MIST0823/KUROGAO-ENJOY_SURFING

 Mistigram: cowabunga and hang ten, @kurogao96 is here to remind us just how much fun you can have with #asciiart and #emoji. This gnarly #surfing scene was included in the unthemed MIST0823 artpack collection released three years ago🤙

MIST0721/KUROGAO-PETS

 Mistigram: this charming #emoji-based #ASCIIart suite of vignettes imagining how nice it would be to own various kinds of domestic pets is the unmistakable handiwork of Kurogao. They were included in the unthemed MIST0721 artpack collection released five years ago this month.

MIST0721/POLYDUCKS-MOUSESQ

 Mistigram: five years ago @polyducks Tweeted this proof-of-concept game layout, using fixed-width emoji as sprites for an unmade game where a mouse seeks cheese and avoids hazards while seeking the exit from a maze.  This piece was included in the MIST0721 artpack collection.

MIST0725/LOCKJA-ASCII_CATURDAY_12

 Mistigram: Happy #Caturday!  Here's another #ASCIIart #cat drawn by @lockja, this one enhanced by fascinating emoji fishies.  This piece was included in the new cat-themed MIST0725 artpack collection.

MIST0625/XERO-MISTFUNK

 Mistigram: a little celebration drawn unprompted on the occasion of MIST-30 dropping, this #emoji-based mISTFUNK text art logo (well, you see the funk emerging from the mist) is the handiwork of glitchy guest genius xero and was included in the new unthemed MIST0625 artpack collection.

KUROGAO-YEAR_OF_THE_SNAKE

 Mistigram: @kurogao96 wishes everyone a happy #ASCII art / emoji 2025, the #YearOfTheSnake! Not every animal can assume the shape of a numeral, but the twisty snake has a good shot at taking them all on! Can the first fully snake-based, mouse-powered computer be far behind?

MIST1024/KUROGAO-HALLOWEEN

 Mistigram: all the whimsical old costumes rise from their graves at the bottom of the tickle trunk for one more night strutting and fretting across the stage on #Halloween. @kurogao96 shares their seasonal well-wishes in their #ASCIIart-with-#emoji style. This piece was included in the spooky new MIST1024 artpack collection.

MIST1020/XTCOMICS-BATMAN_RETURNS

 Mistigram: In 1992, Tim Burton's second #Batman movie came out, titled #BatmanReturns. @XTComics used its name as the premise for a gag in his #ASCIIart / emoji comic strip, depicting a trick or treater revisiting a residence for more candy. This was included in the MIST1020 artpack collection released four years ago this month, but note that the artist has recently resumed working in this medium back on social media.

ADEPTAPRIL/JUl17

 Mistigram: in celebration of World #Emoji Day, AdeptApril has drawn an #ANSIart version of 😛, tongue sticking out at a jaunty angle I can't find prior art for. (But if you enjoy creative emoji use, I should direct your attention to the portfolios of @kurogao96 and @xtcomics!)

MIST0424/KUROGAO-ART

 Mistigram: in this two-panel #ASCIIart / #emoji comic strip, @kurogao96 explores the plight of the artist, striving to push the envelope without leaving their audience entirely behind. This comical piece was included in the recent fine art-themed MIST0424 artpack collection.

MIST0224/KUROGAO-BEAT_EMOTION

 Mistigram: those unfamiliar with Japanese rock may not instantly recognize the iconic cover art to #Boøwy's 1986 album #BeatEmotion, but @kurogao96 has nailed it in their trademark #ASCIIart / emoji adaptation. This piece was included in our recent music-themed MIST0224 artpack collection.

MIST1023/KUROGAO-HAPPY_HALLOWEEN

Mistigram: #HappyHalloween! @kurogao96 celebrates with a few of his favorite spooky and costumed #ASCIIart / #emoji friends on a giant #JackOLantern. (If they work together I bet they can shake those treats right out the trees!) This piece was included in the spooky new MIST1023 artpack collection.

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Dec 15, 2016 at 9:37am UTC

“Lit” (short for “literature” of course – generally in an artscene context taken to mean poetry and short fiction) has always been the odd man out in Mist artpacks. Don’t blame us, blame The Narccissist, president of NWA (New Wave Artists), the 604-based artgroup which merged with Quebec’s GRIP/AD into iMPERiAL, out of whose ashes Mistigris emerged. If The Narc hadn’t given us the false impression that lit was a valid and welcome form of creative expression among the computer arts, Cthulu never would have joined an artgroup – indeed, his trailblazing friend Creideiki never would have even obtained access to the NWA WHQ “Digital Holocaust” and blazed the trail for us to follow through.

But we did labour beneath this misapprehension (which RaDMaN made sure to challenge straight out of the gate with his expulsion of Israfel, the paragon of artscene lit, following ACiD’s absorption of GOTHiC.) Consequently, Cthulu looked for lit writers to form part of Mist’s’ membership. Relatively few people took him up on it, so he inflated their contributions by simply curating captured texts from dialup BBS and echomail message boards, simply republishing them (usually with permission). BBSes were a text medium in habited by users of MS-DOS, which was another text medium, and consequently the words flowed freely. But by the end of the ‘90s, folks accessing the web through Netscape in Windows '95 were quite a bit less in the habit of putting forth their feelings in letters and words, and the decline of this always-considered-marginal artform was irreversible. (It actually saw a curious late-stage boom in the form of CiA’s abysmal lit division ScrollZ under the steering of Blue Devil, but I can’t fairly present that as anything other than fiddling while Rome burns.)

So, Mistigris revived in 2014, and we thought we could represent all the classic streams of computer art – textmode visuals, tracker music, and lit of course! But Crowkeeper aside, classic lit was a defunct concern. (Even the logorrheic Cthulu himself has not shared any original works as part of our revival! Of course, he has no words remaining after hammering out all these infofiles and blog posts.) In any case, we were interested in advancing our scope to keep pace with recent trends in digital expression, not purely being a museum collection of historical re-enactment. So Cthulu began cruising for some literary works written in emoji. He pitched the idea to his invereterately experimental performance poetry colleague RC Weslowski, but nothing came of it in MIST1015.

Like the Minecraft pixelart, we washed our hands of artforms we’d like but couldn’t obtain ourselves. Naturally, then some emoji texts immediately presented themselves. Over on a spiritual successor to the BBS message forums, a Slack packed with inheritors of the legacy of the proto-wiki Everything2, Flamingweasel was taking a break from Pico-8 game development to translate the first book of the Bible into emoji for kicks. And lo, here it is. We saw that it was good, and it was good.

Pulling down some super-high-resolution emoji icons for the occasion, we made this the opener of our MIST1116 trailer video, because in all the history of literature, is there really any better opening than “In the beginning…”? God (here depicted as “old black man”) then creates the heavens and the Earth, and we feature a couple of artpack pieces dealing with the sky and the land before slipping into a “transforming the human body through technology” vein.

Anyhow, zoom in and see if you can follow along!

Genesis 1 King James Version (KJV)

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Instagram photo by Cthulu • Dec 15, 2016 at 9:37am UTC