In Focus: Mop of Essence
Interviewed by Magic of Nah-kolor
Prologue
Do you remember Compass issue 1, a lot of people have forgot that MOP was behind this diskmag on Amiga.. After the first issue, he and Disney had quarrels.. Disney wanted to continue Compass with Chaos in Sanity (but failed) while Mop founded ROM, one of the best known and profesional diskmags on AMIGA ever, with the group Essence.. Anno domini 2001 it's time to see if MOP stands the test of time in his first interview ever.. Yes, after my RokDaZone interview earlier this year, MOP of Essence will give his view on certain things.. Have a nice time with one of the most influencial characters the scene has ever witnessed in the 90's!!
Why did you make ROM, and why did you stop making it and went online with it after issue 10?
Why does someone make a scene magazine? To inform the scene.. As the number of sceners gets smaller and a big percentage has Internet access, then news travels fast it's easier to get scene news that way which in some way makes a magazine a bit outdated that was why rom migrated to an online version.. After a trial period one could note the number of visitors and sceners could be counted by the hundreds now, not by the thousands as it used to be so the project was stopped as I thought that there wasn't enough interest in it. In the last few years I migrated my activities to other interests. I never stopped being active and doing something in this world.
Never stopped being active?? Could you explain what u mean with this?
Active not in the computer demo scene but active as in active personally. Once in a while I get some mag. I followed Showtime and EC, managed to load some demos too. I've seen a bunch of intros that looked quite ok, don't ask me names, my memory is not what it use to be! I'm getting older!!
In RAW 10 Online, Zerox & Lord Helmet wrote many negative things about you.. Any comments?
RAW 10? Was that years ago? Yes I remember that RAW 10 you mention. Well Lord Helmet has always attacked people to try to provoke a flux of articles, nothing more, nothing less. There's many ways of doing journalism and who am I to say what's wrong and what's good - it's up to the sceners to decide..
RAW died around issue 7 of ROM.. Didn't you loose motivation when a big competitor like that fell away?
They're just sensationalism, prior to that RAW had always exclusively spoke of the scene, now it started to speak of diskmags. No wonder it was no more after that 10th online issue. Mags should speak of scene and demos, not other mags. So no, I didn't lose motivation..
You followed Showtime and the Eurocharts.. what do you think of them?
Nice productions.. Some charts in Showtime are a bit outdated. That's not Showtime's fault mind you. The number of voters isn't what it used to be too; the mag parts are ok, but times change - it's just my opinion.
What is your opinion of RokDaZone, Lord Helmet, Zerox, Darkhawk, Macno and Fishwave?
They all tried their best and did a good job.. Macno has exceptional use of the English language, generally Italians are not known for their capabilities of the English language.. Not much more to say.. Lord Helmet's English was not perfect but he made up with fresh stories. He was more journalist than writer, Macno for example is more writer than journalist if you understand what I mean.. I haven't read Zerox's latest work in Disc, I will try to get it soon then. Rokdazone has good mastery of the English language, his fictional narrative about sceners is priceless.. Fishwave writes in various tones, he can be comic and entertaining with his stories.. Darkhawk might not be the best writer around but he has garnered his own audience and as they say, as long as people want more, give them more stories..
What do you think of the Internet and the Amiga scene?
How many amiga sceners are there today? A few hundreds? That could be quite right, let's say a few hundreds but there are many other 'people' who know of scene and maybe don't have access to an Amiga today so why don't people release articles also through the internet? scenet.de is the best article resource I've seen lately but let's be more realistic, it doesn't cost that much extra work to do a good www page so do it! The Amiga scene might be small but it's in these days that sceners can see the real sense of the scene, that is: be united, stay together!!
In my interview with RokDaZone, he aired some criticism about you and ROM.. Any comments on it?
Well it's a bit funny.. About ROM, he says that it suffered the same things that Generation suffered.. About me, he says that it's also what other people say of him!!
People always criticised you for writing such long (yes really long!) articles.. Any comment about this?
Yes true, I have written many long articles, but that was to explain things from a-z but not to fill space..
Did you know the Amiga diskmag Devotion? Did you know what happened with it after issue 1?
Heard some hot stuff about dvn. ;) Never seen Devotion myself though.. Then it seems that there was some confusion.. I thought you were doing dvn with Sane! :) Interesting story what happened after issue 1.. Time goes by but some things never change in the scene! Too bad Magic is always blamed. :(
What does your life look like now? Married? Good job? Malta still enjoyable? Lord Helmet is the father of a 2-year-old daughter now.. Do you have kids?
Malta is ok, things improve, I run my own software house, we make business apps for the local market. Trying to find a place to get married.
Finally you have been interviewed.. There must be a certain ego-stimulation now for you uh? :)) Any last words?
Why write about me? Mags should report about demos and active sceners, not about me! The job of the editor is to report about demos, not to come up with fillers about old farts like me!! But I don't think I did that 'a lot' for the scene. ROM was there to report about the scene and sceners, I never considered it as a production to stimulate myself with. Even if you may not believe this, it's the plain truth.. For now no last words. Maybe another day i'll have more to say, who knows! There's a lot of things which are still untold....