And thus the arrival of a new dawn approaches.  The era of expansion,
learning, and advancement.  The dawn brings not the light of day, but the
cold of night.  Let your fear and hatred spawn from your inner self to your
eyes and hands.  Let it overwhelm and seep into every pore and cell of your
body.  Tendrils of electric blue void spark and sizzle, not ever burning,
but freezing whatever it touches...

...let the darkness begin.

Let the Six Pack begin!

We welcome in 98 with a new style.  Continuing with the excellence our
artists are known for, we decided to add a little twist to their craft.
Each member was requested to expand into a media type not yet mastered
to themself.  Ansi artists are experimenting with vga, while vga
artists are mastering programming just to name some of the quirky moves.

With artists grumbling in the background we swifty defeated their armies
of complaints, only to snicker and laugh at their newly (de)formed art.
Perhaps in time our artists may in fact release media outside of their own
native waters on a regular basis.

But perhaps in time, cows will rule the world.

Artistic talent is sometimes needed to be expressed differently and released
differently in order to fully understand what you do.  Doing the same task
over and over again tends to drive boredom into the thoughts of those who
turn into slaves at the mercy of their art.  From a chaotic state into
nirvana, from uniformity into frenzy, we have created something extraordinary.

Though most deemed this merely as an excercise in 'fun', many stood with arms
wide open to the thought of a challenge.  Of course, no one would ever call
what we've done a challenge.  It's strange to realize but all we ever have
are victories.  However, this pack is not an excercise.  It's more like
someone opening another window to us and showing us the new view.

- oxygene [head coder]

With Acidic Soap bumbling about programming in his ear, oxygene prowls over
his other windows in his irc client.   A writhing flow of text fills his
buffers.  Artists throwing their hands up in frustration.  The low murmur
of questions and comments being volleyed to and fro between the departments.
his escape.  His friends.  His family.

He knows now what he has to do.

Needing a swift influx of pepsi, oxygene contemplates an idea which occured
to him while driving to see his counterpart.  Listening to squarepusher he
relaxes into a state of bliss.  A release of internal energy flows into the
words he composes on the screen.  The thoughts pour like sand through an open
hand yet fall into place in a seemingly perfect crystaline formation.  Unable
to keep up, his hands ache with the fury his nerve impulses fire at them.
No end is in sight.

His words quickly dissipate as eagerly as they began.  Feeling like a new
found stranger in an even stranger world, he hears the calming voice of her.
He stops, notices her presence, and quickly closes his file, eager to talk
to her.

He turns around, only to see an empty room.  Very long, and very wide.
A massive expanse with a tiny spec off in the distance.

Time for a walk.

We have recieved numerous comments and suggestions about the reduction of
our pack size.  The issue remains up in the air currently as discussions
still produce points for each side.  The idea would be to release an ansi
only pack, and a separate multimedia pack (vga/music/coding), while allowing
the option to grab the whole deal.

Work on the WHQ continues after taking a small break for some of our members
who are doing the design of it.  No opening date is set, however, it is
rumoured that it's done, with the only effort right now being placed to
serious modifications of the layout, and additions.

A massive release from our coding department is slated tentatively for a
February pack release date.  Seeing as our coding department has been wrapped
up in this production, we know that we will not disappoint.  This will be
an addon release to the regular pack only due to the size of the program and
associated files.  The web site will contain more information about this when
the time comes, so keep your eyes open!  Remember folks... Tentative ;)

Feel free to check out some of the amazing addons to our web site at
www.darkillustrated.org, which is running better than ever we might add.
Obtaining our own server, and administration rights, we have expanded our
resources to such exciting things like DarkView/NET, which is our newly
developed online pack viewer.  Also feel free to check out some of the
members pages.

We'd like to thank Mistigris for their inspiration in this idea we called
the Six Pack :)  Look out for their annual April Fools packs!

Tsk finally released something. *applause applause*

We lose two very special members from the ranks of Dark Illustrated this
month.  As sad as we are to watch them leave, we offer them the best with
their new directions in life.

