Interview No. 105

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is known far and wide throughout Newgrounds as well as the rest of the Internet. His video game parodies have achieved him critical acclaim with his works with Metal Gear Awesome, PSP Squirrels, and Girlchan in Paradise. His other works include his voice acting ranging from Gameoverse, to the Press Start series, and to the video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. He is well recognized on YouTube for his two series being Sequelitis and Game Grumps. Today we welcome with open arms, @Egoraptor.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: I don't even remember how I found it, but I've been around since The Teletubbies assassin stuff. Before the portal. It was all strange and unlike television, like it felt subversive, and fresh. Like you couldn't get anything like this anywhere else. I think once the Portal existed I joined 'cause I wanted to review stuff, but secretly because I wanted to submit stuff. It took a while for me to finally do it, but I did!

Q: When did you get into animation?

A: I guess I was always into it... I made flipbooks when I was in my single digits. I think my first flipbook was from a cereal box, and I was just fucking amazed that you could do the stuff I saw on TV in this little booklet. I immediately grabbed a stack of post-it notes and flipbooked everywhere. Even in my text books... some of my sketchbooks have a flipbook in the corner. It was nuts.

Q: At what age were you introduced to video games and what video game inducted you so to speak?

A: I had video games since as long as I can remember. My Dad had an NES he got from buying a car and I used to ask him to beat the hard parts for me in Mario. He had a dingy basement we'd play Dr. Mario in all the time. I guess my whole life I just grew up playing them, but really, it wasn't until I saw a cosplay group of Jet Grind Radio where I was like "Woah." Like, this is a thing. This isn't just something my friends and I talked about. Something inside me clicked and I saved my money and bought a Dreamcast at a pawn shop, and Jet Grind Radio at Target. It was coincidentally the only Dreamcast game they had left. I was convinced it was destiny, or something. Once I started playing it, I just felt like something was right. I started thinking more and more about video games from that point on and didn't really look back.

Q: Your first movie would be the start of a groundbreaking series on the Internet and that would be Metal Gear Awesome. Where did the inspiration come for this and what all can you tell me about the process of bringing it together?

A: Well when I was younger I had a lot of self confidence issues (still do), but I always thought the thing I liked to do wasn't what I could make a living out of. I built up enough courage to say, you know what, I think I can make it at this voice acting thing, so I started practicing and doing lines for peoples' cartoons on Newgrounds. I got really addicted to doing a (really bad) Snake impression and I did it for a handful of movies, but then it "dried up" so to speak and I didn't get anymore roles. But I wanted more roles, so I wrote my own script. I wrote it in about 4 or 5 minutes, just banging on the keyboard a bunch of nonsense of how I remember the first hour or so of the game went. I did all the voices and felt satisfied, but for some reason got Kira Buckland to do the voice of Meryl... I guess I just really wanted her to sound feminine and didn't want to use my own voice for her. I think having had her do the voices for me drove me to want to make something out of it, so I mixed it together and trudged through Flash since all my friends were using it. I had no fucking clue what I was doing, but I managed, I guess. I just drew it all bad on purpose 'cause I guess that was the "style" of it, or something. I took a lot of inspiration from Homestar Runner's "The Yellow Dello" because it had a lot of off-model stuff, and I liked that. I thought it was funny. It took me a long time to finish because I kept putting it off, but once I finished it, all my friends urged me to release it on Newgrounds. I was really against it, I thought it would get blammed. It didn't really stack up to any other work on the site I liked, and I thought my humor was a little bit esoteric. Like who the fuck else would think this is funny but me and maybe a handful of other people? But the next day I got an IM, I think it was from Anigen, who told me it was on frontpage, and I was like, uh, what?

Q: Most of your movies are parodies, with the awesome tag. Thus adding your bizarre sense of humor. The pacing is fast and the timing is perfect. When it comes to writing a script for your Awesome Parodies, where do you begin and when do you know where to stop?

