Interview No. 162

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is one of new fame here on Newgrounds, yet he has been here for quite some time. He most known on here for his series Sublo & Tangy Mustard. He has other series including Fester FIsh, and he has done work on the Netflix Original Series, BoJack Horseman. I am most pleased and privileged to welcome, @Aaron-Long.

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

A: I must've found Newgrounds around 1999 or so. A friend showed it to me at school and we would sneak onto it to play Flash games. Then we'd go home and watch parodies and tell each other about the best ones. Our early favourites included Sesamea Street and Scooby Doo Tension Tent. I really miss that early era of the internet when there were a bunch of small independent sites that had their own flavour, and you were just as likely to stumble onto weird art made by independent creators as you were a slick expensive product. Before it had been figured out how to algorithmically manipulate people's attention. Now it seems like most people mostly just browse a few major sites but I'm so happy that Newgrounds is still around and active.

Q: What can you tell us about Hot Rod and Stinker?

A: Hah I'm surprised you know about that! Hot Rod and Stinker was one of my earliest cartoon ideas, from when I was a kid. It was basically just a sibling duo based on my sister and me. I wrote a full season of scripts, drew a bunch of comics and storyboards and even wrote a short novel or two. Their parents, teachers and friends were based on ours, the stories were all just stuff I did as a kid... The funniest thing in retrospect is that as an 8-year-old, I thought by the time you were 11 you were pretty much an adult and so I had an "older cousin" 11-year-old character whose main personality trait was that he was always drunk. Later on I tried aging them up and writing high school stories with them but those were awful.

Q: Your influences include Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, and Chuck Jones. Three mavericks in their own respect at Warner Bros. How did each one influence you? Who is your favorite Looney Tunes character?

A: Hmm well with Bob Clampett, I guess it's more the animation in his shorts that I love rather than his direction or storytelling, which is often pretty sloppy. A lot of animators did their best, wildest work under him. But more than anybody else I feel like he leaned on the comedy crutch of pop culture references which mean his shorts don't hold up as well. Tex Avery is just the all-time master of staging a gag. His posing, timing, composition and everything are unparalleled. Chuck Jones, in his prime (about 1945-1955) is probably the best of the Looney Tunes directors at personality, although a lot of that is due to Mike Maltese's writing. Friz Freleng and Frank Tashlin were also pretty great. I guess the downside with Friz and Chuck is that they stuck at it for so long you can see a long slow decline in their stuff, but at their peaks they were both amazing.

It's really hard to pick a favourite Looney Tunes character but here's a few-- Bugs, Elmer Fudd, Cecil Turtle, Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre.

Q: At one point you considered your drawing abilities terrible. Looking back on them what did you consider bad about them? What brought you to Max the Mutt College of Animation, Art & Design?

A: I mean I wasn't TERRIBLE, I was better than most kids my age at drawing, but I kind of rested on my laurels and didn't really improve between age 8 and 16. I just thought "ok I'm pretty good at drawing for now, I don't have to work at getting better." And then once I started making my own cartoons and thinking about applying to colleges I realized how much work I had to do. My drawings just didn't have any solid construction, my line quality was weak, I was stuck in lazy bad habits. I started getting better when I did a high school co-op internship at Chuck Gammage Animation. Chuck was great to me and gave me a lot of advice, and made me come to life drawing classes with him on Sundays. He also introduced me to the work of Jim Tyer, who's still one of my favourite animators. As for Max the Mutt, I was impressed by the art they had on display and figured it would be great if they could teach me to draw like that. Another big reason I went to MTM is simply that I didn't get into Sheridan haha! But it ended up being good that I wasn't at Sheridan living in residence because right after I started college, my dad had a bad head injury and I needed to be around a lot. If I had been out in Oakville at Sheridan I would've had to drop out and move back home, but Max the Mutt was only a 20-minute walk from our house at the time so I was able to keep going to classes.

Q: Counterpoint - The Story of the Baroque Orchestra was made for your music class and you got a perfect score on. Where did you get the idea for this? This has the potential for a fun educational series, any chance of expanding it in the future?

A: At that point I was starting to use Flash and I was delighted that I could finally make animated shorts like I'd wanted to for years. So I kept talking my teachers into letting me do projects as animated shorts. That was a music history project for my teacher Roy Greaves, who I also got to voice a character in my early cartoon Space Goose (which I used an episode of as another high school project!)

Q: What can you tell us about Fester Fish?

A: I made up Fester Fish shortly after starting at Max the Mutt, after watching a bunch of 1930s rubber hose cartoons. Space Goose had been very talky and I found it tedious to animate the scripts I had written, so I decided my next thing would be storyboard-driven. Fester Fish is basically a love letter to 30s and 40s animation. I completed one short each year while I was in college, although the school never had anything to do with the production and probably discouraged the extra-curricular work taking time away from my studies... It got me featured on Cartoon Brew a few times, and a bit of attention in the industry although I didn't realize it till later. People kept telling me to pitch Fester and I thought there wasn't much of a premise to pitch. But maybe I will someday, it's definitely a series I want to revisit!

Q: We now come to the series that has become a household name on Newgrounds and that is Sublo & Tangy Mustard. I work as a deli at a sub shop so this show does hit me on a personal level and I love it! Where did the idea come from? Will there be a Season 3?

A: After I moved to LA I didn't make a personal short for a couple of years but I was brainstorming ideas for them. I had plans to do more Fester Fish but I also wanted to do something that wasn't a pastiche of existing stuff, something more inspired by my own life in Toronto with my friends in my early twenties. I put a lot of my own personal experiences into it and the mascot suit idea was just sort of a gimmick so that the two protagonists were visually interesting and that it wasn't just a totally self-indulgent autobio project. Season 1 was written as six episodes but ended up just being the first 4, which we recorded in 2015. Then season 2/episodes 5-15 were written and recorded in 2017, and I'm only just finished that batch now! Yes I do want to make a season 3 and I have a bunch of episode ideas, but I'm not sure when it will happen yet. I think I need to take a break from it again (as I did after season 1) and recharge while I focus on my day job.

Q: There are two episodes I want to talk about more. The first one is Sublo & Tangy Mustard #13 - Convention. From beginning to end I love this episode, it has everything I like in a cartoon and more. There was a collaboration to help fill the other mascots, which I thought was a brilliant idea! Also I can tell you from experience that you hit the nail on the head when it comes to these conventions (although with a little hyperbole). How did you come up with this? Why did you decide to go with a train instead of a plane with plane jokes?

A: Yeah "Convention" is definitely based on a lot of real experiences at conventions. The gross crowds, the lame shows, confusing schedules, annoying youtubers filming stuff, VIP areas etc... it just seemed like there was a lot of material to mine, and I thought a performance evaluation would be a good topic for an episode that would stress out the characters. As for why the train, I just really like trains! I was excited to do a train scene and feature Toronto's Union Station.

Q: The season 2 finale hits home closer than it probably should've for me. Sublo & Tangy Mustard #15 - Picnic. How friends and co-workers lose their friendships and connections. How Katy doesn't want to be making sandwiches for the rest of her life. It was quite the serious moment and that ending was just perfect. How did this episode come to fruition? Why a picnic for the setting? Will we get to know these other characters more down the line?

A: Right from the beginning of the series I wanted to have the characters' relationships evolve over time. So in the first couple of episodes, Sublo and Tangy Mustard aren't really friends yet, they're just getting to know each other. And for the first few episodes Katy is kind of keeping them at arm's length, figuring they won't be around long. Eventually they go through enough experiences together they start to bond, despite the pranks and teasing, until by the end of episode 15 she actually considers them her friends and is hugging them, having vulnerable conversations with them, etc. She sees that deep down they're pretty decent, even though they're immature and a little obnoxious. I love in the Scott Pilgrim books how the friend group starts to dissolve about halfway through the series. I remember reading that and being shocked at how relatable it felt. So I wanted to hint at that happening in Sublo and Tangy Mustard too, with Sublo taking for granted that things will stay the same while Tangy Mustard and Katy only see this as a stepping stone to the next chapter of their lives. I related to both perspectives because I never want to stop hanging out with the same group of people, whether it's high school, college or a job... But it can also feel stifling to stay in the same place doing the same thing indefinitely. Particularly at the time I was writing season 2, I was debating whether to stay in what felt like a comfortable rut or take a chance and try to find more satisfaction in life.

Q: Your writing process for Sublo & Tangy Mustard I absolutely love. It is similar to what I do for my own writing, except using E-Mail for brainstorming is just genius. Do you use this process for your other works? When did you come up with this writing process? What changes have you had to make to it over time?

A: I don't think of it as a particular technique I came up with, it's just the easiest thing to do when you have a phone in your pocket! I wind up making a ton of notes and once I have enough notes on the same theme I start to piece them together into a story. Sometimes the notes are an actual story, but mostly they're just little snippets of dialogue, a visual idea, a scene or even a bit of music. Then I just piece together the plot in a way that uses the ideas effectively and hopefully fits a 3-act structure. It tends to be kind of like filling in the blanks, like "ok I need to get this character from X to Y so what plot can make that happen?"

Q: Despite Sublo & Tangy Mustard, my absolute favorite by you is DMX Meets David Bowie. This was hilarious! Why these two together? How difficult was it to get the dialogue together and then create cohesive conversations?

A: Thanks, DMX Meets David Bowie was probably the most purely fun time I've had making a short. I'd like to do more quick and dirty stuff like that. I'm obsessed with both DMX and David Bowie, and I had been doing audio mashups of DMX rapping over other songs-- some ABBA, Bo Diddley, Perfume, Yuji Ohno, Bowie and others. I started splicing DMX lines to make new sentences for the Perfume "Polyrhythm" one and it made me laugh so hard I started thinking about putting a little story together. DMX Meets David Bowie started as just a radioplay, sort of inspired by the bit in Winnie-the-Pooh where Tigger first shows up in the middle of the night. But when I played it to people they didn't find it as funny as I did-- and found some of the dialogue hard to understand. I figured adding visuals would help them see what I found so funny in my head. I really didn't want to spend a lot of time on it, and it seemed like it could be worthwhile even if it was a little rough and messy, so once I put together the characters' photo libraries I think I ended up animating the whole thing in about a week. Not doing lip sync really saves time!

Q: When and how did you become part of SHADOWMACHINE? What can you tell us about your work on BoJack Horseman? As a storyboard artist, animator, and director? What can you tell us about working on the series finale?

A: Hah I could write a book about working on Bojack, it was 6 years of my life! I got hired at ShadowMachine in 2013 based on some freelance animation I'd done for Scout Raskin, who was a producer at the studio. She had hired me to animate an independent short called Bakerman and the Bunnymen which she'd written, because of seeing my Fester Fish shorts which were in a similar style. Bakerman was like my part-time job in my last year of college. It finished right around when I graduated, so she invited me to come work on a sketch comedy series called Triptank. I moved to LA for what was initially just a few months, but then before the season finished I met my girlfriend Elizabeth and got hired on season 1 of Bojack, and it seemed like I may as well stick around in LA a little longer! Bojack was supervised by Mike Hollingsworth, who was also my director on Triptank, and still a great friend of mine. Working with Mike is always fun, and a big reason I stayed on Bojack for so long. After season 1 I was offered the choice of boarding on Bojack season 2 or directing on Triptank season 2, and I picked directing-- but I don't regret it because Triptank was SO much fun and very free, while season 2 of Bojack was a really tough production. I dodged a bullet there! And it ended up being good because it gave me some experience as a director, which eventually led to me directing on Bojack once a spot opened up in season 4. The team on Bojack was so great, I love all of them! I miss sitting in that room with the other directors, just constantly joking and laughing. A lot of it seeped into the show in small ways. There are a bunch of in-jokes that you probably wouldn't notice unless you worked on it!

Working on the series finale was hard because it was a bit like the "Free Churro" monologue episode-- it's a bunch of long, still conversations and it was a challenge to make that visually interesting! We also had a very short amount of time to do that episode but it ended up coming together alright. It's not my favourite episode I directed (that would probably be "Time's Arrow," "The Showstopper" or "Xerox of a Xerox") but it was definitely an honour to do the final episode and help figure out how we say goodbye to all these characters.

Q: What is in your opinion, the definition of animation?

A: Oh jeez I dunno, 'still images projected in sequence to create the illusion of motion' or something. But if you're asking what KIND of stuff I like-- I love acting that takes advantage of the medium to move characters in impossible ways that show their inner feelings. I also like really dynamic action. I like seeing complicated shapes being turned in perspective and knowing that it's all hand-made. I like seeing funny drawings move in funny ways. I like cutout, stop-motion, cel animation, stuff that's tactile. I'm not big on rigged animation or 3D. I prefer when stuff feels organic and handmade, when you can feel the life that people have put into it, and little imperfections that come through that process, rather than things being technically perfect. So I'm happy to keep a little aesthetically pleasing sloppiness in my animation.

Q: At what age did you become interested in music?

