[hyperman1]

I believe there is a human need for images, but also that only text is still capable of creating a lot more than you'd expect.

When email was monospace text, the whole ASCII art thing was glorious. People added ANSI escape codes and gave us e.g. the glowing, blinking Chernobyl cows, in plain email. I also remember seeing a giant ASCII art 'high-res' nude somewhere, intended to be printed on a matrix printer, on 5 or 6 pages of continuous paper (Long-legged she was.)

Writing this, I wonder what desperate marketing attention whores would produce with ASCII art.

[JimDabell]

You might find this amusing:

https://email.uplers.com/blog/pixel-art-in-email-design-insp...

Pizza Express made a habit of this for a number of years.