A: It's just a mess. I just think of something that makes me laugh and I just go. I stop when I feel like I delivered the joke enough. Metal Gear Awesome is special because it's just a timeline of the game, so it's not just a one-off joke. Sometimes I'll come up with an idea playing the game, or driving somewhere, or in the shower, I dunno. I just have to write it down right when I come up with it or else I'll forget it. lol I guess the ultimate answer is that I feel it out. It it seems like it works, I just do it, and see if it works.

Q: When did you meet Ed Glaser and how did you become a part of the Press Start series?

A: I don't remember exactly how our friendship started. I think he e-mailed me and asked me to be a voice for his film as the talking tree. I thought I did a good job but looking back it's atrocious. I couldn't pull off a deep voice to save my life. I guess he liked something about me 'cause he asked me again and again to do voices for his cartoons, and they're really pretty well written, so I kept doing it. I think what I like most about working on them is that he gives me a lot of freedom and often gives me different characters each time, so I don't stagnate. A lot of my favorite voices I have, I used in Press Start Adventures.

Q: Out of all your video game parodies, one of my all-time favorites has to be PSP Squirrels. Where did the inspiration for this come from? Also do you believe that emotions play a big role in making a parody?

A: Thanks man, I like that one too. When I was younger I wanted to ad-lib and practice voice acting to crack up my friends or whatever. AIM let you hit like, F9 or something, and then record a 10 second audio clip and send it in the chat window. I'm so sad they got rid of it because it was so amazingly fun. Anyway, sometimes I had some idea I wanted to run with that'd last longer than 10 seconds, so I'd open up a program and just run with it. PSP Squirrels was one of the billion of those I did, and I thought it was one of the best. Something about it called for me to put visuals to it, probably because it was based on such a visually memorable commercial. As far as emotions affecting me... I guess maybe. I don't consciously think about that stuff, like, when I hear an artist like "I tried to personify my anger in this piece" I don't really understand that. Whenever I try that it feels forced, because when I draw I don't really remain angry, or anything. lol. I start out angry and then I kinda forget about it and focus on drawing. I guess to me it's more about vision. There's something I want to convey, and I strive to do it.

Q: Girlchan in Paradise is in my opinion a very interesting parody on anime while at the same time being something cleverly written to still be an engaging little story. There was a lot that has gone into this series. Where did the idea come from? How did you form this team and what was the process all of you took into working on this series?

A: Girlchan stemmed from a skype conference in which we totally just made fun of anime. The first episode was pretty much verbatim the conversation.

Q: Out of all your works, one of my all-time favorites has to be 3rd Grade Transformers. The writing, the pacing, the characters, the dialogue, the animation, everything about it is perfect. It is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen on Newgrounds. What is your history with Transformers and your thoughts on the Michael Bay movies? How did the writing start for this? What was the process you took in animating it?

A: Hahaha wow, that's literally the first time I've ever heard that. Thanks man. I grew up watching Beast Wars and that's really my only childhood interaction with them, but I LOVED Beast Wars and I had a lot of toys from it. Whenever I visited the Newgrounds office Mindchamber's desk was covered in Transformers and it brought back a warm feeling in me, like it was so much fun to look at them and play with them and transform them. We all saw Transformers Revenge of the Fallen together at the office and afterwards we decided to do another Blamformers collab in-office. Most of them got canned but mine and Johnny Utah's were some of the only survivors. I just like, watched that movie and was like, wow, this is written by a 5 year old. The idea was instantaneous. HappyHarry really made it shine. I came up to his desk and said "I need like a school play old lady piano version of the transformers theme for my collab part" and in like 10 minutes, he barfed up these amazing like 5 or 6 different renditions of it, complete with flubs and crescendos and I was like... this is better than I could've ever imagined. Animating it was easy, because there was only one background. When I cut to the audience members, I had gotten so used to not doing backgrounds that I just made it black. Like I did NOT want to draw another background.

Q: Gameoverse is an interesting series you would be giving your contributions to. What can you tell me about working with RubberNinja. Also what input did you have in this series?

A: I love Game O Verse and I still say it's some of my best voicework ever. Ross has an uncanny talent at picking the best lines out of a bunch of takes. Like, without fail. He bounces scripts back and forth with me to tell him if I like them or not, but I always respect that it's his project and my advice is just that, advice.

