GG: First of all introduce yourself.

Psyguy: Hi there. My name is Psyguy. Or Psy. Or Psycho. Or whatever. I run a website called fireball20xl.com, a webcomic hub, that's also a host to gg-guys, probably one of my better known works, and sonicabridged.com.
I'm a Taurus and I like long walks on the beach and the smell of fresh ground coffee.


GG: What was the origin of your alias "Psyguy"?

Psyguy: Well, about a million years ago (1995) I made my first .com. I needed a name - and at the time my Sonic re-color's name was "Psycho" so I asked for "psycho.com". Taken, wouldn't you know it. So, my real name is Bryon. And, my parents would could me "Bryguy" so I figured "psyguy" would work for now. It's not like it would catch on and I'd be stuck with it- aw nuts.


GG:  For those who don't know what re-colors are, these are ripped sprites from video games with changed colors thru the allmighty Photoshop.

2001 you've started the sprite comic "That's my Sonic" - what was your intention?

Psyguy: Did I intend to start a spawn of sonic re-colors? No I did not. I was big into comics - Spider-man, Venom, Batman and the like- and I was trying to find comics online. Perchance such a thing existed beyond dreams? And, indeed! I tripped over two sprite-comics, both Megaman- Bob & George and Life of Wily. I thought there MUST be a Sonic sprite comic. But to my dismay- I found none. Broken, I returned home and made what I think were the very first sonic sprite sheets and started this silly little sprite comic.

If you would of told me something I made would get tons of people to invest so much time and effort to create their own character, even a re-color, into the sonic series, I would of done it. I would have done it nine times. For you see young one, back in Sonic's hay-day (Sonic 3 and Knuckles) the sonic community was very new and composed of mostly re-colors. This was totally normal and nobody gave a crap- are you bored yet? Started thinking about something else? Yeah well let's just say re-colors were too cool for school and when sonic became lame so did the community. And then everybody died. The end.


GG: Good old S3&K, I still hate the grey Super Emerald's 'Get Blue Spheres'.

After a while you joined up with other artists, started new series and founded Fireball20XL - a team idea or yours?

The "webcomic hub" started out as one of my friends lost webspace so I hosted them. Then I hosted my other friend. Then I hosted any and everybody. Then I had a spaz and fired everybody - renamed it to "fireball20xl" and promised myself to host my stuff and only my stuff. Which is exactly why I hosted my friend's stuff for free and the cycle repeated itself. D'OH.


GG: Nowadays about 40 comic series are on the hub, a merchandising store with even CDs, a fan art section and many more. Happy about the actual situation?

Psyguy: Personally, I'm satisfied I'm able to help out my friends. If we we're to be looking at the numbers as a business - fireball20xl has been failing. Hard. There is just no way to market a giant webcomic hub with infrequent updates. Nobody knows when to come back and nobody gives a crap. People come to the site looking for 1 or 2 people and ignore everyone else. I think it might work if everyone had their own .coms and they marketed them as such.

But, with the main page people come for say - Meta. Who never updated. The 4th or 5th time of being disappointed because Meta didn't update - for whatever reason - people stop giving a crap. And thus the hits go down. And thus the ad revenue goes down. It would just be smarter for me to fire everybody and try and sell the fireball20xl name. I'm not sure why I haven't yet? I guess I don't want to abandon my friends. Sadly, that may have to happen soon here.


GG: That's disagreeable to hear - seems like the downfall of comics reached webcomics as well. But while we're at it - you've allready mentioned that you've read some classic print comics and other webcomics, any favorites?

Psyguy: Just, real quick- downfall of webcomic hubs. Webcomics are doing just fine if marketed right. ANYWAYS, I was big into Venom, Spider-man, Ghost Rider, X-Men...uh....I should really have a look through my big pile of comics sometime.


GG: And what's about you're pile of video games - are there games in it, which aren't able to catch dust?

Psyguy: You know, I used to rarely, if ever buy video games. Of course as a Sonic freak I HAD TO HAVE the latest monstrosity sega dumped out. But now with my gamer comic I _have_ to know current trends or I can't stay main stream. I find myself buying games that I normally wouldn't mess with just because they're getting a lot of attention.

That being said, my more recently played games have been Batman: Arkam Asylum, Ghost Busters, Klonoa for the Wii - my and my friend still play Brawl every time we meet up. Oh, World of Warcraft. Yeah, sorry, I forget that's a game sometimes and not a chore. I crack out old Sonic games every so often just because-


GG: Do you think, that SEGA's "Project Needlemouse" will finally be a good Sonic game for the big consoles?

Psyguy: Oh brother. I dunno. If it's nothing but a 2D and 2D only it should be fine. They can do a good 2D game with Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush. If they throw in 3D quirks or other gameplay elements- It could crash and burn.

My best guess is they're looking at how good Megaman 9 did - plus their current ratings on games.

I got excited about Sonic Heroes. Crash. Sonic Unleashed. Crash. Sonic Chronicles. Crash. -- Sonic and the Black Knight I new was gonna be bad and it was. So- eeeeeh I have a hard time getting REALLY excited about upcoming sonic games.


GG: Let's hope the best. Now besides your webcomic hub and gaming, what does a man like you do in real life?

Psyguy: Well, I like to bench press about 500 pounds. 40 reps. 5 sets. Yeah. Then I do a couple laps around my private track I totally have.

Usually I come home from work, find what I can in my freezer. Sit on the computer until 11:30 - wake up 30 minutes late for work - and beg for friday!

and then I cure orphans and adopt cancer. Or - wait.


GG: The average Joe's life, I see. Now the end of this interview is near, would you like to say something to our readers?