Reader Spotlight: Matt [in Middletown]

I occasionally manage to convince one of our awesome readers and commenters to let me interview them.  I think it’s a fun way to build up the TDA community, and learn more about some of you awesome people 🙂  Today, we’re spotlighting Matt [in Middletown].

D: So, Matt, tell us a bit about yourself! School, work, where you live, etc.

M: *cough*

Not much to actually tell. I currently do the most boring of jobs civilian side: contract security. It is the most mind numbing and soul destroying job in existence, mainly due to stupid state laws and site directives that prevent you from actually stopping what you are there to prevent: theft.

School sucked, I’d like to forget it if I could ask that indulgence.

“Welcome to New York, why are you here?” That was actually how I was greeted when my family moved here. I moved in December 1988 from a school where I was doing great to a school where actually knowing anything about the material presented got you the achievement of having some severely inbred cretin and his remotest cousins chasing you down because you were one of “them potentates an you weren gonna infectonate em all.” [slight exaggeration, but not by much.]

But after that, school was a massive “THIS SUCKS” factory every day until I said “F this, I’m out” and got my GED instead as it wasn’t worth staying in and dealing with constant fights with people who made “Eric vs the Gazebo” look like a college PhD professor.

[Readers, my situation was semi unique. I really did not have a choice. And a GED gets viewed severely negatively. No matter what people and the law claim.]

D: Any fun hobbies besides comics?  

M: HIKING! Pick a direction, any direction, now get outta my way! MWUH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH! *steamroll stomps through the brush* I have never been lost in the woods while hiking or camping, but get me on surface streets in a town..

There are several hiking spots near my area, Hacker’s Falls in PA, Appalachian Trail is down the road from me. You’ll see some pictures on my DevArt page from some wanders, when I remember to bring the camera with me that is.

Yes, even though I do draw, my art page is full of photos. Photos are easier to deal with, click and done. Drawing? Seb might be able to relate to this: I sometimes feel drained after doing certain drawings, almost as if part of me got sucked into the image. That is the biggest hurdle for me when it comes to doing sequential art in the style I usually draw in. Which also explains why I tend not to show much of what I have drawn.

D: Anything interesting you’re passionate about?

M: Hmm.. not certain one could say “passionate” but it does irk the daylights out of me when politicians screw over the military for political brownie points or some nebulous “point”. I’d best shut my yap on that as there are people I care about still in uniform.

D: How’d you get into webcomics?

M: Webcomics? Well, one of the first ones I wandered across was Nodwick, then Player vs Player. I found Demon Archives via my usual habit of “Hey, what’s this link do? *click*”

D:  Don’t you like to write?  Your comments are always including fun little stories you’re making up around our characters 😀

M: I like Sci Fi, sometimes I write short stories. Sometimes on Deviant Art I’ll look at an image and write a short story to go with it. [I did that for several of Tasastock’s images before she took a break from DA, and one or three of AmowielTinuviel’s images, one in 2009 that I actually do have a link to. Nothing major, just a few short lines.]

A short [three or four line] thing I wrote is here.  Image it goes to. Other stuff is not really in a form I care to set out there yet: Heavily unpolished, typos, split infinitives, etc etc. But it is sci-fi, genetic manipulation, and interstellar warfare. I also started an abortive “sword and sorcery” tale, but I found as a writer that the characters tend to begin dictating the tale to you, and they got in the way of completing it. Probably why it is best to stick to short paragraph long works for now, the characters don’t grow enough to complain.

Oh, also the Tinker Dolls short story. I never did finish it up.

D: Would you give me an elevator pitch for one of your stories?

M: Elevator pitch?

Hmm.. Dover three stop hydros are interesting to work on. The hydraulic pump has this nasty little screen on the valves that needs to be cleaned once in awhile. Organic particulates can build up on them, especially in summer during heavy use. It is more than possible to lose all your hydraulic oil during said cleaning, unintentionally. All because you popped this little screw on cover off to get at that gummed up valve screen and OMG you are now wearing several gallons of heavy hydraulic oil and smell like a diesel truck.

Did I mention that sometimes the pressure doesn’t release for you to get at those screens?

It looks mighty clean now!

[Okay, some minor exaggerations in there. Readers who work on elevators will note them, snicker, and then hopefully relate their own Dover Hydro tales.]

Or, alternately, you have your hands in the controller of a westinghorse, [westinghouse] and some genius turns it back on without telling you first. Ala-kaBOOM, your hand is now flying, and it isn’t even an Old Spice commercial!

D: Haha, nice “elevator pitch” 😛 But seriously, any brief summaries of your favorite stories you’d like to share?

M: I don’t exactly have a favorite of what I’ve written.

But I did enjoy the Shipscat series by Mercedes Lackey, Decision at Doona by Anne McCaffrey, Orion by Ben Bova, and 3001 by Arthur C Clarke.

In the shipscat series the reader follows the adventures of a genetically modified cat named Skitty and her handler Dick White as he works as a spacer for the Cats Eye Corp.

Decision at Doona is about a human colony and their first contact with “aliens”.

Orion, it actually is a series, but I liked the first book best. Ahriman and Ahura Mazda feature in that sci fi tale featuring a man heading backwards in time at the direction of Ahura Mazda to stop Ahriman from destroying humanity..or so Orion is led to believe.

D: Silly purposefully dense Matt. I’ll take your favorite books then 😛

Anyways, what do you like about The Demon Archives? Praise me! XP

M: I am intrigued by the characters, the AI, and the world they inhabit. I know it will be revealed later on, but where Jane comes from, how she was made, just what was Deathbot, who sent him, what was his target.

The writing I like, the character by play, and I can fully imagine there being behind the scenes actions we don’t see but might be referred to at some point and we will be told “say, recall this character leaving the room here? Guess what they found out in the hall: REVEAL!!”

A story, a world, and the art being well done. [Props on snagging Seb.]

D: Any other general thoughts on webcomics you’d like to share?

M: >Webcomics, all too often a good comic burns out, goes on permahiatus, or just up and vanishes. Like Caeldian, it was an interesting sword and sandal comic that just keeled over out of the blue. You can find it now on deviantart, I checked with its creator to see what happened, and he says he’s rethought it. They currently do Bird Boy. Yet another hazard on the field of online comics: Artist rethinks the tale after getting some distance into it.

Rosa the cursed mage, no updates in forever.

The Becoming, went on a hiatus, GOT HACKED, and is still in limbo.

So the landscape for webcomics is a tough one. You have jokers who pull pure trollery for varying stupid reasons, like :”Waaaaaaaah, they don’t write about (insert political or social issue du jour here) so I’ll (hack, attack, troll, etc) them!” Seriously, what ever happened to just enjoying a story? Probably the second biggest block for me personally to putting much of my own art out there beyond my photography and a handful of sketches, the darn trolls!

Lol. Biggest block, I’m just not that good. (Personal opinion, self evaluation.)

D: Bah Humbug! I think you’re swell, and always enjoy your fun little stories 😀  And don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere 😉

Thanks again for letting me interview you, Matt!  Hopefully people will bother you with questions and comments below 😉