On outgrowing franchises (Star Wars, natch)

"Is it enough that they can fly now?"

The very nature of television franchises is repetition: give them the same thing, only slightly different. Like eating the same bowl of porridge, just with different lighting. Characters do not evolve: they stay the same through the entire series. Their nature, interrelationships and circumstances shape the franchise stories, which always follow a similar pattern (or you're not getting greenlit), and everything resets at the end of every episode. 

This way, the series can be watched out of order in syndication. If the characters evolved and changed, you'd need new sets, new locations, new characters, and it would no longer be The Show anymore. Friction/conflict generates stories, and that comes from the dynamics of the cast. Someone is always the foil, for example. 

Real changes in franchises only occur when actors ask for too much money, or ratings dip and the show runners get desperate and add a cute fluffy dog to the cast. Or Ted McGinley, the Patron Saint of Shark-jumping, if you want to kill the show off quick. 

Eventually, after a couple decades of this endlessly churning story watermill, you get bored. People stop watching. Ratings dip. Cancelation strikes and the program is shipped off to the archives, or that Christian station that still airs Happy Days.

Times change, too, and what young viewers want to see now isn't what I wanted to see thirty years ago. I'd say kids are more media savvy (and saturated) than I was as a kid. I only had 3 channels plus PBS. Kids today have cable, multiple streaming services, movies, internet, YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook (or is that just for old fogies now?), cell phones, and stuff I'm not hip enough to keep up with. 

Franchises need to grow and adapt to stay fresh; sadly, such change also risks alienating earlier generations of viewers. 

Star Wars is a toy line with a film franchise that's migrated to television, where Mando remains Mando and Grogu is eternally an insufferably cute marketing placement. I mean baby. Even the films just cycle through the same stuff, blowing up the Death Star over and over and over again, or recycling the stories of entire earlier films, just juggling the order of events. Empire or First Order, Rebellion or Resistance, nothing really changes. 

Fortunately, by the time you're on the brink of death from boredom, there's a new generation waiting in the wings to replace you; after that, marketers don't give a crap what you watch. Just toddle off and die under a tree somewhere, old timer.

Franchises like Doctor Who, Star Trek and Star Wars I don't enjoy much anymore. It all blends together now, like some kind of gigantic genre pastiche golem. 

Took long enough! 

I tapped out of Who with the later Matt Smith era (too convoluted, characters all sound the same, and when everyone is snappy and glib, no one is), Star Trek changed too much (got dark and more like Star Wars), and Star Wars pumped out a deluge of poorly thought out content.

It's long past time I was done with Star Wars, in particular.

It is explicitly made for children. I'd say the first two films (Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back) are all ages films, but Return of the Jedi (and the Ewok merchandising placement) aimed at a much younger target audience, and the Prequels even more so. 

George Lucas has repeatedly and loudly affirmed that the films are for kids.

Maybe we should listen to the guy.

For example, in Kenobi where they escape from an Imperial base with Little Leia Lulu hidden under Obi Wan's trench coat, he looks like a character from the cartoon Bojack Horseman. I kid you not. I don't think this is political commentary on the Empire (which was an impressive logic pretzel someone tried to construct, and kudos for the effort), but if it is, it's preposterously hammy. My bet is that the writers thought little kids would find it funny, and they very well may. No doubt it's been tested with focus groups. It's Disney after all.

Yet when I was a kid, I hated shows that talked down to me. 

Some kids (and some adults!) will love Kenobi, but it just rubbed me the wrong way.

The characters in Kenobi have no more dimension than the cardboard cutouts populating The Abominable Book of Boba Fett. 

I am greatly enjoying shows like Severance, Better Call Saul, The Expanse, The Boys, Barry, Dark, Mindhunter, The Witcher, To the Lake, Bojack Horseman, Devs, Brooklyn Nine-nine, White Lotus, and Tales from the Loop. Many of these are bleak, but I find them much more compelling than Star Wars.

The whole franchise has been pulled along for almost 50 years based on the strength of the first two cinematic outings. Personally, I think they should have aimed at all ages rather than titling so far towards kids, but that's just me. 

I understand Taika Waititi is making the next Star Wars flick. If any director can get me to throw money away on this franchise, it's Taika or James Gunn. Both are smart, funny and have a strong creative voice. 

Jojo Rabbit showed Taika's got things to say; he comes across as someone with artistic integrity (and maybe also a creative madman; I cannot imagine trying to pitch the concept of that film and getting a green light). My fear is that Taika's sense of humour would make him a much, much better fit with Flash Gordon than Star Wars. 

The tone of Flash Gordon is almost identical to Ragnarok. They're a perfect match: both are fun, irreverent, wahoo space adventures. Pure fun.

