The Renaissance of ASCII art

Reading this article on Boing Boing fulfilled me with great pleasure, not because I would have any admiration for the spammer's creativity, but because, as a nostalgic for old PC's and computers, I just love ASCII art. And this 'ASCII babe' site is of course a beautiful exponent of the noble art.
Back in the (AT-)day, I was addicted to a Civilization-style game completely in ASCII graphics - I believe it was called 'Empire'. Drawing pixels was too demanding then, CGA graphics were advanced and platform games cool. It inspired me to start coding my own ASCII-game, 'Ivanhoe'. Alas, my initial excitement didn't quite result in much. Except for the fact that I got the credentials to join the Lame Coders...