Feed Your Mind
ld!acid
Issue No.11 An Of
ficial ACiD Productionstm Public Update
March 1996
As time advances, so do we. New technologies su
ch as the Internet and po- tential new audiences are
exposed to our creations, raising overall awareness o
f the art scene and effectiveness in spreading our crea
tions. But the scene
is evolving beyond a bunch of kids playing with their mode
ms and TheDraw - computer artists are gathering in
real life and applying their skills to real-
-world uses, such as the sold-out ACiD T-shirt campaign.
We have gained and lost friends through the passage o
f time, and as old projects become completed others ar
e proposed to fill their places. The cyclic motion of
the scene might seem to lead to an ultimate entropy,
but this figur-
ing is failing to take one very important factor into consi
deration - what we do is really fun stuff. If it wasn
t fun, we wouldnt do it.
Such simple logic seems hopeless, but when you get right
down to it, there are no solid bonds tying us to the
scene. Were only here because were having a good ti
me, and a day doesnt pass that we dont remember that.
Were all here for a jolly romp through cyberspace,
so kick back, and loosen up to enjoy our production,
the cream of this unwritten union between
art and technology.
Just some food for thought as you wonder at the inconse
quential course of events which brought this whole sce
ne into being.
By Wonde
r Monkey
AIS Coo
rdinator
On January 6th, 1996 ACiD Productions registered the dom
ain name acid.org.
With the acquisition of this name, the official ACiD home p
age has been moved to http://www.acid.org and
we are getting closer to having 100 of our artists
reachable via e-mail at acid.org.
In the near future Catbones and Wonder Monkey will be w
orking their tails
off to update and improve the layout and design of the ACiD w
eb page to keep it at the pinnacle of artistic present
ation. Look for the new pages to define the
new apex of what is possible on the web on or before April 1s
t.
In the far future, we will be growing our web and Info
rmation Technology
influences as much of the scene shifts web-ward. Look for
ACiD to acquire a
higher speed link to the net, and for the number of machin
es in the acid.org domain to multiply. As we approa
ch a new era, be sure that the artistic vision an
d unparalleled talent of ACiD will continue to dominat
e and raise the
zenith of your expectations of quality.
By Cthulu
NAID, known formally as the North AmerIcan Demo com
po, is being held
during the latter part of May in Longueil, Quebec, Canada,
strikingly close
to Montreal geographically at least. As it is ever
y year. However,
this year will boast s
omething special.
As with any party, you just cant kick it of
f
unless you have the right people present, no
matter how many bags of Doritos and LAN-wired
Pentiums you have on-sit
e. It is such that
ACiD Pro
ductions, Inc., will be livening up
the revel a bit with members not me
rely un-
officially present, but with
a strong showing
in
a variety of categories. At last count,
the l
ist of ACiD members signed up for this
trip surpassed
twenty members and growing Many ACiD
members will be from day to day. Con
sidering the resources
visiting the province of neces
sary to bring 20+ people from around the
Quebec in Canada, the land world
to a particular spot in space and time
of beavers, polar bears, merel
y to throw a little bash, this should
maple syrup and igloos. be pr
operly considered a project of somewhat
epic proportion
s. For more specific in-
formation regarding this co
mpetition, we urge
you to stop by the Naid:Apraxia 96 webpage at http://ww
w.autoroute.net/naid.
Rumor has it that even the elusive RaD Man and intimate co
mpany will put in an appearance to bless the procee
dings and throw a few disks, elevating the entire ad
venture from a mere epic to true modern mythology.
And if you think that the demo-party will be fun, just
wait until you see
the results of the half-hour ANSI competition.
By Cthulu
and Soultaker
ACiDic, the BBS-modification branch of ACiD, has
merged with the
illustrious PIA Piranha PPE Coding, with the PIA fo
under, Captain Hood, being
carried over to the position of the ACiDic PPE Team-Leader.
PIA concentrated
on coding enhancements for the PCBoard BBS software, and t
he move definitely
strengthens ACiDics PCB division, while maintaining the
Renegade and Obv/2
sections. The bottom line for you, the average BBS user
is more configured boards with more numerous and great
er enhancements, brough to you by ACiD, the sculptors
of the scene. The merger has injected a dose of
200 CCs of raw caffeine in the form of J0lt cola, no
doubt to the hearts of the coding staff in ACiDic, r
esulting in a prolific surge of releases since the m
erger in Dec-
ember.