A: My parents were both musicians, so it was always kind of inevitable! I had a toy drum kit with my initials on it when I was about 3, and I used to take my mom's guitar and strum it upside down to mirror Raffi on TV. My mom made me start taking piano lessons pretty early, and for years I didn't really enjoy it, but I'm so glad I did it now because it gave me a solid basis for everything else. The lessons were all just simple classical songs but as I got older and more interested in the Beatles, I started teaching myself songs I actually liked which made a big difference. I have 'perfect pitch' which is this weird flukey thing where you can instantly tell what musical notes you're hearing, so it's not hard for me to learn songs. I played drums in band classes at school, jammed with friends and taught myself guitar and a tiny bit of banjo. It all helps with animation too because so much of animation is about timing, rhythm and spacing.

Q: Take a Break is a song that sounds like it was made with a bunch of samples, without using any samples. How the hell did you achieve that?

A: There have been a few moments when I've loved a song and then felt tricked when it turned out the part I liked best was just a sample. Stuff like "Shangri-La" by Denki Groove or some of Nujabes' stuff. I really like the sound collage effect that Pogo and others use in their music. I wanted to try capturing that 'sample' feeling but with original sounds so I treated them with different EQ and filters, and sometimes messed with the tuning a bit so that they'd sound a bit like warped vinyl.

Q: We are all guilty of procrastination. You were procrastinating on animation and made Stay Focused. What project were you procrastinating on? Why turn to making music for your procrastination? Should other artists switch gears to something else when procrastinating?

A: Hmm it was probably Sublo and Tangy Mustard! Sometimes you just get an idea in your head and have to record at least a demo before you lose it, and then sometimes that demo ends up getting so worked out that it becomes the final recording! And yeah definitely if you're stuck on something creatively, a good solution is to take a mental break from it and distract yourself with some other activity.

Q: What is in your opinion, the definition of music?

A: Definitions are hard! I guess any audio can be considered music. I think at this point more complex definitions are irrelevant! But in terms of my favourite music, I like a lot of 60s pop, UK post-punk, a lot of cheesy disco and funk and early electronic stuff. Some of my favourites include Beatles, Kinks, Bowie, YMO, Orange Juice, Talking Heads, Stereolab, De Lux, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Joe Hisaishi, Yuji Ohno, Daniel Grau, Raymond Scott, I should stop but I like a lot of music.

Q: I tend to ask creators what advice to those looking to get into the medium. You have answered that question before...

Always work on your personal stuff; it's what makes you stand out from the crowd

Do you still stand by this message? If no, then why? If yes, what would you expand on this piece of advice?

A: Yeah that's still my big advice-- don't wait for permission or funding to start making stuff, just do it on your own! I think it's good advice for people just starting out because making your own animation/art/comic is just a good way to get hired in general, and specifically on the kind of job you actually want because people will be able to tell what your strengths and interests are. And it's a good way to get recognition beyond just being an anonymous part of a show's crew.

Q: What can we expect from Aaron-Long in the future?

A: Pretty sure there will be more Sublo and Tangy Mustard coming up, and hopefully another Fester Fish short or two! Something new would be nice too-- I have ideas but I just don't have time to work on more than one personal project at once!

Aaron Long is Newgrounds modern day Adam Phillips. An animator whose works are regaled on Newgrounds, but has done a lot of professional work outside Newgrounds. It is a testament to the site that whether you move onto bigger or smaller things outside this site, it is a wonderful foundation to start on. A building block to expand beyond this site. If you are willing to put in the hard work and effort into your craft. Aaron Long is a wonderful example of this.

The Interviewer is a part of Dohn's Desk Productions

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Interview No. 161

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is known throughout Newgrounds for his horror and humor. From Scratches, to his Still Spineless Series, to The Problem With Bill. His creations have horrified and brightened many a Newgrounds member with fear and sheer laughter. I am most pleased and terrified to welcome, @AntonM.

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

A: I remember one of the first times I ever visited the site was for the ‘Is That OK’ Dragonball Z video back when I was in early highschool, it’s still one of my all time favourites and I can’t remember if it was just a random google search result or if a friend linked it to me on msn. I only started to visit the site more regularly when I found Egoraptor and Yotam Perel’s cartoons on youtube, some of their cartoons were Newgrounds exclusive or they would reference the site a lot and it made me want to check it out. I would watch stuff here and there, mostly rewatch a lot of Yotam’s and Ego’s stuff. I remember Oney, Zach and Ukinojoe were putting out videos that a friend and I would quote endlessly. I got really inspired by what people were making and after a couple years I started to get the itch to make stuff too. I made an account and posted my first cartoon and a couple drawings in June 2013.

Q: At what age did you become interested in art?

A: I would always draw a bunch as a kid because I loved cartoons, I remember drawing a lot of Dragonball Z and Spiderman. I would draw comics in spare exercise books from school and try to do flip book style animation in them. One of my first original characters was a combination of this fox from a children’s book crossed with a Samurai Jack-esk robot and he’d just slice a bunch of monsters in half with a katana. I always loved any kind of art project at school too. There were a lot of inspirational shows that I watched on TV as a kid, not just the copious amount of funny and violent cartoons, but the show Art Attack really made me love making stuff even more.

I stopped drawing almost completely in highschool and my interests were changing to music and playing in a band, but after I found that a bunch of people are just making cartoons by themselves, Yotam’s videos in particular, it really inspired me to try it out. After posting my first cartoon, the second one got frontpaged and it really shocked me. It was really surprising to me that that happened and it gave me a huge confidence boost in making cartoons. I went to university and didn’t really draw too much for that first year, I made an album instead, but I was slowly realising that animation is what I loved to do the most and slowly started to pursue that more than my other hobbies. I think it was right at the start of 2016 where I was really looking into trying to improve in animation specifically, I never really kept a sketchbook prior but as soon as I got one I just filled it up quickly with a bunch of gesture drawings.

Q: Your craft tends to focus on the element of horror. What age did you become interested in horror? Where did it start, how did it grow over time?

A: As a kid the only horror I really remember actively wanting to watch was Courage The Cowardly Dog, it’s one of my favourite shows. I was way too scared to want to watch scary stuff or play any horror games though. A lot of the horror I saw as a kid were just weird tangents in otherwise non-horror stuff, the big one was the pink elephants in Dumbo, but there were many others, especially in games, the PS1 Rugrats had a nightmare upside down world with clowns and strange colours, and there was this PS1 demo disc with a dinosaur just walking towards the camera in a black void. I think that may have influenced what I like in horror a bit, normality that becomes strange and weird. As more horror shows started showing on TV, like Goosebumps and Are You Afraid Of The Dark?, I started to like it a lot more, in those kids shows there's a fun aspect of telling scary stories and stuff.

It was only when I was around 15/16 where I started really getting into horror, I was just discovering Kubrick’s films and I watched The Shining, it opened up the door of horror movies for me. I would look up more of that specific kind of atmosphere and that led me to Jacob's Ladder, which really cemented my love of the genre and from there, after researching a bit about this film, I found out that it was a major influence for the Silent Hill games. After playing the first four games in a row I was just blown away, I needed to make stuff like this.

When I went to university I remember friends telling me about David Lynch and weird Japanese horror films like Hausu and Noroi. Right now I’m getting more into manga and just re-watching/ playing old favourites for the most part. I don’t watch too much modern horror but Ari Aster’s two horrors have been amazing and the Suspiria remake was great too, I really didn’t think I would like it because I’m a huge fan of the original but it goes in its own direction and does so much with a loose connection to the original.

Q: Your works set out to sometimes make people laugh or scared. Either way you are building tension with a release at the end. How do you build your suspense and when do you realize what the final outcome should be?

A: Usually I want to express a certain thought or an emotion. Ideas on how to do it come to me in the form of a scene or a doodle of a character might make me project a story onto them. Shots just start to follow and connect to themselves if I like and think about the idea a lot. I try to build on each scene in a way that would hopefully add mystery to carry you all the way to the end of the cartoon. The final outcome always tends to change while making the video though, sometimes parts are added or taken away at the last minute. I feel that it’s more like writing a song, the video kind of tells you where it wants to go in a way, it has its own momentum. It all depends on the idea or feeling that I want to express too, the tone. I’ve seen so many horror movies and played so many games that I just like to play around with the silliness of horror suspense, for a joke or for something a little more sombre. I leave a lot to intuition and what feels right/ what would be fun or interesting to animate.

Q: One of your first movies on Newgrounds is entitled Ripped Off. It received a Daily Feature, however the page states that you removed it. Why was this?

A: There are a bunch of cartoons that I’ve deleted because they are just way too embarrassing haha. That may have been my fourth or fifth video and maybe if I muster up enough courage I’ll reupload them all one day and have a lil giggle. A lot of artists delete their early stuff and to be honest I’m a little disappointed that I can’t see their origins but at the same time…. I hope you never see those early vids of mine lol.

Q: When it comes to tension, you built it up in people with a twist that was surprising with Scratches. What can you tell us about this project and how you came to the ending?

A: Scratches was inspired by hearing that exact sound in my room A LOT back then. I had no idea what it was and I could never pinpoint where exactly it was coming from. At first I thought it was a mouse running about beneath the floorboards, scratching everything up but I never heard any squeaks... It turned out to be a bird pecking at the side of the house. 

The bird pecks would trigger the image of what the ‘real culprit’ in the video was and I feel like it’s a fun cliché of horror to have THAT kind of thing beneath the floorboards. I still like that last shot….

Q: I want to talk about the following movies. Still Spineless: Crows, Still Spineless: Arms, Still Spineless: The Tomb, and RIP IT OUT. What was the initial idea behind the Still Spineless Series? Will we see this story continue?

A: Still Spineless is a massive soup of everything I love. There is so much Silent Hill, Forbidden Siren and Bloodborne in it with a ton of movie, book and TV influences too. It was the story of how a small village tried to deal with a monster that appeared out of the woods one day. It would steal away citizens from the streets, leaving a bloody trail leading into the dark forest at the edge of town. It would show how the village broke down and how the people there were trying to survive.

I had so much fun making the first episode, the feeling of building this world and the characters in a mysterious and vague way was so gratifying and exciting! Doing the sound design might have been the part I had the most fun doing. It was one of the reasons I really wanted to make the series too, I dreamed of doing sound design and the score for horror stuff so I just made a show to do it. 

Arms, the second episode, was 10 minutes long (8 minutes of actual animation), I still can’t believe I did that. I remember it being quite gruelling but it was a really important bit in the story and I had to make it as strong as I possibly could. This was the first time I worked with voice actors too which was super fun! Dorrie voiced a cartoon called A Really Cool Girl and I really loved her performance in it and I’d been a huge fan of Piper’s work in The Finger Eater and Red Minus’ stuff too. 

For the third episode the style had a massive change, it’s pretty close to how I wanted the whole show to look from the beginning. The video was supposed to be structured like the previous 2 episodes, with a flashback at the beginning and the present time after but with the new, more detailed style and other stuff going on in life, I just couldn’t pull it off, so I just chopped it to the flashback and would try the second half next year. For this one I worked with Piper again but also another one of my favourite artists on Newgrounds, Deathink. I’d been a massive fan of his from when I first started visiting the site and after watching one of his streams, I knew he had the perfect voice for Vincent! 

The more and more I think about making another episode, the more I think that Rip It Out might be its finale. Making that cartoon in particular was really difficult. It changed sooo much as I was making it and became a little stressful to try and mould it into something I was happy with. After finishing it I had to take like 6 months or so off from working on another project to just do anything else, I can’t remember if I was even drawing much in that time. The project became devoid of fun while making it and I think it was because of the pressure I put on myself of making a ‘big’ cartoon every year for Halloween. Originally it was going to be fully shaded and after spending a month shading one shot I vowed to NEVER have shading in a cartoon ever again haha. I do think it’s my best-looking cartoon though, I love the inky black lines and the overall atmosphere. I think this and episode 1 are my favourites.

Rip It Out encapsulates a lot about what I wanted the series to be and is why it drops the SS title, it feels a little disconnected because it's almost a self-contained story, which is where I wanted to go with what I make in general. Even the third episode, The Tomb, was going for a self-contained feel. If I ever were to return I think the feel would just be way too different, to keep it in line with the other episodes I would really have to have a couple people help me out to get that specific anime-esk aesthetic and to get it out in a reasonable time. That or just make shorter episodes in a similar style that I have now which could happen one day.

Q: Still Spineless is a great example for writers and animators to take note of in terms of world building and character development. Especially so for horror. How did you know when the creature should be on screen and for how long? How the characters should respond to the creature? How much is show don't tell and how much should be kept vague?

A: This was all from trying to attain the same atmosphere of my favourite stuff. Alien is a big one of just don’t show the monster at all, I remember the Silent Hill games would always obscure the first reveal of the monster. I wanted to keep everything as vague as possible because I love David Lynch’s style of filmmaking. I’m just a fan of not revealing anything to be honest. Everything is scarier when you have less information about the thing.

