1998:
The year of art
by
dangermouse (31st
December, 1998)
Hey Hey. Shit, has this year gone so quickly? I guess so,
unless of course I'm in a fantasy land where it is 1999.
Oh well, in any case, let's have a brief look at what happened
in 1998.
It was the year that art made
a comeback, especially ansi art. Following maestro's "my
message to the scene" article, he set up a group called
Legion, which after this point, inspired many an artist
to pick up the mouse (or cursor) and start mucking around
with those little coloured blocks again.
Creator's
Avenge was also another group which emerged before The Legion,
but ultimately would become its major competition. A lot
of other groups like Function , Sense and Aspire make their
debuts, and old timers like Force make a brief comeback.
It was
also a year of change, especially for acheron.org. Three
designs later, we finally emerged to the design you currently
see.
Deaths
of groups were also aplenty, but you can read on to find
out which ones. Shit, it was a big year afterall, have fun
reading.
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January
01. The biggest happening this month was the announcement
that FUEL, the biggest European group at the time, was no
more. ZeusII submitted a news piece giving explanations
of why the group called it quits: lack of senior activity;
nightdee's death; no activity from members; among others..
02. Avenge Cult makes its scene debut. You will
remember last year Acheron reported the ACiD!ANSI debacle?
Well White Trash merged that 'group' with Creator's decadence,
and Avenge was the offspring.
03. Sense debuts, headed by Hexd.
04. The Saturday War newschool/oldschool ascii competiton,
created by martz, was started this month, held around four
times in all over a number of weeks..
05. Spies Ascii, headed by Martz, died after only
releasing 3 packs. more info available in the interviews
section.
06. Satire and Ruckus ascii were created, headed
respectively by kayozz and anarkzz.
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February
01. Blender made a come back to the scene, headed
up by Mistigris head Cthulu. The event attracted dozens
of entries, but apparently Cthulu didn't receive any entries
via his email account!
02. Avenge had a major reshuffling this month, the
members agreeing to appoint Creator, ZeusII and Sudden Death
as the new team leaders, replacing White Trash. ZeusII wrote
that the members did not feel that White Trash was the proper
leader for their group, and that they hold no grudge against
him what-so-ever.
03. Kwest, Cain's ascii group, died. A merger between
Odelay and Kwest reportedly failed.
04. Odelay also saw two new team leaders in the
form of Konami and Discofunk.
05. Satire and Ruckus ascii both died.
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March
01. Legion, the group created by long time scenester
Maestro, finally makes its scene debut. The pack was absolutely
amazing, with artists like The Knight, Lord Jazz and others
contributing..
02. Tomppa1 visits Catbones on his American tour
(the first leg staying with Rad Man on the west coast).
Tomi braves the chair, and gets his own tattoo in a 'joint'
design between himself and Cat.
03. Reports of Noname being revived sprouted from
Pariah..
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April
01. Function, a group created by Warpus and Quip,
makes an announcement of its plans to join the art scene,
and add to the mayhem Avenge and Legion were creating.
02. Acheron.org took on a whole new design in a
hope to improve speed and usability. Acheron also changed
over to a new server, provided by element
design, rw's web hosting and design company.
03. As if prompting a redesign, artpacks.acid.org
also had a makeover, making the site look a lot better.
04. Force made its announcement that they would
be coming back from the abyss, headed up by Cyrogenic.
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May
01. The biggest news this month was the shock death
of AWE Lettering, the number one logo group run by The Night
Angel. Reasons behind the death are due to TNA's request
for a coder, and no-one filling the posistion. The reason
behind TNA wanting a coder is that he wanted AWE to release
not packs, but portfolios. This new way of presenting ANSI
would mean a loadable viewer with all the art alrady in
it -- or so I'm lead to believe..
02. Acheron unviels its new pack reviews section,
working in conjunction with operation
rescue.
03. Fire announces that pack it is releasing a pack
33, and that it will be its last release ever. The news
doesn't really come as that much of a surprise as their
member numbers and interest was dwindling. The last pack
was said to contain lots of guest appearances from artists
around the scene, and is expected to be a massive release.
04. The lit scene makes a comeback, with groups
like Codine and Pipe making an appearance. Dark Spiral and
other online zines continued to produce, and Mistigris was
still pumping out lit.
05. Blue Devil announces his resignation from Avenge,
and he subsequently took his group Scrollz with him, to
release on his own accord. BD gives his reasons in that
he felt the group was not heading in the proper direction
for him, and that he felt it was falling apart.
06. Cthulu writes a retort to Blue Devil's rants
and about the 'new' lit scene.
07. Function releases its debut pack, and what a
ripper it was, with artists like Quip, Ironghost and Konami
shining.
