MIST0695/MA-BSUN1

 Mistigram: a regretful reprint, this #ANSIart promo for #BlackSunshine BBS was drawn by Mavrik and released in the MIST0695 artpack collection released 31 years ago.  It depicts the offbeat Image Comics hero #TheMaxx.  RIP to his creator #SamKieth.

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Sep 29, 2016 at 12:50pm UTC

Today on Mistigram, as counterpoint to our earlier RIPscrip vector image of Sam Kieth’s Image Comics antihero The Maxx… an entirely different RIPscrip vector image of the same character by a different artist, this one drawn by Kestrel (better known for his ANSI art, but – this was no stumbling first try!) and released in our June 1996 artpack. Now the only question is what is the “ETHiC” that it is promoting?

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Sep 29, 2016 at 12:50pm UTC

Well, I stand corrected. Not one month after I speculated that a piece from a Mistigris artpack had appeared as the Sixteen Colours ANSI of the Day for perhaps the last time ever, and here we are again with one of our historical pieces endowed with the honour (the day after, what’s more, one of my post-Mist lits washed up in another AOTD by The Green Hornet of Dark!)

Misfit couldn’t adequately explain what he was doing rooting around in Mistigris artpacks from 1996 looking for ANSIs Of The Day, as that was all around a bit of a rough period for us – still recovering from our depredation by Integrity, not yet drunk on our infusion of Krap’s members. But if you had to pick one piece from this artpack, this was definitely the one to pick.

Mage (MZ-, because Mavrik had taken MA-) was on top of his game here (it’s not even the first time he’s represented Mist in the AOTD), having graduated from Mistigris, sharpened his talents in Integrity, and gotten them certified in ACiD (which Int merged into) before bizarrely circling around back home to toss us the occasional solid gold bone for reasons known only to himself.

He doesn’t know quite remember who the subject of the piece is – doubtless some instantly forgettable Image Comics goon, if noseless faces and fists larger than heads are anything to go by – but he is on the record as directly deriving inspiration from a piece also by him in an Integrity pack a year earlier; in both cases hands figure prominently, but the difference a year makes! “I liked drawing hands (and still do!), but wasn’t happy with much else in that first pic - the face, the background, the hair.”

Because I’m a poet, I would have waited until the middle of March to make an ad for the BBS “Ides of March” as my selection for the ANSI Of The Day, but we’ll take what we can get. Stay tuned for more elucidation into our affairs past, present and future!