Joe Sparks is an American

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a larg ...

, animator,

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

web publisher Electronic publishing (also referred to as publishing, digital publishing, or online publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, digital magazines, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. It also includes the editin ...

, and

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradi ...

consultant from

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for "Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Sparks created the ''Radiskull and Devil Doll'' web-cartoons published on the

Macromedia Shockwave Adobe Shockwave (formerly Macromedia Shockwave and MacroMind Shockwave) is a discontinued multimedia platform for building interactive multimedia applications and video games. Developers originate content using Adobe Director and publish it on ...

website around 2000–01. Other published media includes the videogames

Total Distortion ''Total Distortion'' is a 1995 full motion video adventure game for Mac and Windows, developed by Pop Rocket. Gameplay The gameplay has the player as a music video entrepreneur in the "Distortion Dimension", a place where they fight "Guitar Wa ...

and

Spaceship Warlock ''Spaceship Warlock'' is an adventure game created by Mike Saenz and Joe Sparks. The game was released in 1991 for the Macintosh and in 1994 for Windows. The game was a first person adventure set in a sci-fi future. The player explores and inter ...

Career

Joe Sparks is a former guitarist of the Californian deathrock band

Burning Image Burning Image are an American deathrock band formed in Bakersfield, California in 1982. Burning Image first released a 7" single with the songs "The Final Conflict" and "Burning Image, Burning" in the summer of 1984. The compilation ''1983-1987'' ...

. As an original member of the band, he did attend reunion shows. Joe Sparks was an early employee of

Paracomp Paracomp was a Macintosh programming company known for their 3D software, Swivel 3D and ModelShop and FilmMaker. FilmMaker was known for its packaging which was a 16mm film reel tin which was used to contain the software and manuals. Paracomp was ...

, which had become

Macromedia Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe System ...

in 1992. He left to found

Pop Rocket Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' ( ...

, which produced the critically acclaimed video game

, to moderate success.Total Distortion page
/ref> Pop Rocket folded in 1995, with Sparks returning to Macromedia in 1997 as a creative developer. Sparks' work has been instrumental in the formation and lasting success of shockwave.com, mainly due to the popularity of ''Radiskull and Devil Doll'' for which he created all the graphics, animation and music. A pioneer of the interactive web, Joe Sparks has been asked to speak at industry conferences and educational events. He currently works as a consultant and contractor for development and design.

References

External links

Sparks' personal home page
American animators Video game programmers Flash artists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people {{US-animator-stub