Everything you could ever want to know about the twisted minds behind Damage Control. Well, almost everything.
The Absentee Executive Editor: Angela Moseley
Angela’s addiction to video games and cartoons started when she was young and highly impressionable. She laid eyes on her first Nintendo Entertainment System at the tender age of five while at her babysitter’s house. It took her two years of begging her single mother to finally obtain an NES of her own. She was so excited to play Mario Bros. that she took the console out of its box and hooked it up to the TV herself. Three years later, at ten years old she received a Sega Genesis for her birthday. From then on Angela would become a full-fledged electronics geek, getting her hands on whatever she or her mother could afford for her.
Angela never really passed the phase of loving cartoons and comics books, so her progression into an anime and manga addict was a natural one. When Angela gained access to the internet in 1998, she set out to create a website based on her all time favorite animated movie, Balto. The site has been in existence for almost 20 years in various forms, and now lives on its own domain, The Ice Cave. Using that extra domain space, she recruited her good friend from college, Geoff and created Damage Control. Later she would add Drew, Joseph, and Alex to the staff– all friends and talented writers she has known for almost 20 years.
Professionally, Angela graduated from Temple University with a BA in journalism. Her concentration focused on magazine writing, primarily long-form essays, but she is flexible enough to adapt to any writing style, especially if the price is right. Although writing is her first love, Angela also enjoys working on the web with new media. When she’s not working, she can be found at home immersing herself in video games (mostly JRPGs), anime, web comics, NPR, and an unhealthy amount of YouTube.
The Prolific News Editor: Geoffrey Barnes
Geoffrey grew up in Southwest Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, and was born to his mother and father in the middle of 1983, though he doesn’t think his birth had anything to do with the video game industry crash of that year. His father loved playing his Atari 2600 and adored movies revered in geek culture. From this, you could say it was destined that he’d become a nerd when he grew up.
He got his start in gaming with that Atari 2600, and then migrated over to the Nintendo Entertainment System, which he received for Christmas in 1990. He played games of multiple genres on the system, and then went over to the Super Nintendo in 1992, where he would discover more types of games. His favorite titles when he was young were Super Mario Bros. 3 and Street Fighter II Turbo.
Education wise, he graduated from Roman Catholic High School with a diploma in 2001. He then went to Community College of Philadelphia and acquired an Associate’s Degree in Liberal Arts in 2005. He culminated his educational duties at Temple University, where he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism.
These days, he comforts himself with a variety of console, handheld, and PC games. His favorite genres are RPGs, fighters, action-adventures, platformers, and shooters. He also enjoys some occasional movies, anime, and manga.
The Exasperating Features Editor: Drew Young
Drew started a bit behind the 8-bitball in the video game world. He first received a NES for Christmas in 1993, and has been a very late adopter ever since. He first became interested in anime by chance exposure on the Sci-Fi channel and could only find more of that sweet, sweet nectar as fansubs re-recorded on VHS tapes.
His journey to Damage Control began in the late 1990s on the rusty edge of Web design that promised everyone five megabytes and a tilde. In that wild 56k frontier, he affiliated with The Ice Cave, even though he hadn’t the faintest clue what Balto was about.
He clawed his way through the University of Maine to graduate into the Great Recession with a degree in Journalism after six long years of changing majors and catching mononucleosis. He eventually landed a design job with occasional reporting at the major newspaper of his minor metropolitan era after spending the years in between mostly watching movies (including, eventually, Balto).
Nowadays, Drew spends his time on Damage Control contributing material mostly on Tuesdays. He’s the creative force behind blog-wide features, works the movie review beat, and pioneered Damage Control’s entry into video, podcasts and streaming.
Panthera Editus: Joseph Daniels
In the great frozen land in the north known as Canada, a little to the east of that other frozen land in the north known as Alaska, resides the gaming enthusiast whom most people know as Joseph. When he’s not gaming or writing about gaming, he likes to enjoy life’s little ironies. For instance, his hometown in Canada is located so far to the west that he has to travel east to get to the area of his country designated the “Wild West”. He’s also been so far to the south in the United States that he would’ve had to travel north to get to the “deep south.”
Joseph never outgrew his love for animation, and so these days he’s content to re-watch old Disney favourites as well as shows he grew up with like Babar (if they’ll ever release more than season one on DVD).
Although he prefers mostly RPGs, he has shown a willingness to branch out into other genres. His favourite systems include the SNES and the PS2. He currently owns each of the major consoles released in the 7th generation, as well as numerous consoles from past generations and the one from the 8th that keeps him connected to his addiction.. I mean to Final Fantasy XIV.
Oh, and he likes to make Spotify playlists, too.
The Practical Anime Reviewer: Alex Mei
Unlike the other writers, Alex doesn’t play video games at all. Chalk it up to a lack of time, ability, or just parental figures who decided to emphasize academics over everything.
However, come college time, he had discovered that life was better when time was spent not only on academics, but also on one’s hobbies. This led him to find the local anime club in 2005 and the introduction to a long-term group of friends, along with a wide variety of anime series. However, due to his school’s schedule, the local anime fandom and club, he was restricted in the number and selection of anime conventions he was able to attend.
Starting in 2012 and thanks to a very wonderful group of friends, he has expanded his repertoire both in the anime series that he is interested in and conventions he attends, opening his horizons much wider. Nonetheless, he is still serious, realistic, and down-to-earth at heart, and perhaps even to a fault.