Q: One of your best works in terms of animation alone is Infected. The way everything just naturally moves and the message it delivers. I must know the inspiration behind it.

A: That music video was born from the desire of self improvement and trying to figure out how to get better, where negative aspects of yourself come from and the fantasy of being all healed one day or at least better equipped to navigate through the world. I really liked using that imagery of that dark smoky room, the confusion and the hazy aimlessness that self improvement and a critical introspection brings feels exactly like this to me. There is a lot of Eraserhead in this cartoon, it’s one of my favourite films. I really like the idea of removing a ‘disease’ from your body in a violent way, it’s in Rip It Out too, I wish things were that easy lol.

Q: Nightmare Installed is a creative idea from beginning to end. What can you tell us about working on this project and will we see it expanded in the future? Perhaps as a game?

A: That was for the bad dream jam and it was made pretty late into it, I had to rush it because I just couldn’t come up with a good enough idea. I was also putting all my focus on making Rip It Out too. A few of those ideas came from dreams I’ve had and just general funny anxieties of mine. I would love to make a game about it, that’s a great idea, it would probably play a lot like LSD: Dream Emulator and Yume Nikki. I just downloaded pico-8 the other day and I’m pretty excited to try out some small basic game development….

Q: My absolute favorite by you has to be The Last Campfire Tale. It was scary, creepy, and hilarious. Where did the idea for Old Man Lindy come from? Why did you decide to do a campfire tale?

A: This was born from The Beatles method of writing a song where you start with a title and go from there. It was a method that Mega64 would use, I first heard of it when they were talking about how they make their videos. This was in a batch of titles with Green Potato as well and the idea for Campfire was pretty much fully formed back then in 2017. It immediately conjured up ‘Are You Afraid Of The Dark?’ vibes and this video was a little bit of a parody of that show, down to the characters looking like the actors and the dust they throw on the fire at the beginning. 

I have no clue where Lindy came from haha, he might have come from a funny doodle I made once, I’m not sure, all I know was this cartoon just fell out of the sky and into my head, it was a rare one where very little was changed while making it. I actually had to start the video from scratch because I was using a more detailed style that was just taking too long and I was starting to get bummed out with it. With this cartoon I really learnt that the more simplified the characters look the more fun it is to move them around. The style is heavily inspired by Creepshow, a really fun horror movie from 1982. I wanted to push the animation for this one, I think I was just finding Masaaki Yuasa’s films around then and got instantly inspired by his loose, dynamic, lively animation.

Q: As a writer I always try to figure out where the story is going to go before the ending. A lot of your movies have had me guessing where it was going to go. The one that really got me though was The Problem With Bill. At first I thought that Bill was going to be an alien. Then it turns out everybody is an alien. I was not expecting Bill's response to this revelation nor the ending which I laughed so hard at. You said you had fun making it, especially with the sound design. Could you elaborate more into the process?

A: Bill came from a lot of different places, I don’t work at an office but two of my friends do and initially I was going to make a cartoon about a specific thing one of my friends was going through at his place, it was about a guy who stunk 24/7. But I decided to merge the environment of an office with the thoughts I was having at the time with my job, mixed with my friend’s office woes too. And plus you gotta make an office cartoon as an animator, it's up there with Dragonball Z parody.

With the sound design I remember it being really fun because I was working fast and tried to be as dumb as possible, it became apart of how to make the cartoon funnier. In a previous cartoon The Song from a Dream, I had a lot of fun making the sounds for that too, but with Bill it was for comedy instead of straight horror. A lot of it was just “what if I add these heavy, serious drums?” or “what if his voice just gets demonic here?” Just playing around and experimenting, but in particular, abstracting, I don’t remember doing that all too much in vids before Dream Song.

Q: We now come to a tragic and yet beautiful story that I believe everybody can relate to on some level. It is the grim tale of A Crack In My Skin. A lot of people are going to have different interpretations on this story. What could you tell us about the story?

A: It's funny, I think this video did so well because of ol’ covid, but this was a cartoon that I started to make way before any of the quarantines started. I guess a lot more people were forced to experience that kind of feeling lately. While making it with all the quarantines coming into effect I really wondered if it was a good idea to make the video or not. I didn’t know if a darker cartoon would be appropriate and I think most people did walk away from it with a negative reading too… I wonder what people would think of it outside of covid. I don’t really want to share my intentions with what the cartoon means or what the ending is because it will kill the interpretation of the person reading this. I’ve seen a bunch of weird and personal readings for it and would love to see more! 

This one had a few inspirations, there are four posters in Cera’s room and if you can recognise them you’ll find out a little bit more of who she is. Stylistically, there is a lot of Japanese horror in this, all four posters are Japanese media too. Manga was a big influence too, my two favourite mangakas are Junji Ito and Hideshi Hino, I also love the Fuan No Tane series. I re-watched/ played a bunch of Japanese horror films and games at the time to best express the style and mood I wanted to go for, The Grudge movies, the Forbidden Siren games. I wanted that specific dark, gloomy, melancholy of Kiyoshi Kurosawa movies and a lot of the spacious shot composition was inspired by Cure and Pulse, I love those shots, it’s such a simple, effective way of showing how isolated a person feels.

This cartoon is very personal and I really love the sound design in this one, there are a lot of little details that I wanted to nail. I think I spent the most time with sound effects in this one than for any of my other shorts, usually I can get it all done in a day but for this one it took four or five. It might have been the least fun to actually sound design though lol, just a lot of fine tuning.

Q: What is in your opinion, the definition of animation?

A: Animation is the movement from one image to another. It’s my favourite art form, it is so limitless in what you can do to express an idea with. There are so many styles and all of them have their own rabbit hole of intricacies and specific qualities only that technique can achieve, each feeling different not only with how the images/ clay/ models move but in how you can create it, the process of it. I don’t think that there are any universal rules for how an animation should be but each animator has their own goals and crucial aspects of the medium. For me the only rule I try to keep is to make the process as fun as possible. Animating can be gruelling and so slow sometimes, especially if you’re pretty impatient like me, so if you can find a method to make the whole process enjoyable and efficient, you won’t feel overwhelmed and your next project won’t be as daunting.

Q: What is in your opinion, the definition of horror as a medium?

A: Horror is like a set of symbols/icons or a kind of theme. It uses darker and maybe grotesque imagery to achieve so many different reactions from you, not just fear. Some of my favourite directors have used the genre of horror as a ‘mask’. You use the tropes, the mood, the face of horror to express an idea in a much more effective way than you could in any other genre or visual style. I know Andrzej Zulawski and Kiyoshi Kurosawa have both talked about this mask, sometimes a specific idea can only be portrayed with darker colours. To me these images are also really fun to explore, there is some kind of exciting aspect to watching and making horror stuff. I also just enjoy delving into darker subjects, probably because I’m just a moody guy anyway.

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

A: Right now I’m working on a cartoon and I’m around halfway through the animation, it’ll be out one of these days. In the far future I don’t know, I hope I can make as much stuff as I possibly can, forever! That’s my biggest dream, just that I can keep going, maybe get a little faster too… I would also love to make a couple small games, I just need to crack it open and learn how.

AntonM I have absolutely no problem of giving the title of Newgrounds Master of Horror. He knows his timing, pacing, and execution down to the letter. When I first saw A Crack In My Skin on the front page I instantly knew there was something special here. As I was going through his works, he made me laugh, he made me frightened, he made me paranoid. After researching for this interview I was not able to sleep because every sound in the house made me jumpy, I have Scratches to thank for that. So naturally I watch something light hearted to calm my nerves. I've seen every episode of The Berenstain Bears now. All I can say about Anton is that there is a lot to learn from him. I can't wait to see what he brings us next.

The Interviewer is a part of Dohn's Desk Productions

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Interview No. 160

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest has been with Newgrounds for quite a long time. His series Adrellia Village has garnered him multiple awards, including three Daily Features. He has an amazing singing voice and is a talented underrated writer. I am most pleased and privileged to welcome, @MistyEntertainment.

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

A: As weird as it may sound, I actually found Newgrounds through Neopets. On Neopets, there would be this section called “The Neopian Times” where people submitted stories and comics. Although most of the comics were just images, there was an artist who went by neo_tomi who uploaded a few flash animations, which blew my mind as an 8-year-old. I think at some point he linked to an animation he did on Newgrounds from there, and that’s when I first found Newgrounds. I can’t link to the flash since it was one of the many that got removed within the past several years due to copyrighted music, but he’s @ReporterClock here. I always had a fascination with art and animation, and so finding a site like this where you could submit your own stuff and you’re guaranteed to have some sort of feedback (whether it’s through reviews, scores, etc.) - that was huge. I probably joined because I wanted in on the action. I submitted a whole lot of stuff here - and it was also just a fascinating place. Kind of surreal to think about just how rich the site was in content in 2009, and how it’s been more than a decade since then, and there’s only been more awesome stuff being uploaded.

Q: At what age did you become interested in music?

A: With regards to making music, I briefly got some guitar lessons while I was 6 or 7. I didn’t make it very far though, and I eventually just stopped because I got bored pretty fast. When I was 13, however, I found my old acoustic guitar and started to mess with it. At some point I became aware of what guitar tabs were, and I slowly started to work up my skills. I started songwriting with my editing software at the time Vegas Movie Studio 9 (not sure if that’s the exact title, but it works). I’d basically just take some percussion loops and samples, and I’d make some pretty dodgy-sounding music by pitch shifting stuff. Eventually, I started to learn more about chord progressions and whatnot, and I started writing songs with the guitar tab software TuxGuitar. This actually became a pretty important part of songwriting for me to this day - I’ve found that composing music in guitar tab software has really worked for me, and it gives me the ability to test different melodies.

Q: In the past we have been joined by a number of singers on Newgrounds. Hania, Cayler, Jazza, Zachary Louis, and FolegAlmighty all shared their stories about their vocals. You are now part of that list. At what age did you start singing?

A: I think I started at around age 14. I still have recordings from that time and it was pretty bad! But as with all things, you have to be willing to ride it out at first before it gets better.

Q: When eddsworld and NCH were here we talked about their battles with cancer. When were you diagnosed with cancer and how are you now?

A: I was diagnosed with cancer shortly after my 17th birthday. These days, although I’m in remission, I’m still suffering from the aftermath of it. Lately I’ve been dealing with some health issues involving headaches and eye aches. They’ve been pretty debilitating. I also have been struggling to go back to eating solid foods, so I mostly get through the days by drinking a whole bunch of Ensures. Things have been pretty bad lately, since my pains have been preventing me from working. I’m still holding on and hoping that things will get better, though. The problems with my eyes have been a relatively new development, so hopefully I can get back to work soon.

Q: One of your earliest submissions is entitled The Bureaucrat. A simple rock song for sure, why the title? Where did the first note come down for this and when did you decide it was done?

A: Ah yeah, that one’s from the early days! At that point, I wasn’t writing lyrics, though I’d still have the vocal melodies for them. Many of the titles from that era didn’t mean anything, and this is no exception. I was still finding my style as a melodist here. The chord progression is somewhat derived from a wonderful Oasis B-side called Underneath the Sky. I didn’t really care too much back then, so songs were usually just done when I felt like it.

Q: My absolute favorite by you is entitled The Ballad of Joey Domino. How long did it take to write and compose this song? What can you tell me about your collaborations with MarkSilverMedia? Also who is Joey Domino?

A: It started because I had this verse with no chorus - at the time, I sent it to Mark. We were collaborators, and he sent back this great chorus. He’s a talented guy, and the song wouldn’t be the same without his role in writing it.

Q: What is in your opinion, the definition of music?

A: That’s an interesting question! Probably anything that involves some sort of instrument as the bare minimum, to separate it from spoken word.

Q: You have released your own albums over time. What advice can you give to those looking to make, release, and sell albums?

A: It’s hard to say because even now, my music has never really been that popular and I still don’t really know how to market it because a lot of the go-to places for that sort of thing (Reddit, Facebook groups, etc.) are usually just filled with people only looking to promote themselves (and I’m not gonna pretend I wasn’t part of that problem to an extent.) But with regards to making music, one of the best pieces of advice I can give is to write a lot of songs. I’ve only officially released 2 of the first 100 songs I documented, and I had to write a whole bunch of bad songs before I got to any good ones. Also, study the songs you’re really into - analyzing good works of art is always a good way to go.

Q: What is the Adrellia Village series?

A: Adrellia Village is a series I started when I was like 9. Stylistically the characters are basically Cyanide & Happiness ripoffs, but there are also “real” people and other beings that I drew for it. It helped give me my start in making things, and it was cool to have a whole universe of my own, even if it was heavily derivative of some things.

Q: What is Flash Library 4/20?

A: Many years ago, I started a series called “Flash Library.” The original idea was that they would be daily collabs with other animators and we’d all make something for it. Sometimes they’d have themes - eventually I did away with the schedule and just decided to do them whenever. At that point in 2016, it had been a little while since the last Flash Library we did, so I figured we should do one for 4/20!