By Cthulu
Given a growth rate of 13 for this
session, it would take A
CiD approx-
imately seven and seven-tenths newsletters for the artist pop
ulation to double.
However, this is an extremely unlikel
y possibility due
to the anticipated plagues, floods, locust
s and the like accounting
for the end of the world in
1997. If we fail to all be obliterated, however, we can assu
re you that a top- quality pack will be forthcoming th
e following month.
If you arent prone to the demographic/apoca
lyptic school of information
distribution, however, a concise listing and description of o
ur internal activ- ity should satisfy you.
First on our list of ANSI acquis-
itions would be the awesome Anubis, form-
erly of Force, Australias best and now
one of our own. Trust us, once you get
past the jackal head, hes a really nice
guy.
Our merger with Saga left us with
many members, even after it pulled some
of them back, and the remaining former
Saga member with the handle closest to
the front of the alphabet happened to be Not o
nly will Anubis draw great
Angel Dust, the famous RIP artist and
ANSI, hell weigh the hearts of
narcotic. deceased ACiD members with the
feather of truth! Egyptian Gods
The one with the handle second- are put
to good use in this group.
closest to the front of the alphabet was
Black Lightning, a skilled ANSI drawer.
Wed all like to welcome Burps, formerly of Fu
el and Odium from Belgium, to ACiDs ANSI team.
Sorry, too easy.
Re-joining ACiD comes Black Guard, artist of im
mortal RIPscrip, who seems
to have come to an impasse in his former views that being i
n ROC was more fun
than being in ACiD.
Also coming back to where he be-
longs is Catbones
, formerly Cat,
formerly of iCE
and formerly of ACiD.
Before we proceed, Id like to
note
that I should win some s
ort of award
for using the word formerly proper-
ly s
o many times in one sentence.
Were al
l very glad to have this up-
start of the hi-rez community back
beneath our wing, and perhaps hell
have a n
ew T-Shirt design for us now At the glitz
y annual Formerly awards that the first
run is completely sold
night, Cthulu is honoured with the
out.
prestigious Some Sort Of award.
Fre
sh out of prison and Anemia
comes Crimeboss, an artist whose art
was so wicked that he had to spend a few years incarcerated t
o calm him down.
Two RIP artists from Saga who joined ACiD and w
ho have handles which are
reasonably close to the letter a are Cyber and
Degenerit. To continue along
this uncanny string of parallel similarities, they both come
from the 408 area
code as well. Fancy that!
Grifter will feel at home in ACiD, fresh fr
om his stint in Saga, even though his handle isnt rea
lly all that close to the beginning of the alphabet. I
n fact, its about a quarter of the way through it.
Returning to ACiD is King Midas, who will with
great certainty live up to his namesake by turning all
he touches to gold. Or of golden quality, whatever
that is. This will, however, cost him a fortune in keyboards
A veritably venerated veteran of gorgeous graphic arts
, Kingpin, returns
to ACiD to impress us all with ANSI, RIPscrip, high-resolutio
n art and alliter- ation. Or perhaps that last item w
as merely fabricated. I guess well NEVER
KNOW.
Our ASCII department profits from the presence of
Nuremburg, formerly of Anemia, and home to many Ge
rman-speakers.
Primal may be an above-average master of the h
igh-resolution arts, but his talents may forever be
shadowed by his eternal masterwork of the Freedom
CD-ROM trace card.
Joining us from Saga comes Rza, ANSI dr
awer and three-time winner of the
unpronounceable handle award, beating out ACiD members Nitnat
snoc and Cthulu.
Having mastered ANSI in ACiD of long ago and ASCII as
a senior member of
kTSaSCII Katharsis, Sparr returns to ACiD to
flaunt his ability in both fields.
Official fontician for which one needs a certificate
from the Academy
of Fontification at Walla Walla, WA Splatt joins u
s from Saga, and now that hes here hopefully the ti
me invested in the imaginary certification will pay
off.