08. oOze 3 is released to warm welcome from the
scene, the issue including pack reviews from the last year
(all the ones they missed since the last issue!), articles
and quirky tid-bits.
09. Acheron's art gallery is finally unveiled. After
numerous people requesting it, acheron finally had the bandwidth
and space to provide one. It opened with legion and function
online.
10. Cia announces that it is making a comeback,
with Burning Chrome and Sudden Death at the helm. [more
info]
11. The first Dark Meet of Spring takes place on
the 29th, with members like The 4th Discyple, Acidic Soap,
Carnifex, Corinthian, Critical Illusion, Epitaph, Expatriate,
Godless, Holocaust, Scrupulous & the Green Hornet attending.
12. Scrollz merges with Cia, and Blue Devil seems
content in justifying his actions to the scene - and Cthulu.
13. Souls, a .RIP only group is created by nightstalker.
14. Gutter issue one is released to the scene. Filth's
emag delivers articles, pack reviews, and other tasty treats.
[more
info]
15. iCE had a general get together at this years
E3 show, causing all sorts of mayhem. Read their 9805 pack
.nfo file for more information.
16. Reports of Avenge dying were put to rest by
Creator, stating that the comments and rumours started by
various people in the scene enraged him beyond belief. [more
info]
17. Odelay Ascii, formed by Prodigy, died. The decline
of members is blamed for the death.
18. Homi Ascii also died.
19.
On a lighter note though, Noname Ascii and Grill Ascii
were both revived.
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June
01.
Zenith, a group founded by egoteq and taintedx, makes its
scene debut in spectacular style, some branding it the next
group to rival the likes of Legion and Avenge.
02. Dieznyik makes a public attack on tX's decision
to include a 'comeback' nfo file against the views held
by The Extremist, in his reviews of his solo pack.
03. Blender Kombat, a 'new' scene competition geared
towards teams from art groups. [more
info]
04. iCE announces that it is reorganising its ANSI
division in order to get it back to what it once was. Inazone
and Count Zero were leading the revival.
05. Either this month or last month, alt.art.hirez
is created to service the high resolution art community.
06. Fistful of Steel Issue 8 is released, the 'special'
issue focusing on group and art scene websites.
07. Hallucigenia release their debut pack.
08. Impulse BBS Software is handed over to Judge
Dredd, Horrid stating it was a fun 6 months of development.
09. Gutter Two is released.
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July
01. Nightstalker's RIP group, Souls,
release their debut pack.
02. The Knave joins ACiD. The Knave
was kicked out of ACiD over, apparently, alegations that
he 'ripped'.
03. Awards 98 is put on the drawing
boards, and proposed to the scene via a news posting.
04. A new emag by kyp
and shine called beam is released.
[more
info]
05. Lost Soul proposes a scene-wide 1000 line ansi
file, with anyone who is interested able to contribute..
No word was ever given on the outcome.
06.
Knocturnal stands down as the leader of Avenge.
07. After many rumours and stirring,
The Night Angel makes a public announcement that AWE Lettering
would be making a comeback, and they did just that.
08. Aspire releases their debut pack.
Gwyndian later kills it in December.
09. Blade actually release a pack.
10. Distant release their first pack.
11.
Avenge releases their new web site.
12. Flare makes their debut.
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August
01. "Discussions" area
is started in an attempt to remove non-news related items
from the news page.
02.
Scrye announces that he indeed is not dead.
03. Awards98 is postponed due to
pretty shitty nominee lists. A suggestions form is made
so that people can submit the names of their favourite
artists.
04. Artpacks.acid.org splits servers,
with all ftp functions being handled by ftp.artpacks.acid.org.
The move was geared to give greater speed.
[more
info]
05. Power Flower, a russian art group
(it's all happening over there) releases their first pack.
06. Sense #12 releases with a virus.
The scene was alerted thanks to Scrye.
07. iCE release their T-Shirt, available
for purchase online. [more
info]
08. iCE and ACiD go into battle in
the short lived Blender Kombat. iCE came out victorious
due to some clever ANSIMation. [more
info]
09. Sharp release their debut pack.
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September
01. Route666
goes back online on a cable modem with 16 nodes at route666.detour.net.
Dial-up was also available.
02. Purg annouce their plans for
a "world-wide" scenecon, called, funnily enough,
PurgCon '99.
03. Image kills his group Uprise,
and then un-kills it :>
04. ACiD release their beanies and
hooded sweat shirts. [more
info]
05. HRG announces that thye will
be creating a new division for anime and manga related
material.
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October
01.
Mongi announces that he has plans to bring back hirez.org.
[more
info]
02. Sodium announces the return of
his popular scene emag Acrylic Weekly, but we are still
to see any results.
03. Sephiroth heads up a new group
called Sadist.
