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From: petecasso@aol.com (PeteCasso)
Subject: Re: Posting ascii art on the web
Date: 1997/02/16
Message-ID: <19970216055601.AAA28533@ladder01.news.aol.com>#1/1
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Organization: AOL Canada http://www.aol.ca
Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art
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Hi everyone,

The conversion of my website to gif format (with ascii art content) is
pretty well complete. There is only one page which I will leave in ascii
format.

To contribute to the discussion topic: I would like to differentiate
between the creation of ascii art on the one hand and its presentation on
the web on the other. 

Creation of ascii art has to do with how the artist views his/her work on
his/her screen. Presentation on the web has to do with how the netsurfer
views the ascii art on his/her screen. For larger size ascii art, the
difference between the former and the latter is small, for miniatures the
difference can be significant, and more importantly, the difference
depends on too many factors to be reasonably predictable.

By adopting the gif format, the difference can be made zero, in other
words, the netsurfer will see the ascii art exactly as the artist has
created it.

Miniaturization is absolutely essential for making comic strips,
storyboards, etc. If anyone has tried to do this with sig size characters
of 6 lines high (or more) then you will appreciate how unwieldy the
overall work can become. I know this, because I have done this (there are
some examples of larger cartoons on my website).

Frogstein is essentially only 2 lines high, Birdstein is essentially only
3 lines high, just enough to express body language, facial expression,
etc.  (It also allows me to use a single character, a lowly "," to depict
a standing penis in a credible way, for that matter. See my posting
"Frogstein and Birdstein, Valentine's Day).

A more versatile example on facial expression: If Birdstein kisses
Frogstein, then her eyes changes from regular quotes to curly quotes.
Curly quotes look like two "6" characters side by side, not unlike what
Joan Stark uses in her self-portrait to draw her eyes, but curly quotes
are of course much smaller, and have moreover the advantage that the dot
is filled in with black.

The curly quotes give the facial expression a more romantic look, as
distinct from the regular quotes which are upright and plumb which give
the facial expression an alert look. And, in case of movies, changing from
regular quotes to curly quotes at the moment of the kiss, 

gives the additional effect of closing the eyes, not unlike what girls do
if they kiss.

Using the regular quotes at the moment of the kiss still works quite well,
but using curly quotes is a lot better. It is nuances like this that I am
able to preserve by using the gif format. Again, I need to refer you to my
webpage for concrete examples.

I think my art works quite well in ascii format, one ascii artist even
uses *my* art in her email correspondence, but the gif works even better.
In summary, if the web allows us to use gif as a superior presentation
tool, why not use it as the more appropriate tool for web presentation?
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     ,,        _  Grandpa Devilstein,
    ( ">     <" )   just Who is our
   ,(->)->   <( <)     Creator?
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                           `.
                             v
  http://members.aol.com/petecasso
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