Q: I am a fan of Steven Universe so when I saw Trash Library: Steven Universe I was excited. I thought this was hilarious even the rant at the end I found hilarious! I don't think I will ever get "I am king of the lesbians" out of head for as long as I live. Reading the description there seems to be more to this story, but it is a bit unclear. Could you perhaps elaborate the project details for us?

A: I remember it starting with me making a Flash shitpost which I often do, and at some point Artistunknown and I decided to do a Trash Library that was Steven Universe themed and combine our talents. After checking with him, Artistunknown said that it came to fruition because it was meant to be a final send-off for @thebreadandbutter’s channel, which earned part of its audience from Steven Universe related videos, but then it took some time for AU to finish his part and Bread’s channel got deleted by YouTube, and when AU finished, it was just within days of the Steven Universe movie airing. And as I said, I used to have a collab series called Flash Library, so we decided to flip that on its head and just shitpost. Someone even did an Italian dub of it.

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

A: I’m not entirely sure due to the health issues I’ve been having lately, but if I get better, I’ll definitely be making YouTube videos and working on my music. My second album has been in the works for quite a while! I’ve got tons and tons of songs written. There’s some great stuff waiting to see the light of day, I can assure you that much.

When I made the suggestions thread I was sent a PM suggesting I interview MistyEntertainment. I was told he had been on the site for years and that he had been constantly making stuff. Whether it was movies, art, music, or even a few games. He was constantly finding ways to contribute to Newgrounds. We are most fortunate to have him here. He serves as a reminder that we must be grateful for all of our content creators, for we all strive to better one another here.

The Interviewer is a part of Dohn's Desk Productions

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Interview No. 159

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest you have either seen on the Forums or you have had your work reviewed by him. From his discussions to religion and philosophy with the other members of Newgrounds. To writing constructive and fun reviews for every Portal on Newgrounds. I am most pleased to welcome, @Ericho.

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

A: I was actually an early online friend of Kirbopher and he posted his TTA videos on this website. I had already gone on lesser known websites that had flash cartoons, but was amazed at how big this one was and I've been hooked ever since.

Q: What age did you become interested in psychology?

A: I have had a lot of mental health issues in my life and I thought I could use that knowledge to help other people.

Q: What was it like going to Arnold HIgh School? What were your favorite studies?

A: Pretty much like most high schools, I imagine. I especially liked history or social studies. I've always been fascinated by that. I was kind of the class clown.

Q: What is Shipwreck Island?

A: It's a water park I go to sometimes in Panama City.

Q: I ask about Shipwreck Island because you had one of the best days of your life there after graduation. Could you tell us about the day in whole?

A: You know, it was the satisfaction that I had completed an epic part of my life and I had earned it. You could just as much ice cream as you wanted. I may not have had many friends, but it was still great to celebrate.

Q: What can you tell us about working at Calypso? Any good stories to tell?

A: I didn't work there that long. I've worked at EncompassHealth for literally years. Probably the best story I can mention is how an employee was fired for smoking weed.

Q: You did work cleaning up an oil spill at one point. What was the oil spill and what can you tell us about the job overall?

A: I didn't exactly work. What happened is that I went to a seminar where they talked about how I might be able to. They would call me back if they needed me and they never did. I did manage to get paid $100 for attending the seminar, so it wasn't pointless.

Q: What brought you to attend Gulf Coast Community College?

A: My dad worked there! My degree was in communications actually.

Q: You received a Master's Degree while at Florida State University. What did you receive your degree for? Why did you want to pursue it? What were your experiences at FSU?

A: It was once again communications. It was certainly nicer than High School, because the students really were more mature and I felt they had fewer restrictions.

Q: What was it about the communications field that interested you?

A: Because I had poor social skills growing up and I wanted to learn how to communicate better.

Q: It is fair to say you're an avid reader, perhaps more than what I was able to uncover. You have studied religion and philosophy, spoken about them in great lengths. The effects on the world an the people within and without. What would you say is your base philosophy? Your personal view on the world and your moral code?

A: Wow, I never really thought of myself as a philosopher. I mean, I just do what's morally right. I was raised extremely religiously and yes, I consider that a big influence on my morals. I just try to look for the best role model and follow that person. I guess it would be too easy to say Jesus is the best, but in terms of modern ones, I'd have to say Mr. Rogers. Even Jesus has his own Wikipedia article criticizing him! Of course, so does Mother Teresa (no, that is not a typo). If mocking Mr. Rogers on 4chan is bannable, he MUST be good. I just always think of the time he approached gay men and said, "God loves you just the way you are".

Q: When XwaynecoltX was here we talked about his reviews and his reviewing process. He was what inspired me over time to improve my own reviews. He is in the range of over 30,000 reviews now. You are nearing the 20,000 mark in reviews. What motivates you to write reviews on such a daily basis?

A: Habit, I guess. It gives me something to do. I always try to find new things to do and am fascinated by the sheer number of things to review here, or really in general. I've also written over 1,000 reviews on the IMDb.

Q: You've been writing reviews since you signed up. How would you describe your style of reviews. Have you changed your style over time?

A: Yes! Originally, I was at a paragraph, but got a warrant saying I couldn't make that many without being more in depth. I have tried not to repeat things like "Keep up the good work!" though it is hard. I have just tried to see how this particular submission was unique.

Q: With all of these reviews I'm surprised to see that you're not a member of the Review Request Club here on Newgrounds. How come?

A: Honestly, I wasn't even aware of it! After they stopped submitting stuff to the most prolific reviewers list, I kind of lost interest in keeping statistics.

Q: What is your most favorite thing about Newgrounds and why?

A: Probably the sheer number of unique things here and how people express themselves.

Q: You can change two things about Newgrounds. What are they and why?

A: Probably going back to letting you control your favorites arrangement. Then again, I've written so many by now it would be hard to keep track. I also wish they'd keep records of all the awards winners like they used to.

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

A: More reviews! I haven't been writing as many though, not that it really affects my record much.

Ericho is certainly one of the best members of Newgrounds. He is open to reviewing anything from the Portals. He is a huge fan of the site and is always interested in what others are doing on the site. Those who call him friend on this site are lucky to have him. Those who are graced with his company, even if for a few minutes of messages through PM or posts on the Forums. They are certainly blessed.

The Interviewer is a part of Dohn's Desk Productions

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Interview No. 158

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is not an unknown name to the artists and members of Newgrounds. From his works on Pallid Fingers, which won him Daily Feature. To Metropolis Circuit, which won him a Daily Feature and Weekly 1st Place Awards. To his return to Newgrounds with The Lighthouse Girl, where he won a Daily Feature, Weekly 1st Place, and Review Crew Pick, hitting the Triple Crown. I am most honored to welcome @rtil.

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

A: When I started messing around with my first copy of Flash in 2004, I found Newgrounds while goofing around wasting time on the internet, which is how I spent most of my free time when I was young. I don't remember how or what I saw that led me there, but I do remember making an account and submitting my first proper cartoon a year later.

Q: At what age did you become interested in art?

A: I've been drawing as long as I can remember. It was always a favorite hobby of mine. But I didn't start taking it seriously until my final year of high school, when I had to start thinking about what I actually wanted to do with my life. It sounds strange, but never until then did I consider the fact that people were artists for a living. When I had that epiphany, I started taking the interest seriously, building a portfolio for applying to colleges and universities.

Q: What brought you to DigiPen Institute of Technology? What did you study there?

A: DigiPen was one of two art schools in my area, and their BFA program specialized in animation for games, something which was rare at the time. I applied there as my #1 choice, with Seattle Art Institute as a fallback - they accepted basically everyone who applied to their program. Fortunately, I was accepted by DigiPen. My major was a Bachelors in Fine Art & Animation, which covered everything from working with traditional mediums to a broad range of digital software in both 2D and 3D. Again, the goal of the school is to get people work in the games industry, so the program was built with that in mind, and we even collaborated with programmers in the school to make a game in our 3rd year.

Q: What is TheBackalleys?

A: At first it was a portfolio/personal site, but for the hell of it I slapped a forum on it. Because of that, it slowly morphed into an online community with people who liked my work - mostly from Newgrounds. Today, the website exists largely as an archive, but the community itself continues to live in the form of a Discord server. It's a healthy mix of people who are there for the community, and people who are there because of my work. But since its inception it has naturally always been very art and animation focused.

Q: Your first submission on Newgrounds is entitled The Rabbit Justice Ad. A funny movie for sure, yet we never got the conclusion to it. How come?

A: Originally, I never intended to even make a sequel to that. It's something that I spontaneously decided to pursue due to the reception of my first Flash animation on Newgrounds getting front paged. I barely knew how to use Flash at the time - I cobbled that cartoon together on strings and wires thinking nothing of it, hoping that maybe a small handful of people would get a chuckle out of it at best. But the result was much more than I bargained for, and when I woke up the next day, thousands of people had seen it. At the time I was quite star struck - I had never gotten that kind of attention on the internet before.

When you get stars in your eyes, it's easy to become overambitious. I made a sequel of sorts, and I bit off a lot more than I could chew. The sequel was messy, stunted, and tonally confused. Eventually, I realized I just didn't care all that much about making a cartoon series about cereal mascots - not enough to continue writing a story I was basically just making up as I went along, anyway - and decided to move on to other things. However, it did start an unintentional trend in my work that I continued for a long time after, and that was the majority of my work being parody.

Q: I love unexpected horror. Something that has build up and hits you with the shock value at the end. You would deliver this to us with GUM. You stated it was made during school for a Nicktoons thing and you would do some things differently. What Nicktoons thing? What would you have done differently about it?

A: At the time, Nicktoons was looking for original content, and I was equally as interested in seeing what I could create that was not parody. It just so happened that one of my classes that semester involved creating an independent animation project, and thus GUM was born. Ultimately, nothing happened with it at Nicktoons, but I still got to show it to my class, and of course Newgrounds, and I was happy that people seemed to enjoy my original work as much as my parody work.

Q: My absolute favorite by you that has quite the story behind it is you can't kill me. You elaborate the story in the movie itself so I won't draw attention to that. I will ask how it started and what was the straw that broke the camel's back? What advice do you have to give to those looking to join a creative community, what red flags should they look for?

A: The SheezyArt community was very tightly knit, so any drama that happened there was drama everyone knew about. I was pretty outspoken in those days, and I would often use my journals on SheezyArt to fan the flames of whatever was going on at the time, be it something everyone knew about, or something I thought deserved attention. But I was always incendiary about it, and often encouraged others to participate, which usually ended up giving the moderation staff more work to do. Their solution to this was banning me from writing journals, as they were my primary tool of stoking the flames of drama. I won't lie - I enjoyed doing this. It was a source of entertainment for me. As for how it started, I couldn't point to the first time I did it, but it was always something new every week. It was pretty much what I was known for there.  

I guess my advice for those joining a creative community would be to avoid that kind of behavior if possible, actually. If you feel something is important enough that you have to speak up, do it with tact. After I left places like Newgrounds and Sheezyart back then, whenever I started a new social media account I made a promise to myself that I would keep it about the art, no matter what. It's a personal thing for me, and I don't chastise anyone who mixes their personal lives, politics or opinions with their art - but I know why I follow artists and that is for their art. Sometimes, seeing how they behave, talk or treat other people tarnishes their image in my mind. I don't want other people to feel that way about me, and so I give them what they followed me for - art.

Q: Metropolis Circuit is quite the thrill ride from start to finish. Getting the details down to the absolute second of each movement must have been a lot of work. Where did the idea come from and how long did it take you to make it? Were there any mistakes you made that you can tell us so others don't fall into the same holes?

A: It was a mix of sci-fi/cyberpunk inspiration from things like Blade Runner and Akira, with the visual stylings of cel-shaded games and movement of Jet Set Radio. I smashed those two things together and wanted to introduce a world I was creating with a purely adrenaline-fueled animated short. There isn't much story there, and I intended it to be that way. But I think while it got people interested in the visual aesthetic, there wasn't much else for people to care about.

It reminds me of a lot of anime that try to hook you with intense battles and action right from the starting scene - but if there are no stakes, it can feel hollow. My only advice in this instance is that it does help to establish character and give something to the audience besides what you can offer visually, because a setting and characters people care about will amplify everything else around it.

Q: When Kirbopher was here we talked about a collaboration you would be a part of entitled Brawl Funnies [Dick 1]. How did you come to join this collab? What contributions did you make to it?

A: This massive parody collab was organized on TheBackAlleys. While I wasn't the person who organized it, as the person responsible for the community even existing I couldn't resist participating. My part in it was called "Rina-chan and the Brawl Boyz", a raunchy parody of a character meant to portray Rina-chan (a voice actress Kirbopher often used in his cartoons) going to a club and seducing characters that appear in Super Smash Brothers. It didn't really have much to do with anything besides the fact that I wanted to use the song "Move For Me" by Kaskade in an animation, and I basically created the entire parody around the use of that song. 

