My latest 72 Hours column is live, choombas. It’s behind a security wall for my U.K. reader (oh, the travails of being international), so I’ve copied the print page below. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the impact of AI art on comics and this Long Box entry frames the ongoing direction of my main reflections.
Ultimately, I fear human and corporate greed will out, as cheapness and convenience have always had more economic power than quality and craftsmanship.
That said, I don’t entirely rule out using AI in certain well-defined instances as a tool in the process of creation and, possibly the wheelbarrow full of tasks most comic creators face — but not as the endgame of creation.
Those who present their “finished” AI art and skills with prompt creation as if they’re equivalent to legitimately created art are, sadly, deluding themselves. Their art has all the authenticity of a Kinko’s photocopy or, as I note in the column, someone presenting the colored-in page of a coloring book as their own unique creation.
Allowing these AI artists the same level of respect as traditional artists only denigrates the creative process and the years of practice and diligent study required to use artistic skills.
[I expect some @s here.]
The TikTok ban1 has me in a foul mood. Who’d have thought so many competing interests in the House of Representatives could come together on this, of all things? Many other more eloquent objectors than I have been vocally pointing out that hypocrisy, and many more, on the app itself.
For me, it starkly illustrates how out of touch and siloed our congressional “representatives” are, and how trivial their perspective is regarding social media use and abuse.
The biggest disappointment is that I’ve more quickly built the largest social media following there than with any social media platform I’ve used (and I’m just a tiny fish in a much larger pond — all off my love for making comics.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the U.S. Senate.
For some mysterious reason, I’ve nearly made it all the way through #MarchoftheMutants, a 31-day drawing challenge prompted as a draw-off topic on the Awesome Comics Podcast Slack forum. I’ve been posting drawing videos (of digital work) to TikTok and pictures of the final results to Instagram if you’d like to follow along.
As of writing, we’re on day 22. I think that’s further than I ever got with Inktober. #TurtlePower.2
The Rat King. I have no idea who he is or why he loves rats or how he came to rule them. All I know is that’s what the day 15 prompt was.
RECOMMENDATIONS … I ran long on the print column this month, so couldn’t fit this in — If You Find This, I'm Already Dead, published by Dark Horse. I’ve enjoyed the first couple of issues, which combine sci-fi with a grounded Lovecraftian aesthetic, illustrated in a style that mashes a Jack Kirby feel with the freewheeling art of Daniel Warren Johnson.
Robin is a big city reporter, embedded with US Marines heading to the hostile pocket universe called Terminus. Ten minutes in, the entire marine squad is wiped out and she has to survive (and report) on her own.
Writer: Matt Kindt. Artist: Dan McDaid. Colorist: Bill Crabtree. Letterer: Jim Campbell.
Look, I know politicians and supporters are trying to categorize it as something other than a ban, but that’s what it de facto is. I’ve been around a lot of politicians in my day as a government and politics reporter, and the one constant was the attempt to manipulate the narrative and tell us our commonsense perception of some piece of legislation is wrong. What’s the word … ? Oh yes, gaslighting.
I’ve never been a huge fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as they arrived a little after my time (rebranded in the UK as “Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles,” so as not to encourage impressionable British kids to stab each other with swords, presumably). The animated series’ first broadcast was at 4:35 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 3, 1990, by which time I was 20 and had, due to financial limitations, stopped collecting comics and watching BBC kids’ programming in favor of spending money drinking and whoring.