c
c
*ct
He added the art after writing the newsletter, but just
watch him go into his potted speech as though he hadnt
just been introduced by a badass shotgun-toting black
cat with a certified Josef Stalin
moustachio. Go on, hes not going to
even acknowledge it!
Yes, our crews name Mistigris is French slang for alleycat. In the 90s
it served to provide us with handy mascots and some head-scratching over a
brand of canned cat food going by the same name. Now, for a change of pace,
the brand confusion inspired by our choice of name puts us into conflict with
a lingerie store in Strasbourg. To cap off our bustling 2019 calendar year,
we did a victory lap 13th monthly artpack to which art on a feline theme had
been diverted, and in that moment I felt we did it, realising a one-off event
that needed to happen once -- Mistigris releasing a cat-themed artpack -- then
checked it off our bucket list, moving on and expecting to never revisit the
territory again. Six months later we presented a catty Textmode Friends ANSI
art jam on our networked Moebius server, and I figured we had well and truly
vented the last of all of our unrealised tabby creative urges. Never in a
million years or perhaps nine lives, if you prefer did I imagine that wed be
returning to this theme for another visit to the well when there are still so
many other rich veins weve never yet tapped.
But then I didnt count on Andy.
You know what they say about cats, right?
They come back.
Even when you think theyre a goner!
You may recall this little critter from Cordell
Barkers 1988 Oscar-nominated NFB short animated
adaptation of the folk song The Cat Came Back.
Spoiler warning:
it comes back.
Anyway, for the past couple of years weve really been
leaning on a networked Moebius server to help foster a viable Mistigris ANSI
art caucus back into viability -- first established and maintained by
Picrotoxin, then taken on by LDA, most spectacularly capitalised on by
Polyducks and his Textmode Friends. And thats something else we can also
blame on Andy. Possibly we could have hosted a networked PabloDraw server
previously but somehow, never did. I dont know all of the nuts and bolts but
have to assume that the Moebius way of doing it is somehow easier and more
streamlined to make happen, and as the creator of Moebius, he is somewhere
along the line, responsible as the great clockmaker. I went on immediately in
the first draft, but its worth interrupting my own flow here to stress the
point I just touched on earlier: taking creative activities and making them
social and collaborative brings them to another level. If your crew isnt
running a networked server, if you have any curiosity, its well worth trying
out. Its been a game changer for us. We have rated ours as top priority, the
very first link on our website, and you can find ours at
http://discord.gg/9R84QUN -- if you just want a lookie loo, you can peep in at
http://completelynonintegrable.ca:1234/ OK, now where was I? Ah yes: Every
time weve got a themed artpack coming up, we announce the theme at the top,
and make some space for themed works to inspire more along those lines. We did
it for video games last September, we did it for spooky art in October, we did
it for wintery art in December and ... for our unthemed pack in February, we
felt our community deserved a break, and we announced:
Next Pack Theme: whatever!
THEME? Lets just jam, make some art!
Now: back to Andy. For many months, every time the question of what should
the theme of our next artpack be? comes up, hed volunteer immediately,
without hesitation: Cats! And wed say, oh yeah, we already did that, dude!
But the history of Mistigris is nothing if not the tale of the fool who
persists in his folly. For months and months he plants seeds, and eventually
they yield fruit. Someone slipped in, and made some surgical amendments to our
easygoing respite:
Next Pack Theme: Cats
THEME? Lets just cat, make some cat! ,
For lack of more compelling alternatives, eventually you
simply start drawing cats!
andyh
OK, OK, so you get the picture. This is another cat-themed
artpack. Most groups never get even one, here is our
second, etc. The next one -- were taking April off, the
fools will have to fend for themselves another year though,
disclaimer, we do co-present another Blender compo Apr 23-24
lda with Lazarus, even if they are too scared to ever mention it
in their infofiles -- will be the usual science fiction
nonsense in May, while we live through a real-life mashup of Idiocracy,
Outbreak, Soylent Green, Return of the Jedi and Waterworld. Probably June will
go unthemed again, then hopefully well have some other worthwhile projects of
which we have no shortage to divert ourselves with until our obligatory
promenade of releases at end-of-year.
Zylone kindly provided this catbox as a suitable
receptacle for Cthulus crappy sense of humour as
demonstrated in this packs infofiles. On the far
side there you can see one such bon mot that failed to
successfully land. litterbox
But enough about those hypothetical upcoming artpacks. What can I tell you
about this pack? First, a hearty Mistigris hats off to ASCII artist A Mouse
aka 3S , making their first artpack appearance ever in this collection, in a
strange game of cat and mouse. Thanks also to first-time Mistpack guest
Abstrakt of Lazarus for showing us how ASCII art is grumpily done! Mister
Roboto and Deadguy of HPM Crew also left us a couple of guest submissions in
the Moebius server, and we are very glad that they helped to get the ball
rolling in that way! Its a great way to make a cameo appearance in a Mist
pack -- just please, please sign your work! We dont see much of Pinguino in
these parts these days, but how could she let herself miss two cat-themed
artpacks in a row? Simply put, she couldnt. This may be the last gasp of
Geronimoe -- we rigged up our Moebius server to let us know when he entered to
bomb us with superior ANSI art, and his tingling spidey-senses ensured he never
visited again. Theres a lesson to be learned here about looking a gift horse
in the mouth, that we almost certainly wont take to heart. You cant overlook
great runs of work by LDA and littlebitspace here, and we offer the unique
spectacle of old friends Cthulu and Pannekoekologist both independently
engaging the same comic strip panel in different textmode artforms. PixelDud
followed up last months self-imposed creative challenge of drawing a different
ASCII art screen every day by trying his hand at ANSI every day this month, and
a couple of those experiments feature in this collection. I think April may
be PETSCII month for him! We also feature two different acknowledgments of
2022s status as the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac. Its all a rich
tapestry.
Lending the collection a personal touch,
AtonalOspreys submission is a portrait of a
beloved but departed family pet Pinguino
and AndyH share cats still living with them
Andy likes to inform us that his cat has
more followers on social media than
Mistigris does, while Jellica Jake finally
clued us in to the fact that he doesnt just
love drawing different cats, but he and his
partner actually foster homeless felines,
and consequently have a high turnover rate
-- every cat he draws has spent time living
under his roof, but apparently most of them
have moved on to forever homes.
Thanks to all of the rare and sporadic
contributors who emerged from out of the
woodwork to take part in this collection, and
an especial thanks to all of the artists who
provided us with the packs distinctive
iconography -- Zeus II and LDA for the
FILEID.DIZ art, cccfire and Zylone for the
illustrations used with the contributor bios
and CoaXCable, AndyH,
LDA, and Zylone again
for the spot art used
in this very infofile.
Thanks again and I
guess well see all of
you cool cats out
there the next time
around!
And now we are
confronted by the fact
that I have run out of
infofile content before
exhausting our spot art.
A skilled writer would
seamlessly come up with bonus
text without missing a beat
or ever owning up to their
gaffe, but I think that from
a comedy perspective, it is
quite a bit funnier to be
frank about my predicament
here. Ive got to say that writing a
newsletter around spot art really is a
very different beast from just turning
on the taps for the wall of text.
Perhaps further experiments are needed.
Zy
Nearly 30 years in, and were still
figuring things out. OK, roll the
closing image!
I think its better to leave with
decorum and great dignity.