Daeron: Tell me about yourself.

Native: Arvid Sjöö, born the 17th of March 1980, which makes me 19 yrs of age. I live just outside Jönköping ("Junktown"), Sweden and I'm currently going to school to become something electronics related. My life is pretty much circulating around Hiphop. Unfortunatly Jkpg ain't the place to be if you're into anything else than christian heavy metal. They don't call this city for Sweden's Jerusalem for nothing you know. I live home with my family (for now). As for the groups I'm in Aerosol (amiga) and Galza (pc).

Daeron: Tell me about your ascii career up to this point in time.

Native: Late 1996 me and Acorn meet on a local BBS and starts to chat. Both of us had just started drawing ascii. Since we sucked too much to join any ascii group, we started our own. In the early 1997 Arcade was born. We gained some members and some headquarters, things started to roll. Later that year(?) Volatile talked me into joining his Phunk, and with that I had a foot in each scene. As for the Amiga scene I stayed loyal to Arcade until only about two months ago, when I quitted for Aerosol. But in the pc-scene (where new groups come and go all the time) I've been in a shitload of groups. I kind of reached the top in the pc-scene when I got the honourable mission to lead the "oldschool-division" in the best (according to many) pc-group around, Mimic. I later quitted Mimic cause of some differences in opinions with the founders.

Daeron: When did you draw your first ascii?

Native: Some rainy day during the summer of '96.

Daeron: Why did you start drawing ascii?

Native: I'm a graffiti writer, and I have this brain injury that makes me doodle all the time. If there's no pen nearby, I sketch with my fingers in the air, on my thighs or a table or whatever. It's driving people nuts, but I can't help it hehe. To get back to the topic; Since I love drawing and I really liked the way some people's ascii logos looked, I just had to try it myself. Need I say I got hooked?

Daeron: Did you have a mentor when you started or did you learn all by the hard way?

Native: Not exactly. I watched alot of collys though, and learned alot from how other people were drawing.

Daeron: How do you draw your logos? Do you have a solid idea before you start drawing a logo or does the idea shape itself along the process? What programs do you use?

Native: That's different from logo to logo, but i suppose the most common thing is that the idea kind of shape itself. Sometimes it can be very hard to make the design/background on a logo. I'm using ANSI-draw with mo'soul.font to make all logos and most colly design, then I open up CED when it's time to put it together to a colly

Daeron: What are your biggest benefits as an ascii artist?

Native: My love for this neat little artform, hehe.

Daeron: How about weaknesses?

Native: Hey! I'm not gonna say something people can use against me!

Daeron: What inspires you to do ascii besides ascii done by other artists?

Native: Uhm. I dunno, maybe music? I listen to music alot. I've experimented some with more Graffiti like letters too but it didn't turn out that good. Graffiti is still a source of inspiration for me though.

Daeron: Look back and name your best collection. Explain your choise.

Native: I think i'm at a stage where i'm still developing my style alot, so the general rule would be the newer the collection is, the better. But if I have to choose an older one, I think I'd say a!-icons.txt, because it was the most fun one to make cause of all these different styles and all that.

Daeron: Look back and name your worst collection. Explain your choise.

Native: Reverse the answer to the previous question

Daeron: If you could change one thing in your ascii career, what would it be?

Native: There is this 'incident' I very much regret. I don't think anyone knows about this except for maybe Speed Devil, but he has probably forgotten all about it.. In some compo about two years ago I contributed with a logo that was a 90% rip of Speed Devil's style. The thing was that +sD+ joined the compo too, and saw it. I was an idiot, but Speed Devil did not get mad or anything, he just hinted that maybe I should try to come up with something more original. I am really sorry for that, but hopefully I'm forgiven now.

Daeron: Have you ever regret that you started drawing ascii?

Native: Uhm.. yeah actually I have. When I think of how much time I've wasted. Time that could have been used to better things than drawing something hardly no one cares about or sees anyway.

Daeron: If you couldn't draw ascii, would you be in the scene? if yes, what would you do?

Native: I'm not really in the scene now. I just go to #ascii now and then and talk some, call The Yard to leech the newest Voyager & IBrowse and I draw ascii. That's not really to be in the scene. I'd like to make music, but I've never taken the time to learn any tracking program or any other music program. I think I'd suck at it anyway, heh.

Daeron: What's the recipe of a good collection?

Native: If I knew that my colly's wouldn't look like they do you know.

Daeron: If you could take different skills from different artists and combine them into super_ascii_artist (tm), what skills would you take and from who?

Native: This is truly a hard question to answer. I think for the colly design I'd go for a mix between you (Daeron) and Folar and as for the style it's almost impossible. There are so many with great styles.

Daeron: In your opinion, who are the best artists of all time?

Native: That's a hard one. I'll have to list a whole bunch, I can't really separate them, so I'll just list them alphabetically; Crusader, Daeron Darkus, Folar, Hiro Protagonist, Mortimer Twang, Shock-G, Speed Devil, Stylez and Zeus. I'd like to mention many more, but the more people I list, the less it's worth to be in that list, right?

Daeron: How about artists of today?

