A visual intro to Tales from the Triverse
Plus the ongoing debate about AI image generation
As you can probably tell, I had a lot of fun making that.
UPDATE: My updated thoughts on use of AI generated images is here.
In truth I’ve always been something of a frustrated comics creator: my artistic abilities simply have never been good enough. The little promo comic above is an intriguing hybrid of AI generation (MidJourney) and my own efforts. I wanted to see what would happen if I used AI generation to create concepts, and then worked on the images to make them ‘my own’.
This feeds into the ongoing debate about AI generation. There was a fascinating discussion about it in the comments of last week’s newsletter. That chat, and Ruben’s comments in particular, did prompt me to want to move towards using AI illustrations as starting points rather than endpoints for illustrating this newsletter. That of course impacts on time, but it’s worth the effort, I think. The promo comic above is a first attempt to bring AI into a creative workflow, rather than presenting the AI output as-is.
This version is something of an experiment. I’m considering whether it would be useful as a promo to be used more widely - would a visual onboarding like this work better than asking people to commit immediately to reading 2,000 words? This could also potentially be used to appeal to readers on platforms such as Webtoon. Books and visual promotions are always awkward - I’ve never seen a video trailer for a book that wasn’t plain awful. Have you ever tried using video or images to promote prose fiction?
I’m very curious about your thoughts on AI image generation. Let me know down in the comments.
These are fantastic, certainly piqued my interest.
I can't remember if I've commented on the subject before, but I've become addicted to AI art. I understand the reservations of artists who see their work and talent being devalued, though I don't believe AI art will ever be able to satisfactorily replace human art, either in the ability to discuss what you want from a commission, or from an emotional investment perspective.
What it does do is allow those of us who are artistically limited, and financially challenged, access to the medium. As a self-published author, I've neither the skill to create my own covers to any decent standard, nor the budget to hire a creative, so AI art has opened a door to me to have my work sold under decent imagery. In that way, it's a gamechanger.
I love this as an intro to the series and would be very interested to see how it does as a lead-in to the novel.
As for AI image generation, I'm torn. I like how you've used it as the foundation but not the end-all (and would be interested to see your process). I don't like that these models have seemingly been trained on other artists' work (if the reporting is accurate).
I find myself reacting to AI artwork in the same way I view a stock photo or illustration; my brain just kind of passes over it as something not inherently special or interesting. That is not to say that stock images/illustrations don't have their uses (I have been using them for my serialized chapter intros until the artist I'm working with finishes the newest batch of illustrations for book 2), but once you know that it is a stock photo, for me that takes away part of the "magic" for lack of a better word. That being said, I did not have that reaction after reading your intro.