úþ ú ú _\/\/_ _\_\/_/_ þ/_/\_\ /\/\ þ ú _\/\/_ _\_\/_/_ /_/\_\ _\/\/_/\/\ _\_\/_/_ /_/\_\ /\/\ú _\/\/_ _\_\/_/_ ú/_/\_\ú þ/\/\ ___ ___ ___ _____ __ ___ __ ___ | |_| / /\ | |_) | |_) \ \_/| |_| / / \ | | | | | | \ / /\ \ \_/ ( (`|_| | /_/--\ |_| |_| |_||_| | \_\_/ |_|__ |_| |_|_/ /_/--\ |_| _)_) ____ ____ --- === --- === --- === --- == ) ) ,-'-, / | / / - === --- === --- === --- === === --- === --- === --- === - /_/_ -( )- |_| /_/ == --- === --- === --- === --- '-,-' / \ ____ ___ ___ ___ __ _____ _ __ ___ _ __ | |_ | |_) / / \ | |\/|| |\/| | | ( (` | | | | / /`_ | |_) | | ( (` |_| |_| \ \_\_/ |_| ||_| | |_| _)_) |_| |_| \_\_/ |_| \ |_| _)_) Oh my goodness. Everyone in the room who's written twelve infofiles this year, put your hands up. Anyone? Anyone? All right, I'll go off the cuff and knock one more out. Is there really anything left to say? We only succeeded in getting out Christmas artpacks a couple of times in the Mist Classic era, despite best intentions, and even so it was more likely to squeak out just before New Year's. Monthly artpacks were hard, and it wasn't uncommon to witness the sad spectacle of Christmas greetings shared sometime in January. Since firing the works back up, we've been trying to avoid sad spectacles, and so here we are, firmly in early-late-mid December! Not only did we manage to get out over a year of consecutive monthly artpacks, this now marks the first time since its establishment 23 years ago that we here at Mistigris managed to get out an artpack every single month in a given calendar year. (No one cares if you get out an artpack every month in a fiscal year, they say -- well, those weren't real artpacks, you just staged them for tax purposes.) Is there much to say about this specific collection beyond acknowledging its theme and the overall passage of time? Well sure! It is a great case study in our big tent mandate, with specimens of the teletext that has so dictated the course of our 2017 as well as seasonal representatives from the Atari ST and C64 realms manifesting for oldschool solidarity. We have appearances by very sporadic artists we only cross paths with once or twice a year (as far as we're concerned, C64_Endings is a Christmas specialist!) and by old familiar familiar friends (hi, Horsenburger, Awesome Angela, Melodia, Kalcha, Theresa Oborn!) who we see in our packs virtually every month. Some of the pieces are brand new, some ... medium contemporary, having been stored after being shared immediately following the release of MIST1216 last year, and others being positively historical curations exhumed from the fogs of Christmas Past -- specifically we'd like to shine a light on Acidfrog's Christmas jungle from 1996 and Melodia's exhumation and rehabilitation of the 1994 Digitallusions arrangement of "Silent and Soft and Slow Descends the Snow", which lended an excellent soundtrack to our teaser trailer this time around. Pixel Art For The Heart makes his debut appearance in an artpack this month with his lovingly tinted landscapes, a visitor from the social media realm which apparently constitutes our most major audience. (This month we hit 500 Instagram followers, a milestone we surpassed on Twitter some time ago. How many eyeballs do holdouts from the traditional underground computer artscene constitute? No matter, we'll continue onwards in our mission to deliver computer creativity informed by the minimalist constraints of the 20th century using whatever tools the 21st century provides, catering to sensibilities belinging to either time period.) (Apologies to historical figures from the 19th century and time travellers visiting from the 22nd, your perspectives are unwelcomed here.) That's the thing about speaking extemporaneously -- the speaking definitely happens, and you can manage to hit on most of the main talking points, but the connective tissue may navigate you through some peculiar routes. If I could make one request of our viewers, it would be to go visit our 2017 Mistigris Holiday Gift Guide... it is of course quite a bit too late to give anything (non-digitally-delivered) on that list in time for Christmas, but the right time to reward our participating artists financially is perennial and evergreen. We really, really, really can't afford to give them the financial support that they deserve, but I can't categorically rule out all of you out there. So please, check out:  mistfunk.tumblr.com/post/168470788472/mistigris-2017-holiday-gift-guide In closing, I'll poach the greets from our teaser trailer:  Season's Greetings to our esteemed colleagues in Blocktronics, Break, Fuel, Galza, Impure, Amish and the customary lump of coal to Duo Daughters. A big, hearty holiday thanks also to the fine folks at Bitcouver, the Vancouver Chipmusic Society, the "De l'encre et des tripes" zine, the Masters of Pixel Art, TABNet, the Horace Phair community, the Sixteen Colours ANSI of the Day, textmod.es, Demozoo, all our friends in the vintage computing, teletext and BBS communities, confused crossed wires with the worldwide accordion community, underground artscene veterans everywhere and all our new friends on every flavour of social media who quite simply have no idea about any of this. See you all in 2018! |  ,  , --+--  ((   (( _|_ ||   || /___\ .-----#-.   .-----#-. || ||.---'-'---.  .-#-----. /__/\_/\__\ /_/\___/\_\  __||_ _||__ /___________\ /_________\ |[].-.[]| |[].-.[]|  (_)__(  )__(_)  | A /^\ A | |[].-.[]| _|__|_|__|___|__|_|__|____/____\__/____\___|___|"|___|___|__|_|__|_ |___________________________________________________________________| | __(/ __(/  __(/  __(/ | | [___]    [___] [___] [___] | |_| |_| |_| |_| | | | (|___/)(|___/)  (|___/)  (|___/)| || | .-----------------. | |  .-'''-.  _o_  / | ) \  .-'''-.  | | {  (_)  } ||| | |(( |{ (_)  } | | '._(X)_.' ||| | |_____))((_________|  '._(X)_.' | | // \\  ||| o | / (___(_(())__()  | o// \\| |||| | |/  (__________()  | | |\_/|| '--------------|||-=|=========================|=-(^Y^)--.-,-------'  /_\P / \  / \  w-w__((__) ldb SAUCE00MIST1217 infofile Cthulu and ldb MiSTiGRiS 20171217ž"P• IBM VGA