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   - I babble - °  ßßßßßßßßß                 
Due to the fact that I have a fever and a supremely annoying headache,
 not to mention that the pack is already a day late due, in part, to 
arpeggio being down, cthulu's coolness and splint's mother, I'm going
to cut this newsletter fairly short.  There are a few points I would
like to address, however.

The first is the threat to our group of trend-syndrome.  It has been
that fire is now the most trendy group in the scene, owing it's 
success not to the efforts of it's members, but to some fluke of
nature that has made us a very desirable group to be in in the minds
of scenesters.

I would argue that it is the unique qualities and talented members in
fire that cause such trendiness.  After all, why wouldn't people like
a group that releases regular, decent quality packs that allow their
members a good deal of expressive and creative freedom.

To combat the dangers of trendy-death and to prove to the scene once
and for all that we're not out to be the next acid or ice, I would
like to announce the Member Freeze.

For the month of March, fire will not accept members of any kind.  
No exceptions will be made.  The coordinators will, instead of
recruiting this month, spend time getting to know the members who
they have direct contact with.  March shall be a time to stabilize
the group and to reshuffle and restructure any flaws we find as a
result of our self-examination.

That out of the way, we continue on to 

- New Members -

Numb -  Formerly of Void, the group that began the art careers of
 Veks, Grimace, and Turtle [among others], he comes to Fire
 after doing last month's joint ansi with Prisoner#1.

Betrayer - Mike needs no introduction, but we'll give him one
 anyway.=)  Former Senior Staff of Shiver and Saga, he will
 be helping out with Special Operations.  Betrayer's only
 regret is that Fire does not begin with the letter "S", but
 being that he is an all around nice guy he doesn't plan
       to hold that against us.=)

Anarchist,  Blatz,  Cytral Skunk and Spear - These talented ascii
artists were recruited this month to bolster the already
strong fire "ASCII" project.  All of these members were
recruited by Fractal and, sadly, he has not supplied me 
with any information regarding their past affiliations
and the like.

Bigge Pif and Jeepee - These dual canadian ansi gods come to us from
grip, saga and a variety of other local groups.  BP and JP
both love to converse with us silly americans, so feel free
to give 'em a call.  Avec?  Avec.

Black Viper - This talented ansi artist joins us from an alternate
reality akin to those found in the TV show "Sliders."  Don't
the "Sliders" adds remind you of "Sizzler" commercials?
Siiizler.   Sllliders.

Cybernary - Wacky ole' CY joined and left a few months ago, but now
he's here to stay!  This scene oldschooler brings a wealth of
talents to the fire fold, including HTML coding and neat-beans
font design.

Zoltar - Formerly of Spastic and a regular fire contributor, Zoltie
finally joins the group full time this month and promises
to try to release at least one font per month with the group
for the forseeable future.

- Legend -

Fire bids a sad farewell this month to the ansi group Legend.  The 
was a source of alternative-to-the-big-2 inspiration for us for a 
long while, and shall be missed.  Thankfully, some of the Legend 
team have joined us in our quest for world-affectation.

 Everlast - Brings his ansi (maybe) and VGA talents to bear in this 
very pack, along with Energon Boy himself:

Grimlock - GL is known for his amazing work in Integrity and Legend.
this month's Spawn/Venom ansi is just a sampling of what this
big-ole dinobot can do.
 
Stone The Crow - Though his future is uncertain, for now, my favorite
Drunken Bird has decided to roost and lay his ansi eggs with
the rest of us.  

Iodine - Last but certainly not least, Iodine joins us this month
to release his final ansis.  At least for now, ID is leaving
the scene after this month to concentrate on his schoolwork,
art and job.  

- God (?) speaks - (dammit, God fucked up my spacing!!)

 Hal told me anyone in Fire is free to write for the newsletter, so I felt I
 should tell everyone about some stuff.  First off, a few people might be
 asking "Where's that lice god guy's ripmation stuff that he promised he'd
 have this month???"  Here are the reasons: First, I'm lazy.  Second, I was
 busier this month with real life things than I thought I'd be and I decided
 I don't want to put out a piece of shit rip just to have more stuff in the
 pack.  Thirdly, and most importantly, is the new RIPScrip v1.60, because I am
 waiting until the next pack to utilize the new commands it has (more on that
 later).  Also this month, as you will notice, I have a new set of initials.
 Because the talented Grimlock has joined our group, and has surely been
 around longer than me, and has the initials GL, I will now use GOD-????.???.
  
 In the tradition of its LEGEND and iCE divisions, Fire Productions is pleased
 to announce its new TeleGrafix division!  As of 2/5/96, TeleGrafix, the
 company that developed the rip protocol, has decided to relinquish control of
 everything that it owned and operated to Fire.  This includes the right to
 further develop and modify the RIPScrip protocol.  Fire has taken this
 opportunity to create RIPScrip version 1.60.  This new version contains three
 new commands that will aid the rip artist by providing a more standardized
 method to create stop-motion style animations (with the delay commands) and
 to provide the viewer with an optional desired speed of display (with the baud
 rate command).  These new commands will also help cut down on the bloated file
 sizes of some rips that attempt animation by using commands repeated over and
 over.  Look for the new version of pyroview to support these new commands in
 the next Fire pack, with examples by Fire artists.  See the included zip file
 which contains the complete modified RIPScrip v1.60 manual and a what's new
 file for more information and background on the Fire TeleGrafix acquisition.
 RIPScrip v1.60 was developed by God among Lice and Panacea. 
  
 That's it for this month.  Look for some ripmation stuff by me and maybe some
 other Fire artists in the future, as soon as v1.60 is implemented in
 Pyroview.

- Closing - 

I would like to thank ACiD productions for ripping our one-month
vacation theme.  :)

         - Hal(fever er ... fire)
halaster+@cmu.edu
tregency.res.cmu.edu
SAUCE00Fire News for 03/96                Halaster            fire                19960304•#

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