Talk: Is Ascii Art finished?

A fortune cookie said that zhu...@vax.sbu.ac.uk wrote:
>
>Do you find the ASCII-ART is going down: just very limited items appear in the
>NEWSGROUP these days, almost no pictures posted, no pictures are better than or
>match with (at least in my point of view) the famous LION, BUTTERFLY,
>MOTOCYCLE, CASTLE......in this year. Where are the artistics? disappeared? too
>busy?? feeded up with this art?
>
>Save it now! I would like to see more and more new artistics' work next year.

   Things, including ASCII art, go in cycles.  Readers and artists come
and go.  That's life.  ASCII art will be around for a while.  It won't
see a real decline until GIFs are easily used in newsgroups, email, etc,
as they are now used on the Web.

   And even on the Web I use some ASCII because I have over 50 pages, and
using GIFs on all of them would create way to much traffic (my pages get
5 to 6 thousands hits a day as it is).

   Even when the day comes when ASCII art  is no longer 'needed' it will
still exist, as it existed before there was an Internet.  But for right now,
any decline you see is just a low point in a cycle.  Stick around a month
or two and tell me what you see.

>How to save? Please post your idear if you like this art.
>
>My idear is: Whenever an ascii-art posted, give it a talk, say good or bad, say
>your suggestion, and any comments. If you get any picture, just tell the
>artistic what you are going to do with his art work (if possible) and say
>thank you.....What I mean is too silent when a art work posted. If you through
>a stone into a lake and you could not find any sand, nor any wave, you
>must escape back home.

   Run that by me again. :-)

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Bob Allison (bob...@wwa.com) wrote:
: A fortune cookie said that zhu...@vax.sbu.ac.uk wrote:
: >
: >Do you find the ASCII-ART is going down:
: >just very limited items appear in the
: >NEWSGROUP these days, almost no pictures posted,
: >no pictures are better than or
: >match with (at least in my point of view) the famous LION, BUTTERFLY,
: >MOTOCYCLE, CASTLE......in this year. Where are the artistics?
: >disappeared? too
: >busy?? feeded up with this art?

:    Things, including ASCII art, go in cycles.  Readers and artists come 
: and go.  That's life.  ASCII art will be around for a while.  It won't 
: see a real decline until GIFs are easily used in newsgroups, email, etc, 
: as they are now used on the Web.

One of the reasons is that the 'old school' have either disappeared or 
slowed down. When I started reading alt.a-a in January, artists such as
Rowan Crawford, Normand Vielleux, Tua Xiong, Lennert Stock, etc. were at
their peak. Their numerous drawings persuaded others to start drawing.
We are currently in a quiet patch, Felix Lee and Gilo (who has far too
much free time on his hands!) still post up new work regularly, but a
lot of the letters these days are requests which makes it seem like 
there are fewer pictures than there are. There are probably just as
many readers as before, it's just that being a lurker is easier than
being an artist. Drawing in Ascii is HARD!

Also, a lot of the artwork on a.a-a was pre-Internet art, so we were
working our way through a backlog of pictures. We have now pretty much
exhausted the stock of pictures and are waiting on new artwork all the
time.

As Scarecrow says, these things come in cycles, it will probably pick up
again mid-January.


: >My idear is:
: >Whenever an ascii-art posted, give it a talk, say good or bad, say
: >your suggestion, and any comments. If you get any picture, just tell the
: >artistic what you are going to do with his art work (if possible) and say
: >thank you.....
: >What I mean is too silent when a art work posted. If you through
: >a stone into a lake and you could not find any sand, nor any wave, you
: >must escape back home.

:    Run that by me again. :-)

Just once, or several times? ;-)


                                                   DR J

______________________________________________________________________________
                !                              !   _______________    ______
  Purveyor  of  :  "Do or do not. There is no  :  (_______________)  (______|
 fine Ascii-Art :   try."                      :   _     _ _    __        _
 Stereograms to .                        Yoda  .  | |   | | |__/ /       | |
  the InterNet  .                              .  | |   | |  __ <    __  | |
   since 1994    ------------------------------   | |__/ /| |  \ \   \ \_| |
                . UserID, Address, Phone, etc. .  |_____/ |_|   \_\   \____|
______________________________________________________________________________
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________

me90drj : "It's an old code sir, but it checks out. I was about to clear him."
is94drj : "....5....4....3...Wait! What's that red light?...."
______________________________________________________________________________

: >My idear is:
: >Whenever an ascii-art posted, give it a talk, say good or bad, say
: >your suggestion, and any comments. If you get any picture, just tell the
: >artistic what you are going to do with his art work (if possible) and say
: >thank you.....
: >What I mean is too silent when a art work posted. If you through
: >a stone into a lake and you could not find any sand, nor any wave, you
: >must escape back home.

