GoKawiilDon 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 the ANSI art format and distributed online through bulletin board systems and services like GEnie.
A serial entrepreneur, Lokke was one of many people at that time trying to build businesses syndicating content to sysops. He gave away his premier series, Mack the Mouse, for free, but sold other telecomics and ANSI content on a subscription basis from his “Online Mall BBS.” He and others hoped they were on the cusp of establishing an entire online publishing industry.
His star character was Mack, a cynical gray mouse with prominent ears and buck teeth, venting weekly about the politicians in Washington D.C. Mack wasn’t a stylized superhero from the pages of a comic book, but a political commentator, closer in spirit to Mallard Fillmore (which Mack predated) or the editorial cartoons seen in newspapers.
Lokke launched Mack at the height of the 1992 presidential campaign, a pivotal moment in American history. Lokke initially positioned Mack as an outside observer, but after Democrat Bill Clinton’s inauguration as president, Mack’s commentary grew more overtly conservative.
Over the next two-and-a-half years, Lokke produced at least 225 installments of Mack, plus dozens more of his other ANSI telecomics. He attracted a few subscribers, but probably not enough.
By 1995, the great migration from bulletin boards to the World Wide Web was well underway. Lokke jumped ship, too, and moved his businesses to the web. His ANSI telecomics were soon forgotten.
Decades later, I unearthed 145 of them, including a collection of more than 130 Mack the Mouse comics that now can be seen on 16colors, the ANSI art archive. But this is likely just half of Lokke’s ANSI output. The rest of his telecomics remain missing, perhaps lost to time.
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