We also did another parody in the same style called "Metal Gear Funnies", but unfortunately it's harder to find these days because the person who organized it deleted it off of Newgrounds. My part can still be found here.

Q: When TheShadling and SenpaiLove were here we talked about their NSFW art. You too draw NSFW art. When and how did you start drawing NSFW art?

A: Back in 2013 I was introduced to a visual novel called Katawa Shoujo, a romance story about a high school student named Hisao Nakai who almost dies from a heart condition called arrhythmia. He ends up at a school for the disabled, where every girl he meets has a different disability. At the time, Katawa Shoujo was exploding in popularity as it was a volunteer project 5 years in the making from a group of writers, artists and programmers who met eachother on 4chan. The fact it was ever finished was astonishing, but it also surprised people with its tastefulness, heartfelt stories and meaningful relationships it builds. Many people became very closely attached to their favorite characters in the story.

But Katawa Shoujo also has adult content - and the community wanted more of it. I was commissioned that year to draw some Katawa Shoujo hentai after I had expressed interest in it with some fanart I posted. I had never done anything like that before, but I took the offer on a whim, and the rest is history. Nowadays I'd say a good half of my content is NSFW. If I wanted, I could probably become a full-time NSFW artist, but I don't want to burn out on it, and I enjoy having a healthy mix of both SFW and NSFW art.

Q: A favorite art form of mine and one I don't see too often on Newgrounds is charcoal drawing. What can you tell us about charcoal drawing and its appeal to you?

A: Charcoal is a very messy medium that requires a large canvas and broad strokes. It's easy to smudge and difficult to preserve. Most people use charcoal on newsprint, a very cheap and flimsy paper that is easy to tear and meant to be discarded. However, it's got a great texture to it and is ideal for gesture drawings. Charcoal is something I believe every artist should try at least once in their life, and in the ideal environment. It's good for teaching people to be bold and energetic with their strokes. It's not a medium that is intended to be used for small, minute details. It's for making broad, sweeping and powerful lines that fill the page. With our little digital tablets we get used to working in these confined spaces, charcoal can be freeing in that sense.

Q: While I was researching for this interview I came across a short film you did as your senior project. You would grace Newgrounds with it entitled The Lighthouse Girl. You state that it got out of hand. What was the process from beginning to end? When did it get out of hand? Why now release it on Newgrounds?

A: It got out of hand because it ended up taking longer to complete than the entire school year we had to make it. While we submitted an incomplete version as our final, we kept working on it after the fact until it was finished. Most senior animation projects are around 2-3 minutes long, The Lighthouse Girl is closer to 5. With a team of 2 animators doing everything, creating 5 minutes of high framerate animation in 8 months, along with storyboards, animatics, backgrounds, sfx, post-processing and everything else is a lot to ask - especially when you consider it wasn't our only class that year. 

I released it on Newgrounds now because I want to flesh out my Newgrounds account with all the art and animation that I released since my hiatus. Work that I am still proud of, anyway. And I can't say I'm still proud of too many things I created in 2009, so The Lighthouse Girl is special to me in that regard, and I want to share it with as many more people as possible as I can.

Q: When RWappin was here we talked about Studio Yotta and his work on Sonic Mania. You too are part of Studio Yotta and have done work on Sonic Mania. How and when did you join Studio Yotta? What was your part in Sonic Mania?

A: I've been loosely associated with Yotta since their inception, and have worked on a couple of projects with them throughout the years. I've known its founder long since before Yotta was ever a thing, so when he started it I was there, watching it all happen. At the time, I didn't think it would work, but I was wrong, and I think that's a good thing. 

For Sonic Mania in particular, I did tie-down and clean-up frames for three sequences, the most notable near the beginning where Sonic dashes across the screen, creating a storm of dust and stars, and you see Tails fly in while Sonic does some loops and spins. It was one of the most difficult shots i've ever done, because it had to be absolutely perfect for SEGA's standards, and keeping those characters on-model is a lot harder than it looks.

Q: What can you tell us about your work on Rick & Morty?

A: For the "Run the Jewels" music video, I did shots that focused largely on special effects, like the tube of green liquid that bursts open, some blood flying off a slow-motion punch, or a grenade being thrown into a room of aliens. It's one of my specialties, so a lot of the animation work I do is for effects like that if it's not character animation. Which is also a shot I did in S4E1, where a bizarre type of ferrofluid wraps around the leg of Rick. The fluid behaved like nothing in the real world, so you had to think outside of the box for that. Despite it only being a 2-second-ish shot, it took well around a solid week of work to finish that shot because of the high detail of every frame. Each frame took hours to draw.

Q: What is in your opinion, the definition of animation?

A: Animation is the exaggeration of reality. The opportunity to romanticize the mundane, or create something that couldn't exist. This is inherent in how the medium works. For animation to be believed, our brains must be convinced that a sequence of drawings smashed together is actually persistent motion, and not just a collection of unrelated scribblings. Animation does not work like film, it's not a replica of what our eyes see.

This is why rotoscoping often looks awkward if done without understanding how animation works. When you boil it down, animation is an elaborate series of tricks we play on our brains, and it took animators a few decades to figure out a lot of those tricks when it was in its infancy. And while the animation industry has been around long enough to establish some basic principles of animation, we still tinker and toy with them all the time. Sometimes these experiments work, sometimes they don't. But the most important thing to remember is that to justify animation's existence, it needs to separate itself from film.

Why do we animate? Because animation gives us the opportunity to express ourselves from nothing, a blank canvas. There are things we can do in animation that we can't capture on a camera, or capture a feeling in a unique and specific way. So it's important to take advantage of that.

Q: When and why did you leave Newgrounds for so long?

A: Being wrapped up in so much internet drama back then, it was affecting me in a negative way. I decided to get away from it all and figured that returning would bring back bad memories. It wasn't until recently that I realized I can put all that behind me. But for many years inbetween, I just didn't think about Newgrounds. It was only until Tumblr banned adult content that Newgrounds entered back into the narrative in the online art community. At first I disregarded it, but now I believe Newgrounds has a relevant space.

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

A: Hopefully some "bigger" things in terms of the scope of what I usually do. I create a lot of art these days, but most of them are sketches, short animation loops and paintings I don't spend longer than 2-3 days on. I'd like to get back into longer animation, comics, or games. And while I do participate in projects like that as an animator, it's been a while since I was the creator of any of those things. I'm not sure if and when I'll have any ideas for something, but my mind is constantly all over the place and I'm sure it's only a matter of time until I come across an idea I can't let go of.

Seeing rtil make his return to Newgrounds was an absolute joy for me and I'm sure many others. He has been a favorite of the site now for a long time and looking at his works, it is no secret as to why. He is a gift to this site. One none of us should take for granted. I hope The Lighthouse Girl will not be the last time we see him grace us with his presence here.

Interview No. 157

Interview By: @The-Great-One

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Q: Sunny Days is a cool General Rock song. Dedicated to the Summer you missed. What can you tell us about that Summer and the themes that went into this song?

A: Ah that summer... and every other summer. :) It's not so much a particular summer as summer overall. I've recorded similar homages later on, like Summer Stuff in 2014.

Sunny Days is an upbeat track, meant to convey the sensation I feel when the sun comes around after a time without. A small streak of euphoria and boundless optimism fueled by that great fiery orb in the sky that keeps feeding us life.

We have long winters here, and so we appreciate all the sunshine we can get. Not only that, but in our family we've been spending our summers at what I referred to as the family home above, an old house by a little farm-like patch of unkempt land in the middle of nowhere, for as long as we can each year since before I was born.

When I studied at a distance that meant three months, the pinnacle of all summers; now it's more like two, split up into two or three shorter trips. We savor the time. We farm our own food, fetch what we can from the forests, swim, get together and get closer to nature. When I had less responsibilities I wrote a lot during those summers.

It's really the highlight of the year. The snow melts in May and usually starts falling again in October, so it's a short-lived dream, vacation limits or no.

Q: Audizzity is an awesome rap song compiled of the pieces you made with Audacity only. Why did you take on this endeavor and what can you tell me about your rap influences?

A: Some time during 2014 I had the urge to make some music, but I didn't want to resort to the simple software I'd been using before. I had a Fruity Loops phase as well, but as I started working less and less with the instrumental aspect of music and more so just vocal recordings, I moved over to Audacity, and thought it'd be a fun experiment to see if I could actually mix together some real tracks there. As real as you might consider them considering the limited scope of the project.

The bits in Audizzity are all simple, the verses mostly short and repetitive, and the beats mostly based on instrumental samples: kick drums, hi hats and various bits of percussion that I repeated and chopped up as makeshift beats. Even with limited editing capabilities - if you've used Audacity you'll know it's not really meant for this type of work - I'm happy with how it turned out, as very much just a quick spur of the moment project. Glad you enjoyed it too!

My influences in regard to rap were maybe initially fueled by Limp Bizkit. I found out about them in middle school, and at the time the edginess in their music was one I both related to and loved just because it was just that. Edgy. It was a whole new world. Yes I'm part of that generation.

The first CDs I ever bought were Rammstein's 'Sehnsucht' and Kid Rock's 'Devil Without A Cause'. I guess the latter influenced me as well. Before this I'd been listening mostly to glam rock and pop, courtesy of my big bro/sister, but the world of metal, and nu metal in particular, was something else. After Limp Bizkit came Linkin Park as one of those perspective-altering musical revelations, with a style unheard of before. A true hybrid of genres.

Pure rap-related inspirations actually came a lot later. I'd listened to oldschool icons like LL Cool J and DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (still underrated - props to Joyner on paying respects where due) via my brother before, but got into Eminem around the dawn of the millennium, and after that... I can't name just a few. Influences came from all places. Here in Sweden I went to school at a time when rap was just starting to get established in our culture, with artists like Petter, Timbuktu and Thomas Rusiak, so they probably played a role too.

I'm currently deep into Strange Music and all artists they collaborate with, but there's so much talent out there. Hard to name just a few individual inspirations.

Q: My favorite instrumental by you absolutely is Dream Flow. Ever since the days of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas I have loved this type of ambience. Not in your face, in the background, but not too much that it is distracting. Where did the inspiration for this come from? Could lyrics be put to this or are there melodies that do not need them?

A: Thanks. This is very much a type of music I like working with too, laid-back and ambient in appreciable ways. The inspiration at the time mostly came from the samples I worked with - I don't think there were any outside influences that made me go for this specific sound.

I do feel like instrumentals never inherently need a performance to go with them. Music's great as is, and lyricism is great as is too, but when you put them together... they do enforce each other. They become an experience. The instruments might evoke a feeling, but the lyrics add a meaning. A story or a message. Instrumental music has its time and place I feel, but a full-fledged composition, with focus on vocals, feels like a much more wholesome experience to me.

That said I wouldn't want vocals on everything. Sometimes you just want to appreciate the sound, and as you say it's easier to leave on in the background, the more ambient and subconscious the better for focus-requiring dues.

It'd be interesting to turn some of these old beats into full-fledged songs though... might pick up on that idea some day.

I also loved GTA San Andreas. It's probably the one game I've spent by far the most time on, and still one of my favorites of all time. Maybe it really was an influence for me too.

Q: Cyberdevil's Back and Cyberdevil's Back (2016) would come out in 2013 and 2016 respectively. They announced your return and are both fantastic rap songs. What made you want to make songs for both of your returns?

A: At the time I made a much bigger deal out of my summer vacations than I do now, treating them as almost a holy form of hiatus. I didn't go online at all for months at a time, and when I returned I liked the idea of coming back with a bang(er).

It was also an easy topic to write about, and a fun way to announce my arrival; set things in motion again.

When the first one came about I'd recently come into contact with Jabun, I believe I had the verse written and wondered if he could make some music for it, and he really went above and beyond, emulating a nu-metal style we both love with the instrumental. It wasn't part of my request at all. Turns out we had plenty of musical influences and tastes in common. And so much more too.

In 2016 I came back from summer with a similar verse, wondering if he could add some percussion to it. I had a very specific structure in mind, where the beats followed the annunciation in the raps, and it was apparently really difficult to make a beat that synced the way I imagined, as it wasn't made according to any definable BPM.

The first may sound more wholesome, but I'm sure the second one was a much greater challenge to make, with a rhythm so unorthodox the percussion had to be manually adjusted for each part. With that in mind it's a fun project to look back on. It really stands out among my other tracks.

Q: My favorite rap song by you is entitled From Ash To Alabaster. How and when did you meet Jabun and what can you tell us about your working together on your projects including this one?

A: We met via NG, though I'm not sure who took contact with who first. If he was looking for collaborations to boost his presence, or if the first call was me asking about that one verse on the first Cyberdevil's Back.

