Maggie Thomas call

The Maggie Thomas call was made in September 2009, and this led to the 10 September 2009 video. The audio was leaked in 14 May 2013 by whispsonichu on the CWCki Forums. Unfortunately, the audio quality on the Chandler end was poorly recorded.

Highlights

• Chris's favorite characters who aren't Sonichu are Wild or Bubbles.
• He seems mad that Archie Comics doesn't take submissions over the transom. Maggie suggests to him Jhonen Vasquez's company.
• He likes platform games and Tetris.
• His favorite console is the Sega Dreamcast (a tactless admission to a reporter who's said the article is about the PS3, but that's Chris for you).
• His friends and family are supportive of Sonichu.
• His favorite person in the world, and his biggest inspiration, is Britney Spears.
• Unsurprisingly, he does a lot of ranting about Encyclopedia Dramatica and trolls. Maggie promises not to read his ED page.
• His message to the creative youth who want to be comic artists or game designers: "Take your time."
• He asks if "maggiethomas25" refers to her age in her email address.
• Maggie is from Northern England. Chris mentions a place in Richmond called "Matt's British Pub." This is where Bob gets on and starts talking about "Knees Up Mother Brown."
• Chris asks for a photo of Maggie. He wants to know if she personally knows tech series personality Veronica Belmont.

Description

I only ever confessed to this once on /cwc/ in a thread about missed moments of Christory and I've been hanging onto the file ever since and I thought I'd finally get around to sharing it. Don't get too excited though, it's not brilliant. Some backstory, back in 2009 Chris posted this video: http://sonichu.com/cwcki/10_September_2009 - which was basically my fault. I'd called Chris posing as a freelance journalist writing an article about internet celebrities for a European gaming magazine, because I can't do accents at all and I doubt I'd even be able to fool Chris with my terrible impersonation of an American accent. I'd left a voice message on his answer phone saying I'd call back at a certain time because they hadn't picked up the phone, I called back at that time, but again they hadn't answered and the video was posted the next day. When I finally managed to get hold of Chris, we spoke over the phone once and exchanged a few emails. I didn't have a big trolling plan or anything, I just wanted to maybe get a shout out in a video or even better, in the comics, but Chris being Chris, he stopped replying, this may have been because at the time he was still answering mailbag questions and getting a lot of emails and I wasn't aware of this at the time, as none of us knew until the audio files were released well after the event, but Chris was still talking to Kacey at the time too, so he was preoccupied with that. The gist of it is, I spoke to Chris, asked him a few basic questions, was fairly sympathetic and offered condolences about cyber bullies just being jealous of him and the like, he put Bob on the phone and Bob asked me questions about England and if I knew the song Knees up mother brown. Chris was actually quite funny and charming, for Chris, I think it was because he was on his best behaviour. There was a funny exchange between Bob and Chris where Bob said something like "Can you do that, Christian?" and Chris said, "Yes I can, Robert" and it tickled me. Chris asked me to send a picture of myself so I sent him a picture of a friend of mine who had no internet presence at all, but I had a bunch of pictures of, he said "I" was pretty, I also sent an mp3 of 'Knees up mother brown' for Bob, which he thanked me for. So this is the audio file of that conversation, however it's pretty messed up. At the time I thought I had a really bad bout of flu, but I actually had swine flu. Bob asked me about it as I'd explained I had the flu, it wasn't until a day or two after this I found out I had full blown swine flu and it was pretty bad. Because my head was swimming with flu, I hadn't set the recording settings properly and you can barely hear Bob and Chris, you would probably be best putting on headphones and turning the volume right up. I have no idea how to edit audio files, but someone a bit more tech savvy might be able to boost the volume on those parts, but you can kinda hear Chris and Bob a little bit, but mostly it's me being very wheezy and sniffly and breathing heavily. It's only about 20 minutes long, because of the time difference I'd had to call Chris at like 3am my time and I was incredibly tired and ill. I had tried to arrange a second call, as I'd told him in an email that I had messed up the audio due to being ill, but I never managed to do so due to the lack of replies from Chris. You can download the audio file here: http://www.mediafire.com/?5vmporbjya6qmyq I've relistened to it a couple of times, it is hard to make out Chris and Bob, but you can hear some stuff, Bob told me about how and where he met Barb, during the call too.

