Interview


Handle: J.O.E.

How did you come up with your alias ?
Back in '86 there was a time when dots between the letters were a kind of fashionable. It was also the time when I started to paint my first images on the C64 and needed a name to sign them. So I came up with J.O.E. But there was no meaning behind this abreviation, till a friend of mine invented one. It was pretty stupid and that's why I liked it and kept it ... Many people asked me what the meaning was - I never gave an answer. As this is the last opportunity to reveal it - her it is: J.O.E. means "Jacksnipe Of Evil". Pretty stupid, eh?

City / Country:
Graz/Austria and then Vienna/Austria

Born year:
1971 - boy, oh boy, I'm 25 already - old as dirt

What was your first computer, and when did you get it?
My first machine was a VIC20. I was nagging my parents really hard, till I got it at christmas '84. Was a blast. Then in summer '85 I got my C64.

How did you get into the scene and what groups have you been a member of ?
Austria was quite active already in '86. But I met a guy, called Georg ( he was later a member of SUBWAY/DREAMTEAM) who was making his first coding/music-attempts as I began to paint in the summer of '86. So we teamed up and made our first game on the Commodore64. It was a graphic-adventure. I did the images - with PAINT MAGIC ( if anyone remembers this instrument of torture) using, like everybody back then, the joystick as an input-device, and he coded and did some pretty cool music for it.
We actually sold the program,but made the mistake of selling it for a percentage instead of a fix ammount of money. As far as I remember they sold 3 copies of our adventure and got about $3! BUT it was the first money I made with computergraphics. Boy were we proud when they actually tested it in a computermagazine ...

PHASE I

After that we released some tiny demos under the name "The Invisibles" on the 64.

Then in March 1987 I bought a used Amiga 1000!!! Wow, 32 colors out of mindblasting 4096!!! I was totally stoned by that machine! I immedeately started to paint. First with Graphic-Craft, that piece of rubble, and then after some weeks of hunting I got my first version of the newly released Dpaint II.

Georg got his Amiga 500 (brandnew) the same day and a couple of months later we joined some friends in Graz in a group called "The Professionals". We did some cool stuff I think. We were even greeted in the famous Doctor Mabuse Orgasm Crackings - BOB-demo ( the one with the glass-spheres, that triggered all those tons of Bob-Demos).

After being a Professional for a couple of months and visiting the DNS & Rage copyparty '88 in Aachen/Germany, where I met Lars ( later The Quest) and SAW the famous Mr. Zeropage ( at least we thougt it was him, hehe) I left the group, to join The Softkiller Crew (TSK).

There I did my first slideshow, some demos, met SSD, Antitrack (hmm, I still got a mouse for the 64 from him at home - sorry Alex, you'll get it back when I come to Austria the next time!), Floyd (hope you're fine!, Trash (you devil!) and a couple of people whose aliases I can't remember (Andy - the boss, Sigi - one of our best crackers).

After being with TSK til the summer of '89 I met an absolute legend - the Crazy Typer - teamed up with him and joined the newly formed group called SCOOPEX ( sounds familiar, eh?). We did some of the first demos for the group and I painted all the early logos, which made my name a kind of known.

In the same summer I visited the DIGITECH SUMMER CONFERENCE together with my pal Heiko from Germany ( known as Cyborg of Megaforce/Scoopex), a phonefreak and released my second slide-show there ( coded by CrazyTyper). There I also met Uncle Tom, who had joined the swedish division of Scoopex right before (hi Thomas - "It's all nature!")

When I returned to Austria, CrazyTyper & I began to work on a shoot 'em up. If his hard-disk wouldn't have crashed with the three-quarter-completed game on it, we would have become famous, I tell you guys!!! I still have a disk with a demo-version at home, hurts to watch it!

After that PHASE I of my scene-history ended. School was riding me hard, I was working on a game with another friend, discovered alcohol, got my own apartment & a motorcycle and enjoyed life.

PHASE II

A motorcycle accident ended my happy life and suddenly I found myself at my parents house ( lost the apartment) with a big cast on my right foot ( it had ripped of my big toe , but they fixed it quite good) and sat in front of the computer again. Right before that I got a call from Vienna, from Reebok, the head of the Austrian TRSI division, begging me to paint a TRSI-logo for them. Which I did.
It was the transforming logo, called evolution where the logo transformed from glowing metal, over scratched metal to polished steel. They also made a 4 color sticker out of it, which I never got (thanks Irata!).

So I was in again and joined TRSI. I released a music-disk called "Drums & Pipes", my third and last slideshow, called "Laterna Magica" and made some more logos for TRSI. The Austrian TRSI-section converted into Surprise!Productions, which still exists, and is/was quite successful on the PC thanks to Eric, the PC-coder. He used some old logos of mine on for his demos too.

