History of Daskmig

Written by Adok

Continuing with the series begun in Hugi #13 with an article on Imphobia, I am going to tell you about another important diskmag of the past: Daskmig.

DaskMig #1, released in October 1994, was the first production of a small Norwegian group called Independents. Its main editor and coder was called Mr. Hockey, and the musician was Lash. The graphics and font were, as admitted in the editorial, ripped. There were a few articles about strange topics such as the psychological meaning of the word "once". In addition, the magazine contained demogroup charts. However, since there were only three voters, the editors asked the readers not to take them seriously.

Out of nowhere, a group with its own diskmag had come. Quickly the English-language DaskMig gained attention in the small Norwegian scene. Such attention is probably due to a provoking article by Lash in issue 2 of the mag, now called "Daskmig Illusions". In the first article of a longer series, he accused the Norwegian scene of being lame.

Apart from the name, not much else had changed in Daskmig Illusions #2: The interface now featured smooth scrolling instead of text-fading, and Calvin/Proxima had replaced Lash's music. The amount of text, though, had remained about the same, and the number of voters had hardly increased.

After Daskmig Illusions #2, the Independents group renamed to iSC because of the negative feedback regarding their old name. The third issue of the magazine contained an intro, and Lash replaced Mr. Hockey as the main editor.

Daskmig Illusions #4 from January 1995 featured a restyled interface with mouse support and a status bar. Hybris of Orchide had done the Daskmig logo, while the text-background had been calculated with a computer program. Unfortunately, the text was hardly readable on it.

This issue had more articles than the previous ones. The dominating topic was a discussion about Lash having changed an article by Windy City / Proxima in Daskmig Illusions #3. This article was Windy's contribution to the discussion about the Norwegian scene. Lash felt that Windy was of the opinion that he and his group and were the best. So he altered Windy's article so that this presumed attitude was shown more clearly. This was a big mistake on Lash's part. Windy reacted fiercely in private mails and public bulletin boards. Lash published these reactions along with his comments in Daskmig Illusions #4. In addition, the experience inspired him to write an article entitled "Power of Diskmag Editors".

Lash did not feel the need to reconcile with Windy City, but, instead, kept calling him names. As a result, the discussion did not end there, but was continued in Daskmig Illusions #5. In the editorial, Lash explicitly remarked that the mag was not to be taken seriously, but that was no excuse for his behaviour towards Windy.

Aside from this episode, Daskmig's number of articles had grown again. It was no longer just an iSC production, as Inferiors (INF) now belonged to the staff as well. Dominei/INF published his first articles in this issue. The number of voters had also climbed to another record: 23.

Nothing had changed technically apart from a new Daskmig logo and a new intro with GFX from TMK/INF.

After Daskmig Illusions #5, the quarrel with Windy City reached another climax which almost killed the diskmag. iSC felt that their readers did not understand that the magazine was meant to be humorous. After all, each of the iSC members were between 20 and 30 years old. People from this age were expected to behave a little more seriously. Discouraged because of this feedback, iSC went inactive.

So that they would not let the fascinated readers down, Inferiors asked iSC to pass them the right of the name "Daskmig". They got it. Thus, Daskmig continued to live, with INF as its makers.

Actually the new Daskmig did not have much in common with the old Daskmig Illusions. It was a new diskmag, with a new interface running in SVGA, new editors, and new topics. The golden period of Daskmig had begun. Within a short time, the mag was to become popular worldwide.

The new main editor was Dominei/INF, supported by Hybris/Orchide and Calvin of Proxima (who later joined INF). Daskmig's new graphician was TMK/INF. A French and a Swedish section of the Daskmig staff were formed. In addition, lots of people outside the staff supported the magazine with articles and music.

Daskmig #6 was released in May 1995, one month before Imphobia #10. The aim of the staff was to create a monthly magazine with quality articles as the opposed to Imphobia, whose number of articles was as huge as the time between issues.

However, this goal was not reached. The period between Daskmig #6 and its sequel was nearly two months. The same applies to Daskmig #7 and the eighth issue.

Nevertheless this did not stop the success of Daskmig. The next time charts appeared in the mag, there were already 70 voters.

An important part of the success of the mag is probably its writing style. While Imphobia was pretty serious most of the time (perhaps because the authors did not know how to express irony in English), the new Daskmig had kept one thing from the old Daskmig Illusions: humor. While the humor was a little off the wall from time to time, it rarely became childish and remained refreshing.

At a time when IRC was already established as a part of the scene, Daskmig also contained several interviews per issue. Accompanied by photos of the interviewees, they provided an interesting way to get an impression of some well-known persons in the scene.

The disaster happened after Daskmig #7. Dominei left the staff due to unknown reasons. Today, he says he was unsatisfied after doing most of the work and having Calvin get all the fame for Daskmig. Hybris and Calvin were not at all pleased with this abrupt split. Hybris had to write the editorial as a substitute for Dominei. In the end, the whole magazine turned out to be more serious than the staff had wanted it to be. This prompted Calvin write in the infofile: "Enjoy this mag. We hated making it."

This was the last issue of Daskmig. Soon after that, Calvin officially left the scene and dropped his handle. Secretly, however, he stayed active and even created another diskmag, namely the fake magazine v.O.L.V.o #1 (January 1997), which was released under the rECTUM cAUDA label. In it, he expressed his frustration towards Imphobia and the scene in general.

Since 1998, Dominei and Calvin have been planning on resuming Daskmig. If it ever comes out, the magazine will now be entitled "Daskmig 2000". Rumors have been flying concerning its eventual release. Orange Juice even claimed the mag would be distributed on CD-ROM with tracks from members of the Norwegian demogroup Dance. So far, nothing has become of the rumors, however.

- adok^hugi

"stupid slogans like this one are a waste of diskspace"