DrPuppet: Hey
here is Ale "DrPuppet" from First World Pictures, I'm doing
today
an Interview with
TB Skyen for Summit eSports, Skyen would you like to introduce
yourself first?
TBSkyen:
Sure thing. I'm TBSkyen, I'm a Danish cartoonist. I draw a webcomic
called Caster Comix and generally make myself a nuisance about
esports everywhere I can.
DrPuppet:
Hello TB Skyen, let's start off with the interview, So you got
invited to Kieran Griffiths Show "Rift Talk" was this your
first interview? and how was it ? :D (http://youtu.be/oYBqeJT64oU)
TBSkyen: It
was my first interview, yes - at least as "the guy who does
Caster Comix." There was that one time in the high school
newspaper they interviewed me about the annual musical, of which
THANKFULLY no footage has survived.
It was great,
Kieran is a nice guy and it was fun to just sit around and have a
conversation. The interview is less than half of it, actually, we sat
around chatting for a good long while after.
DrPuppet:
Sad day for us, I would love to read that Highschool interview one
day, anyways for those who didn't watch „Rift Talk“ do you want
to tell to those how you got into drawing ?
TBSkyen: Well, I wouldn't say I
ever got "into" drawing so much as I didn't get OUT of it.
Give any child a crayon and they will turn any available surface into
art, most people tend to grow out of it because it's "childish"
and kids want to be grown ups.
But anyway, when I was 11 years old I
read Dragon Ball for the first time and got WAY into it. Like, WAAAAY
into it. I came across an absolutely terrible "How To Draw
Manga" book that I picked up and that was pretty much it.
It was absolutely shit in terms of...
pretty much everything from anatomy to expression to
character-design, but it was enough to get me started. The rest was
practise and imitation of new things.
DrPuppet: I can only confirm
that, I did the same myself but never got really good at it but you
mention you read Dragon Ball did you read a lot of Mangas at that
time?
TBSkyen: There wasn't a lot of
manga to read in Denmark at the time, it was a pretty recent import.
Europe has a HUGE comics-market already, mostly Belgian, French and
Italian comics, so for a tiny country like Denmark publishers took a
long time translating things for the Danish market. Just not enough
demand.
I did pick up
pretty much whatever manga was available though - albeit after Dragon
Ball, the next thing that came out was a shojo manga called DNAngel
that I couldn't really get into 'cause it had no explosions or
screaming people powering up. Some more manga followed once Dragon
Ball got popular, and I picked those up until I was about 16 or so
and found out that EVERY MANGA IN THE WORLD was available for free on
the Internet.
DrPuppet: That's pretty
interesting to read the influence of cultures has on what the people
read and yeah I think every 16 year old Manga Reader noticed that at
some point. Did you actually read comics at that time aswell or were
you always the manga guy?
TBSkyen: I read plenty of comics
too - especially Disney comics and Asterix. Though I *did* go through
that insufferable phase of "manga are so much better because
they're not afraid to show blood!"
Don Rosa, by the
way? Literal GOD of Disney comics. Anyone who hasn't read him needs
to stop reading this interview right now and pick up Life and Times
of Scrooge McDuck.
DrPuppet: Well I hope they don't
stop reading the Interview now but check out Don Rosa just after
the Interview :D. Did the mangas and comics you read influence your
style in a way ?
TBSkyen: Not initially - I was
drawing straight up anime style for a looooong time. But eventually I
started taking inspiration from the european styles (this was after I
had gotten over the "manga is so much better" nonsense),
and it definitely helped round out my skills.
Good advice for
all artists, by the way: get inspired by as many things as possible.
Even if you only like manga or Marvel comics or whatever, take
inspiration from other genres. It makes you stronger in the field of
your choice.
DrPuppet: Yeah I can trully
confirm that and would advice this to everyone reading this interview
aswell, so moving on a few years later what was the idea behind
Caster Comix ?
TBSkyen: I've always drawn
comics about things, so after the Season 2 World Finals hooked me
into competitive League and I started watching LCS, it was just a
natural thing for me to draw a comic about these excited shouty
people who like video games as much as I do.