The original directors of Solo were fired for deviating too much from the Star Wars tone (presumably making the film too funny), and I suspect Taika would make a wickedly funny film that is totally unacceptable to Disney stakeholders.

Change, just not too much change.

Could be wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok, and expect to like Love and Thunder (EDIT: I hate Love and Thunder). 

I was going to post this last July, but Andor really surprised me, so I shelved it for awhile. Andor's definitely for adults, and won't appeal to most kids. Hell, a lot of adult fans found it boring, but I loved it. That said, the whole franchise can't move in this direction: there's not enough of an audience for it, and you can't afford to alienate kids. 

But it was nice to see the franchise stretch.

Adobe's new AI renderer: Firefly

Step aside, Midjourney, Adobe's entering the AI renderer ring with Firefly.

The biggest thing about it? Firefly's built for commercial use. It was only trained on public domain, openly licensed images... plus Adobestock (which has hundreds of millions of professional grade images). 

Adobestock contributors will, apparently, be compensated; they're working on it.

So they say.

Adobe's going to integrate Firefly into Adobe Creative Suite all over the place. It'll be inescapable. Right  there on your interface, a click of a button away. On the most used design and illustration software in existence.

AI Renderering is going mainstream commercial, baby. 

Firefly is designed from the ground up for just that. Text, vector, raster... holy crap they are ambitious little heinzelmännchen, aren't they?

I've been wary of the AI renderers for a little while, both in regards to copyright, and the unethical sourcing of imagery, which Adobe's... solved? That and embedding it into products designers use every day is going to make it awfully tempting. 

From their site:

• First Adobe Firefly model will empower customers of all experience levels to generate high quality images and stunning text effects
• Adobe launches beta of first Firefly model focused on commercial use
• Adobe Firefly will be integrated directly into Creative Cloud, Document Cloud, Experience Cloud and Adobe Express workflows
• Adobe will introduce “Do Not Train” tag for creators who do not want their content used in model training; tag will remain associated with content wherever it is used, published or stored
• Adobe is planning to enable customers to extend Firefly training with their own creative collateral, generating content in their own style or brand language

Holy crap. 

Things are changing. 

Artist Karine Giboulo does Covid-19 lockdown

Some days I feel just like this...

Saw the Karine Giboulo: Housewarming show at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, tucked in across the street from the far better known ROM. The show's about the Covid-19 lockdowns, and it's a wonderfully fun, whimsical and idiosyncratic take:

"Enter a world at once familiar and uncanny. Montreal-based artist Karine Giboulo invites visitors into an immersive reimagining of her home. Brought to life by over 500 miniature polymer clay figures this is no ordinary house. The figures tell stories that unfold inside or on household furniture appliances and everyday objects.

Just the place to wear Kramer's fragrance: The Beach

On the kitchen countertop a line of people masked and socially distanced await access to a food bank. In the bedroom the drawer of a dresser opens to reveal rows of masked factory workers hunched over industrial sewing machines. In the laundry room a forgotten iron causes a forest fire forcing animals to flee their natural habitat."

It's a faux house filled with little figurines. Certainly a productive way to cope with Covid's disruption of all our lives. 

Rather than being a downer, it made me laugh. 

Posing before the Jeff Bezos Dick rocket

Hi ho, hi ho, a disinfecting we will go. 

This happened to me too.

Biohazard team to kitchen table one

It's even got the kitchen sink

A comment on all the horrors going on in the long term care facilities

Alexander Stubb vs. John Mearsheimer on the war in Ukraine

Former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb recently talked about John Mearsheimer's theory that the war was provoked by the US and NATO expansion. He presents five arguments:

Seductive Midjourney V4 Easy Bake Imagery

Midjourney is seductively easy. 

Write a prompt. Wait a minute and voila: result. Boom. Done. 

I stopped using Midjourney over the ethical issues, but it was damn fun. Midjourney creates a powerful and beguiling illusion of accomplishment, and every time I walked away I'd have another idea that'd draw me back in. 

There are really wonderful, idiosyncratic and inventive imagery being generated. Human users play the role of art directors and curators. 

The more I look at Midjourney imagery, easier it is to spot it in the social media wild. You have to dig into the history of visual arts and tailor your prompts to carve out a more distinctive, curated look. 

I didn't do much of that. My main interest was in sci-fi imagery, pictures to support stories I've either written or contemplated writing, as opposed to purely aesthetic explorations. 

If I ever go back to Midjourney, I'd like to explore aesthetics, and see if I can create a distinctive 'style' through advanced prompts. But I'd prefer the software to be ethically sourced before I do.

