Speaking with a Creator: Game Dev Catt Small

We’ve just come right out of Black History Month, and we’re right into Women’s History Month. What a wonderful time to spotlight more creators in the nerdy and tech spaces! I wanted to interview someone very active and inspiring in the indie gaming scene, and a creator who quickly came to mind was Catt Small. She is a Black game developer from Brooklyn, known for putting together the Game Devs of Color Expo, Code Liberation, and speaking about diversity in the games industry.

Although she is very busy, I was able to get a bit of her time to ask her some questions. Check out the interview after the jump!

via Geeks Under Grace

Web Crush Wednesdays: Geeking Out with Kerri Doherty

 

Geeking Out is a kinda new talk show hosted by Kerri Doherty. In The show, Kerri interviews famous people but can’t seem to conceal her awkward social graces and fangirl tendencies in order to be professional for more than a few seconds.

The show airs on Thursdays on OfficialComedy on YouTube. The channel has other shows Monday-Wednesday, so maybe someday they’ll be future web crushes!

I found out about the show just this week because in the latest episode Kerri sat down with my favorite internet star, Grace Helbig AKA Daily Grace:

Everything good on the internet comes either from or in association with Grace Helbig.

The interviews are really fun to watch because Kerri makes it different from a regular interview by making it awkward and occasionally creepy with her fangirling. That may be a weird reason to enjoy something but it really is amusing seeing her play with her guests and watching them react in different ways.

Kerri has other videos on her channel geekingoutshow such as con trips and tips on stalking celebrities:

Like I said, I only started watching this week so this is literally a crush right now. I don’t know a lot about Kerri but I’m enjoying her greatly! Maybe someday this will become a full-on web love like I have for some of the other people I’ve featured in previous Web Crushes of mine, but for now I’m just enjoying my little crush. Kerri is very funny and makes cute videos that are super enjoyable. Check her out!

“There You Go” with Dino Andrade: Part 3

First parts of the interview here and here.

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MadameAce: Now the Scarecrow, he’s a Batman villain that has been re-imagined a lot, over and over again. How did you envision him when you first started playing him? I know you talked about the demon in the human body and whatnot, but I’ve just seen so many different versions of him.

Dino Andrade: Being a long-time Batman fan, the first thing that I did was look back at the first, the original Arkham Asylum graphic novel which then I got the script and discovered that the two had absolutely nothing to do with each other. After that, I started looking at darker versions of the Scarecrow. One of my favorite versions of the Scarecrow, although he’s not in it for very long, is in the series Batman: Vampire where Scarecrow has human fingers sewn into his costume and stuff like that. He’s this terrifying character and I really liked that interpretation.

That was kind of my jump off point from there because I knew that Arkham Asylum was going to be much grittier than anything that had been seen or done before on video games or comics and so on because, of course, Chris Nolan’s Batman, which took a grittier tone, was so successful. I believe that was part of the mandate for Arkham Asylum: to go for darker territory than Paul Dini and company were allowed to do in previous television incarnations. That’s why I purposely studied Batman: Vampire which is probably the darkest Batman story there is.

“There You Go” with Dino Andrade: Part 2

Read the first part of the interview here.

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MadameAce: I know you said that you experienced some disappointment when you did that role, but in the early days what were your thoughts on doing voice overs?

Dino Andrade: At the time most of what I wanted to do in voice over was basically to [have it] work as a stepping stone. I really wanted to get into doing on-camera. I started doing a lot of commercials at the time. I was doing commercials for McDonalds, Delta Airlines, various things like that kind of working my way up. I was also doing a lot of training with The Groundlings comedy / improv. I’m a very physical actor, physical comedian. This was something that I felt might be the future for me, but it was very disappointing: unfortunately it seemed that 90% of what I was being sent out for was one Mexican, cholo gangster after another. It is so not me! That was very discouraging and I decided that, “you know what, if I’m going to get into these projects I might as well make them myself.” So I decided to leave acting for about ten years and spent the 90’s being involved in independent filmmaking, writing screenplays—I sold six screenplays, none of which were produced. [laughter]

Stewi: You still got paid

Dino Andrade: I still got paid. I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who said that the best thing that could ever happen is to sell a screenplay and have it never get actually made so your work isn’t screwed up. [laughter] So my work has not been screwed up six times, but it was kind of cool that I sold them. I also produced one independent film called Bob’s Video that ran the film festival circuit for a year and got me to travel around the country which was really fun. In the end, in the 00’s, I decided to go back to acting and to my original love, which was animation and fantasy, which then meant voice over. Even that was somewhat accidental.

There was a director who was working on an anime show called Vampire Princess and I was being told about that. And I thought, “well maybe I can get in on that as a writer. I’ve never done anime writing, but maybe I could give that a shot.” It turned out that he was also working on another show called Saint Tail and his wife was casting it and when I was contacting him I wound up contacting his wife and his wife thought I was an actor calling in for a scheduled  telephone audition. I said, “…sure! Yes, that’s me,” and so I wound up auditioning completely cold, had no copy at all, so I just had to make up something about, “oh yeah, I didn’t get it. The courier didn’t make it. The fax machine died,” or something. I don’t remember. So they fed me the lines and I auditioned and they said great and I got a small part on Saint Tail. I took that as a sign and said, “okay! I guess this is what I’m supposed to be doing.” I returned to voice over at that point.

No, Seriously. Let Me Tell You

If you’ve been following what I’ve been writing on here for any length of time you would have heard me bring up the webcomic Homestuck, each time ending whatever explanation I may have put with “it’s complicated”. And it is, but at the same time I believe that’s it’s one of the most defining pieces of art of our generation. So, to further expand on the explanations that I couldn’t provide, I have some links for you guys today. Let them tell you about Homestuck.

A couple days ago Brian Lee O’Malley, the author of the popular series Scott Pilgrim, conducted an interview with Andrew Hussie, the author of Homestuck. Both being moderately similar in topic and style, it’s not only a wonderful conversation between like-minded people—discussing everything from work schedules to shipping—but also an eye-opening look at internet culture and how it not only influences modi of storytelling, but how people relate to each other and the characters on a different, and perhaps confoundedly closer, level than ever before. Give it a read at the Comics Alliance here.

On the complete other end of the spectrum, we have this video which I think is how many people feel when reading Homestuck for the first time, or just from hearing about it from Tumblr or their friends. It’s hilarious not only because how confused they are, but how some parts of that confusion ring so close to home.

No matter which side of the coin you may fall concerning this series, it has to be conceded that the internet is becoming a huge part of entertainment and with that comes not only memes and feels, but also a sociological bridge to other cultures and subcultures. I believe that more technologically savvy entertainment is paving the way for future endeavors, whether they use it by advertising or entertainment. Homestuck‘s importance is its place in the evolution and acceptance of this trend.