Hells Fury from Canada is now known as
Diocese of ACiD, and if hes lucky, he may
one day be known as Diocese of ACiD from Canada who dr
aws VGA.
Of course, I dont want to know what his sig will look like.
Dont you hate it
when you have to get to NAID
and you suddenly deve
lop a fear of brake pedals? In
the past, when
this problem was encountered, it
resulted in excess of traffic tickets. Nowadays,
though, the prob
lem is negligent thanks to the
official instatement of The Gray Ra
nger as the ACiD
Chauffeur. This also eliminates the ne
ed for valet
parking.
Representing two different art for
ms, two diff-
erent former groups, an
d even two completely unre-
lated countries come Pharcyde, ANSI dr
awer formerly
of Stile and currently in Sweden and t
he VGA antics
of Mr. Schizophren
ia, ex-Apocalyptic Visions member.
The letter with the lowest total
heat, Cool T,
joins us from Saga to recu
perate after having a
tragic affair with H
ot Q. The fate of their
illegitimate child, Luke-warm J, is
undecided at The Gray Ranger joins
this point.
ACiD as the official
chauffer, due in part Icz
er-1 comes to ACiD to show us exactly what
to his handling skills he can do
in high-resolution. After a few months,
of the giant squid. hell then sho
w us exactly what his handle means.
Only, of course, once
all minors are shown from the
room.
Locutus, formerly of Litespeed from Switzerland
has recently been recruit- ed to ACiDs ASCII departme
nt.
Even as Nova leaves us, his brother Fractal beco
mes the Team Leader of the
Renegade modding division of ACiDic. Next month, we predi
ct Fractal to drop
out and their grandfather to join the ASCII department. He
too will fade into
obscurity and the scene will become swayed by the powerfu
l ANSI drawings of their dog.
Previously of pre-merge Saga, Unsane or Ruck
us joins as an able ANSI
artist and funky fontician. He will also be assuming th
e radical role of
compiling both the awesome ANSI Logo and ASCII clusters from
now on!
Ded Silence and Darkwolf both appear in
recent pHluid music disks court- esy of ACiD Product
ions, Inc. If you want to listen to them, youll jus
t have
to download the disks, at least until the proposed multimedi
a newsletter plan
passes the red tape.
By Cthulu
And now, as always, comes the somewhat unpleasant por
tion of the news-
letter. Our distaste can be concisely stated by the epigra
m that the least
favored artists share a quality with those most repugnant o
f navels - theyre
both outies.
What we did to Andrew wasnt very Nice
, but he was inactive and therefore
wont complain about it. I think thats very nice justificat
ion, if you dont
mind.
After a glazed and v
acant sheen had settled over the eyes of two former
ACiD members, silencing their mad babbles and
rants, they were
left without their Neurosis and became pea
ceful enough for u
s to commit to
the Bedlam
Asylum. That particular institution
soon released one of them to pursue a cu
stodial career.
Not Wanted: For not robbing any banks, committing any
felonies nor draw- ing any ANSI to speak of: one
Crime Lord and a Gangstar. T
he former has been
lying low for two long, trying to hide in the depths of th
e underground, and
the latter made a daring escape his only action after resi
gning and allowing
himself to be arrested. If you see them, try to ignore them
You might find our practice of removing inactive
members Deeply
Disturbing, but at least they get the opportunity
to have their names mentioned
in a final blaze of glory with the likes of He
at Wave, Malebolgia and Red Le
ader, no matter how concealed their own handle i
s in the structure of
the surrounding sentence.
Therere
many words which we could
use to describe the m
oving of Stone the
Crow to Legend, but theres onl
y one
which we could use to describe the tra
ns-
ition of
El Guapo, and it might offend
some people. Were sure that you
can
figure it out
if you try hard enough,
how
ever.
We can
only update the status of
Prisoner1 in that he
was last seen being
cooked alive by a fellow ACiD member.
Stone the Crow and his newborn
Sids, coder of one of the finest
son, Stone the Egg, pause for a
viewers throughout the ages, resigned to
brief moment before leaving ACiD. pu
rsue school and a job with the Fnord
Project. With all
that gnoing on, it snoon became obvious tha
t he didnt hnave
enough tnime for ACiD and the scnene.