Anyway, these are some of the results I got:

A derelict cyclopbot stands sentinel over a desert oasis in Nevada

Beached freighter hulks on a salt flat

NeoBabylonian-Deco style tower over the Grand Canyon

Desert spring pool

Mr. Moogles and his post-apocalyptic junk shop

Werewolf reacts to the lack of fresh dog food at the Quickimart

Captain Nemo's leisure yacht

The lonely Blue Wizard Otho Four Star Box

The most accomplished Blue Wizard was Three Cone Methusaleh, who feuded with his brother Otho for centuries

Ukraine can’t win unless Russia agrees to lose

A year into the war and Ukraine has not only fought the Russians to a standstill, they've pushed Russia back across the Dnieper River and away from Kharkov (Okay, some say it was a tactical withdrawal to buy time, but my way sounds more dramatic). 

Amazing!

What Ukraine cannot do, however, is march upon Moscow and depose Putin. Even if they push Russian forces out of Ukraine, it won’t spell an end to the Russian threat. Putin can just take a few years to eat borsch and rebuild his armies and try again.  

 

The Russian army invaded with 190,000 troops against a Ukrainian army of 200,000, about a third of what Russia would need to win. Ukraine began full mobilization on day one, meaning that Ukraine may very well have had (at some point) more troops in the field than Russia did. 

 

Russia has taken horrific casualties (over 200,000) thanks to crude tactics. The invasion strategy was basically to pound a square peg into a round hole, and it didn't go well. Hundreds of Russian vehicles have been captured by the Ukrainians. Reliance on cell phones has helped Ukrainians eliminate Russian field commanders, while Russian logistics are so bad their Kyiv pincer ran out of gas, then food, and had to retreat, raiding convenience stores as they went. In their wake they left rape rooms, torture chambers and mass graves of the not-so-happily ‘liberated’. 

 

For all the labelling of the Ukrainians as Nazis, the Wagner mercenary group’s recruitment of convicted rapists and murderers is an echo of Oskar Dirlewanger’s charming SS brigade, a collection of thugs and criminals in WWII so odious even the SS distanced themselves from the unit. Which is surreal, as the whole purpose of the SS was industrialized mass murder. Maybe the Wangers were too ill mannered in their mass murderer. Convicts are notoriously ill disciplined and prone to committing atrocities, but it seems the regular Russian army is going to give The Wagner Wangers a run for their rubles.

 

Russia has mobilized 300,000 men, with another 500,000 more cannon fodder on the way. (Un)fortunately, these poor bastards (sorry, soldiers) are badly trained (or not trained at all) and poorly equipped. One video purported to show a Russian soldier armed with a pellet gun. At best, they’ll be using 60-year-old weapons and ammo that have been badly maintained (and may blow up in their faces). It’s Apocalypse Now meets a nightmarish and lethal version of Bugs Bunny.

 

Nothing new for Russia: in WWI, they used human wave attacks, and sometimes only 1 in 2 had a rifle; the other was to pick it up after the bearer was killed and carry on. Doesn't exactly instil confidence in the system. Many wars start out badly for Russia, though; then they course correct and plow over mountains of corpses to the win. 

This won’t end until the Russians (Putin specifically) decides to give up. 

 

How likely is that?

About the same as me winning the lottery.

Don't hold your breath: I don't buy lottery tickets.

 

And while Putin ponders, Ukraine is being wrecked. No doubt part of Putin’s plan: he wants a weak Ukraine, a neutered buffer state between Russia and NATO. Destroying Ukrainian infrastructure potentially increases pressure on Zelensky to seek accommodation. Yeah: won't work. The Ukrainians have no interest in ceding territory and NATO is pouring weapons in. Mass famine will hit before Ukraine ever considers surrender. 

 

Negotiation for Zelensky now would be political (and possibly the more existential variety) suicide. Arafat had the same problem. 

 

John Mearsheimer doggedly asserts that the war is being fought to the last Ukrainian, that they are puppets of the West, cynically manipulated into burning their own country to the ground. I am not so sure I buy that, whatever the folly of Bush pushing Ukrainian NATO membership. 

However much the United States relishes the opportunity to thwart Russia (and they do), it's the Ukrainians who are fighting. People who don't want to fight don't fight, no matter how many weapons you give them. The US provided billions in arms to South Vietnam, and they promptly collapsed after US withdrawal. Same with Afghanistan. They didn't want to fight, not on their own.

The Ukrainians, on the other hand, are fighting like demons in the defence of their country. Effectively. Resolutely. There are even partisans fighting in Russian held areas. That does not happen if there is no will to fight. 

After The Holodomor, back room interference and annexing Crimea, many Ukrainians just don’t want to be ruled from Moscow, and I can’t say I blame them. 