Burnout steps down as VGA head in order to take care of personal matters.
In his place he leaves Acidic Soap, who will do an excellent job.  Burnout
does intend to return to the ranks once his life is sorted out.  No doubt
he'll come back better than ever, as well as slightly heavier... *snicker*

One very important and age old member leaves us too.  Xypher Matryx bids a
fond farewell after 5 long years in the ranks, both as a member, and most
noteably as Senior Staff.  Taking matters in his own hands, Xypher Matryx
intends to tackle the world head on.  Hope he has _lots_ of asprin :)

Take care punks.

As some leave, some rejoin.  We welcome aboard The Green Hornet from his
time away from us.  uvel0city, Alla Xul and Grindstone also join up in the
ranking.  Of course we'll see some amazing work down the line from these
artists ;)

And we welcome back Holocaust.  The cheeky thunder monkey himself ;)  Look
for some ruff artwork from him soon...

A minor clerical error was found in last months member list.  moomin13 was
regretfully misplaced in our vga department list.  Apologies from the staff.

A late addition also failed to notice our beloved Warpus for the past few
months too.  Err...

*** oxygene sets mode +asskick <staff*@*!*>

··[dark site list]-----------------------------------------------------------

To Be Announced      DARK World Headquarters    Unknown
Neosporin            DARK Western HQ            Rage
Mad Cows?!?          DARK Member Board          Night Stalker
Abraxas/Diabolic     DARK US Support Site       Megga Hertz
ABCB Cafe            DARK Support Site          Kyo

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.

··[miscellaneous banter and thoughts]----------------------------------------

And again, #dark seems to provide, at the very least, some place where
you can laugh at people.  Not with them ;)

<PBreaker> Hey, we got to watch a TCBY store burn to the ground the other
night.  Not that I had anything to do with it.

<PBreaker> It's just like OJ Simpson and women. Sometimes you just have to
slap the shit out of.. er, I never said that.

<_Epitaph> sinned: I guess my sense of humour is based around parodies and/
or wacky things, whereas yours is in the embarassment of others.
<sinned_> bingo

<jeriko> And now i'm taking off my pants... Oops, wrong channel...

<sinnedRC5> Quake 2 at sinned.acid.org
<PBreaker> Castle Wolfenstein at pbreaker.fatty.com

<jeriko> all i have is a dx2/80
<sinnedRC5> jeriko:  rest assured that I own 3 computers faster than yours. :)
<_4thds> I think my dog runs faster than your computer
<jeriko> 4th: your dog runs that fast only when it sees that gleam in your
eyes...

* _4thds screams like a little girl and runs off

<oxygene> see the little button on the left of the keyboard that seys:
caps lock? press it.  now.

<atHero> "Violence errupted last night after an unprovoked verbal attack on a
well-known member of the "Dark Illustrated" gang.  A turf war began after
name-calling escalated to kicks, and finally, full-scale nuclear warfare.
More on this at the 6 o'clock report."

<godless-> The chicks downtown always complement my choices of cds but they
never discount for me ;) (or dance naked for that matter)

<godless-> I AM BOOBYMAN

<Corinth> :)8-8==D
<Corinth> look, I'm a hermaphrodite.

<PBreaker> Shit, it's snowing tomorrow.
<PBreaker> This could make drunk driving treacherous.

<oxygene> i really believe that the essence to design is the ability to
successfully convey ones idea in relation with space.
<oxygene> i guess it all depends how you look at it.
<_4thds> hmm... and in english: I like to dewdle

*** |^-ZiP-^| (xxx@ham-2313.netrover.com) has joined #dark
<__megaman> pkunzip |^-ZIP-^| c:\hamilton-sucks\

<|^-ZiP-^|> I don't get it
<godless-> think hard.

Another yearly chapter is written, and another is begun with this month's
pack.  We've reached a focal point in DARK's history.  Continuing with the
tradition of our previous years, DARK Illustrated will remain as a pillar of
strength from the North.

"we've made it this far..."

This is dedicated to you (you know who you are) regardless of where you
stand.  I know where I stand.

- oxygene [head coder]