Scarred Sun has all five Sega Jack issues.
And would you look at that, a prototype screenshot of Sonic Drift! I've played Sonic Drift (and checked BG rips) enough to know that the background seen there is a good bit different than in the final.
This is one of many thousands (!!) of issues of Famitsu. There are (some) Mega Drive Fan issues incoming, including the issue you just posted (I think). Others there aren't strictly magazines, but little catalogues that came with things. I do need to keep stressing the need for volunteers to comb through our archives (and indeed organise a means of combing through the archives). As an example, here's an issue of Dreamcast Fan - it's 140 pages of untranslated Japanese text. Every page needs linking up.
Someone wanted a closer look to that '1993' illustration that comes out in the Sega Freaks card, right? Well, here it is: https://twitter.com/AbelMunizJr/status/950464925024923648
Nice work SonicGenesis89! I don't own a scanner, but I'd gladly chip in some money if someone's willing to buy and scan any Japanese Sega mags. Does the Sonic Retro community have a system in place for that kind of thing? -- Semi-related, I came across this Yahoo action recently: https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/d264010624 Lots of '90s Sonic merch. I don't believe I've ever seen those skiing and snowboarding illustrations before. Also in the photo is the Metal Sonic disc thing that has his expanded character profile.
You can see some of the snowboarding resort guides here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BcSaTE3H1q1/ It might be hard to get those items btw, unless someone has $5000 laying around.
Not exactly art... and is not mine either... in 1985 Ecofilmes started its activities in film distribution (they were the sole suppliers, is in fact a monopoly , they hadn't competition).... so when Ecofilmes became exclusive representative of Sega hardware and software in 1991, pratically every video rental shop in Portugal (the whole country) became "Agente Autorizado SEGA = SEGA Authorized Agent/ Retailler" ... these shops were "Proudly" distinguished by this beautiful plaque placed at the entrance door ( or in the shop windows) ... this was to ensure that no costumers would be cheated, and to people know that the store was selling official products, and not some dubious clone consoles)... sorry for being off topic... https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Uf9EOryLDNdvT1qfmoULNg6fBFdWuZHL/view?usp=sharing
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Beep-Mega-Drive-Magazine-1992-8-w-SEGA-SONIC-THE-HEDGEHOG-STICKERS-LANDSTALKER/401437390721 Something interesting in this issue of Beep! Mega Drive: The sticker on the right is one of the rare holiday scene images with Sonic Band members (this one has Max). Compared to the version we have, this image is flipped (or the other one is), cropped differently and the Sonic picture is overlaid in a different position. You can see extra details, like Picky on a jetski, but Pocky is cropped off, so neither version shows the full image. How strange! (If anyone with a scanner wants to buy this, as I said earlier, I'll gladly chip in some money.)