It was never a "I am going to
start a webcomic" kind of plan, I just got an idea for a comic
and posted it. My loftiest ambition was to maybe make the casters
have a good chuckle and that would be that. Then Reddit gets a hold
of it and suddenly it has 50k views on my deviantART gallery and I'm
thinking "y'know... maybe just one more." The rest is
history.
DrPuppet :...maybe just one
more." I hope there is no end in sign, but do you have a
favourite one ? What is your favourite Castercomix?
TBSkyen: Man, I honestly don't
know. When you ask an artist to look back on their past work they
just go, "OH GOD I MADE SO MANY MISTAKES" and then we fall
down and cry a lot. So usually my favourite comic is the one I posted
most recently, because I can't see how I screwed up with it yet.
Still, if I had to choose, it'd have to
be the All Stars comic I did last year. Though... that spot may be
taken soon, hashtag #spoilers
DrPuppet: I know that feeling.
Well it's always good to know on where to improve and I think it is
normal that an artist always only see mistakes in their work. And I
think everyone is excited for the next Allstars comic! Did you
actually do any drawing work before that on the internet ? Or did
you actually work before doing Castercomix as a drawer ?
TBSkyen: I've uploaded tons of
art to the Internet before, though none of it ever got a tenth of the
attention Caster Comix has.
And before the comic, I was studying
history at an university like a normal boring person, planning to be
a teacher. Caster Comix really isn't "work" yet, mind you,
more of a hobby with the nice bonus of a small side-income. Still, if
I keep at it, who knows? Maybe one day "cartoonist" can be
on my official business-card :)
DrPuppet: I think we only can
hope that you can continue to bring more and more funny Caster Comix
for us ! However Caster Comix depends a lot on the growth of eSports,
so how do you see eSports growing ?
TBSkyen: Esports has, I think,
reached the point where it's going to be "a thing" from now
on. Even if League and Dota 2 and StarCraft all crash and burn,
they're going to be replaced by new games. With streaming only ever
becoming easier and easier and people clearly being SO WILLING to
watch great gamers play, there's really no way esports goes away.
That being said, I do worry a bit that
we're in a bubble right now, and eventually it's going to burst.
Esports has grown at such an INCREDIBLE rate, it's hard not to think
that someone at some point is going to go "hey, this isn't
making as much money as we're putting into it" and then the
whole system collapses to a lower energy level. Certainly that tends
to be the way of it in traditional economics.
DrPuppet: Yeah definetly eSports
won't go away in the future, at least eSports will not fade out so
easily and the rate eSports is growing is a phenomenom for sure. In
the Rift Talk interview you said something like "Content
Creators are the most important for the scene" any thoughts on
that ?
TBSkyen: I SWEAR TO GOD I WAS
JOKING OKAY. Seriously. People of Reddit, please do NOT take me
seriously. No, don't start a thread--I SAID DON'T START A THR--oh
crap. I need to change my name and move somewhere else where they
won't find me.
But no, yeah, I was kidding about that
- we're sort of... if I were to use an analogy, if esports is a
society then the players and audience are the farmers who provide the
food that keeps the whole system going, while leagues and streaming
services are the cities that grow from the surplus of food.
Content creators, ultimately, are like
tailors and fine pastry chefs. We're not really important to the
fundamental process of esports, but we create things that makes the
experience more comfortable, fun and luxurious. We couldn't exist
without the hard work of the players and the attention of the fans,
but they could easily exist without us and be totally fine.
DrPuppet: I think for a healthy
ecosystem both is needed ! However Skyen did you think about a stand
up carrer ? And what do you see coming for us content creators in the
future of eSports?
TBSkyen: Hah, I'm a lot funnier
in text and drawings than I am on stage, so I don't think stand-up is
necessarily for me. Also I get scared and depressed when people shout
mean things at me, which is pretty much guaranteed to happen to a
stand-up comedian on a nightly basis.
