This page features a collection of ASCII artwork. ASCII (ask'-ee) stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange." This standard was developed by the American National Standards Institute. It's basically a table of numbers and their corresponding symbols. We all know that the only things computers send back and forth to each other are zeros and ones. Using ASCII as a standard, a computer can send a series of zeros and ones in a certain order and the other computer will know that it signifies a certain letter of the alphabet. ASCII covers letters, numbers, and certain control codes. It doesn't cover graphics. Essentially, ASCII artwork denotes artwork that is created without using graphics at all. Its palette is limited to the symbols and characters that you have available to you on your computer keyboard. It started back in the old days of computers. Most computers didn't even display graphics. So, people got creative with text and ASCII Artwork was born! Some say ASCII art is dead, but if it were, this site wouldn't receive over 30,000 visits per week.

ASCII Art can be useful since many people's e-mail programs do not view graphics files without the help of another program, and there's no way to know if it does or not. Using ASCII characters to create your picture will allow you to have a picture included on the screen with your message. REQUIREMENT: In order to get ASCII art to display correctly, you must display it in a font that has uniform character width. This is also known as a "fixed width font." Your browser and e-mail programs should have some provision for setting your fixed font. Courier, Monaco, or FixedSys are good bets. Find out more about fixed width fonts and this web site's policy on the subject.

I would like to thank those who created the artwork in this collection. Some, like Susie Oviatt, Rowan Crawford, Allen Mullen, never cease to amaze us with their creations. One particularly talented ASCII artist, Joan Stark, regularly astonishes us with not only the quality of her drawings, but the sheer volume of them as well! Whenever I know who the artist was who created these wonderful pictures, I have given credit. There are many, however, which have no signature. More often than not, this is because people remove them. Please do not do this. ASCII artists don't get paid for their work, so at least give them the credit they deserve. I will do my best to add signatures to artwork if you can tell me what the name is, and which piece of artwork it is. Please send me the URL for the file and the actual clip of the artwork with the artist's name.

Important note: I swear! This is my entire collection of ASCII artwork! Please do not send me e-mail asking me to send you ascii pictures. For me to e-mail ASCII art to someone, when every single picture I have is sitting right here on this web site, would be a shameful waste of my time and yours. If it's not here, I don't have it! If you want something I don't have here, I would suggest visiting news:alt.ascii-art. However, your comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Always feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think. I also like to know about bugs, errors and misspellings too. And despite what the e-mail page says, I really do enjoy hearing from you. :-)