True, Western Ukraine is more anti-Russian than the East, which has a large Russian speaking population. Even given that, there doesn't seem a lot of support for the invasion in Eastern Ukraine. There have also been Russian atrocities in Eastern Ukraine, and the Donbas paramilitaries have been used as disposable cannon fodder. Is there not a point where you look at your rescuer, who's willing to throw your life away like it was a piece of toilet paper (and I'm talking post-Covid toilet paper crisis here), and question their benevolence? 

When someone says you are a brother, and then bombs, rapes and murders your fellows, do you believe they have your best interests at heart? 

No, the United States does not have the best interests of Ukraine at heart, either; they are first and foremost pursuing their own, yet these can align with Ukraine. So could Russia's, but since they've been flying hypersonic missiles into apartment buildings and flattening whole cities with artillery fire, I admit I am more dubious of Russia's motives than I am of the Americans. 

 

Russia is in stage five of demographic transition, they will eventually run out of soldiers, unless they want to roll in geriatrics. That bodes trouble for the Russian Empire down the line, as many ethnic groups in Russia have more robust demography and aren't keen on being ruled from Moscow. More regions may secede if Russian dominance falters. That'll be fun.

 

All the lives Putin is throwing away in human wave attacks means fewer potential fathers and fewer potential Russian families with fewer potential children. Same goes for Ukraine, which also is in stage five. There may be no one left to inherit their earth, which would be the ultimate tragedy for both sides.

 

Eventually, Putin will die, too. Mearsheimer and other poli-sci experts’ claim this will not change anything: Russia must dominate Ukraine, as an existential issue, and any Russian political leader who follows Putin will also be compelled to attack.

Maybe, maybe not.

 

If Putin is the driving force behind the war, it could end with his death. If the driving force is great power politics (the need for Russia to seize the gaps on either side of the Carpathian Mountains, north to the Pripet Marshes and east to the Black Sea), then Putin's death won’t mean jack. But it would also mean that Russia is likely to try and close the gap to the north of the Pripet Marshes (to the Baltic Sea) by invading Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland. All NATO countries... so let's hope not.

Putin has not drafted enough troops to overwhelm Ukraine. He'd need a few million men, but he doesn’t have the ability to supply or equip that many. Such a vast mobilization might even provoke civil unrest. So instead, Putin’s drip feeding young Russians into the meat grinder of an unwinnable attrition war. 

On the other hand, Russia has almost four times the population of Ukraine, so in an attritional war, Ukraine will run out of bodies first. Casualty estimates for Ukraine are more difficult to come by: they vary from one third to over 100%. Bakhmut may be the new Verdun: designed to bleed the Ukrainian army dry. As German Commander-in-Chief Falkenhayn famously said, the point of his attack was not to capture Verdun; it was, instead, to 'bleed France white'. Japan resorted to the same strategy at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. It's a workable, if utterly ruthless, path that will consume plenty of Russians, too. 

Perhaps the much talked about summer offensives will tip things in Ukraine's favour. 

With China now threatening to supply Russia with lethal military aid, US-China relations may go from bad to abysmal, and tough sanctions on China would cause even more economic disruption as we head into a recession. 

 

There is another unsavory issue: grain and fertilizer exports to Africa, Brazil and China have been blocked by the war. That will impact marginal farmlands (which require copious amounts of fertilizer to be productive), which will lead to large scale famine(s). 

Peachy.

As Hawkeye Pierce might say, "Just end the war!" He was always light on the details but I get the sentiment. 

Nil, Rebel Angels and possible book looks for The Future

For the Nil short film, I added in gradients and cloud backgrounds to enrich the scenes. I rather like the result; it enhances the style. 

Earlier I'd tried with Rebel Angels to combine photographs of classical art with the flat graphic environments, but the result was not received well. 

Still, be interesting to try again. 

Nil had a very flat, graphic style, with no gradients at all, originally: just flat fields of white, black and grey. Character designs were simple and iconic, the backgrounds ultra-detailed:

A page from the original Nil graphic novel; I loved playing with the layouts and merging illustration and design. That was a happy place for me, and I'd like to go back there. The subsequent books were all less 'designy' or abstract, and more attempts to describe environments.

Elements from the book, cityscapes and impossible buildings, covered with blends to knock them back and emphasize the character in the foreground. The haze also softens the scene. 

Soft background clouds give the scene greater depth and a stronger sense of desolation and vastness.

When I got to Rebel Angels, I'd been doing graphic novels for awhile, and had Nil, Rex Libris, and Warlord of Io under my belt. Rebel Angels was actually an outgrowth of Nil, but during development became completely disconnected from the source material. 

I had a young female punk rocker who was wrongly condemned to Hell teaming up with Muk to overthrow Satan, but at the time I really didn't want to draw humans. Just monsters and demons, so I cut her character. Maybe not the best of choices. 