However it all started I'm glad it did, and it's since been somewhat of an unofficial goal to at least collaborate on one track per year, though we've missed a few now. I had a guest verse included on his Two Years On album (released under the band name Better Than The Book) a couple years back for example. Real honor.

From Ash To Alabaster came about in a similar way to Cyberdevil's Back, though the beat's actually based on a commercial one I'd written and recorded to already ( B.O.B.s 'Airplanes'), but didn't have the rights to use. I wondered if he could maybe make a new one that sounded similar and so he did! I believe he had some pointers on structure with this one, I adjusted my lyrics a bit, and you can hear him faintly on the hooks as well, and towards the end, as my voice didn't come through so well on any bits related to singing.

It turned out beyond expectation. It's usually the first track I link to if I want to introduce someone to my sound, even if I feel my vocal tone could be better.

Jabun's a humble dude. Very positive, forthcoming and easy to work with, not to mention incredibly talented with all that involves music. Hopefully these almost-yearly collabs are still far from over!

Fun fact: The first Cyberdevil's Back was actually recorded on a voice recorder, thus the lo-fi tone. I didn't have a real microphone at the time, but finally managed to get an upgrade with this one.

Q: Summer Stuff is a project you would work on with S3C. Which came first in this song the lyrics or the melody or did you both collaborate on them throughout the project?

A: First off big props to @S3C, probably my longest standing acquaintance/collaborateur/frequent commentator/dare-I-say-friend here on the grounds. I believe I stumbled upon his music in a similar way as with Jabun's, and asked if he wanted to work on something (correct me if I'm wrong @S3C). It's not our first collaboration, but maybe the first that's been uploaded. He had a few beats at the time and I wrote up some lyrics for one, which then turned into this.

The vibe felt just perfect. Sunny Days and soothing summer nostalgia come again. It's probably the most authentic depiction of how we (as in me and my folks/family) spend our summers yet.

I wrote an After Summer Stuff remix around the same time too. There are a few other verses for that same beat that never went past the writing stage. Really good beat. I could probably write a whole album with it.

I usually write lyrics in one sitting with the instrumental already made, depending on who I'm working with, but with rap in particular it feels like it's also the standard practice to have the beat ready from the start. Occasionally to start with a loop and build a structure around that as a track progresses.

Q: What is in your opinion the definition of music? How would you describe rap music?

A: I used to say that music is life. Or life is music.

I believe it's a reflection of how you feel and think. A way to get out a message to the world. A way to share your emotions and personal experiences. A way for people to relate and join in said journey. Communication you don't necessarily have to understand to bond with or immerse yourself in - therapeutic and transcendent of any boundaries between us.

A form of expression, in essence.

Rap, to me, feels like an amplification of the story-telling potential that music has, with or without the art of wordplay. Like a bridge between poetry and sound.

So maybe it's like this: Music's the art of expression. and rap's the art of words.

Q: As a musician, which do you feel you like more in a song, the melody or the lyrics?

A: The lyrics, hands down. It's probably why I also consider myself a lyricist first and foremost.

It feels like you don't need music at all to appreciate good lyrics, yet good music with bad lyrics can be painful to listen to.

I tend to shy away from mainstream music for this reason. I like something that says something, and unfortunately it seems rare in pop culture now. I'm also all the more impressed by artists who write their own songs, and feel like it heightens their performance. It always seems all the more authentic an expression when they can relate to what they're singing and performing too. And I can relate to them if they relate to their own music.

There are definitely exceptions, but that seems to be the rule of thumb, for me at least. I pride myself on not falling for the formula and getting stuck in everything that sounds the same. Anything that's more about monetary gain than expression and passion and soul.

Q: You are quite the busy individual with your hands in a lot of different pots. How would you describe your system for balancing all of these projects with your day-to-day life?

A: As very nonfunctional.

I still struggle to prioritize the right things, and to stay prolific and positive when the dues amount. I ride on waves of efficiency, then sometimes stall and come to a standstill entirely, moving on with only the most superficial and dopamine-inducing things (if you really want to get something done, then cut out all other rewarding tasks until the prospect of completing that one thing is the most rewarding thing you can imagine).

In theory I feel like I have a good idea of how such a system should work though. Don't wait. Start with the most important thing as soon as you wake up. Don't stall. Don't hesitate. Don't let yourself get stuck - move onto something else if you do, or take a break. Efficiency is something you hone as much as anything else, and even with creative work there's no room to work only when inspiration strikes. Work with the inspiration when you get it, but work around the barricades even when things don't seem to be going your way. Also calm down. Don't stress unnecessarily, just grind on. Relax when you can, but take pride in your work ethic, and fuel yourself with affirmations.

It also seems like the secret to achieving this may be to first find a balance in life that you're happy and healthy with, that lets you keep going without ever having or wanting to slow down with that which you choose to do. If you're not there yet though best just keep going.

As it is I simply spend a lot of time in front of the computer, both with work and hobby, and try to focus on whatever's most important at any particular point in time. Maybe some day I'll actually adapt all of the advice above. It's a work in progress.

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

A: You can hopefully expect more frequent musical collaborations, and a wavering but never-waning presence on this here the greatest of creative oasis(es?).

I'd also like to get back to writing more spontaneously, and tackle a long-overdue update on some of my sites, not least the very little but hopefully soon to be expanded shortcut one NG Pot.

Cyberdevil is one of the best rappers on Newgrounds. He may not have the best flow, he may not even have the best beat. He does have an armory of words. He has a way of weaving his thoughts and opinions into a melodic form that we can all embrace and enjoy. From one writer to another, I am privileged to speak with him about his craft. And more to have his notes on my craft. Cyberdevil is a treasure to us that we should not neglect.

Interview No. 157

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is a writer and musician known through Newgrounds. From his works Dream Flow to From Ash To Alabaster. He has graced us and the world with his words and his music. I am most humbly honored and pleased to welcome, @Cyberdevil.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

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

A: At this point I don't really remember how. The early 2000's were when I started discovering the Internet, and Newgrounds was one of many places I stumbled into at the time, along with contemporary communities like Retrogade and Smosh - when they were at their most inspired by and had a user-based content submission system just like ours. As far as I know this is the only one of all those parallel pioneers with their own portals that still exists.

As for why I joined it was probably for the stats. Without the gamification aspect there wouldn't have been as big an incentive to sign up, I'd just have enjoyed the content from afar. With official rankings even for things like Top Reviewers and Submitters, as well as a surplus of fun and fan-based ones, it really felt like a golden era for competition, and everyone had a fair shot at the top since all was relatively new. I actually planned to review every single submission when I signed up. Might've been possible back then too!

So I found the place because of the content, and signed up for the stats, but I've probably stayed because of the community. It might've been edgy but it had an inspiring creative resolve that permeated the whole website even back then, and has grown so much since. Hopefully I with it.

Q: Where did your inspiration for writing come from?

A: My earliest writing aspirations are a haze too, but Dr. Seuss probably had something to do with it. I've been told I loved his way of weaving words together.

I started writing early on and have been going since! Still mostly as a hobby.

Q: Do you recollect your first poem?

A: All these ancient memory-based questions are hard to answer. I don't think so, though hopefully it's still lying around in a pile of notebooks somewhere. I wrote a poetry collection for school early on that's easier to dig up, so here's a piece from that instead:

$ Money $

I'm going to make a bet

A big bet

It's true!

I'm going to make a bet

of one million fifty-two

The only problem is...

I don't know what bet to do!

It won a contest too.

Q: While at Stockholm University you studied Japanese and Japanese History. You stated the messiness and difficulties with it, including spending three hours on an eight page essay and failing your first examination. Could you elaborate more into your time and studies at Stockholm? Also what made you want to pursue Japanese?

A: For some mysterious reason, even though all I wanted to do when I graduated was to get out of school, I decided to pursue a higher level of learning.

The reason my first course was Japanese was probably because Japan was, at the time, the one thing I was most intrigued with. A friend introduced me to Naruto in high school, and since then I was hooked on anime. I binge-watched thousands of episodes. Entire series in a day. I was fascinated by both the medium and the culture it portrayed, with exotic and awesome things like melon bread, and of course their martial arts and honorable warring culture. After that it was movies - I'm still addicted to those.

I was unreasonably ambitious during that first year of university, so in addition to those full-time lingual studies I went for a course on Japanese History before 1868 too (the year their samurai era ended and Japan was forcefully pushed into the modern world).

It didn't go as well as I'd planned. It turned out university level education was waaaaay more demanding than I thought, and my passionately composed final eight page essay on Japanese History before 1868 wasn't received with the praise I'd expected. Don't remember as much about the examination, but getting the result was a shock at the time since I went well beyond the levels of effort I'd put into anything before it, and the lectures leading up to it dealt with learning in such a light and easily consumable way that it seemed expectations would be similar, yet the end result was apparently meant to be a culmination of work far exceeding that of the information attained via said classes. So that was that. My first step into the real world, where nothing is as it seems to be. Apparently normal school does all but prepare you for it.

Eventually I re-wrote the essay and passed, and later discovered that as far as university-level learning goes here, Stockholm University is probably the highest tier establishment you can start with. I chose it since it was the closest.

I also totally missed out on the language part of the Japanese course, thinking the weekly movie sessions with culturally significant titles like Yojimbo and Eros + Massacre were the first half of the semester, when both parts of the course actually progressed in parallel and I only had one half of the schedule. So I still don't speak fluent Japanese.

I studied elsewhere a few years after that, picking up bits of wisdom in varying areas of expertise, from paleontology to creative writing. Most probably postponing inevitable career choices as long as possible all the while adding to my previously meager list of educational merits.

Q: Who is CyborD?

A: CyborD is first of all my witty wordplay, combining the cybernetic organism abbreviation CyborG, with CyberD, the name of my main website which is consequently also an abbreviation of my alias, and an acronym for a bunch of other things like CyberDesign, a service I for a while planned to start a career in freelance work with.

Functionally CyborD is two things. It's in part a bot I made for my site, back when I actually coded my site from scratch (it's been migrated to WordPress since - if anyone's interested in this stuff), to manage things like cron jobs and backups. He was a simple but fun experiment, and lasted a short while between two iterations of the place, 2006-2008.

Additionally CyborD is also a little chatbot, a simple Flash interface tied to an XML file with responses filled in according to questions people might ask. I programmed him to answer all the generic ones with a basic answer, and as many more specific alternations as possible, with plenty of Easter eggs and tidbits of wordplay along the way. It worked pretty well! You could ask him "why*" and he'd give a standard response, and "why specific thing*" and he'd give one to match that specific string. The wildcard denoting he'd ignore anything you typed after that point. I think I catered to pretty much any generic one-word question you could think of, and many more...

It's possible he's still floating around somewhere, within the unexplored alcoves of my by now overgrown and outdated playground I also call CYBERD.ORG.

Q: You stated at one point to skip university and get a job. What is your stance behind this advice to now from then? If you had taken that road what job would you have taken?

A: Looking back... I'm still happy I chose to keep studying. Even if I didn't choose the topics that might've advanced me the most career-wise, I did explore a large amount of different interests, and in the end learn more about what I really wanted to do with my life.

That said there are way too many things I want to do with my life, and I don't feel like I have time to spend on all of them but still do on a multitude of them regardless. So maybe branching out into a myriad of different fields isn't the wisest way if you want to find a purpose and motivation, but you learn, you grow and experience and explore new pathways. I might just not have explored the one path that feels most obvious to embark on myself... yet.

I envy those who seem to have a calling right from the start, and know exactly what they want to do in life, but at the same time I wonder if they aren't missing out. There's so much out there. You might not know what really fascinates you the most if you haven't been exposed to it yet.

If you have the time or resources to pursue studies then I'd say go for it, but if you live in a country where studies are costly, and would have to take loans to learn something you might not even want to learn, then I see no reason not to just jump straight to a job instead.

From what I've experienced you don't gain a notable advantage from studying, unless there's a specific field you want to get into that requires it (medical studies come to mind). If you just want to get a job right away it'll just be a more practical form of learning instead. Exploring different career paths seems just as useful as getting an education first, if not even more so depending on the job, if it really is a more hands-on thing.

I received an offer for a telemarketing job right after I'd graduated, so I'd probably have started with that if I didn't keep studying. I stumbled into work as a personal assistant instead, and as webshop admin/lead IT guy at a small car parts company thanks to that, which is where I'm at right now. It might not be the dream job, but I believe in taking the opportunities you get, and exploring as many paths as you can. Eventually I feel it'll all fall into place.

Just don't get stuck doing something you really don't like doing. Keep pursuing your passions if you have some, and try to find some if you don't.

Q: You brought us a collection of poetry in a nice even number entitled A 100 Beforehand. I'm going to touch on some of those works here in a second. You stated in the intro...

I tend to write what I think, then think about what I write, and label it relentlessly like I like, then I suddenly collided with the creativity that flows in form of prose unlessened like the stream from a hose through my veins tween my head and my toes. AND, I thought, why not undergo a temporary change of flow and write titles without vital liable idols to label and see if a hundred or so will still be able to convey my message through by this lake view to you wherever you make do with a book and waste two or more hours highly devoured in this riddelistic twiddles that reside within. And remember, you can do, anything. That you crave. Be free, be brave.

