ASCII and its expanded form, ANSI, is the coolest thing ever. Artwork using just regular keyboard characters has been around for as long as ASCII has even existed (which was around as far back as the early 60s, in the late 60s Lyndon B. Johnson mandated that all government computers MUST support ASCII). I finished this just minutes ago in a text editor:
#### /-|
/\####/ |
| \##/ / /\/\/\/|
\ | ---------
\ | / \ *
\ | / [@] [@] \ *-*
| | | / *-*
| | | U | *-*
| | \---------/ *-*
| \ / \ *******
\ \/ \ {8***
\ \ 8888}
\ ---------8888}
\ 8888}
\ ---------8888}
++++++++++++++/ ***
| /\ |
| / | |
| \ | |
| | | |
| | | \
| | | |
| | | \__
| | | \
| | \ \
_----- \ | \
- | | \
- | | |
---------------- |____________|
Coolest thing about ASCII is that you can do it in any text editor. What about ANSI? It started popping up in late 80s because it has a larger array of characters and can do even something similar to pixel art with colouring. Late 80s bulletin boards used ANSI for pornographic distribution because of its very low amount of bandwidth requirements compared to downloading a data image like a jpeg or png. There exists to this day, a subculture around ASCII and ANSI art, who knows, I might make my own the future with regards to animations.