Sonic's first comic appearance was in a promotional comic printed in "Disney Adventures" magazine (and also given away as a free pull-out with a copy of "Mean Machines" magazine), which established a backstory for the character involving the origin of his color and abilities and the transformation of kindly scientist Dr. Ovi Kintobor into the evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Numerous British publications, including "Sega handbook" "Stay Sonic" (1993), four novels published by Virgin Books (1993–1994) and the comic book "Sonic the Comic" (1993–2001), published by Fleetway Publications/Egmont Publishing, used this premise as their basis.