ADVENT23/18_DEC23

 Mistigram: @littlebitspace drew this wickedly grim #ANSIart screen for this date in last year's ADVENT23 #AdventCalendar.

MIST1020/ILLARTERATE-REAPER

 Mistigram: you may not have realised that the #GrimReaper was a Yorkshireman, but @illarterate lays all doubts to rest in this #teletext illustration, included in the spooky MIST1020 artpack collection released four years ago this month.

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Nov 22, 2016 at 2:08pm UTC

Today on Mistigram, a curious experiment from the desk of Grim Reaper, the longstanding VGA department coordinator of Mist Classic. The one major idea in play here is wondering what a hirez (high resolution) artist could do with the circumscribed canvas permitted a textmode artist in the space alloted for use in a FILE_ID.DIZ file, the brief description of an archive’s contents that would display on BBS file bases. I guess he got stuck thinking on iconic logos beginning with the letter “M”, so we got a peculiar association with a brand we likely would never have endorsed or given free advertising to.

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Nov 22, 2016 at 2:08pm UTC

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Nov 7, 2016 at 2:04pm UTC

“It surrounds you… it consumes you…” Today on Mistigram, we have this vga hirez Mistigris promo purportedly drawn by our longtime VGA hirez (high resolution visual artwork) department head Grim Reaper. As he was sometime after the fact (hello, Google Image Search!) busted for plagiarising quite a great deal, it’s impossible to know for sure that it’s by him – but the rule of thumb is that this drawing probably wouldn’t have been rated awesome enough to be worth the risk of stealing, and so it probably is the genuine article. It’s… not bad, all things considered! The ‘90s were the era of Rob Liefeld anatomy, so this plucky dragon is in good company.

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Nov 7, 2016 at 2:04pm UTC

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Aug 3, 2016 at 2:04pm UTC

Though the angular letterforms are reminiscent of some of the more experimental fonts by The Extremist, who provided yesterday’s featured Mistigram logo, the arrangement and presentation are unique to the outsider stylings of Grim Reaper, Mist’s longtime freewheeling VGA department head. Endlessly productive, he scoured his life experiences non-stop in search of inspiration to feed the endless furnace burning in his brain – sometimes used “whole cloth” with inadequate processing or adaptation. But you always knew when you lit upon a piece that was 100% GR, because it was impossible that anyone else could have made it, gazed upon it and said to themselves “There, that’s it! THAT’S the piece I’ll submit!”

We originally released this piece in February of 1996, but it is as timeless today as ever it was then! Popular tastes simply have not yet caught up to his strange genius!

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Aug 3, 2016 at 2:04pm UTC

No Mistigris December 1996 festivities due to the Mistigris World Tour in progress, but here’s a holdout from nearly a year earlier – January of ‘96, a straggler from the pack of Dec '95 pieces in yesterday’s post.  This is a typically strange work by Grim Reaper aka Thanatos, so bizarre (happy holidays – enjoy my initials spelled out in urine!) that you just know it had to be his authentic work rather than some manipulation of a found source.

This is, of course, a representation of a scene from Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  Theodor Geisel never spelled out “MIST” in Christmas tree ornaments, but this inexplicable omission was here addressed.

Sorry for the micro-post, turns out our December '97 multimedia Christmas extravaganza I was planning on blogging today was even more bombastic than I’d realized, and has taken longer than expected for me to get into a shape suitable for presentation here.  Hopefully by tomorrow!