Smooth was forced to resign ACiD when he r
etained the charge of his own group, Teklordz, due to
ACiDs dual-group policy. Hopefully theyll appreciat
e the incalculably immense sacrifice which he has made
for them.
Twisted Terrorist got bored with his jet-
setting lifestyle of blowing things up, so he decided
to call it a day and retire to a small cottage i
n the foothills. However, he broke his leg, so it
had to be set in a Splint.
When he got home he was astonished to hear his dog barkin
g the name Rimbo,
Rimbo! From that day on, the dog was to be listened to
every time rumors
were imminent of members no longer being in ACiD.
Due to too much pressure, a rising musical star went
Nova. However, from
the ashes of the great giant arose bizarre Fractal patterns.
And finally and decidedly most importantly, The C
alibre, who has been with
us at ACiD Productions, Inc., for many years, working his
ways up the ranks from courier all the way to grand a
nd illustrious Public Relations Coordinator
also sadly resigns this month.
On a side note - regarding the somewhat inordinate amou
nt of members with Saga references tacked on however
sloppily behind their handles - the amount amount of
Saga members who joined and remained in ACiD thro
ugh the by-now-
infamous merger were a paltry seven. The vast remainder of f
ormer Saga members
who had joined ACiD did so of their own accord, weeks bef
ore the merger was even a glimmer in Ellis Dees eye.
Hopefully this will dispel any discrepan-
cies as to the importance of the so-called merger.
By
Catbone
Many of you are familiar with the most popular dem
oscene FTP site,
ftp.cdrom.com. Most art groups find apt use of thi
s site as a reliable forum
to distribute their monthly archives, where those active in
the art and/or
demo scenes know that the most recent works can be found.
ACiD Productions
has lead the way, as always, in opening the eyes of the pu
blic to the growth
and evolution of our work. In the past those working wit
hin the demo scene
have held certain prejudices against those of us in the
ANSI scene. This
past months file download statistics, however, have helped
us to shatter old
biases and illustrate that ACiD Productions is not merely an
other ANSI group.
For those art scene enthusiasts who have from time to t
ime been less than
faithful to us and have doubted the puissance of ACiDs supre
macy and for those who have picked nits regarding the
various ratings games in the scene, some
specific statistics to ponder have been presented here.
The five weeks of
activity following the belated release of the January ACiD
archive stand as a clear endorsement of the wide appe
al found in our archives that people have come to r
espect and imitate. The senior staff of ACiD Producti
ons has spent a
lot of time answering mail these past few weeks composed pr
imarily of commen-
dations and praise from the demoscene, the art scene and the
general masses who
flock to www.acid.org ACiDs official web site, which dra
ws, on average, in excess of 700 hits a day. ACD
U0196.ZIP was the most downloaded file over the
past several weeks, making DemoNews weekly
Top 10 Downloads list week after week i
ncluding this past week, just before
the release of the current pack wh
ich you are in the midst of viewing. It has
been directed to our attention
that the January ACiD pack has been downloaded more
than 600 times in the past
five weeks from this FTP site alone! Correspondences and stat
istics have clear-
ly demonstrated to us that ACiD is THE representative emissar
y of the art scene
in a position of leadership that we are
proud and confident of filling more
than adequately.
Thanks go out to the fine staff of Dem
oNews for the documentation of our
small but meaningful achievements. We
encourage your subscription to
this great demoscene publication, which
can be obtained by composing a message t
o
listserver@unseen.aztec.co.cz and
writing in the body
of the text
subscribe demuan-list firstname lastname.
The listserver will
then
send DemoNews to your e-mails return address as it is distri
buted.
By RaD Man
and Cthulu
On the 17th of November, 1995, the gro
up formerly known as Saga merged
into ACiD, under Ellis Dees and Betrayers
direction and with their further
promotion to the positions of ACiD
American Coordinator and A
CiD Internal
Relations Coordinator, respectively. Loose
ends in the scene had been tied
up, a vast portion of the ANSI power out there had been conso
lidated.
As with many marriages,
this one was not to r
emain in matrimonial bliss for much
longer than the honeymoon.
