THIS WEEK'S BLOG

 Protect your art from AI with Glaze or Nightshade

Spinning my wheels on your behalf

 It's gonna be a short one this week, and as promised we'll not be talking about the inner workings of the comic book industry.

I will be at Rose City Comic Con in a week or so! I've heard good things about this show, but I have...in my entire career, somehow... never been to a comic-con in Portland. The timing and logistics just never lined up. BUT this year I'll be there on Sept.11-13th

The people running it seem pretty cool AND they ain't even making me do a discussion panel! Uhm...I mean...no, that is what I mean. The whole San Diego comic-con thing, in general, took a lot out of me and I'm tired of my own voice, y'know? Although...I think maybe 1First Comics might have a panel, and they might rope me into being on that. I gotta check. But, if so, I can just let Jarred or the twins get themselves in trouble saying lord knows what, and shake my head, in fake disapproval.

Speaking of being of tired of my own voice, all I got in front of me for blog ideas at the moment are things to complain about, nothing like...fun and wacky. And I don't want to mire your weekend with me grumbling about something. So, this week you get...nothing!

Actually, you'll get some comics. Hell, that's more than most newsletters give you. I know, I'm signed up for a bunch. All they send out are plugs, maybe a "we'll be at blah blah blah! come see us!".  Which is perfectly legit. Yet, here I am writing a whole thesis, every time I send you one.

Also...there's a fly in here, driving me nuts and every time I get a good train of thought going, it lethargically buzzes right past my face. It's a big slow one. You know the kind? The one's that are so slow you figure they're about 80years old, in fly years, so it should be easy to wack. But they get a burst of speed when you try to kill em. It's been two days of random cat and mouse with this muther f*cker.

I don't even want to kill him anymore. Killing's to good for him. He's gotta pay. I'm gonna catch him and torture him somehow. Like, he's tortured me. Maybe put him in a jar and every so often, if it looks like he's relaxed and thinking about something, I'll SHAKE THE JAR. Maybe, I stick it next to an AM radio that's only half tuned into a station so it's buzzing at him. I was thinking also, of putting the jar in the other room and setting the lights on a timer to stay on for three hours and turn off for three hours...so he loses track of what day it is. Then change it to two hour intervals, then one hour intervals...you know, do some old school CIA MKUltra stuff on this f*cker.

uhm...I haven't been sleeping well. Let's just move on to some comics.

Actually..I can't really just do that. If you noticed my note in the red up on the top of this email, some emails services use AI to read all incoming emails and look for red flags to suss out spam. One red flag is lots of pics and very little text. See, an old school thing spammers would do is that the entire email, text and all, would actually be one long image/pic. They did this to hide....something, I don't remember what. I read about it a while back. But...yeah, theres' a text to pictures ratio that spam filters look for so I'm gonna have to spin my wheels a little so this don't end up in your spam box.

OH! Also I could use a helper at Rose City Comic Con. So, if you'd like to help out, I'll get you into the show. Contact me via email.

Here's something else...It has to do with tech vs traditional art. As most of you know, I do all my inking by hand with a brush. a no.0...sometime a no.1.  

It's a great tool. A little tricky to get that hang of at first, but very versatile. Biggest upside is its ability to vary the line thicknesses. With this one tool you can do what 6 different pens can do. Plus it flows across the page way easier than a pen. These examples below are messy, but you get the idea. Every line is with that brush. Really simple, really versatile tool

 Protect your art from AI with Glaze or Nightshade

With that in mind, I got this in the ole spambox the other day...for some art program one would use if they draw "digitally"...in this case meaning using a pad and some sort of stylus pen.

How much time, effort, coding, ect went into this program to try to duplicate the results of...HAIR GLUED TO A STICK?!

What...what the f*ck are we doing here? This is a solution in search of a problem.  People are paying for this type stuff?? I guess knew they were, but I never really thought about it until I saw this email with all the different specifications. 16,384 different "pressure levels"?  A hell of a lot seems to have gone into a program, developed to computer generate the results of a 20.00 ink brush. WHY?!

Using a brush seems super hard and like it takes all sorts of skill...and it's in my best interest to let everyone keep thinking that because it makes me look cool, But it's not that hard. It takes maybe...2 or 3 months to really get the hang of it and then it's like learning how to ride a bike. It just clicks in your brain one day and then you know how.

I'm sure getting the hang of this digital brush program or others like it take a lot of getting used to, probably as much time as it takes for any traditional tool. So, what's the point? What...what problem is being solved with this tech? I imagine it takes a genius level of skill, and knowledge to code such a program...think of the COUNTLESS OTHER THINGS that person could have been creating instead of mutherf*cking electric brush. The bush was basically perfected in the renaissance. Congratulations team, our software can now duplicate a tool from the 1400's. ( Well...it claims it can)

The ONLY problem I can think of with a brush is that the quality of brushes are down because the best sable hair comes from Russia, and they are currently in a trade embargo because they're in the middle of a war. A war, by the way, that is only still going on because of all our fancy technology. See..back in the day, once you ran out of people the war ended. NOW...they started running out of people, so they started fighting with robots. Ukraine started using drones, so Russia started using drones, and they're both making robot dogs with guns on them and sh*t. There's a guy with a joystick in Kiev, fighting a guy with a joystick in Moscow.

...What the f*ck are we doing?