But you can only do what you can do.

The characters in Rebel Angels became more animated, a little more in line with cartoons: a clean outline and flat blocks of tone over more complex backgrounds. It was more sophisticated in some ways, yet less experimental than Nil.

I'm happy with the visual result. The story itself got away from me and I burned out finishing the book. It would be almost ten years before I attempted another graphic novel. 

Beware of burnout, man, and pace yourself. When it hits you, it really, REALLY hits you.

Hell Lost / Rebel Angels is still up on my website and can be viewed here.

A ridiculously detailed version of the cover for the online version of Rebel Angels.

Skulls used as texture over the graphic elements.

Again with the clouds; they really assist in creating a sense of space.

Polarized photos of classical art I took in, I think, Paris. The figures were embellished with nosed and horns and swords. I thought they added an interesting, almost Boschean aspect; nobody seemed to like them though so I abandoned the approach. Sometimes feedback's a bitch.

Max Zing / Warlord of Io screens

I've been digging around in my archives and found fab forgotten things. These images are from a presentation in The Before Time:

Max Zing (it's currently on Drunk Duck) was an outgrowth of the graphic novel Warlord of Io, and put the eponymous character into comic strip format. 

It's like poetry: one, two, three-joke! One-two-three-punchline! 

I pumped out some 75+ strips before moving on to other things. 

I had some fun doing it, and enjoyed playing with a new (and challenging) format.

The earlier graphic novel was also a great visual exploration. The images are made entirely with blends, no lines (well, a few for emphasis at times, but no outlines). Don't think there's anything else out there quite like it, even to this day.

That may not be a good sign. 

Heh.

But it was a novel look!

Worst meeting EVER.

A meeting like this is just what you don't want early in the morning before you've had your cup of coffee. It'd totally derail your day. 

Mind you, after they deliver their schpiel, I don't think you'd need coffee anymore. More like a few dozen stiff drinks.

It's wonderfully shot and scripted but apparently drifts from what actually happened. 

Damn good scene though.

The Last of Us: Girl With All The Gifts déjà vu?

I watched the premiere of The Last of Us with Pedro Pascal and found the opening sequences quite harrowing. After Covid, I'm not sure I'm as keen on shows depicting the collapse of civilization and the death of all our loved ones. It's just more depressing now. 

It also reminded me of The Girl With All The Gifts, another post-apocalypse movie with cordyceps fungus zombies, a Special Girl protagonist, a mission to visit a doctor/scientist, the possibility of a cure, and lots of side characters who are rotten, miserable bastards who deserve to die (and do, in large numbers). 

Having seen The Girl, I bet I can predict the ending of The Last. 

As they say, it's not about the end, it's the journey. Heh. 

I think that's actually an oversimplification, endings do matter, but there's still truth in the statement. 

The Last of Us is very well produced, depicting a gob smackingly expensive looking dilapidated post-apocalypse, and I like Pedro. 

Also, Craig Mazin (the dude behind the Chernobyl show, which was superb) is producing The Last of Us. 

I bet it'll be an interesting journey.

I'll keep watching.

The Creative Commons, AI Renderers and the Death of Cheap Credit

Jeez, I was expecting an AI rendering, not a terrifying series of ethical and social issues brought on by an AI revolution. By the way, shouldn't you be a mechanical monstrosity instead of a four armed werewolf? (Image created with Midjourney v4)

My understanding is that copyright laws were originally intended to protect creators and help assure them income and credit for their efforts. Copyright would last the writer/creator's lifetime plus fifty years, allowing their dependents the benefit of their creations as well. After that, the work would join the Creative Commons, enriching society and allowing others the chance to play with these wonderful memetic inventions.

The laws were designed before franchises became a thing, and, oh boy, have they complicated things. 

Franchises emerged with the Penny Dreadfuls of the 1880s, small press anthology publications that came out weekly or monthly, and were filled with all manner of Victorian click bait, sordid tales of debauchery, high adventure, murder and monsters. At the high end you'd get things like Solomon Kane and Sherlock Holmes. Think of them as the spiritual forefathers of adventure serials from the thirties and forties. They were addictive, with cliffhangers, so you'd have to plunk down another penny to get the next instalment. By then the reader would be hooked on another ongoing story in the anthology. 

And so an addict is born!

Franchise characters took on much larger life than their creators ever had, becoming immortal archetypes and perpetual money making machines... or would, except for the pesky expiry of that copyright law.

Then Disney steps into the picture.

Think of Disney as the Irresistible Force meeting... the Moveable Object. They wanted extensions on copyright protections for their prized franchise properties. And their lawyers were backed by big bucks. The courts blinked. 

