[ryan-c]

It's a bit more complicated than that. For example, if you do

git log --format=%ae | sort -u

the cursor movement sequences will be preserved.

I haven't delved too deeply into what git actually does here in terms of processing for "pager" output vs not.

[ryan-c]

...and for this "display some art" hack specifically, it looked like it can be made to work with plain git log by using `\r` characters as newlines in addition to the escape sequences, but I haven't tested that much.