INTERVIEWED - Martin Penny
Created | Updated Aug 5, 2003
'I suggest you make like a tree, and get interviewed.’
Evil, insane, a criminal genius?… The Dailyness accosts the man with a suspicious resemblance to Skeletor. “I hate apples!” he tells Eric Coleslaw…Martin Penny was born 16 years ago. He is now, 16. And yet, already in those brief 840 weeks… well, each week was the same length really, seven days… except for the big calendar mix up of 1998, but that’s not the point. In those 840 weeks, he has already been a councillor, an insane criminal mastermind and… well, that’s it really. “I asked if I could be a senator,” he tells me, leaning back in his large, black leather chair, and stroking his chin as if it were a small furry white cat, “on account of a senate not actually existing I became a councillor instead.” However, that didn’t last long. “Oh no. My first duty was to compile a New Years Honours list, which was not needed. It took me hours to compose that list! HOURS!” He pauses, “Anyway I always have been rather unstable…“I’ve had some pretty insane schemes. So far I have created a board destructor, tried to assassinate people at a Poker game, kidnapped Lady Lissa and taken over the boards once…for about five minutes…” I ask him what he would actually do if he ever did take over the boards. “Now that you mention I don't really know…probably enslave it, gloat a lot…get bored and turn over the board to the good guys so I could go on with my old lifestyle.” He feeds his chin a small fish, and I realise that actually it isn’t a chin at all, but really is a small white, furry cat… except it’s not very small. And it’s black. “After the Stainless Steel Rat sort of vanished into the abyss of non appearance in stories the saga never really had an arch villain,” Martin tells me, stroking his cat, once again, “so I guess I sort of took the Rat’s place as the main bad guy. “I always have one or two insane schemes up my sleeve. Right now, I'm breeding an army in the caverns of Martin Mountain and…uh oh I've said too much.” Behind the scenes, at Mills-Studios, does Martin turn into mild-mannered Councillor Penny, or insane criminal mastermind Emperor Martin?“Um… probably the second one. But, we have a laugh. One time someone put rat poison in my coffee – that was hilarious! Boy would my face have been red!” He stops smiling suddenly, as another thought hits him. “There have been incidents with a few rowdy members of the public…why do people carry around eggs and vegetables every where anyway? Do they expect to see a super villain every day or what? Well I usually just disappear in a puff of smoke.” Emperor Penny stabs out his cigar, which he lit eight words ago, on the back of a nearby minion. “I first wanted to be a megalomaniac villain when I was very young, you'd be surprised.” He tells me, “Nobody really influenced me. My one time ally Count Richard proved to be a great influence over me…until he betrayed me.” Interview complete, I get up to leave. “Is that it?” Emperor Martin demands. I nod. “Oh.” There is a long pause. “Do you want to ask me anything?” I suggest. "Oh shut up," he says.Compiled by Eric Coleslaw from
The Dailyness
www.dailyness.o-f.com
