dark illustrated

HAPPY CANADA DAY, FELLOW CANUCKS!

DARK ILLUSTRATED 06/98 NEWSLETTER

It's SUMMERTIME people!  And you know what that means, right?

MEAT AND MEETS!  It's BBQ season for the Overlords of the Overweight!
Over the next two and a half months, Toronto, Ontario will sink another
meter below sea level as our Lardass Lordships get together in various
locations around the city to chat and chow down.  (Who knows, you might
even see a few mega-joint art pieces emerge in between courses.)

Kicking things off is THE JAM!  On July 11th, a combination house-
warming/welcoming party is taking place at XypherM's converted cattle
ranch, with special long-distance guest Quip!, who's flying all the way
from Vancouver to put on a few hundred pounds with the Dark League of
Obesity.  This meet'll have everything *and* the kitchen sink.  (Except
for a bikini contest, which was banned after Burnout developped the
masterful skill of pulling G-strings off with his zinderfine.)

[If you STILL don't know what a zinderfine is, dewmed.ml.org/zinder
fine
has a gallery and history that'll quickly familiarize you with this wicked
device.]

If you're in the T.O. area that weekend, get all the latest information
by e-mailing xmtrx@interlog.com!  (This event is most certainly NOT
sponsored by the Heart and Lung Foundation of Canada.)

Expect a complete (and hilarious) run-down of happenings in the August
Collection, with details from THE JAM, The Warped Tour Spam Invasion,
the Great Canadian Concert Crashing, and numerous Encounters of the
Thirty-Third-Helping Kind.

[Check out www.interlog.com/~xmtrx, which has photos, summaries,
and information on past and upcoming events.  The recent Muskokan Monster
Meet is it's current feature.]

As always, enjoy the pack!  And expect some BLOCKBUSTING new material
next month, as Dark Illustrated reveals it's new logo!

Cheers!

Xypher Matryx, Dark Senior Staff/Cattle Ranch
er

MEMBER MOVEMENT

Yeh yeh, crude joke, anyway shaddap.

Of all the low down dirty tricks to play on our group... SOMEBODY put
the batteries back into Carnifex.  The Man-Machine has found his way back
to Dark Illustrated, requesting asylum and resuming his annoying habit of
eating salt a grain at a time.  Oh well, slave labor is hard to come by.

The memberlist might look a bit shaken up.  We're trying to sort out
who's still alive among the ever changing scenesters.  If you've been
accidentally knocked off, for god's sakes get in touch with us.  Even if
it's only to provide you with a proper burial.

*** WARNING: EDITORIAL RANT FOLLOWS! ***

Dark Illustrated 1996: "The Originals of The Originators" 4thds<Dark>

When it comes to Dark Illustrated, the above ascii says it all.  We are
and always will be the "Originals of the Originators".  2 years after the
coining of the phrase, and 4 years after birth, we find ourselves confronted
with stupid comments, ignorant accusations, and pathetic attempts at tarnishing
what is Dark Illustrated.

The year is 1998, the only groups still releasing artwork from all forms
of media are as follows:  Dark, Cia, Rca, and Mistigris.  Notice there is no
Legion, no Avenge, no Ice, no Zenith, no <insert group name here>.  With only
4 groups releasing Ansi, Ascii, Music, and High resolution wouldn't it come
to stand that these 4 groups be looked upon as the carriers of the torch long
lit when all groups did the same?  Last night I had the 'pleasure' of being
approached by an editor of an emag.  His first comments to me were "Dark
releasing bimonthly is lame".  I'll say one thing, Dark is never to be called
lame.  How can a group that has lasted so long, and that has endured so much
be called 'lame'?  For that matter, how can someone who hasn't even been in the
scene as long say it?

The scene has changed, we all know that.  But let me make one thing clear
to all of you, there is an ignorance that exists moreso now than ever before.
When I first came into the scene, one was not even looked at seriously unless
one had talent and knew what the scene was about.  Most of you reading this
right now do not have the knowledge that you should.  Now before I get into
this, I want to cut most of you off from declaring this a personal thing, or
a petty thing.  Remember Legion's uproar after FOS #8?  Remember the scene's
uproar after Aesthetic #3 and #4?  I'm only trying to clear up some things
that most of you have forgotten or ignorantly put to the side.