They've been tacking on extensions to copy right law ever since. 

Where am I going with this? 

The AI renderers have been training their tools on the work of living artists, work which has not yet entered the Creative Commons. True, they're just analyzing the art, same as art students do, but they're doing it on a massive scale and in a systematized way no human could. They are outside of anything legal protections were designed to address. No one anticipated (okay maybe Jules Verne, but that book of predictions didn't get published until like a decade or two ago) AI renderers.

Over the last 4 months, Midjourney has improved dramatically. The renderers were at first far short of commercially viable. After four months of improvements, they are damn close. The commercial art community has started raising the alarm, and renderers are being compared to art theft. 

The crazy thing is that the AI renderers are just a side show for researchers, who want to bring about a utopia. There are so many areas where AI could seriously upend things, and just as many ways things could go wrong. Even the developers are getting a little unnerved. See this Vox article for more.

Right now, there's no law against an AI analyzing someone's work for the sake of training. But AI will be analyzing every area of human thought, sooner than later. It's going to be an issue. 

It will affect so many fields, legislators won't be able to ignore it.

First, we will need to extend copyright to styles, to an artist's body of work, for the life of the artist plus fifty, at least insofar as an AI is concerned. This is especially true if, or when, AI are able to produce commercially equivalent product that is indistinguishable quality wise to the original human artist. Once that point is reached, we're going to see serious impact on our creative community. Just another shock after many. 

Using AI renderers for fun is one thing, but using them commercially poses real ethical issues. Once an artist is dead and copyright expires, sure, let the AI sample away. Prior to that? We either shouldn't allow that to be done commercially, or a fee should be paid to the relevant artist being sampled. We need incentives to not only keep creative people creating, but to keep people joining those creative fields, not fleeing them in terror as they have visions of impoverishment. 

We've analyzed the issue, sir, and there is a problem...

I have played with Midjourney (it's wildly addictive) and used it for fun and social. I don't think you should charge for the renders it produces (which strikes me as being against the terms of service, anyone can freely use what Midjourney generates), but I am now wondering if it's even ethical to have a subscription at all, especially as it gets better and better. 

And those outputs of Mickey Mouse doing nasty things makes me wonder what Disney thinking...

Hopefully the companies that created the AI renderers will come to an agreement with the artists before legislation is even needed. 

Second, the AI Revolution will be HUGELY disruptive; a universal basic income will be needed to weather the social storms that follow. Free higher education, and continuing education, will be vital to maintaining a productive workforce, supporting workers as they retrain. Or try to. Humans don't learn as fast as AI.

If I lose my job, it's my problem. If twenty MILLION people lose their jobs all at once, it's society's problem; ie. the AI Revolution could (hey, I'm a writer, I'm imaginative. Oh, where are my smelling salts?) be followed by an old school revolution, one that involves the modern equivalent of torches and pitchforks. 

There have already been troubling trends towards wealth polarization, of stagnating wages for the middle and lower classes, while CEO and billionaire wealth explodes. 

Finally, the Baby Boomers are retiring. They are the largest generation EVER. They created the greatest pool of available credit in human history. Credit has never been as cheap as it has been in the last couple decades. 

And soon all of that, the lifeblood of thousands of tech start ups that haven't turned a profit yet and live on investment money, will be gone. 

Things are going to get a lot leaner. Health care costs and taxes will go up. There will be one working Gen Xer for every 4 retired boomers. That will make UBI and FHE even more difficult to implement. 

An AI Revolution, however, could spike productivity, and provide enough surplus for everyone (a new Golden Age!). Or it could funnel wealth to a tiny percentage and leave millions penniless (welcome to Dystopia!). 

And that is something we will get a say in, eventually, hopefully, with our votes. 

UBI and FHE

Conan rendering stellar phenomena using Midjourney. Astronomy is one of his lesser known hobbies.

Free higher education and universal basic income are going to become increasingly important (even necessary) as certain jobs (or entire fields) are made obsolete by automation. 

The largest corporations of the twentieth century employed tens of millions of people. The top five corporations driving the stock market today (Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple, etc) employ a TINY fraction of that. You just don't need tens of millions of coders at Meta.

The idea that creative destruction will continue to merely shift labour to different areas of the economy is breaking down: the new fields being built simply do not require as many labourers. 

That presents some issues.

Many fields are being, or are about to be, heavily impacted by automation. It takes a big investment to set up, but cost savings manifest over time. There are over 4 million people driving vehicles in the United States currently, for example, and robot vehicles are right around the corner. 

