Break Into Chat
Josh Renaud’s blog about BBS history, retro computing and technology reminiscences.
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The many ANSI title screens of Barren Realms Elite (BRE)
If you’ve played Barren Realms Elite at any time in the past quarter-century, you probably have seen this spiffy ANSI title screen: That’s because — like most classic BBS door games — BRE became more or less “frozen in amber” in the late 1990s after BRE’s creator, Mehul Patel, sold the rights to the game…
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Don Lokke and “Mack the Mouse”: ANSI art and webcomics, Part 5
This is the final part of a multi-part series. In an alternate universe somewhere, nobody has heard of “webcomics.” Instead, there are thousands of “telecomics.” Thirty years ago, Don Lokke Jr. hoped to make that universe a reality. In 1992, he coined the term “telecomics” to describe his new digital comic strips, drawn primarily in…
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The business of BBSing: ANSI art and webcomics, Part 4
This is the fourth part of a multi-part series. Once upon a time, drawing comics in daily newspapers could be lucrative. In the 1950s, Al Capp, the creator of “Li’l Abner,” was pulling in $500,000 a year — about $6 million today. He was a genuine celebrity, making guest appearances on talk shows and even…
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Eerie and “Inspector Dangerfuck”: ANSI art and webcomics, Part 3
This is the third part of a multi-part series. “I’ve always been kind of restless,” says Eerie, the ANSI artist who created the character “Inspector Dangerfuck” in 1994. Today, Eerie is a musician and author, with a deep knowledge of cartoons and comics. But back then, he was a teenager in Quebec trying to make…
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BBSes and the artscene: ANSI art and webcomics, Part 2
This is the second part of a multi-part series. Both Eerie and Don Lokke emerged from opposite ends of the ANSI art spectrum. But … what is “ANSI art”? Before we can profile the two main subjects of this series or explore their work, it’ll be important to understand the BBSing subculture of the early…
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Filling in the blanks: ANSI art and webcomics, Part 1
This is the first part of a multi-part series. Does ANSI art have a place in the history of webcomics? One of the first chroniclers of webcomics history thought so. In the first chapter of his 2006 book, “A History of Webcomics,” T Campbell tackled the “prehistory” of webcomics by discussing ARPAnet, ASCII art, and…
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