Audio

Maggie Thomas call
Click to load content
Stardate	September 2009
Featuring	Chris; Bob; Maggie Thomas
Saga	PS3

Transcript

[heavy breathing, dialing tone]
Maggie: Hello, is this Mr. Chandler?
Bob: Yes... (Now who is calling?) [inaudible] Christian's father.
Maggie: Oh, hello, um, I was wanting to speak t- to Christian about doing an interview, possibly, for PlayMag, which is t- the UK PlayStation magazine.
Bob: Then you'll have to get him on the line. [inaudible]
Maggie: OK, thank you very much.
Bob: Have you talked to him before? [inaudible] talk
Maggie: I have. I did send him an e-mail from my e-mail account, um, I'm not sure if he got it so I- I, uh, thought about leaving my e-mail address.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah, it’s uh, Maggie Thomas. Have you got a pen? Sorry.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah, it’s Maggie Thomas.
Bob: M-a-g-g-i-e? [inaudible]
Maggie: Yep, uh, Yep and it's t-h-o-m-a-s.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Twenty-five.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: at (@) aol.co.uk.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah you have to put t- the, uh, .co.uk.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: [Briefly laughs]
Bob: [inaudible] ...Is that a back slash or a front slash? [inaudible]
Maggie: Um, I don’t think that there’s any slashes just the, you know, like the @ symbol .co.uk
Bob: Now that's at aol?[inaudible]
Maggie: Yep, @aol.com.uk
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: yeah, s- sorry I’m really scratchy I got the flu at the moment.
Bob: You got the H1N1... [inaudible]
Maggie: [Laughs] No, I just think it’s like the regular flu.
Bob: [inaudible] ...The regular ol' flu... [inaudible]
Maggie: [Laughs] Yeah
Bob: [inaudible] ...you don't get time off, do ya?... [inaudible]
Maggie: No, I actually told them that I'd... [inaudible] ...with the swine flu they might have given me some time off.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Alrighty
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Oh...
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Oh that’s terrible! Um, I mean t- the office that I work for, they don’t give me international calls so I have t- to buy Skype credit to call internationally to do interviews and things so I couldn't really leave a number.
Chris: Yes, hello.
Maggie: Hello Christian, it- this is Maggie.
Chris: Hello.
Maggie: Hello. Y- Are you available right now to do a- an interview?
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Oh, that’s brilliant! Um, It’s okay if I, uh, If I type while we talk, isn't it?
Chris: Uhh...what was the name again?
Maggie: It’s Maggie.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Um, I just I’d just tell you a little a bit about the article first, and basically, it’s about like into the artists ,like yourself, who've become sort-of quite popular; although they're often common at the minute. And basically it’s gonna be about maybe ten or twelve different people an- and of what they do and what they do to do with like, video games and things.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: And that sounds alright?
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: And as long as you're comfortable with everything I can, like, go ahead and – What I'll do is when I’ve, like, written my markup I'll send you like an e-mail copy of that just for you, too and just to say like I’m happy with everything I’ve put. Yeah, and then like, um, Because this is like writing off what to expect so it will be, it won't be like next month’s issue it will probably be more like November- December. B- Because we tend to write them, like, a couple of months beforehand to make sure that, like, if there’s any changes that need t- to happen they can- there’s plenty of time. And then when that gets published what I'll do is I'll send you l- like a hard copy of it
Chris: [inaudible] ...through the snail mail, right?... [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah. I do have a copy-
[Chris interrupts Maggie mid-sentence]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: I do, yes somebody, um, from the forums, like, uh, forwarded me your, uh, your l- like email and your website address and they had like your home address on that as well.
[Chris interrupts]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Cons- basically I sort asked people on the forum whose popular at the moment because I- I knew there of a few but I thought, like, maybe there was a few up-and-coming and your name came up, like, quite a few times so I thought right out I’ll contact this guy and ask him about him about his- Now I've read some of your comics and how I’m really enjoying them I’m not done reading them, yet because there’s- there’s quite a few and I'm enjoying reading them so far.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: [laughs] You're welcome. Um, so the first thing I wanted to ask was, uh, how did Sonichu get started? I did say that right, didn't I? Sonichu.
Chris: [inaudible] ...Ah, yes... [inaudible]
[Maggie occasionally says "Mhm" and "Yeah" while Chris speaks]
Maggie: Wha- Tha- I mean, like, it's been- so in 2000 it started and that's nearly ten years now.
[Chris speaking over Maggie]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: What keeps you drawing , like, what keeps you sort of going with the- with the comics now after, like, nearly ten years?
Chris: [inaudible] ...like a hobby. [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah, yeah. Um, okay that sounds great. Um, the next thing I wanted to ask you was, like, my favorite character that, like, so far is actually Black Sonichu. I really like him, Um, and I wanted to know, like, who is your favorite character who wasn't your main character like Sonichu?
Chris: Yeah, I really like- I really like Sonichu... [inaudible] ...I would have to say, uh, Wild or Bubbles.
[Maggie occasionally responds with "Yeah" while Chris speaks]
Maggie: Wild or Bubbles. That's the, uh, like the blue one and the green one, yeah?
Chris: Yes.