On the up side, right now the United States is experiencing the greatest expansion (re-shoring) of industrial capacity since the end of the Second World War. That will be an enormous help, but I also expect manufacturers to automate as much as possible, as US labour is more expensive than in many other nations. Automation may be necessary to make reshoring lower end industries (basic electronics, say) economical, but even so, it is possible there will be a net increase in employment, given the amount of reshoring happening. 

We are also facing a large demographic shift (into retirement, which will be followed by a population drop), which may push the economy into recession. Retirees don't buy as much as new young parents. Baby boomers retiring also takes money out of investment funds, such as in tech start ups. Things are going to slow down and money will be tighter. Maybe it will slow automation down.

We shall see..!

At any rate, education will be a life long endeavour so we can be, and remain, competitive. Universal basic income will be essential in dealing with the dramatic impact and shifts in jobs as automation makes an ever increasing impact in the next few decades.

What is coming has the potential to be mind blowingly awesome... or an abysmal, hellish dystopia.

The last thing we want is to wind up like ancient Rome, with a gutted and desperate middle class seeking salvation as serfs on the plantations of rich land owners, or indolent masses entertained by bread and circuses. 

Conan the Barbarian on Midjourney

Conan is angered by the more interesting social media feed of his rivals and vows revenge

Conan! What is valued in life?

Conan: "Wahd iz desiahd, rahwr und hawhd."

You mean desired, rare and difficult?

Conan: "Yaws! Dad's eed!"

Ever eloquent Conan makes a good point.

How does Midjourney stack up in terms of value?

1) Desired. 

This question is still open. It is desired for imagery on social media. It's a lot of fun to play with. Will it be employed commercially? So far, the highest profile use has been as a gimmick cover for The Economist. I can see it being used for hundreds of thousands of indie book covers (millions of those out there already and increasing daily), or for super quick concept generation. People who want imagery for their imaginary role playing worlds, games, etc. will find it incredibly fun and useful. 

The engine still struggles with complex structures and multi-element scenes. Hands, faces (unless isolated), and feet are especially challenging for it and stand in the way of adoption. Are these insurmountable obstacles? I doubt it. 

Will they still be a problem 10 years, 100 years, or 500 years from now? What is the ceiling for AI? Will we have Hal 9000 and Commander Datas at some point in the future? That's also kind of doubtable, but we will likely have powerful AI nonetheless. Image generation for an AI like Data would be child's play. 

Eventually, I expect a LOT of the technical issues to be solved. 

Conan sprucing up his social media feed with Midjourney renderings of his enemies fleeing before him

So... desired as a fun hobby tool with usage at the periphery of commercial arts (indie book covers) for the time being.

2) Rare

It's as common as a $10 per month subscription. You need only an internet connection and a web browser (web browsers are free).

3) Difficult

It's super easy, barely an inconvenience. The skill barrier to entry is... a basic understanding of english. 

How does it stack up then, in terms of value?

Individual Midjourney images have... no value at all. None! They can be freely used by the art director who rendered them (human users are essentially performing an art direction and curation role), but also by anyone else. If you alter the image, only you can use the alteration, but the base can still be used by others. 

So bit of a problem if you want to brand with Midjourney output. 

I've invested lots of time in the tool over the last 3-4 months, however, and I've had a ton of fun rendering pictures for stories that would have taken me YEARS to have done otherwise. It's been a blast. 

Do any of the images I've made have value? As illustrations to stories I put up on my blog, or Kindle, for example, sure, they can arguably enhance the text. Beyond that, no.

Once AI renderers overcome the technical limitations they have now, they will compete at first with stock art. It will take longer for AI renderings to impinge upon highly skilled commercial artists. Eventually, some artists will move up into creative and art direction roles (as many as there are berths to take). Speed and cost are often imperatives in commercial art, and nothing is faster or cheaper than Midjourney (well, maybe stock art), so at some point down the line I expect it to make an impact. 

Those doing highly idiosyncratic work may last longer. Perhaps new laws will be made to copyright a 'style'. There's nothing currently; I don't think anyone in the legislatures saw this coming. They usually lag far behind technology.

Of course, the Luddites didn't see any laws passed to protect their livelihoods...

So yes, down the line, I expect AI to be doing a lot of grunt, toss-off commercial creative work (both visual and written). Humans will curate and art direct and tweak and provide the motivation. The higher level work, complex stuff that needs to be unique, will still need to be done by humans. 

Will the commercial art field expand as our tools get more powerful? Will human participation in the process continue to be necessary? How much of an appetite does the public have for art? How much do they have to spend, in both time and money? 

It's possible AI and human collaborations will spark a new creative age. There may be emergent properties here that we are entirely unaware of as yet. 

Honestly, I'd like to see where the AI renderers are in ten years before I really place my bets. 

