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.

...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.