As for the future of content creators,
I don't know. As far as I know, I'm the only person making comics
about esports right now - I'm sure that will change one day. I hope
it does, I'd love to steal some ide...I mean be inspired by the
competition.
I do think with esports growing and
growing and growing as much as it is, the spectrum of content out
there will grow wider as well. Right now esports content is very much
based on YouTube and Twitch, but Azubu is making a push and so are a
number of other, smaller platforms. New sites are starting all the
time... in order to survive, they're all going to have to carve out
niches for themselves, and provide something nobody else can provide.
There's always going to be a swell of
sites and people trying to copy the successes of others, but the ones
that survive will be the ones who provide something nobody else
really does and so the variety will keep growing. At least that's my
hope.
DrPuppet: The quantity and
quality will be growing with the rise of the eSprots scene and I'm
excited to see what Azubu.tv will bring to us. What would you do if
you weren't doing Caster Comix? Do you have any projects in mind or
are there any other projects that you are working on at the moment?
TBSkyen: If I wasn't doing
Caster Comix, I don't know if I would be doing anything else related
to esports other than just WATCHING esports. Comics are the thing I
am really the best at. I might be writing fanfiction about League of
Legends' lore, though, because there's so much to expand on that Riot
hasn't really touched yet.
I do have other projects in MIND that
I'd like to work on, but finding the time for them is pretty hard.
Until I find myself a steady "real" job to finance my time,
I'm pretty much living from commission to commission. :)
DrPuppet: Sounds interesting if
you find the time to write a fanfiction don't forget to share it with
us and of course every other project you have in Mind aswell! Anyways
we're coming to the end of the interview and normally I ask the
people I interview funny,fast and simple questions, just answer them
with the first thing that comes through your mind.
1. All time favourite game ?
2.Favourite drink ?
3.Favourite League champ?
4.What are you playing on your free
time ?
5.All time favourite band ?
6.Favourite manga/comic ?
TBSkyen:
1. Favourite game? LEAGUE OF LEGENDS OF
COURSE HA HA WHAT DO YOU MEAN "PANDERING." Well, no,
actually my favourite game of all time is probably Transport Tycoon
Deluxe. I still play OpenTTD with the original tileset to this day.
2. Favourite drink is probably water.
Yes I know that is like the most boring thing a person could ever
say, but seriously, nothing will EVER feel as good as being really
parched and exhausted and then just drinking half a liter of pure,
liquid H2O.
3.Favourite League champion is...
probably going to be Braum once he's released (been playing him on
the PBE with 260+ ping), but for now it's Thresh.
4. In my free time right now I'm
replaying Final Fantasy X in the HD re-release.
5. All time favourite band, well, I
don't think I have one. The band I've been a fan for the longest is
probably the Beatles, so maybe that counts.
6. Favourite manga/comic would have to
be Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Don Rosa is a genius, you guys,
you don't even know. READ IT.
DrPuppet: So we have here a
person with good taste of music,games and Manga/comics. Skyen do you
have any shoutouts left and where can people find you ?
TBSkyen: Yeah. Shoutouts to
anyone who shares my work around. Seriously guys, it's the best gift
you can give me.
Also shoutouts to the pros and casters
for being really good sports about me making fun of them all the
time.
My work can be found at
www.castercomix.tumblr.com currently, and hopefully on a new website
soon.
You can follow me on Twitter at
@tbskyen
On Facebook,
www.facebook.com/castercomix will update whenever there's a new
comic.
And if you want to support me directly,
you can subscribe to the comic on Patreon at
www.patreon.com/castercomix - it's like a montly mini-Kickstarter and
I give out rewards to my supporters every month.
DrPuppet: So guys you know what
to do now! Show him some love and check his sites out ! Thanks TB
Skyen for taking the time to do this Interview!:) It was a pleasure
and I wish you the best of luck in the future and that you can
provide us with many laughter in the future with
Caster Comix !
TBSkyen: Thanks for inviting me
to talk :)
DrPuppet: Guys this was
Ale"DrPuppet" for Summit eSports see you next time !
Danke sehr!
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