_ _ _
) / · _ () /) 77_ _ // ( `7_ · //)/// /··_ _ _ / /_ // _ _
( //)/(¯(¯)/(/) (X /)(///(-/(/((/ . )//(//) /(/ 7/)(/ (/(//((/(-/) (//(/((/)(-/(
¯ ¯¯ ¯ ¯¯ ¯ ¯ / _/ ¯ ¯ /¯ ¯_/ _) ¯
Dear Reader, perhaps you are a bit surprised that you don't find your usual
/ Unicorn & Butterfly strip here today, but in fact it is just the
´ other way around: it is *me* who is surprised that you actually
¸»*«¸ DO find something at all - but let me explain... (I promise that
³','³ I'll keep it as short as possible - which, knowing me, doesn't
_)²(_ really say much. ;o) )
/ `"´ \_
( { ^\_(s Originally, Unicorn and Butterfly has been planned to be a proof
'6¨"¨| of concept: I wanted to know wheter or not it was possible to
|_|_| produce a comic strip with ASCII art and - even more important -
("X") whether or not people would still accept this as "cartooning", so I
¯ ¯ set my goal to produce exactly 101 strips in which I intended to try
as much of the features of traditional cartooning as I could. And it worked...
To my never-ending astonishment, people didn't just accept Unicorn & Butterfly
as a comic, some of them actually liked it! And - being well aware of the
principal limitations that ASCII art put on me - the more I was trying to push
it to its limits, the more I realized its potential and the fun I was getting
out of doing this.
Unicorn & Butterfly isn't the only ASCII art comic, early attempts have been
made on BBSs - at a time when even the idea of world wide web didn't exist -
there are other ASCII art comics that are regularly posted to ASCII newsgroups
and even on the web it is not the only one. But as far as I know it is the
first serious attempt to produce an ASCII art comic in traditional newspaper
strip style and it seems to be the first ASCII art strip that competed against
other comics and won an award, hereby earning its creator real money - AND it
made me find the girl I love (or to be more precise it made her find me ;o))
BUT - let me make this clear before the next guy thinks I really believe that
I'm so incredibly cool because I'm doing an ASCII art strip (This actually
happened - you'll easily find the corresponding entry in my guestbook ;o) - I
still don't know where these people get their ideas from...) - I do NOT deem
Unicorn & Butterfly revolutionary to the art form itself, I don't even think
of it as a minor achievement and I am deeply convinced that *anyone* who is
seriously trying will be able to do the same or better - if only someone did.
In this hardly more than one year I have been drawing Unicorn & Butterfly, I
learnt a little bit about comics, a lot about people and it has been so much
fun doing that I decided against my original intention to continue as long as
it stays like this. It may be for just another strip or for another hundred -
I honestly don't know - but I do know that ideally I should quit right before
people notice that I should have done so a few dozen strips earlier... ;o)
However I may be biased, so feel free to mail me if you think this point in
time is NOW (and of course also mail me if you don't think so - just not to
make asking this question a rather frustrating experience for me...). And
nevertheless I have good news for you: this is going to be the last time that
I'm appearing in my strip, and that I'm boring my audience with my personal
thoughts. I thank you for your time and patience!
Have fun!
/|.. _ _ _ / /_ // _ _
/(//((/(-/) (//(/((/)(-/(
() ()
______________________________________________________________________________
I WANT TO TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY TO THANK THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS:
(in no - read my lips: NO - particular order)
TUGRIK D'ITICHI for hosting Unicorn & Butterfly at purrsia.com
TIFFANY ROSS kind words and link button GIFs (www.cyantian.net)
BILL HOLBROOK had no objections that I used Kevin & Kell in one strip.
SCOTT McCLOUD "Understanding Comics" - wish I had read it years before
CLARENCE D CUASAY who considered to do a Unicorn & Butterfly cameo in LOF
REINHARD GRAFL invaluable support - complaints helped the strip a lot :)
THORSTEN WESSKALLNIES providing the draft version of a German translation
ANGELA PEER for love, affection and everything words can't express
NETZMEISTER took only two months to notice the address change ;o)
FRED M. SLONIKER kind assistance in an attempt to fix encoding problems
menolly@inorbit.com who skillfully tracked down a messed-up-display bug
MARK KROFLICH contributed a lot of thoughts to readability and more
MEPH his ASCII Editor has really saved me a lot of time
GRAVITYWELL believed in Unicorn & Butterfly long before anyone else
ORF ON accepted my entry to their comic contest and awarded it!
without all of you, Unicorn & Butterfly
would not have been the same... http://unicornandbutterfly.purrsia.com |