  We are now living in a world were there's going to be war crimes committed by someone while eating a Taco Bell Chalupa.  If only General Cornwallis, when declaring that the Amercans, by hiding in tree lines and picking off British solders from cover, were not fighting honorably...could have known future peril on the battlefield would be this ...

Can you get awarded a Purple Heart for getting diabetes? I'll tell you this much, 10 years from now I ain't saying "Thank you for your service" to someone who spend the battle of Taiwan in a gamers chair with a warm bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red in one hand.

Anyways, all this brings me to a solution. Now...In case you haven't been paying much attention, EVERY 1st world country out there, has a leader who's a lunatic to one degree or another. No...no...go ahead and look into it...it's ALL of them. Except, for the lady running Italy, and I freely admit I am only saying that because she's smoking hot.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but I'd be putty in her hands. Now, you can thumb your nose at me and declare judging her based on being attractive is misogynistic or whatever, but we're talking world leaders here. The difference between which one is more trash than another is so miniscule I'd say picking one based on looks is a legit as anything else.  Also, I think it's when I saw the following picture of her that I felt there was something there...

It's the ole..."I am surround by idiots", look.

 ANYWAYS, here's what I say we do...and we'd all have to stay on the same page...We have AI and tedious personalized algorithms, let's make use of them. We'll just show the world leaders AI videos and footage that makes them think they are in charge and that we and their respective armies are doing what they say. And set the algorithms to only show them that...just "Truman show" these assholes, and we'll all just live our lives.

"Yes sir, we bombed the sh*t out of them. Here's the footage. You can't leave this complex though, it's too dangerous. We'll keep you updated."

We could do that. We have the technology.

Alright...let's swing this back to some useful advice for creatives.

There ARE advantages to working digitally, like you can "undo" things, but that's a double edged sword because often times, working around a mistake actually produces something really visually interesting and/or produces a good idea.

There is great value in leaving a mistake and looking back at it later. I and many others have come up with great ideas after looking at a scribble or a mistake with fresh eyes. But it usually does have to sit there on the page, for you to come back to and see with a different mindset. And there's great value in scribbling just to scribble. Without the purpose of perfection, or improvement, and/or the ability to zoom in at 1000%. With digital, I feel, you are trying to chase two rabbits at once. Trying to make a great illustration or piece of art is actually a different task, than being creative.  I'm not sure if I can explain that...in one case you're trying to paint a flower (for example), and in the other case you are trying to come up with an idea for a flower painting. I think working digitally is not as effective when trying to do the latter.

That was clumsily worded...Lemme back up and try a different way....

My buddy Don, from the infamous metal band Gwar ( I'm being specific in who I heard this from, not to name drop but to give credibility to his point. This is from a guy who knows a thing or two about creatives themselves and creative industries, and about the cutting edge of all those things)...

 He often says that human creativity stopped around 2010, and that everything now is just a close retread of something else. That there's nothing "new" or unlike what came before.

While, there are pockets of creativity still happening from GenXers still in the game, and I see sparks from GenZ that give me hope, it's hard to argue that he is wrong. GenZ sees it, too. The term they have been applying is "stuck culture".

I have a theory, as to why we are seeing less "new" and how to make sure we get more "new". The problem, I believe, is that creatives are all starting every project digitally. It's not that digital tools are bad, it's not the digital tools at all. It is the screen. Starting the creative process in front of a screen, handicaps your mind. It's like this, when you are looking at a screen your brain has been trained to be ready to input information, as much as out put information. The CPU between your ears is running at half power because the other half is standing by for input. As opposed to a blank piece of paper where your brain is 100% available to output. No part of it is in anticipation for information to come off of that page. The sum total of your brainpower is focused on output, on producing something.

I believe the screen is the problem. and whether you are an artist, a writer, or a musician, I'd recommend you avoid that screen until a concept is fully out of your brain. Then by all means, refine it with whatever tool you wish.

And...my theory there, I believe it could be scientifically proven. You stick a cat-scan thing on people and have them work via screen and work traditionally and see how the scans light up differently.  A similar experiment as this...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/seeing-vermeers-girl-with-a-pearl-earring

The jist of the article is that they attached the cat-scan thing and monitored peoples brains while they were looking at the real thing and also when they were looking at an exact high def quality printed reproduction. And the people were far more engaged with the real thing.

Now...in being so amazed, the science guys threw out some theories and such. This is another instance of -perhaps you might want to have someone working with you, who actually knows how art is made". Their top observation, which they seem very proud of, was that peoples eyes kept going in a loop created by the composition of the painting... 

To which I would say "Yeah...no sh*t...that's how composition works, why it works, it's the first f*cking you learn." AND this does not explain why the original and the reprint earned different levels of brain power. On that they had a few theories, and came close. They were shooting all around the bull's-eye, but never quite hit the mark. The "why" is something simple and I'll keep it to myself to use to my advantage over anyone who can't figure it out. But, the point is...people react to real more than they react to not real, and they do so on a sub conscious level. And there is now scientific evidence of this. SO...the converse should also be true, that working with real will be more engaging than working with not real.

It's f*cking science. 

Okay...that should be enough words to not get this thing presumed to be spam by some stinking AI filter...here's some comics.

  Protect your art from AI with Nightshade

 Protect your art from AI with Glaze

 Protect your art from AI with Glaze or Nightshade

Protect your art from AI with Glaze or Nightshade

 Protect your art from AI with Glaze or Nightshade