End of PHASE II

PHASE III: well, you'll see, one day we'll all come back to kick some more butt (yeah, right J.O.E., dream on!) But maybe meeting some of the people again at a revival-party???

What was the proudest moment in your career ?
Getting fan-letters from all over after releasing my adress ( from Finland to Instanbul, even one from Australia), and from fellow gfx-artists ...

And doing my first reasonable soundtracker-song (which nobody cares about anyway)

For what specific reason(s) do you think that you are remembered ?
For being one of the first doing kickass gfx on the Amiga!

What would you like to be remembered for ?
For the above reason and for the fun I had with all those people I made friends with!

What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)
Hmm. I got too old (but I still miss it!). Got a job ( as a paintbox-artist). And founded a game-software-company called NEO, doing some games - and all my creative energy went into designing those games.

Thinking back on the good old days, is there anything you regret?
Nope. Maybe I should have started to drink earlier, hehe ( but I can tell you, I cought up!)

What was your favorite
GAME(S)
C64: Elite, Impossible Mission, FGTH, International Karate
Amiga: Marble Madness, Hybris, Dungeon Master

DEMO(S)
Red Sector Megademo
Bar Brian by Plasma Force (whatever happened to you cool guys?)
DOC-Demo by DOC
Hardwired by Silents (wow!)

PROGRAMMER(S) (OR PROGRAMMING TEAM(S))
C64: Denton Designs (luved their style)
Amiga: CrazyTyper

CRACKER(S) (OR CRACKING GROUP(S))
Amiga: Unit A

OVERALL GROUPS :
All the groups which were original, pushed the frontiers, honored friendship and gave the scene the whacko-try-to-stop-us-we-can-do-anything - flavor. Guys, you know who you are ...

COMPOSER(S)
C64: Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, MON, Fred Gray
Amiga: >Romeo Knight< Chris Huelsbeck, Uncle Tom

BEST COMPOSED TRACK(S)
C64: Crazy Comets, Parallax, Knucklebusters, Arkanoid

BEST GRAPHICS
Terminator - lazy, but the smoothest anti-aliasing I've never seen again. the most perfect images! Sorry that we never met, Arno!

Jim Sachs - no comment necessary, except that he should have done hard-disk- backups too, like CrazyTyper should have done them.

EVENT(S) (E.G. COPYPARTY)
The first TSK-copyparties in a barn in Austria, Party '90 in Aars (?), Digitech Summer Conference

MEMORY(S)
Sorry if this is getting way too long, but I see this a little bit as my heritage:

* Being in Tyrolia, making a demo (Xenomorph) with a friend. He was living in this tall apartment-building. And our friend Heiko, a phonephreak, calling us twice a day for conference-calls etc. But we only had one phone. So my friend took the receiver from the door-bell and connected it to the phone, so we both could talk at the same time. We were just talking to Jesus (SCX-Sweden), when suddenly the voice of a girl appeared in the line: " Hello, hello - who are you guys?". Jesus was confused, us too, and we asked:" Where are you calling from?" - she answered:" I'm standing in front of the door of the apartment-building, could you please let me in?" So, our conversation was blaring out of the intercom's speaker in front of the house. We had to pick ourselves laughing from the floor ....

* Being in Sweden, at Digitch's party, meeting Uncle Tom and barbecueing hot dogs with him in the woods, behind the school where the party happened. Tom, hanging upside down from a tree saying: " It's all nature, dude!"

DRINK ?
Beer!

What are you doing nowadays ?
One and a half years ago I came to California, to work for DIGITAL DOMAIN. We are doing special-fx for movies, like True Lies, Apollo 13, Strange Days, etc. ...so I'm still doing computer-gfx, the coolest job I've ever had

You can see my name in Apollo 13, where I got credits as a digital artist. I also worked on Strange Days and Terminator2/3D.
The director of some of my favourite movies owns a part of DD - James Cameron (Aliens, Terminator, Abyss). I was talking to him a couple of times - he's cool!

If you want to know more: http://www.d2.com

What are you doing on your spare time?
Riding my motorcycle, hang out with my girlfriend, playing paintball (ouch!), watching movies, boogie-boarding, drinking, working on my own little projects ...

Is there anything you'd like to say to the public (read: admires)
Guys, it was a blast!

I hope that the next generation also gets the opportunity to express their creativity and skills in every imaginable direction, like we did. Try to find your realms, where no rules are made yet, make your own rules, define your own playground, wrapping around the world, like we did.

Our scene is dead, it was a pleasure,

J.O.E. signing off!

What is the meaning of life?
Ok, here it is: The meaning of life is $#^%#@ ew^%$$#$# ..@#%@*$#^%($% &$ #

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