Interview with Exocet of Arclite - -÷--------------------------------÷- - o1. When did you make your first Ascii attempts? That must have been somewhen around 1992 I guess. I really cannot recall it correctly - being a weird geezer like me sure has its disadvantages. o2. Do you know how many Ascii-productions have you released? Phew, why not ask my manager ... hm, that should be around 12 collies all in all plus 3 "let's get drunk and do some Ascii in the meantime"- cooperations. I am not a goddamn machine and I have always laughed about the supposition that you only can be cool if you release one collection every two weeks like that Roadhogz-jerks wanted people to think. o3. What's so damn special with Ascii? Nothing much any more ... let's face it: the special times are over once and for all. o4. Have you got any special idols from the Ascii-scene? I would not call them idols. I mean, I don't have an altar in my room where I worship the disks with their collections every midnight :) Besides the ARCLitE-people my favourites are old masters like Red Devil, redSkin, Skin & Amblin, Rotox, mAz and some more. o5. What's your opinion about the Iff2Ascii-Art? It can be nice addition to a 'regular' collection but it is nothing one should be proud of. o6. Are dot's more stylish than 'regular' Ascii? Nope. One can do some cool effects with dots but a collection featuring dot-styles only would bore me to death. o7. Do you read every single collection that is released today? Gaaaaaaah, no way. I do however try to check out most of the collies by artists I have heard of. o8. Do you answer requests made to 'All Available Artists' ? Very seldom. o9. How should a request be written to be guarantied a answer from you? Write me an Email, don't waste your time on trying to order me around :), let me know that you can be patient and I will try to do my best to get a cool and individual-looking logo done for you. As always in life, there are no guarantees... 1o. Are there more Ascii-groups than there has to be? This is hard to tell. Normally I would say there cannot be enough groups and artists as long as they are able to keep up a certain standard. But as things are, there are some completely useless groups out there.... 11. What do you think of the attitude in the Ascii-scene of today? Oh kewl, I did not know you wanted to release a 1MB-issue this time... I'll try to give a short answer ... today's scene isn't too cool anymore because there are too many people who take themselves way too serious although they only represent mediocrity, there is too much ripping going on and too many little wannabe's hungry for just a little bit of attention. Remember that "old skool vs. new skool"-bullcrap? Shit like that is not very helpful for the Ascii-scene. In former times the scene was much funnier because it was based on friendship and RESPECT! 12. What do you think about the idea of having special magazines dedicated to the Ascii-scene? In fact I love the idea as long as they do their work in a correct way. But so far, I have not seen any mag that could live up my ideal imagination of what such a mag could be like. "Art Bomb" was really nice but apparently Mark Ryder has already lost his inspiration to publish it any longer. Oh yes, one more thing. It is absolutely essential that the makers are insiders and not some kiddies with too much time on their hands. 13. Is there a big difference between Old-skool Ascii and Ascii of today? Oh, my favourite discussion again ... OK, once and for all. All this "Old Skool"-theme did not come from the ones, who were later on referred to as "Old Skool"-artists. Maybe there is a general idea the older artists shared of what styles should look like, that they should be readable etc. Considering that, I have no problems if someone calls me "Old Skool". The only problem is however, that I have failed to notice a special "New Skool"-style until today... There is no reason in the world, why a new artist should not be able to produce something cool and readable as well, so what the fuck... To me, it was nothing more than the attempt of some newbies to gain some attention - after some "Old Skoolers" let them know what they thought about the whole matter, they backed up. Remarks like "My next collection will be old skool" could only give me the giggles. Personally, I only divide between cool artists, mediocre ones and outright lamers and rippers. 14. Have you any special projects going on that will be released in a near future? After all the nice mails that followed my last collection "Resistance Is Futile" (and all the requests, hehehe), I have already started on another colly which will be called "Necrose Evangelium". However, I have not got the slightest idea when it will be released, although it already would be long enough. So, who knows - it will be released once I am 100% satisfied with it. 15. What would you be doing instead of Ascii if you suddenly quitted? What a joke ... Ascii has never played the most important role in my life. Nothing would change, that's the answer. I only do Ascii if I really want to and not because I have some requests waiting or because I have to fear that people might forget about me. I don't have anyhing to prove anymore - I do it just for fun and for ARCLitE. If it was not for my mates in ARCLitE, I might have stopped somewhen - but as long as they are around, I will not quit. 16. Do you have a horny snoop doggy dogg? Only in my CD-shelf. I do have a horny girlfriend though, ehehehe...