For Sonic the Hedgehog x Gozilla, Marino was inspired and excited to experiment with the “scale of life” between the drastically different sized characters.
“Power is not based on size. Power is based on what you’re capable of doing at your size,” he muses.The first issue of the comic displays Sonic’s advantage through his control and agency by making his first instinct in an attack to save the citizens on the ground that could be stepped on by Mechagodzilla. Marino adds that teamwork is another core part of why Sonic and his team are strong and capable for their size, “I find with that core four of Team Sonic [Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy], I really enjoy them for the ways that they complement each other.”
Marino has his own team that helped bring this comic to life. Jack Lawrence and Reggie Graham were behind the art and colors and helped Marino visualize this “scale of life” theme. He says he “was so lucky” to work with Lawrence and Graham and emphasized that they have “to be together because that’s their magic, it’s their alchemy.” The collaborative discussion among them did not need to be expansive because he makes an effort to entertain them through his writing and, “make them fully immersed in the illusion to the point where they are drawing from a place of feeling.”
Getting published is a notoriously challenging feat, and Marino says that this comic, “took a lot of force of will to stick with this project because there’s a lot of people that you need to be patient with.” The people in question are the number of editors and brand executives that have to get on board when they already have busy schedules with projects in the works.
“You’ve got to empower your editors to empower their superiors to all work together to empower the approvals people at the American or international branches to inspire their bosses at the Japanese branches to say yes,” Marino says of a long process that he nevertheless had patience for, and a team of “kind and open” editors that aided him in the publication process.
Marino’s excitement to explore the themes of size and dynamic between Sonic and Godzilla are what ultimately got him to stick with the project, “I get so much motivation from playing with themes that fascinate me. So I was so excited to play with the scale dynamics and try to imagine ‘How does this small creature with great speed perceive a creature with great scale?’”