Q: You would get to work with Ed Gould on his movie WTFuture. How did it feel getting to work with Ed and what are your thoughts on his passing?

A: Yeah Edd dying was a big bummer, he was a really cool dude and I think his situation humbled him to superhuman levels. He just asked me to do a voice and I did it, 'cause I really dug his comedy. We didn't talk much, but you can imagine I wish that went a little differently all things considered.

Q: Open Letter to Game Devs is an interesting and fast parody. Would this parody soon lead to the hilarious yet informative video game show Sequelitis? Also what all can you tell us about Sequelitis?

A: A little bit maybe, I like being critical of games in a subversive way. People seem to always just be like "ohh this game has bad graphics" or "they took out item mapping" or some shit but nobody is critical of the stuff that really makes a game bad.

Q: When AlmightyHans was here we talked about a collaboration entitled Contact. How did you get involved in this project and how did it feel working with these other artists?

A: It was just something silly Hans put together while we were all visiting the Newgrounds Office. I don't remember who wrote it aside from Hans but it was mostly just me doing a voice for it and laughing at the results. It really was funny.

Q: Alright, let me see if I got this. Egorapture is a movie telling people to stop bitching about others supposedly copying you? If not then could you give us some more background on this movie?

A: Hahaha well I think Spazkid was a bit tired of people telling him he was copying me. I think his style is really distinct and I thought his concept for the cartoon was funny since I've seen it happen a lot of times for other artists as well. I really don't get it sometimes. I didn't invent funny faces and yelling.

Q: How did you become involved in Ed Glaser's Space Ninja series?

A: Ed just asks me to do voices all the time. I like him so I have no problem saying yes, haha.

Q: As a voice actor what tips do you have to give to those who are looking to share their voices with the world?

A: Just do it, get it out there, record a demo, send it to folk. If you have nothing to show, nobody's going to care that you can do a great impression of Peter Griffin.

Q: You would be the voice of Dr. Bruce Banner in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. For those who don't know who Dr. Banner is, could you please tell them, also how did you come across getting this voice and what was it like to do it?

A: Banner is the alter ego of The Hulk. I got the role from entering an online voice contest they were having. I almost deleted the congratulations email... "You won!" How many times do you get that emailed to you a day in the form of spam? It was interesting, they flew me out to LA for the first time in my life and I got to record in a studio for the first time. I'm sure I was a wreck, they sent me the disc with all of my assets on it and I refuse to listen to it.

Q: You have also did voice work for the video game remake of Death Rally, as the character John Gore. How did you get this opportunity and what was it like working with these people? Also who is John Gore and how did you find the voice for him?

A: John Gore is a nice little piece of my voice past. These dudes over at Mountain Sheep were swell enough to ask me if I'd like to voice their surly main character. I totally said yes, I mean look at that game, it's beautiful, and it's an iPhone game! Finding the voice was easy. They wanted some kind of variant of my Awesome Snake voice, and that's one of my favorites to do. Funny story, doing Minigore was the first time I ever completely lost my voice. I went to bed that night and looked in the mirror, opened my mouth and nothing came out. I was pretty scared.

Q: When did you meet Doug Walker, also known as the Nostalgia Critic?

A: I met him at Shadocon in Tampa, Florida. Good times we've had that Doug and I. Good times.

Q: What can we expect from Egoraptor in the future?

A: Lots of cartoons and definitely more Game Grumps, that's for sure. Sequelitis galore... and hopefully some new long-form animations if I can ever muster up the courage to tackle those.

Despite this funny face yelling man's bizarre sense of humor, his animating, his timing, his pacing, all of these are perfect in many ways. His voice acting is quite top notch as well. Egoraptor like all who have crossed paths with The Interviewer was interesting to interview, but at the same time he comes off as just very plain. He is just like you or me. Yeah many others who have been interviewed have shown us their human sides, but Egoraptor seems to have two sides to him... one we see here and one we see through his works.