Maggie: I- I'm still trying to ,like, learn all the names cause there- there's so much material to kinda go through I'm j- just enjoying reading them. [Briefly laughs] Um... so you've been going nearly ten years and what's the fan response so far, has it been largely positive I know there's been a couple of problems from, like, bad people and your father was saying just a little earlier but has it been mostly positive om-
[Chris trying to speak over Maggie can be heard in the background]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: I hate sites like that just-
[Chris continually interrupts Maggie]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah, I don't like people who say nasty things about other people just for the sake of causing people upset, it's not a very nice thing to do... I don't think.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Um... if you were approached by uh, like a, uh leading comic book company who would, uh, be your ideal person to sort of approach you about it?
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Ok- sorry, [inaudible] um let me restate that. I tend to mumble a little. Um, so like if Marvel or DC or, like, Dark Horse comics said "we want t- to publish your comics" wh- who would be your favorite person t- to, uh, come and publish them?
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yes, sorry. [Briefly laughs]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Oh?
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah. That sounds like a good list.
[Chris continues talking over Maggie.]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah, yeah. T- they don't take unsolicited stuff.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Oh well that's not very good. Um, you should maybe think about, um, s- some of the smaller companies , like, the , uh, one that Jhonen Vasquez, the guy who writes Invader Zim and he- his, like, company is like a small amid to a lot of people who sort of started on the internet and moved over. You might want to look into them.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: I- yeah I can, um, okay, so, to video games, which, is that sort of going to be the self punch of the piece? Do you, um, you based all of the characters on video game characters , um, what do you think you would do if someone said, like, w- were gonna want to make a video game of your characters now.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Like, um, have you s- I don- have seen the new one that's just been announced.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Tha- That's it's gonna be- there gonna go back to 2-D Sonic games apparently.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: I, uh, saw an article on it, uh, someone forwarded it to me this morning.
Chris: [inaudible] (something about the CWCkipedia)
Maggie: Um... I- I found the CWCkipedia, yeah, uh someone gave me the- the link for that. So, I will-
[Chris interrupts]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah. I- I'll send you th- the link to it, it was quite a good article and they had a little preview video on it as well.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Um, so what's your favorite type of video game? Is it, like, Sonic the adventure games?
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: [inaudible]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Oh yes! Tetris, I like Tetris. Um, so, what would your advice be to someone who said, like, I have a- I'd like to start an online comic. What would be the best advice you could give that person?
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Okay. That's no problem. Um, do you have a favorite, uh, like video game console?
[Chris talking over Maggie a bit]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah. Mhm. The Sega Dreamcast.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: That's good and, uh, how far up would PlayStation come up on your list? That's what we'd like to hear! [Laughs] Sorry, um. [Coughs]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Oh, um.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Uh. Soni- is it just Sonichu?
Chris: Yes.
Maggie: Yeah. Well, that's a lot!
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Okay, um. So how'd y- So how'd you, um, when you sort of started doing this, um, what sort of pushed you to say because y- you said you started, um, by with your CADD project, um, what pushed you to say, like "I'm gonna move this onto the internet now"?
[Computer noises]
[Phone rings in background]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yes.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Okay, um, are your friends and family , like, really supportive of Sonichu?
Chris: Yes.
Maggie: They are. Oh! That's good. Um, okay so uh probably what I got- probably what I've got room for- for a couple of little questions I could probably squeeze in the end, uh, and these are the kind of questions I'll ask everyone, um, if you, uh, had to choose only one video game for the rest of your life, what would it be? If you could only play one.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Excellent choices! Um, who is your absolute favorite in the world, like, it could be, like, you know your mother or an actor or a particular person. Who's your favorite person, like, your biggest inspiration?
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah.
Chris: I would say Britney Spears.
Maggie: Britney Spears. I- I like Britney, I think she get's too much, uh, bad attention in the press.
Chris: [inaudible] (something more about Britney Spears)
Maggie: [Laughs] I won't look up that website, I don't think I'll need to [inaudible] you know, silly people who are probably just jealous caus-
[Chris cuts Maggie off]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Mhm.
Chris: [inaudible] ...It seems like practically five, ten minutes of self-loathing!
Maggie: Ugh. It's just people who- who are jealous in- in seeing how successful you've become on the internet cause a lot of people talk about you so they just sort of said "well we wanna annoy that guy!" [Chris possibly interrupting] I'd ignore them if I were you.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Mhm. Huh... well that's not very nice!