Native: These artists are pretty much artists of today. I've been checking alot of older stuff too, but I can't say I'm really a huge fan of guys like Amblin, 911 and all those other fellas that people still have in their respect list. I'm not saying i'm not respecting them, cause it's those guys that pretty much shaped ascii into what it is today, we owe them alot. I believe One should always respect the ones who started whatever you're into, but style-wise I think it's the last 4-5 yrs who's been the best (I'm gonna get some serious shit for this).

Daeron: What's your opinion on these polish artists? They seem to pop up like mushrooms in the rain. Is it good or bad? Why?

Native: Yeah, I see alot of crap coming from Poland, but I've seen some very innovative and good ascii too. Especially design wise, I think we could actually get some inspiration. I don't really see how it could be bad for the ascii scene, afterall we need new artists if we're gonna be able to keep this scene alive (if you can call the state it is currently in 'alive' that is). They seem to have their own little scene over there in Poland though. Unfortuantly. Besides, The ones that ain't that good now will probably be better in the future. We all started somewhere (gee, now I sound like I've been in this game forever. I hope I hope xCz won't be on me for this hehe - read more about that (xCz) in my upcoming colly).

Daeron: You are one of those few who still draw with an original machine, amiga, but you're somewhat involved with the pc ascii scene. Why's that?

Native: Well, it started when Volatile talked me into joining Phunk, cause it later merged with a pc-group called Wax. Then I started to hang in efnet's #ascii aswell as ircnet's. I made alot of friends, so when when Wax died, I kept hanging there and I started to release a little for some other pc-groups instead, and the wheels were rolling..

Daeron: What are the biggest differencies between amiga and pc scene? In what way is the pc scene better?

Native: Who said it was better? I think the two have more in common than ppl think. I don't think Oldschoolers get as much respect as they deserve in the pc scene though, and that's a pity (note that oldschool and newschool in the pc scene ain't what it is in the amiga scene. just to avoid any misinterprets. right, xcluziwe? - again, check my soon_ to_come colly if you don't understand).

Daeron: Do you take requests like this: #ascii >> everyone do me a lamegroupname logo?

Native: Yes, I usually do. I'm (almost) always short of requests, so I more or less have to.

Daeron: Have you ever thought of retiring? If so, why?

Native: No, I'm not done yet

Daeron: Have you ever had these blocks when you can't draw a single logo? How do you get by them?

Native: As I mentioned before, I have them pretty often when it comes to design/background. I don't get by them. These logos usually end up unfinished in some dark drawer deep in the dungeons of my HD. It happend that I find such logos like 6 months later, fix them up a bit and release them then instead.

Daeron: What are your future plans? In real life and in the scene?

Native: In life my short term goals is to finish school with as good grades as possible without having to study too hard and then get a decent job, so I can buy loads & loads of vinyls. As for the ascii scene my only goals are to keep elevating & improving, to become better. Some day I might wake up and be half as good as the ones I mentioned in the Best artists question.

Daeron: You left arcade for aerosol recently. What were the reasons behind that move?

Native: That decision was made almost a year ago, during a time when Arcade was close to dead. For some reasons Darkus decided not to start up ASL again at that time, and instead Arcade grew stronger (thanks to Dip and Zaner). When Darkus some months ago declared he was gonna start up ASL afterall, and wondered if I still was down I said yes. The reason me and Acorn started Arcade in the first place was to have someplace to release our collys until we got good enough to join an real ascii- group. Atleast that was my reason, I can't really speak for Acorn in that matter. He's never releasing anyway

Daeron: Someone said that ascii is one of the hardest computer art forms to master. Was the beginning hard for you or were you a natural? How about now? Do the chars bend to everything you want them to?

Native: Considering it's limitations, I suppose it is kind of hard to master. If the beginning was hard for me? Just check out my old collys, I think they speak for them selves! Things are definatly easier now, but I wouldn't say I master it yet. Is it even possible to master it fully?

Daeron: A perfect artist doesn't exist. How can you still improve your skills? What areas need some work?

Native: The only way I know of improving my skills is to experiment alot with different styles and ways of making a certain letter aso. I suppose most areas can be improved, but one that definatly need some polishing is my colly design, cause it pretty much sucks atm.

Daeron: Is the ascii scene dead?

Native: No. People are still releasing aren't they? It might be dying, but as long as people are releasing and are dedicated it won't die. I know I wasn't here to see the "golden days", but I think people should put less energy on complaining and more on drawing. I know it's kind of a cliché to say that these days, but it's the truth (that is usually the way clichees are born anyway, it's because they are telling the truth people use them so much that they become clichees).

Daeron: What are your thoughts on TAC?

Native: You can tell Dipswitch and his crew are really dedicated. They do give a fuck about this scene, and they are fighting for it. That's more than you can say about a certain other mag-writer (that he also have the stomach to critizice TAC when his own mag looks the same every time he release it (which is about once a year or something) is just WACK! Props to Dip w/ friends for doing something constructive!

Daeron: Greetings & last words?

Native: Check my collys for greetings. I'd like to thank the guy who wrote these splendid questions though, Daeron. You really need to get out of that Loser Possé, and join a real group such as Aerosol Just kidding, mad respect to LP! Before I go I want to ask you all to do me a favour, REQUEST LOGOS FROM ME! Thanks. Peace, Native (ex. Dezibel). Reach me via e-mail: -email-

Interview performed by Daeron