This was when you were on vacation at the lake in 2009. Do you still believe this quote holds up to this collection? What are your impressions of the collection looking back after ten years?

A: I was about to say I do believe the quote holds up to the collection, but I'm not sure the collection holds up as well. Since it was a quick and spontaneous project - the way I wish all things could be, but reading through it again I don't feel like that quote gives a good first impression after all. It's a bit much. The poems don't take themselves seriously, but they're on point; sometimes there's still depth. I remembered this as one of my more rushed collections, but am enjoying it more than I thought I would now.

Q: A few that resonate with me on a deep level are Man of Steel, In My Mirror, and The Oracle. With the last one being my favorite out of this collection. How do these resonate with you? Do you believe that poetry is subjective to each individual or is there an intent behind them with each poet?

A: The last one seems reflective of both the questions and answers written here thus far. :) I get stuck on the structure a bit on that one, some lines feel stuffed, but the first part of it gave me goosebumps. In The Mirror felt familiar, like seeing yourself through the eyes of someone else. As for The Man Of Steel that might be my favorite here, so concise yet so strong. I like simple things that reach beyond their scope of words like that.

Great picks. Would also like to mention 'I'm Openminded', which almost feels like a homage to my earliest work (like the one from school). I'd like to write more like that. Quick but fun.

I believe poetry is always subjective, but not always intentional. You don't write poetry so much to convey a message as to to convey a reflection, or it wouldn't be poetry. A realization. A memory. Something fleeting that only this form of writing can truly capture; something abstract enough that not everyone will respond to it the same way. So you should know when you write that it's more about feeling than about intent. Trying to convey a particular message via poetry would be like writing that message in code. Though writing in riddles can be fun too sometimes.

Yet unlike stories, where it's hard to write everything so it's perceived by others the same way as you imagine it with your inner eye, poetry feels like a form where nothing's lost. You convey a feeling or an idea, and it's all there. How readers will interpret it is of course up to them and how they feel, what circumstances they've grown up in; their perspective on life, but it's not a part of a bigger picture that needs to be perceived as such. It's the moment.

Apparently I had a much more stubborn mind as to the discourse of meanings when I wrote this collection. I do still believe that you define and relate to the poem based on personal experience and knowledge, but sharing impressions can take it so much further than that.

It's inspiring how much others can draw from something that might not have meant as much to you too, but even more so appreciative when people do draw things from something you feel strongly about. It's frustrating to write longer work where details or nuances get lost in the process, and readers don't really go into the words with as open and susceptive a mind.

I've tried writing a few books so far but lose the red thread all too easily. Poetry however: love this format.

Q: Beat For The Stranger and High Up In My Castle I'm surprised you haven't turned into songs yet. The imagery for both of these is just incredible. How did you come up with these? Were they on a whim or were you in a specific location? Will they be turned into songs one day?

A: And Dream Sweet, which could be molded after and was probably inspired by the same melody as Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This). :) And thank you.

I'd love to turn some of these into real songs too. I might have lyrics that were inspired by High Up In My Castle ready already - hopefully they'll make it to song eventually - though it's so much quicker and easier to just write. That's the simple reason most of my material never makes it further than this.

If I was in a specific location when I wrote these it was probably at our family home up North, sitting in my upstairs room with a slanted wooden ceiling, looking out at the nearby lake. Or sitting outside, maybe by said lake, listening to the leaves rustle and falling twigs make rings on the water surface. Maybe lying on the grass and looking at the freeform clouds...

I mostly write at night, when all dues of the day are done, and so the mood is often reflective this way. But I don't remember the specific time or place I wrote these, or my specific state of mind at the time. I'm a dreamer though. Fascinated by the rise and fall of all civilizations. I imagine High Up In My Castle might be a combination thereof. Of the dreamscapes I chase, the ambience of nature, and these fleeting moments in the ebb and flow of our time.

Q: To end A 100 Beforehand, the last poem is entitled The Sentence. It is a wonderful bookend to this collection. Was this the last one written or was it written earlier and made to be the ending?

A: If only I'd documented the process ten years back! I do believe it's the final piece though, and that the rest were all written in order too. That's how I used to write these back then, page by page, number by number, but I can't say it with absolute certainty.

Q: Your first song on the Audio Portal is entitled Difference. You labelled it under Miscellaneous, but it sounds more Drum N' Bass. How did this piece come into existence?

A: Audio, as well as Flash, are both formats I started with in large part thanks to this place. I'd recorded things before, and played a little piano and guitar, but digital music creation was something I'm not sure I ever thought about doing before I came here. I started with eJay, the simplest software possible that I by chance had been given a special edition copy of at the time, started uploading some tracks and there you go! Step one of my ongoing musical journey begins.

I'm still proud of some of these early compositions, stitched together of pre-made loops though they made be (royalty free, I should mention), though as I was at the time very interested in stats I did have a knack for putting out as much as possible rather than pouring my all into each individual piece. As bandwidth was limited back then it was popular with short audio loops, to keep the file size of Flash submissions as small as possible, so I focused a lot on those, making a few series with either six or a hundred loops each.

Difference was different, though. It's one I still remember fondly. Maybe the first I was really proud of. I didn't upload all of my early work, nor is all of the work from that time still online, but I'm happy that one remains number one.

At the time I didn't know much about musical genres, and submitted pretty much everything as 'miscellaneous' just so it wouldn't happen to be in the wrong category.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Interview No. 156

Interview By: @GoryBlizzard

Today's guest is going to be The Interviewer himself, whose main account is The-Great-One, and who has another account indicated later in this interview. Now, it doesn't take a genius to realize that The Interviewer cannot interview himself, so he has called for some some outside help, which he found in me, GoryBlizzard. For those of you that are not aware, The Interviewer is undergoing a trial run in which on occasion, previous guests may switch sides and do the interviewing themselves. This has the potential to yield some very interesting questions and answers going forward. Those of you curious to read my own interview, it was on September 12, 2012 during when I was a chat moderator on here, and you can read it here. Let's all welcome, @TheInterviewer/@The-Great-One/@Dohn--whatever you want to call him.

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

A: In 2004 I frequented a site called Video Game Directors Cut. It made sprite movies and was ran by Randy Solem. I watched his Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom series. Part 4 could only be seen on a site called Newgrounds. So I came over here to watch it. I started to see what else was on this site and in 2006 when I signed up for Newgrounds I wanted to leave a review on the first movie I saw on here entitled EVA5 The Rei Puppet Show. I've been here ever since.

Q: You started The Interviewer on February 8, 2009. What were some of the strongest factors that compelled you to create a collection of interviews of well-known Newgrounds members? In retrospect, was it a good idea? Is there anything you would have done differently?

A: I used to read the NG Mag. Another site where you could play demos of upcoming flash games and other cool stuff. My favorite though were the interviews done with other creators. I am kicking myself for not archiving those while I had the chance. Once the NG Mag was no more, I was thinking back to those interviews and thought, they were done by regular Newgrounds members. If they can do it, then why can't I? I started the project in 2008 on my own profile and hated it. I picked it back up in 2009, made Tom Fulp the first guest and went from there. I thought it was a good idea back then and I still think it is a good idea now to have this collection of knowledge and information about the different creators and their craft here on Newgrounds. What draws them to this site.

What would I do differently though? I can't say for sure. I think I would have paced myself better. A lot of the older interviews were posted when I was done with them. I probably should have put myself on a schedule earlier and taken more time with each one.

Q: You seem to fancy yourself as a writer. One thing that isn't completely clear to me is this: do you write professionally? If not, what's your day job? If you went to college, did you major in English, journalism or anything related?

A: I do not write professionally. I hope to change that within the next couple of months though. I did not go to college, I have no degrees. Creative writing is more my strong suit. I only got interested in journalism when I started to do The Interviewer and take it more seriously over the years. As for my day job, I am a manager at a deli. A less than successful Jew am I, but my day job helped me get my own house so that's nice.

Q: You have made it clear that you are not a big fan of interviewing people multiple times. You have expressed this sentiment in a recent thread where you solicited suggestions for this project. Direct quote from you: "Check the list first. If I interviewed them already, chances are I won't again." Yet, for anyone who goes through that list, it is apparent that there have been some repeat interviews, most notably Tom (4 times), JAZZA, Murray/Bahamut, Oney, Bosa, SardonicSamurai, scriptwelder, Sexual-Lobster, ZekeySpaceyLizard, MasterAardvark (all 2 times each) and two separate editions of BBS regs. What goes on in your head when you decide that a previous interviewee is worthy of another interview?

A: I normally don't like to do repeat interviews, because as someone pointed out and as you have here as well, I have interviewed Tom more times that I probably should have. If I keep having the same guest multiple times over and over and over again, then it becomes redundant. Some of these people I interviewed once and then they won a Tank Trophy, and Tom asked me to interview the winners. Others like Oney, Bosa, and SardonicSamurai, were older interviews. I didn't like my style back then and I wanted to speak with them again as I improved my craft. Then there is Sexual-Lobster and scriptwelder who released newer works and I wanted to talk to them again about their newer projects. One person was interviewed as part of two different groups. SpiffyMasta was interviewed for and The Newgrounds Police Department and The Elite Guard Barracks. That one blew my mind when I was making the Guest Index.

Q: Before eddsworld's passing, you conducted an interview with him. After a previous interviewee passes away, gets their name changed or their account deleted, do you just put an addendum on top followed by the original interview? In Edd's case, I note you added some comments on the bottom as well. How does it feel like looking back at an interview that you conducted with someone that is no longer with us?

A: When Tom made the announcement it hit me pretty hard. I didn't know edd that well. He was on my list and I knew that he was beloved. It was why I chose him to be the 60th Interview. He died eight months after I posted that interview, it was less than a year. I was thankful that he able to share his words on his work, and I hope that he inspires future generations. I would have been more thankful for him to still be with us though.

If a person changes their username (a.k.a. Bahamut) then I will go to the interview and update it. I've been cleaning up The Interviewer recently and have had to make some changes as I went. With one notorious user named Travis no longer being part of the site, unless he's still lurking under his old username.

Q: If you scroll through the In Memoriam page, there is a list of some known Newgrounds users that are no longer with us. (Note: Cerealbox Clock/Zach Finley, who has been dead since May 2004 and whose username was thecerealkiller, also belongs on that page. Original announcement.) If you had the chance, who would you interview and why?

A: Randy Solem. The man who brought me to Newgrounds. That was a missed opportunity that I wish I jumped at when I had the chance. There is a saying that I like which I would like others to take with them and it is "You are never promised tomorrow".

Q: On top of your main account and The Interviewer, you also have Dohn. You have had it for a long time but haven't done much, yet there is some recent activity. What do you want the public to know about some of your goals for it, going forward, on top of what's publicly stated?

A: It is in the works. I wanted to do some different kinds of interviews on there where I interview a Newgrounds member who has touched the site in one way or another, or just have a conversation with them. It is where some of my stories and other articles will be posted. If people were fans of my threads in the Video Game Forum, then they will continue and be expanded on through this page.

Q: You have amassed an impressive collection of interviews. In your experience, quantity notwithstanding, are you happy with the quality? Do you think the interviewees and general public are generally happy with them? Do you often hear back from interviewees for second chances after you've already posted the interview?

A: The general public are definitely happy, my only big critic is TurkeyOnAStick. He still reads whenever I highlight an artist from the Art Portal though. I take his criticism to heart and try to improve. Once I put the interview out I am not one to go back years later and change the wording. Once it is there it is there. My quality has improved over the years and I hope to improve it more. My older interviews were quite cringe, but I am still pretty happy with them... we all start somewhere and if you don't take the first step you will make no progress.

The only one who has wanted a second chance so far has been Ryanson. I'm not entirely sure why though.

Q: Do you have any aspects of your interviewing style that you like or dislike? Would you say that you are your own harshest critic and that you constantly fine-tune it?

A: My style is pretty dry. I've been trying to be a bit more humorous though. At this point though, guests are really happy to get that letter in their inbox and afterwards they end up having fun with it. What I dislike and what I've been trying to fix over time and have been doing so is that I don't know how to use a thesaurus. Seriously, my style in the older interviews was just the same question just slightly worded differently yet somehow using the same words. It was elegantly written bullshit. The interviewees still liked it and the readers still liked it. Jesus tap dancing Christ though I did not.

Q: Which interview was your most favorite and why?

A: AlmightyHans. It took the most work to do. Each interview has its own research paper and sadly I used to throw away the research paper when I was done. A lot of it was shorthand notes on something I wanted to remember to write the actual question. Everyone usually was contained to one, maybe two pages. Hans interview took up five pages. I don't write front and back.