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Oh, well I probably won't even bother to read it, like, Internet bullies are terrible people.
Chris: Yeah.
Maggie: F- for one final thing, what would your, sort of, message t- to the future be, the sort of future comic book artists and video game developers and, like, th- the users of tomorrow. What would your future message be?
Chris: Yeah. I would say... take your time!
Maggie: "Take your time."
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah.
Chris: [inaudible] [Something more about taking your time]
Maggie: That- That's a lovely message. Well, thank you-
[Chris cuts off Maggie]
Chris: Well sometimes y'know, well sometimes y'know... [inaudible] (Something about acting out a pose)
Maggie: Yeah
Maggie: A lot of people say that wh- who are artists, they say that they've got to act out what they're doing to, uh, to get the feel of it. Well thank you very much for your time, Chris, I really really appreciate it. Um, I'm gonna- I'm gonna do the write up and I will e-mail you that and I'll e-mail you the link to, um, to the preview video I saw. [Chris possibly interrupting] I'll e-mail you that link f- for the new Sonic game and the, um, comic book people I'll- I'll e-mail you that as well sorry I like scribbled that down on a little post-it! Um, so you'll probably hear from in the next sort of day or so via e-mail and you have my e-mail address!
[Chris interrupts Maggie]
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: I- I did, uh, tell your father. I did send you an e-mail as well. I'm not sure if you got it. If you're getting a lot of... a large volume of messages you might've sort of missed it.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: It's maggiethomas25@aol.co.uk.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah.
Chris: [inaudible] ...You're twenty-five?
Maggie: I am, yeah. [Laughs] Although I wasn't when I, um, made that e-mail address. [Laughs] Oh, I think I was about eighteen so I picked Twenty-Five cause there was a few other "Maggie Thomases".
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Yeah.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Probably. Not now, I feel a bit old! [Laughs]
Chris: Ah, don't worry. I'm two years older than you!
Maggie: Oh, well I don't feel so old now! [Laughs] [Chris can be heard trying to interrupt in the background] I apologize, by the way, for my throaty voice, I'm full of flu at the moment!
Chris: [inaudible]
[Bob starts talking to Maggie]
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Okay! What town?
Bob: [inaudible] ...do you live in London or where?
Maggie: No, uh, I live in the north of England. I live in a town called Darlington.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Darlington. Really?
Bob: [inaudible] (possibly rambling about having been over in that area in the past)
Maggie: Oh!
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Oh! Oh that's lovely! What was the name of the pub? Just out of curiosity.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Matt's British Pub. Th-
[Bob briefly interrupts]
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: [Laughs] Oh, that's lovely!
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: I know that one, m- my Nana sings me that song, yeah.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Mhm.
Bob: [inaudible]
[Bob trying to talk over Maggie]
Maggie: [Laughs] Oh, that's lovely! Well, yeah I- I don't live in London, I live in the north. Yeah, it's about six hours.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Um, yeah I can do that! I could do that for you. I could probably get-
[Bob still trying to talk over Maggie]
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: [Laughs] "Knees Up Mother Brown"! That- that's great! I could probably get you an MP3 of it, actually I- I'll write out the lyrics but I can probably get an MP3. [Bob says something inaudible] Uh, e-mail it to Christian.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: [Laughs]
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Y- Yeah I'll get that done for you.
Bob: [inaudible]
Maggie: Well, it was absolutely lovely talking to you. Uh, I'm gonna get writing my article
[Chris comes back to the call]
Chris: [inaudible] ...Okay, well uh, I'd like a uh- a uh photograph of your face... [inaudible]
Maggie: A photograph? Oh. [Laughs] I'll-
[Chris interrupts Maggie]
Chris: [inaudible] ...considerably in a JPEG format... [inaudible]
Maggie: JPEG. Right. [Laughs] I'll- I'll find something that's not hideously embarrassing. [Laughs] I've got a couple of photos on my computer but they're very embarrassing ones. Like me in, uh, school and things.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: [Laughs] Right! O- Okay I'll get you a picture as well. Okay I've got a lot written down here on my little post-it [Laughs]to send you.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Oh I better go because I better get writing my article before- before my editor informs me in the morning and says, like, "have you done any work yet?"
Chris: Okay, by the way, do you know Veronica Belmont?
Maggie: Um, I don't. No... no.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: I know who she is! But I don't actually, like, know her. She- like- like I know her work. She does do a really great job, I- I wish I knew her! I do wish I knew her, but,I'm a bit lower down on the pipeline, I'm afraid. [Laughs] I just sort of write the articles.
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: [Coughs] Excuse me!
Chris: [inaudible]
Maggie: Thank you very much for your time, I really appreciate it. I hope to speak to you again.
Chris: [inaudible] ...stay safe.
Maggie: You too! Have a good day. Bye!
[Phone call ends, recording is still going] [Maggie sighs] [Sounds of Maggie moving around] Maggie: Um. [Coughs] Ugh.

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