Instagram photo by Cthulu • Nov 3, 2016 at 9:57pm UTC

It was 1998, and I’d messed up. The artists had followed me, more or less, like a crazy cult leader through the desert through the lion’s share of 1997 with the Mistigris World Tour, and when we finally “came home” to resume releasing artpacks under our own name, I resolved to indulge them as they had humoured me, and give them what they wanted: regular, monthly releases. They had other, not-unreasonable requests – split the packs into different disks focusing on textmode art, hirez visuals and music. And then the breaking point: they wanted us to include “real-world art” in our packs. I was inclined to agree – the more art, the better! – but the path forward in such an unprecedented direction was unclear, and the technology to help us decidedly crude, the scanners and cameras of the time being huge, slow and lossy. So I dithered and delayed. Meanwhile, my department heads were stirring the pot putting a strange new emphasis on QC, “quality control”, with the idea that it would inspire artists to produce better work. But the slogan of Mist had long been “art for the artists”, so they were thus quite accustomed to doing what they liked and hoping we felt the same way. Now it seemed we didn’t.

So, a substantial chunk of Mist Classic parted ways from us and established Hallucigenia, where they could continue making computer art – and heck, real-world art too, why not? – in the manner to which they were accustomed. I always wondered… maybe if I’d acted sooner on admitting real-world art, I could have kept them under our roof and we could have maintained the momentum of an active core needed to continue operations. But we don’t have a time machine, so instead we get the historical record: Mist Classic stalled out in August of 1998 with me descending into HTML insanity, while Hallucigenia continued chugging along, and in October there it was: real-world art – they ran a gallery of Jack O'Lanterns in their artpack.

Since reforming, we’ve released three October artpacks, and they’ve only gradually been getting more and more Hallowe'eny – first, not at all in 2014, then substantially in 2015… this year, our October artpack was entirely Hallowe'eny. And here, in MIST1016, we just included a photo of an old Jack O'Lantern by Nail (that guy again?), a flaming skull (Ghost Rider or a Lost Soul from DooM? You be the judge!) so finally we can achieve a taste of the MIST1098 (well, at that time our naming convention would have looked like M-9810-B) that never was but might have been.

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Nov 3, 2016 at 9:57pm UTC

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Nov 2, 2016 at 8:13pm UTC

Nail is a fellow artscene traveller, a refugee from the ‘90s with a fondness for the activities we used to conduct but not many outlets for them. Somehow, he ended up singlehandedly generating 100% of the Mistigris iconography used in the MIST1016 artpack – the FILE_ID.DIZ and the logos on both infofiles. Basically, anything that said “MIST” was done by him… which isn’t bad for someone who was historically never part of it! Nostalgia by proxy!

Anyhow, the previous two of his pieces we examined were minor works – a FILE_ID.DIZ is necessarily constrained, while “the world’s smallest Mist logo” doesn’t really have the chance to bust out. But here, atop the newsletter, he went for the gusto and minted this wicked logo depicting some species of digital graffiti from Hell, balancing the whimsically looped “i"s with the Satanically inverted "G”. It’s a typographical tour de force, and really got us out the door on a Hallowe'eny foot, no doubt! Hats off and thanks again to Nail for ensuring that we didn’t head out into the world undressed 8)

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Nov 2, 2016 at 8:13pm UTC

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Nov 1, 2016 at 9:58pm UTC

You’ve doubtless heard the claim here before: “quite possibly the smallest Mist logo”, “almost certainly the smallest Mistigris logo ever drawn” … one Nail, formerly of Fire and recently of revived ANSI art greatness, got tired of hearing these contested and unclear claims and resolved to settle the matter once and for all, with this – without any doubt, the smallest Mist textmode logo ever drawn. Are smaller ones possible? Theoretically. Would they amount to a hill of beans? Not likely. So we take our very little hats off and give him a teensy weensy round of applause.

(This logo was used atop the memberlist of the recent MIST1016 artpack release: small logo, long infofile!)

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Nov 1, 2016 at 9:58pm UTC