Putting the interview together took an hour to do. It was all worth it in the end though. Hans story is a beautiful and even tragic tale. Any creative person out there who doesn't feel they're up to scratch and might even want to give up should read his story.

Q: Which interview was your least favorite and why?

A: TheShadling. He was one of my most requested interviews. I worked my ass off on that interview and I was trolled. The readers got a great laugh out of it, so in the end I was happy about that. TheShadling though was such an enigma though that I was hoping to learn more from him. That was not the case though. Can't say I didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't... that. Everyone liked it, so that's all that matters in the end.

Q: Would you say you have changed your interviewing style much, if at all, over the years?

A: My overall style is pretty dry. Yes I have though changed my style. I put a lot more dedication into it. The only way to get better is to build up more and more.

Q: Outside of writing, what do you get the most pleasure out of in life?

A: Every writer reads. I am no exception. Ultimately though music is my driving force and caffeine is my fuel.

Q: What can we expect from The-Great-One/The Interviewer/Dohn in the future?

A: The Interviewer is back in full force, so new interviews will be up every Wednesday. With Dohn, more interviews and conversations with the members of Newgrounds. As for me personally, I am hoping to start a podcast with Ben Tibbetts. That's still way WAY in pre-development (in other words we talked about it and that's it). I am also looking to make a web show that's been in developmental hell for over ten years now.

Throughout my lifetime, I have interviewed only a small handful of people. After all these years on Newgrounds, to interview The Interviewer was definitely a big assignment, but one I was willing and knowledgeable enough to take on. My journalism teacher in high school definitely taught me a few things I'll never forget. Journalists don't only exist to hold people with fame and power accountable or to answer questions that might be of public interest, but they themselves must be willing to be exposed from time to time. Exposure doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, as this interview shows. It's fair to say that we all look forward to many more interviews going forward. Maybe another previous guest will also soon have the same opportunity that I did: to do a reverse interview. I waited 7 years, but it was well worth it.

Interview No. 155

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is an underrated artist who many will probably know more from his NSFW art. Dig deeper though and you will find an artist whose works range from video game, to creativity, and nostalgic. He has perfected his craft throughout the years on Newgrounds. I am pleased to welcome, @SenpaiLove.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join? Also your username used to be Plazmix. What made you want to change your username?

A: I found Newgrounds mainly through old animators and flash games back at around 2009 and I didn't make an account till around 2011. Plazmix was my gamertag at the time and I didn't really establish a proper pen name till senior year of high school. I have gone through a few names but SenpaiLove stuck after one of my friends gave me the idea.

Q: You've been drawing since the age of 4. Could tell us what it was you first drew and how would you say you developed as an artist over time?

A: The first thing I drew was legit a little yellow duck with some flowers. Ever since that time I just kept growing more and more accustomed to drawing letting my inspiration flow as a child. It was when I started watching more animated movies that my passion grew more and I wanted to become an animator.

Q: Did you study art while at Corona High School and Lee V Pollard High School?

A: I was mainly self taught when it came to drawing traditionally just trying to freehand drawing Mega man X, sonic, and Naruto characters. I had taken graphic design in both my junior and senior years and I didn't get into an art class until my senior year of high school. Art books were never an option for me either since libraries though it was too vulgar since characters start off without clothes even though no genitalia is shown.

Q: What brought you to study at Norco College?

A: My mother had me take a 3D Design course to get a degree within something but after my 4 class I could no longer finish the course due it running out of funds and it was cancelled.

Q: How does Monty Oum inspire your artwork?

A: Monty had a huge inspiration on me with the animations he had created. I've watched his Master Chief vs Samus waay before knowing it was even him. Some of the inspiration went into me taking the 3D Course to create character models just to make fight scenes. It just sucks I couldn't get to finish my course even after having past experience with using blender. 

Q: What is ArtCorner?

A: ArtCorner was made to show my artwork in video form with using sped up videos. I did plan on making tutorials but I was too nervous and still felt inexperienced enough to teach properly. Once day it may become the main hub for some practice animations.

Q: What is David the Panda?

A: So before I started anything nsfw related I wanted to make an enjoyable comic for kids to read just like Gamercat. So I created a bunch of cute animal characters with simple designs. I had lost interest after a while since I had burnt out on ideas from posting almost every week for about 2 years. I do plan on remaking them in the future and making it into a book like the Garfield comics were made. 

Q: One thing to note about you is that you draw commissions and suggestions of characters and thus make NSFW material. You are not the only one to make NSFW art and others have their reasons. Why do you do it though?

A: So at first I actually hated anything nsfw related for a very long time until a friend of mine convinced me that I should try it out. After doing it I had actually gotten addicted to drawing nsfw since it helped me to build better anatomy within my work. It also became nice change of pace after doing sfw all the time so she's pretty much the one to blame about me doing nsfw altogether.

Q: Your first piece posted on Newgrounds is entitled A. Looking back on this piece and where you are now you seem to always be interested in the design of a character first and foremost. Does this hold true today? Also looking back on that first piece and how your art has grown what all can you attribute to that growth?

A: I absolutely love well designed characters it's one of the reasons I do so much fanart of other characters I see on social media or in anime. It helped me to work on different styles and aspects of art, anatomy, clothing, characterization, etc. I do thank from all the feedback that I used to get, it really helped me to improve whether the feedback had good or bad intentions.

Q: Another thing I notice is you place importance on eyes. When CosmicDeath was here we talked about her fascination with eyes. She stated...

I think realistic emotion or feeling is one of the hardest things to depict and replicate in drawn characters, and a lot of that is in the eyes. The behavioural aspect of oculesics gives more insight into why and how this is so important. But for now let's just say that eyes create an emotional link to the viewer, even when they aren't attempting eye contact..

How do you feel about eyes in your art and eyes overall?

A: This is something you'll get to know of me very quickly while getting to know me. I Love Eyes! Eyes can capture you very quickly at just how captivation they can be from their colorization to the raw emotion. You can learn how a persons personality can be just by looking deep into them. There are so many vast styles that I would love to get into using and improve more upon my style of them!

Q: What is in your opinion, the definition of art?

A: Art is the form of expression you draw what's from the mind and soul creating what we as humans can't always have. It's such a vast form of emotion and it's very sad that a lot of people really don't get that. So many are ignorant to see what art has even created for us in our everyday lives from the designs of our phones, clothing, apps, animation, games, architecture, furniture, etc.

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

A: I plan on working on animations, creating more prints for conventions, and making more designs for shirts. I also have some comics that are in the works as well as a novel. It will take some time to get these all done but I will be getting them done nonetheless!

SenpaiLove, much like TheShadling, was a person I was fascinated with. I do find it intriguing why someone would draw NSFW material. We know it exists. However there is an art to it. Much like the statues during the time of the Greeks, a la David. SenpaiLove has a lot to offer us. In terms of his art and craft. He is slowly, but surely coming to master the human figure and re-imagining of a lot of our favorite characters.

Interview No. 154

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is one of the best developers here on Newgrounds. His works have enlightened and amused many on Newgrounds. From The Company of Myself, which he won a Daily Feature for. He has also worked with Edmund McMillen on Spewer. He has also been working on things in the background of Newgrounds with his  Pico-8 Scoreboard. I am most honored to welcome, @FreeAsANerd.

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

A: I'm not totally sure, I think a childhood friend of mine who lived around the corner told me about it. I probably didn't join until I started wanting to upload stuff?

Q: How and when did you become interested in game development?

A: I wanted to make stick figure animations, like Xiao Xiao. I found a copy of Flash MX (I think the "student edition?") and practiced animating for a little while, but eventually found that I didn't have the patience for it. Since I had this fancy software, I figured I should try to do SOMETHING with it, so I started learning about the ActionScript feature. I had previously used one of the graphing calculators that they loaned out in school, and my oldschool-programmer-dad had gotten me curious about messing with TI-BASIC (the "entry level programming language" that it included). Since animation had proven too hard for me, and since I felt like I had a headstart on the programming front from doing calculator doodles, it felt like a good alternative. Turns out that I enjoy programming and game design more than animation, so I've ended up sticking to it since then!

Q: One of your earliest games and one I am quite fond of is entitled The Company of Myself. It tells an enriching story from beginning to end and has a unique design which although I've seen in some other games I love the implementation here more. Where did the idea for this story and this type of gameplay come from?

A: The initial thing was watching a friend play Braid (which probably comes as no surprise) - I liked the setup where it's part puzzle game and part character study, and those two sides of the game support each other. I picked the "repeat" mechanic because I had played a different Flash game which was based around it, but I'm not gonna call out the title because I felt that its puzzle design missed a bunch of opportunities, and didn't really use the mechanic in surprising ways. Easily outraged at the tender age of 17 or 18 or whatever, I wanted to try to do the mechanic justice. From there, the next question was what type of character would be appropriate - and a hermit seemed like the right kind of fit, somebody who has to take care of a bunch of things on their own. Beyond that I tried to keep everything pretty vague - not everyone is a hermit, but everybody feels guilty about something that happened a long time ago.

Q: Edmund McMillen, better known on as Bluebaby, is no stranger to Newgrounds being the mind behind Super Meat Boy. You two would work together on a game entitled Spewer. How did you two meet and what was it like working on this game together?

A: It's a chain of unexpected connections! Luka Marcetic (he's the guy who made the stealth series "The Classroom," which I remember as a classic) eventually did the character art for Company of Myself, but somewhere along the way he connected me with the Kongregate staff while they were still starting out. I forget how, maybe just from the chatroom style of the site, but Emily Greer (who co-founded Kongregate, and was the CEO for a while!) heard that I had tried to work on a (never-finished) realtime multiplayer game in Flash. When Edmund eventually asked her for help finding someone who had attempted realtime networking with ActionScript, she pointed him to me - this was an extreme left-field surprise, because his game Gish was the biggest "indie inspiration" game that I had played. We didn't end up making the online game, but we settled on Spewer instead by combining a "paint-spraying game" prototype of mine with a cutesy-gross character idea from his sketchbook. Once it was clear that it was gonna be a game about puking, I cut out my existing "spray walls with paint" mechanic and replaced it with fluid simulation stuff, for maximum cutesy-grossness. It was an extremely fun and rewarding project for me - Edmund is a great dude who has really Put-In-The-Time to learn his craft.

Q: I absolutely love dry and dark humor. So when I came across YouFindYourselfInARoom, I was absolutely delighted by this experience. What made you want to take the text based game and give it this sinister twist?

A: I had a four-game sponsorship contract with ArmorGames, and I tried to get away with making a really small text-based project as one of them (turns out, they declined it because they had recently tried a different text-based game which hadn't gotten the results they wanted). I had this sense that they were weirdly prone to having a certain animosity toward the player, like "You forgot to do this obscure thing at the very beginning of the game? You fool. You absolute moron. The game has been unwinnable for four hours, but I'm only telling you this now." I thought it'd be funny if the game was basically just a bunch of jokes about that cruel attitude, without actually making the gameplay punishing. You end up with this powerless entity (the game), which you could switch off at any time, but it's trying to present itself as super grandiose and intimidating. After it came out, my very-religious cousin sent me an email asking if I was okay, which I interpreted as some kind of weird trophy.

Q: What is The Fall of Society?

A: Oy. That's an old website I made when I was a kid - I'm not gonna torture myself by reading it now, but it's probably some terrible edgy/angsty business. As far as I remember, one of the articles was about how it's stupid to type "lol" instead of "haha," because it's only saving you one character, lol. Or maybe that was somebody else's article. Regardless, it's probably all really dumb.

Q: Tom in a recent post stated you were working on a library for the Newgrounds API. It is called Pico-8 Scoreboard. Could you go into more detail about this project?

A: Pico-8 is a delightful little game engine which intends to make game development enjoyable and comfy, above all else. Newgrounds has a toolkit for adding unlockable medals and leaderboards to your browser games, and I got commissioned to write the Pico-8 version of it! The goal is to help other Pico-8 developers to add these fancy online features to their games, without forcing them to figure out all the required nitty-gritty details.

Q: What is in your opinion, the definition of video games?

A: I dunno lol, something really broad. Maybe "a digital system that's intended (or otherwise used) to make someone feel a certain way." It doesn't seem like a formal definition is particularly important to anyone.

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

A: WELL, as of last week, I'm the Lead Programmer at messhof (the studio that made "Nidhogg")! We're working on a really cool project and I'm excited to tell everyone more about it...eventually, but I'm not allowed to quite yet. Oooh look at the big douchebag who's speaking under NDA, gotta announce yer NDAs to everyone, otherwise how will they know that you have big dumb secrets, so mysterious. Ugh. Sorry for not having details here. I hate when people brag about not being allowed to talk about some business thing. They're always just trying to make it sound cooler than it really is. But uh, yeah, the game's gonna be sweet.

FreeAsANerd is one of the most brilliant game developers here on Newgrounds. The only other one that reminds me of him is scriptwelder. I can't wait to see what more he has for Newgrounds and as we have found out, what he has in store for beyond!