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Greetings to all the artpack fans in June!  (It is still June, right?  sorry
for the uncharacteristically delayed release, this has been a hell month of
delightful schedule conflict, but I think we made it.)  We've (naturally) been
trundling along unabated releasing artpacks every month (... 2019 is getting a
little lonely on the 16 Colours frontpage, but I know that quality takes time!
What does that tell you about our releases?  Moving right along...) but at
every turn our artists have been stifled and thwarted by the insufferable
tyranny of theme.  I would refer you to the formative Artropolis "Archive"
anecdote (Artropolis: foundational to the practices of both TABNet and
Mistigris!) I'm certain I buried amongst thousands of words in some infofile
four years ago, but in a nutshell I have felt that my curatorial responsibility
to the artists is to showcase the work they would be making anyway, not compel
them to conform to my vision.  So why is this the first release we've made
unburdened by the shackles of theme since last November, over half a year ago?
Ironically, it's all been in the service of trying to provide the most fitting
setting for works that our contributing artists were making of their own
initiative, thinking that if three pieces on Star Wars themes were good
together, thirty pieces on Star Wars would be even better.  Thematic coherence:
something unknown to Mist Classic (the closest we got was the Blender compos,
perhaps the least fitting candidate ever for any application of the word
"coherence"), now that we had the option of pursuing it I felt I owed it to the
artists to do so.

But that leaves out the artists whose practice didn't include those themes (or
creators of, for instance, abstract art... whose practice often doesn't include
ANY themes... well, I suppose "abstract art" could be a theme for a release,
but I digress.)  So it is important from time to time to enforce a pressure
release valve of an explicitly unthemed artpack!  Of course, hard-wired for
pattern recognition as we are, themes have a way of emerging.  In addition to
the abstraction of mandalas, something you'll see a bunch of in this collection
is animals and scenes from natural landscapes, especially as experienced in the
warmer parts of the year.  But the important thing is that you will also see
plenty of pieces that have nothing to do with any of the rest of them (I'm
looking at you, steamroller!), included solely on the basis of having been
created by members of the wider Mistigris community and deemed worthy of
sharing.

And the interesting thing about "the wider Mistigris community" is that it is
always expanding, tapping up-and-comers even as established artists go on
sabbatical.  You never step in the same river twice, an axiom never any less
true when applying to our artpack collections.  This is my roundabout way of
drawing your attention to six individuals appearing in a Mistigris artpack for
the very first time:

If you've made it this far into the infofile you've already familiarized
yourself with the works of Alpha King, who descends from the echelons of ANSI
art royalty (as his name suggests) to grace us with an essential FILE_ID.DIZ
and a summery treat!  AXB parts the veils of history to show us how they were
doing newschool ASCII art back in 1996, when he ran with crews throwing it down
with the best.  Kris10roos gets a few bonus points for being based out of the
same new media hotbed as Mistigris' home base, plus several million for
ceaseless creative application of vintage technologies thought not just
sleeping, but utterly extinguished.  The NJHLS intended to participate in our
exclusive February artpack, but the submission didn't come in until mere hours
after the collection had gone live... and we've been sitting on it, waiting to
belatedly celebrate the pieces for four long months.  The sweet satisfaction of
delayed gratification!  Philllllljames not only has a sticky keyboard, but a
curious approach toward the PETSCII aesthetic, always a winner.  Qousqous has
actually appeared in Mist artpacks before, but never in such a way as to be
celebrated in the infofile; he has a beautiful and unique mind, so it's well
past time that he get his kudos here.  Here ya go, kid -- one kudo, and another
kudo.  Now off you go, you little ragscallion!

This artpack also gives us another chance to visit some old friends who
disappear during themed releases, such as a landslide of Crowkeeper's
immaculate little Tweet-poems, a whole half-year's worth of them... undoubtedly
pulling him back in front of Horsenburger as Mistigris' most prolific
contributor of all time!  (The tally still has to be counted, but the Horse
will surely pull ahead again in future months while Crowkeeper waits his silent
vigil for another unthemed artpack to allow the venting of his spleen... er,
poetry backlog.)  You also have the chance to get better acquainted with the
PETSCII-inspired compositions of Axl and the new oldschool ASCII logos of pz,
both of which we only provided the slightest of glances at many months ago
before seemingly leaving them behind.  (Fools!  Mistigris leaves nothing behind
no matter how ill-advised!)

Linger over an infofile long enough and you become reluctant to see it off,
you've spent so much time with it you get selfishly attached and don't want to
share.  This impulse would, however, be counter-productive, so I've got to make
the arbitrary decision to draw the line, step back and cut it loose.  Thanks
again to Alpha King!  If you somehow find yourself in the vicinity of the
Painted Lady Coffee House in Milwaukee, Oregon this month, check out the walls
where you can find art hanging by Ed "Starstew" Stastny... and if you're out in
the wilds of western Canada, keep an eye peeled for Cthulu's article about the
chipmusic scene in the Great West Newspapers Ultimate Summer Festival Guide.
Yeah, we can't explain it, either.

We will control the horizontal... We will control the vertical...  Please join
us again in July for our next themed artpack, this time sharing artwork
celebrating television programs!  (Yes, we know, we did something like that in
July of last year also... but this time, including programs for adults!)  If
you'd like to be part, please don't hesitate to send in submissions to
info@mistigris.org

And with that, let's call it!  Thanks again for joining us, and see you next
month!

Mistigris 2019: yeah, we can't explain it, either.
SAUCE00MIST0619 infofile                  Cthulu / Alpha King Mistigris           20190606¶C

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