The scene has some 'rules' and guidelines that we have come to follow,
now they're nothing enforced, they're just things that have become norms over
the past few years.  Let me be the first to tell you that groups such as Dark
do not need/nor do they have the desire to follow these things.  Just because
you can't understand why we're releasing bimonthly, or why you can't understand
that we're still hanging in #dark most of the time, doesn't mean we're the ones
at fault.  Try educating yourself about the group before you open that mouth
of yours.  We are what no other group could ever be.  And I mean EVER.  80% of
the group have become close friends that hang out, talk about problems, and
socialize all the time.  We are about friendship, not about what review we get
in modern day excuses for emags, not about how we 'rank' with those in #ansi.

Now, I know you've heard the term 'friendship' being tossed around in
every group.  But I'll challenge you with this, if you had a serious problem,
or if you had nowhere else to go, could you be confident in knowing your fellow
group members would be there no matter what?  I didn't think so.  We are what
few other groups could achieve.  Will your group last at least 4 years?  Will
your group still be here in 1?  Will your group continue to release all types
of art?  Oh wait... most of you can't even handle that right now.  I commend
groups like Cia, Mistigris, Ice, Acid, and Rca.  You'll notice that within
these groups it's not so much about the ansi portion of the scene as it is
about the friendship and enjoyment of it.

Before you come down from that high horse most of you have put yourselves
on, you should realize one thing.  That being, there exists a hierarchy in
the scene.  This hierarchy isn't based on what group gets ranked number one
in some modern day 'emag' nor is it about what group can draw the most comic
rips.  This hierarchy is about history.  The history that surrounds groups like
Dark, Ice, Acid, Cia, Rca, and Mistigris.  Without history your group will
fade away into nothingness no matter what potential you had.  Remember groups
like Legend?  Twilight?  Spastic?  Decades?  Saga?  Names that nobody can
really speak of without feeling some form of regret.  Why didn't these groups
last?  Because they didn't know what it took to last.  I don't care who you've
got in your senior staff, I don't care who you've got in your group, I don't
even care how good you are.  If you can't cut it in the scene, then you might
as well just shut up, sit down, and think about what you can do to make that
group of yours last.

If Dark decides to go bimonthly then fine, you should realize that the
group isn't made up of popularity-hungry ansi drawing zombies.  Instead it's
made up of forward thinking individuals that have decided that it's time
to concentrate a little more on life than on a conceptual scene.  We will
never cater to the scene, we have no need to.  We will do what we've always
done.  I find it hilarious that most of you don't realize what this one ansi
group is all about.  There are a few out there that know what we are, that
understand us, that respect us.  And to these few, I thank you and I commend
you, for you have the knowledge of the scene that will make you a rarity in
the next few years.  To the rest, learn.  There is a scene history, and if you
knew anything about it, then the name Dark would enlighten all your hearts.

Dark is lame?  How dare you people come out and try to say such a thing.
Dark has always been the battle ground for the greats, greats like:  Ravage
Bias, Spaceman Spiff, The Green Hornet, Carnifex, Yggdrasil, Metal Skin,
Tesla, etc.  Pity that most of you don't even know 30% of them.  Dark is not
lame, because if we were, we wouldn't be here now.

Before I end this I'd like to send props out to Acid, Ice, Cia, Rca,
and the mighty Mistigris.  And to groups like Legion, Avenge, Zenith, etc,
I wish you the prosperity and growth that Dark has achieved.  This was somethingI just ha
d to get off my chest.  I've never met a group of people so kind, so
reliable, so unselfish.  Dark Illustrated 1994 and beyond.

Note:  This article is not from the group Dark Illustrated, it's from one of
it's members, The 4Th Disciple.  These are my personal thoughts, so
before you go flaming the group like some idiotic newbie, read this
and try flaming the source, me.

The 4Th Disciple (Dark Illustrated)

DARK'S FILENAMING CONVENTION

Filename Conventions...

Filenames work like this:  XXXXX-##.*

XXXXX is a five-letter abbreviation of the artist's alias.
(Should the alias fall within five characters or less, the
entire alias will be used.)

## represents the current number of pieces the artist has
produced the year of release.

* can be any valid extension for images, executables, data
files, or musical compositions.  The most common are DRK for
ansi images including JPG/GIF/BMP/etc for high resolution graphic
images, and MOD/S3M/XM/IT/etc for music data files.

ACHERON.ORG IS TOTALLY FAT

We'd like to take a quick moment to turn your attention to possibly the
best scene resource available right now:  www.acheron.org

Blathering on about it would be pointless, so we'd like you, oh gentle
viewer, to please take a minute and check out the great news, artwork,
and particularly the photo gallery (which anyone'll agree Dark helped
spawn) to be seen there.

Cheers!

THE END

(now get the hell outdoors and socialize, you toadstoolish mofos!)