The night of December 7th, 1995 was indecisive, the da
te on which Ellis
Dee made the decision to back out of his merger, packing u
p his former Saga
members and en masse having a great exodus to a new group, Cl
an, which promptly
had a cardiac arrest. Or at least, that is how our mos
t informed sources
speculate.
The great sweeping tide-like motion of the merger was no
t a complete waste of bureaucracy, however, for ACiD
retained seven very talented artists from the doome
d conglomeration. Total gain was not as great as it c
ould have been,
but when all was considered, we had come out of the expe
rience ahead. All became, after some ruffling of feat
hers, nice and well again.
By Cthulu
and Catbones
With all this talk about the January ACiD Acquisition
, and now the sub-
sequent release of the March Acquisition, some perceptive A
CiD fans are bound
to ask What happened to the February pack?
While it is not an obligation to produce such a
gem of computer creativity, we do feel the respon
sibility towards our loyal fans to let you
know why we did not. It would be a shame to see you, t
he loyal art scene
connoisseur, search long and hard for the pack that never
was. That, and we
can only take so much of the humorously jealous rumors ou
r self-proclaimed
competition would like to circulate. So to cut to the meat o
f it...
We at ACiD have decided to take a pointer fr
om the Groundhog and spend
up to six more weeks recuperating every spring. As policy b
ecomes dogma, this
will eventually result in all of the small groups taking
off every February
for the same reasons as us. The thought that these re
asons wouldnt be applicable unless they were working
under the same circumstances as us will Im
sure fail to spark up in the damp forge of their synaps
es, but these are
the great thronging masses of the scene which we all have
grown to love, so
who are we to disdain them? They made us who we are, after a
ll.
Skipping the month of February was part of a tedious ch
oice out of twelve
equally deserving months, but the decision was made to ce
lebrate the second
month with a rest in commemoration of the only month pr
eviously that ACiD
had ever missed a pack, way back in 1993 when you all
were a bunch of
little goobers who thought that spelling words in high-ASCII
was elite.
If you refuse to invest in the traditional explanation,
perhaps logic will
make a reasonable substitute - the skippage of a month
every year will
make the task much easier of processing the administratio
n and red tape of
your more-than-average art group, and come back ever
y March with an explosion of creativity and inspire
d rebirth.
By Cthulu
The dust h
as settled, the numbers for
and the taxe
s paid, and in the slowly de-
scending calm of stately order we no
ticed
that
we had run out of T-shirts. You know,
those black things
with the Leonardo DaVinci
emblems on them? Well, gazing upo
n the rows
upo
n rows of empty crates in our maritime
warehouses, we had
to smile and congratulate
ourselves on a very succe
ssful real-world
application to cyberspat
ial skills.
Wed like to th
ank everyone who pur-
chased one of our shirts and wed lik
e to
once more give full design credi
t to Cat for
the artwork present on the article
of cloth-
ing. In commemoration of our littl
e bus-
iness sting, SOLDO
UT.GIF will be found in
this pack as a tribute to those T-Shirt ads
which took up so much space over the p
ast year
. In case the generality of the event T
hanks to Lemonade for so is washing
over you and the specifics merely
patiently standing still while flyi
ng overhead, the most important final b
eing used as a live reference statement w
hich we have to say is not to for ou
r T-Shirt design. send any more m
oney - we have no more shirts
to sell you
. Then again, if you feel TRULY
inclined to continue the monetary transfers,
theres nothing we can really do to prevent it...
... but of course a group with the
strict moral back-
bone of ACiD would never descend to such depths. Our just
ice is as great a part of us as our name, full of tru
th and honesty. And various hallucinogenic drugs.
By Cthulu
ACiD Secretary, and Editor-In-Chief
It may have seemed to have all happened before, but nev
er quite this way. Nothing ever happens the exactly sa
me way twice, and were here to relish that
iota of chance, the quark of uncertainty. Seize it, and
ride up and down
through chance encounters.
And enjoy.
ACiD Cred
its: Writers:
Cthulu, RaD Man, Cat, Soultaker and Wonder Monke
y
Special Thanks: Toast and Rendered Usel
ess Photographer: Nitnatsnoc
ACiD