My current view:

• It's a super fun creative toy to play with

• It's GREAT for amateur indie writers

• It's great for world building and amateur concept art (with the caveat that whatever is made can be used freely by others)

• Midjourney imagery has zero intrinsic value

• It's so easy as to be seductive and addictive; you can waste huge amounts of time on it

• Because it is common and easy, I don't see investing time in it as truly productive. It's a crazy fun hobby; best case (for me) is that it can be used to promote / illustrate stories, or as reference for my own digital painting efforts. Whatever limitations it has in terms of structure, I do love the colour palette(s) it uses. 

• Midjourney will continue to improve. 

Let's check back here in another 10 years, shall we?

For now, I'm going to keep an eye on it, dabble from time to time, but otherwise I need to get back to other work already in progress... such as the new book! 

Conan contemplates the social profiles of his dead enemies and reads the lamentation of their women

All the images in this post were rendered with Midjourney V4, and have not retouched or edited. Unlike this post.

Andor is awesome

I really didn't care for The Book of Boba Fett. And I thought Kenobi was an amateurish bore.

Andor? 

It's SLOW!

There are few recognizable aliens! Or planets! Or spaceships! 

WHERE IS DARTH VADER?

WHERE IS THE EMPEROR?

Where are the Stormtroopers falling over in droves every time someone does a back flip and points a finger at them?

Where are the endless lightsaber fights?

Where is the constant non-stop action and meaningless banter from cardboard archetypes?

We are now 10 episodes in and not ONE Death Star has blown up! 

Seriously, WTF?!?

And where, oh WHERE, is Turdooine?!? Sorry, I mean, Tatooine. (I hate that planet. Even the characters in the franchise know it's the ass end of nowhere. Is that why the writers sadistically keep taking us back to that desert stub? To make us hate the damn planet as much as "Are you an angel?" Ani did? Is it psychological warfare? Cruel and inhumane...)

Where are all the wink wink nudge nudge callback shots?

THIS ISN'T STAR WARS!!!

You're right: Star Wars, as George has said repeatedly, is for children. 

Andor is NOT for children. 

It's smart, it's well written, there are interesting characters with depth, the dialogue is complex, and the story takes its time being told. 

It builds and builds to meaningful crescendoes thanks to the care and effort spent on fleshing out the characters beforehand. 

So when action DOES happen, it's meaningful. Action after action between action before more action and as a prelude to the real action is just a meaningless cacophony. 

Honestly, I'm amazed Andor got made. 

I mean, it's good, for one thing. 

Unlike the other Star Wars shows (okay, Mandalorian was decent, and The Volume tech is flat out mind blowing). And it is quite obviously for adults. 

You can tell Gilroy is a history nerd. The show evokes totalitarian regimes on earth like no other Star Wars iteration. 

It makes The Book of Boba Fett, about your friendly neighbourhood (Disneyfied) drug cartel overlord, look pathetic, juvenile and ridiculous. 

Andor is shaping up as a show with something to say. 

From Disney.

Incredible.

Kathleen Kennedy has, from my perspective, always been a risk taker. The first directors she picked to carry on the franchise were all young turks with their own emerging voice. They were exciting choices. They didn't work out for the most part. But then, Andor, too is a wildly risky choice to make. And I'm glad she gambled on it.

I'm even more glad the second season is already green lit, so we'll get a proper wrap up for the series. I know it leads into Rogue One, which I actually hated, but Andor's so good I just don't care. I am enjoying it for what it is. 

I have no criticisms. There may be quibbles, but I'd have to think about it to come up with anything. 

It's superbly well done so far (at episode 10, which I've watched twice now. I haven't watched anything Star Wars twice in over twenty years).

I still can't believe it got made, especially after the dreck of Kenobi and Fett, the creative bankruptcy of The Force Awakens, the farcical Last Jedi and the utterly risible Rise of Skywalker.

This is a reflection of my own tastes, of course. A seven year old can appreciate the Star Wars movies (even the first two original films; the good ones are all ages), but they likely won't enjoy Andor. A lot of the fandom apparently doesn't like it, either, and I can understand why. They're used to the franchise being something else.

It's not for everyone.

But it is the Star Wars show I've always wanted to see.

Give it a watch. I can't recommend the show highly enough to anyone who's a history or polisci nerd.

ONE WAY OUT!

ONE WAY OUT!

Russian window horror films hit American market

 A new wave of Russian horror films is hitting the English language market:

Every culture has their bugaboo...

Deadly Russian windows strike again

Is this a poster for a Russian movie about killer windows on the loose? No, but it could be. 

Another Russian oligarch, Ravil Maganov, has met his untimely demise by falling out of a hospital window to his death.

Never go near a Russian window. 

Those things are lethal.

Can anyone stop them before they kill again?!?