04. The popular Australian emag oOze
is officially dead. It came as no real surprise, as the
emag had always had delays in production (for up to one
year once).
05. Mimic, the ascii group, annouce
that they have a website.
[more
info]
06. Massd announces iCE's plans for
a serious of ANSI Seminars, where famous scene artists
help out the new and budding artists within the scene.
[more
info]
07. Acheron.org is completely revamped
with a new look and philosophy. The new design goes back
to its 'sceneish' beginnings and looks a shitload better.
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November
01. The
first news this month was the dismal death of Force, after
a much anticipated comeback under the leadership of Cryogenic.
The group was at the pinicle of the Australian art scene
for quite a few years, and will be sadly missed.
02. As if to worsen matters, Function
then also dies. There were reportedly a few troubles in
the senior ranks a few months earlier, causing them to
miss a months release in September.
03. Ellisdee's Lore release their
first pack to a favourable reception.
04. One of the most popular pc warez
scene sites Defacto2 was hacked by some 'unknown' culprits.
The hacked version was kept online for a few days before
being removed. [more
info]
05. Filth comes out and admits that
he didn't really kill Gutter and promptly releases issue
#6. [more
info]
06. Woe and Rebel art release a joint
art pack.
07. Mr. Violent starts his own scene
mailing list, but it never takes off.
08. Starks announces that a new group
called Natural has been formed, also including his now
controversial group Fluid, which is Natural's art department.
09. Lore annouce their web pressence,
and shit, it rocks. It was just a pity nothing was on
the page besides the splash. [more
info]
10. Scrye's Sense died.
11. HRG announce that they will be
show casing digital underground art at an art museum in
Russia. This would have to be a first for the scene. The
exhibition was called Heritage. [more
info]
12. Xypher Matrix leaves Dark Illustrated,
and that same month announces his plans to start a new
elite group called the Shadowboxer's Guild.
13. After closing down near the start
of the year, Dieznyik's VTAG reopens with what can only
be described as a plehtora of art exhibits. A truely valuable
resource for the scene. [more
info]
14. Blue Devil's Scrollz announce
their new web pressence. [more
info]
15. Palmore's Cyberia and Pariah's
Massive join forces to create a new bigger and better
ASCII mag called Quantum.
16. Marlon Brando announces his new
BBS emag called Mercenary.
17. Beam release their new, revamped
website.
[more
info]
18. Cyber punch announces a new group
called Engine.
19. Acheron.org unveils a new discussions
area, supporting fully-threaded message areas, the ability
to create new topics and more.. Just like the old bbs
days.
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December
01. Gywndian's
Aspire dies.
02. Woezine announce their web pressence.
[more
info]
03. Poti states that Black Maiden
is indeed not dead, after a confusion between the two
"Maidens". Maiden Brazil was indeed the group
that died. I think the confusion started from the fact
that I made a small mistake by putting "Black Maiden
dead" on the "Latest News" bit on the sidebar..
Sorry guys ;)
04. Shadowboxer's announce their
website.
[more
info]
05. Infliction, a high resolution/ansi
and ascii group tell us all about themselves. [more
info]
06. Inazone posts a news item about
the FOS Reunion pack, calling for all former group members
to submit art for the big pack.
07. Awards 98 is called off due to
an undisclosed amount of people cheating. To continue
with the contest would have been foolhardy. Other methods
in the future for such a ceremony might include having
a judging panel -- but don't expect me to do it :)
08. Klumzee announces his plans to
start a project called "Basic Training". He
proposed a monthly column in Gutter featuring artists
showing newbies or any interested parties how to draw
--> a tutorial section with a difference.
09. HIrez.org opened its doors for
the first time, becoming acheron's sister site, featuring
a similar design but with a different colour scheme. [more
info]
10. Filth calls for all submissions
for his "Connected at 2400" section in the next
Gutter. All interested artists should submit articles
about their favourite times in the scene, how they got
started, etc..
11. iCE beta test their iCEVIEW for
windows program.
12. Empty announces that Tyrone will
be making a comeback, but is still unsure which issue
he was up to. [more
info]
13. Sodium also announces that Acrylic
Weekly will be making a comeback -- for sure this time..
14.
Black Maiden shows their new website to the world, and
what a site it is. [more
info]
15. Argon announces his plans to
form a new group called Project V, encompassing mainly
lit.
16. Palmore and Pariah release their
new ascii emag called Quantum.
17. A new ASCII ftp archive is unveiled.
[more
info]
18. Azrael comes back to the scene,
and reportedly joining Avenge.
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Discussion
Topic this month:
What do you remember from 1998 that was pretty damned
cool? State your good moments within the scene, or even
your bad ones. Reflect on the year that was 1998.
>> discussions
(General Art Discussion)
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