Heh if you want response to your work my advise is: don't do ascii-art.
I get roughly .1 reply per post, my most favourite post was the release
of a big isometric font - 3 replies to be exact. But this is the case
with most free creations on the net. I'm also not sure if forced responds
("Great! Eh..eh.... great!") only to keep the artists happy will light
anybodies fire. I'd be much happier if someone paid my phonebill ;)
Anyway, the point is that you should just like the creating process,
otherwise non-response, the passing nature of ascii-art, mutators, thieves,
and the like will drive you (more) crazy.


        .         _
                 (_)       .    .  "Sir, Rebel ship coming into our sector."
  .        ____.--^.               "Good, our first catch of the day."
   .      /:  /    |                               +           .          .
         /:  `--=--'   .                                                .
        /: __[\==`-.___          *           .                   .
       /__|\ _~~~~~~   ~~--..__            .             .
       \   \|::::|-----.....___|~--.                                 .
        \ _\_~~~~~-----:|:::______//---...___
    .   [\  \  __  --     \       ~  \_      ~~~===------==-...____
        [============================================================-
        /         __/__   --  /__    --       /____....----''''~~~~      .
  *    /  /   ==           ____....=---='''~~~~ .
 .    /____....--=-''':~~~~                      .         - Lennert Stock -
      .       ~--~                                         len...@xs4all.nl

Lennert Stock:
>Heh if you want response to your work my advise is: don't do ascii-art.
>I get roughly .1 reply per post, my most favourite post was the release

I see about the same thing.  Not just for ascii art, but everything
else as well.  I suspect the "bystander effect" may be a factor..

Once in a while, I see a new sig that's based on something I did,
usually a cat.  But a lot of the time it's in alt.fan.warlord, so I'm
never quite sure how to react. :)

>Anyway, the point is that you should just like the creating process,
>otherwise non-response, the passing nature of ascii-art, mutators, thieves,
>and the like will drive you (more) crazy.

Yup.  It's mostly just an occasional hobby for me.  I do this stuff
for fun, for the challenge, and to learn how to draw.  Flat surfaces
are hard to find, but computers are all around me :).
--

Garfield told me that Felix Lee <fle...@cse.psu.edu> wrote:
>
>Lennert Stock:
>>Heh if you want response to your work my advise is: don't do ascii-art.
>>I get roughly .1 reply per post, my most favourite post was the release
>
>I see about the same thing.  Not just for ascii art, but everything
>else as well.  I suspect the "bystander effect" may be a factor..

   My experience has been that in most cases people will look at what's
posted without commenting, unless:

   1  The art is outstanding.
   2  Flamebait is included (like the swastika stuff every 3 to 6 months).
   3  It's an important topic (like a new ASCII art newsgroup).
   4  Somebody show a unidentifiable piece and asks what it is.
   5  Somebody makes a mistake and other correct it.
   6  A request is posted.

   And the strange thing is, I can't tell some of the time what will or
will not get a big response.

   When I posted a sig for Halloween that looked like dripping blood, I
didn't think anything about it.  To my surprise it got copied, used, and
turned into 3 full alphabets, and made into 3 Figlet fonts.  And my Web
pages were the biggest surprise.  I had no idea they would get used as
they do.  Absolutely no idea.

   Then there are times when I think something will get a lot of
attention, and it doesn't.

>Once in a while, I see a new sig that's based on something I did,
>usually a cat.  But a lot of the time it's in alt.fan.warlord, so I'm
>never quite sure how to react. :)

   You must forgive the warlorders, they have nothing better to do.

>>Anyway, the point is that you should just like the creating process,
>>otherwise non-response, the passing nature of ascii-art, mutators, thieves,
>>and the like will drive you (more) crazy.
>
>Yup.  It's mostly just an occasional hobby for me.  I do this stuff
>for fun, for the challenge, and to learn how to draw.  Flat surfaces
>are hard to find, but computers are all around me :).

   Computers are great because of the control you have, and the ability
of copying a file and playing with the copy to make variations.

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Scarecrow:
>   You must forgive the warlorders, they have nothing better to do.

heh, that's what warlorders say about ascii artists. :)
--