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ASCII Artists

ASCII art is created for various reasons. One can speculate that the majority of ASCII pictures have been drawn and posted somewhere `just for fun'. Anyway, like for other online graphics ASCII art travels faster through the nets than the signatures of the artists. That makes it difficult to get to know the people behind the ASCII canvas. At some point I started a list of artists' names and their signatures (also called `tags' or `initials'): my Who is Who in ASCII art. Several other people have tried to gather some information with respect to the artists: the late Colin Douthwaite once compiled and maintained the Gallery of ASCII Artists, a collection of many ASCII self portraits. At the moment Shanaka Dias maintains a current version (and posts it sometimes to alt.ascii-art. The version in my collection might differ from Shanaka's at the moment but I take care that not too many people are missing. Another nice resource is the collection of Net Surfer's Licenses by Daniel C. Au. Of course none of these lists is complete or up-to-date. Check the Artists' homepages (see below) for many more!

Homepages by other Artists

There are very many webpages with ASCII Art on the web. Among those you will find pages with collections and with weird rubbish heaps - but also personal exhibitions from people who created their own ASCII pictures. By visiting these origins of ASCII Art one usually finds pictures of a `better' quality, because they are presented in their original form and are altered to serve needs of other people. Altering ASCII pictures (the so called diddling) can produce very interesting new pictures or maybe very funny jokes. Alas, it mostly gives birth only to typically bad jokes with obvious illustrations. This is why my personal choice is the original personal exhibitions! I have compiled a rather long list of the artists' own homepages. It is far from complete and merely meant to whet your appetite for more.

Portraits of ASCII Artists

In addition to pointing to artists' homepages I wanted to raise some people above the crowd. Since I liked their pictures and because I believe that, as for other admirable objects (like e.g. food, wine or books), a certain amount of background information can enhance the magic that is the source of admiration. Of course I am satisfying my own curiosity here as well.

Since I have just started this portrait section there is much left to be done. Colin Randall decided to be pioneering and kindly volunteered to take part. I am still gathering `material' though.

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