The International House of Mojo

#Monkey-Island and the Community
The following images apear courtesy of their creators.

Now then, in this 3rd part, I'm going to talk about the very important issue that is #Monkey-Island. #MI as its known is a chat channel on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) It was founded by Skyfox (Scummbar) one rainy day. This channel after it had evolved, kept the community together, here you could find like minded people, make friends, and sometimes talk about Monkey Island. It was very important that the community kept talking to each other, because without that, no one would know each other at all and these 'old days' wouldnt be any where near as significant in the minds of people who were there, as they are.

The Channel is still running, and while there have been some weird politics and people getting annoyed at the whole thing recently, a lot of people go there.I've never seen it empty and I still talk to people who have long given up on their MI sites. (you can find me in there most days)

It's not only webmasters and monkey island fans that go there, we have had visits from Dominic Armato (voice of Guybrush Cmi and upcoming EMI - he often visits) and Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island's creator and founder of now deceased gaming company - Cavedog.)

I caught up with Skyfox to ask him some questions about #mi and the star studded visits. Rather him tell you than me - He founded it after all:

<me>Skyfox - why and when did you found the channel?

<Skyfox>#monkey-island has a sad, lonely beginning...
it was started months before I even thought of the SCUMM Bar, so you are talking about July 1996. I was a regular on #wing-commander, one of the greatest places to chat I thought, and as with many newbies to IRC.. I wanted to make my own channel.
But I wanted to make it in the style of #wc. (This is why #mi has the same no swearing rule as #wc) For about the first 3 months #mi was a deserted wasteland... a friend and I would hang out there from time to time.. hoping someone would join to chat. Our record for those first few months was an amazing 4 people chatting at once. When I finally started the SCUMM Bar (as a way to learn HTML) I had a page about #mi, CMI had just been anounced and fan sites started popping up everywhere. (The SCUMM Bar was the 3rd internet site dedicted to Monkey Island.. as far as i could tell.) Slowly more and more people started to join the channel.
Then one day MrNemo (I believe it was him anyway) suggested a weekly, hour long chat, a regular time for the monkeys to gather. I figured it sounded good, added an advert to the SCUMM Bar and this was when the channel really started to take off, 30 people at a time were showing up to chat, they were good times! Of course, then this guy called Dom logged on one day and the channel really went into overdrive.. with a record of 99 people online at once!

<me> Tell us about that historic moment, of the first Appearence of Dom.

<Skyfox> There is a log available at the SCUMM Bar, but I will not read this. I will tell you how I remember it:
I remember joining IRC and sitting out of a channel wondering 'shall I join #monkey-island or #wing-commander today' I decided to list the names of people on #monkey-island.. and i saw a person with the nick Dom (or something like that).

My first thought was 'Dominic Armato? Voice of Guybrush? nahh can't be!' But I was curiousand got logged onto #mi. Once there, MrMonkey (now Sumez) asked me if I knew who Dominic Armato was. Innocently I replied with something like "The Voice of Guybrush in CMI? yeah.. why?" I still just figured it was someone messing about at this time, so wasn't too excited. But then came the wav file! Dom had recorded a test file... and the Ops in the channel (only me and MrMonkey if I remember, maybe one other) where furiously debating the authenticity of this wav. The guy found it on the CMI CD or something we said, so we asked for another, which convinced us that he was for real. The last one, I actually asked for. I asked him to mention the SCUMM Bar. He did so it was Guybrush's voice. and it was for real! I remember thinking 'yay! finally.. a celebrity!' Dom was one of the nicest guys you would meet online... he was kind enough to come back later and talk to even more fans and was patient with all our ramblings... cheers Dom!

So there you go ! to learn more about #MI visit the #MI homepage