Zeus II
Greetings, everyone! We werent necessarily planning on releasing this
particular artpack at this exact moment in time, but Zeus II recently like
what, Friday morning? took a look at our networked Moebius ANSI art server up
at completelynonintegrable.ca, password: mistifunk and issued a ruling: no
need to wait any further, theres clearly a complete artpack here: make it
so! Wed been looking at it on a piece-by-piece basis without having our
artpack-goggles on, but had to agree with the appraisal. One weekend blitz of
formatting and metadata-injection later, here we are.
Its been a while since weve released an unthemed artpack -- not since last
July! -- and of course its been a while since we released an artpack of any
kind, the last one our Christmas special. Were still exploring alternate
paradigms of getting the work out there beyond the confines of the artpack
medium, but theres no reason we need to let go of this vine while
contemplating which is the next one we can grab. Naturally, the artists in
our crew have come up with quite a bit more unthemed work in the last seven
months than is contained in this collection, but against our better judgement
were making an effort to behave and comply with 16colors textiness mandate
just because the underground computer artscene seems to be going through some
doldrums lately -- theres a lot of talk about how people need to make art and
release artpacks, but theres more talking than making and releasing going on
up in this mother. We need to demonstrate to them in the most widely-visible
way possible: if we can do it, certainly you can. Make the art. Zip it up,
get it out there. We are supposed to be pushing at the limits and constraints
of our traditions, it would be positively nutty to leave Mistigris as the
flag-bearers for ANSI art, even if we did release more of it than any other
crew in 2021... we slowed down our pace so the new releases ticker wouldnt
simply be an uninterrupted litany of Mist packs -- were leaving that space
for you to fill. Take us up on it!
Any notes about this collection? February is a month that does a lot of heavy
lifting -- it is many things to many people -- so Horsenburger does us the
favour of recognizing Black History Month, while Joninscii investigates the
continuing mutations of the pandemic and Valentines Day gets its due
recognition, too. All that, plus Russia invaded Ukraine! I guess theres
never room on the schedule for that one. Some Mist community members --
bryface, Illarterate, dwimmer and littlebitspace -- get a chance to share
works with you that were sent to demoparties last summer on our behalf. And
Polyducks launched his intriguing new Fungus Friends initiative at
fungi.neocities.org -- we represent the tip of its iceberg.
Wed also like to celebrate our sharing art by three artists appearing in a
Mistigris artpack for the first time. Gonzo Blender champion Mister Roboto
went on a whirlwind tour through our networked Moebius collaborative ANSI art
server which Ive already mentioned, but which I should also note you can
also peek into through your web browser via completelynonintegrable.ca:1234
along with deadguy -- their efforts will continue to be represented in our
next, cat-themed artpack hopefully due out in late March. The enigmatic
Geronimoe also vented a few, apparently fully-formed ANSI art scrollers there
in what is clearly not his first rodeo, but no one really knows where he came
from or how he found us. We may never know for sure, but maybe I shouldnt
inspect this gift horses teeth too closely. And finally, we have PixelDud,
who made good on a very worthwhile resolution to jump into textmode art by
minting a Topaz ASCII creation every day this month. We share some highlights
from his spree and look forward to his continuing to draw in this idiom, even
if not necessarily at such an insistent pace.
Welcome to all of them, plus all of the other contributors and mad props even
to the members of our wider creative community who werent represented in this
collection! Our curatorial standards were pretty brutal this time around, but
we have a lot more art in our back pocket were looking forward to finding
creative ways to share with the public!
In the meantime, the conversation always continues at our Discord, so please
dont hesitate to look us up!
... And a late-breaking welcome back to The Godfather: hope youre feeling