In these panels, Falcon and Tubby imprison slavers Cassandra (and her associate), and rescue the half-dressed men who she has enslaved.
Currently, both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild, plus the American Federation of Television and Radio Actors (SAG-AFTRA), are on strike.
Until the unions work out a deal with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP) all TV and film productions, involving their members, will be halted.
Novelist and screenwriter, George R.R. Martin, recently said on Comic Book Resources (CBR.com) that a producer was quoted as saying that “AMPTP strategy is to stand fast until the writers start losing their homes and apartments.”
It looks as if this is going to be a long, long strike.
I recently retired from the world of design and print production, and I also paint and draw.
It seems to me that fine artists and book production people have some things in common with the writers and actors working in film and TV.
We’re all people who love what we do, more than we love making money.
Because we feel this way, we’re at a serious disadvantage in dealing with people “in charge,” whose sole business is generating money from our skill sets.
When I was a design and print production artist, I sometimes worked with managers who seemed almost resentful of artists.
Just like Alfred Hitchcock, who wanted his actors to be willing tools for his vision, these managers wanted artists to simply become their hands.
We’re at the threshold of editors using art-generating AI programs (like Midjourney and DALL-E.2, built from billions of images created by artists) to replace artists.
I remember dealing with several managers and editors who must love this development.
Now, by using AI, they can cut “prima donna” artists out of the illustration process completely!
In 1964, Harry Harrison (1925-2012) wrote a science fiction short story “Portrait of the Artist,” that nicely describes just such a control-freak manager.
(Perhaps, the story is so perfect because Harrison was a centaur of sorts—an artist, and a writer.)
Note that the 1960’s were way before computer software was used for page composition.
(Programs that preceded InDesign weren’t in play until the 1980’s.)
The 60’s were the days of blue pencil, rubber cement, and India ink plus zip-a-tone on paper board.
In the future envisioned by Harrison, however, computers are drawing comic books, and have also taken over many service jobs.
In “Portrait of the Artist,” an experienced (read “older”) comic book illustrator named Pachs—who for years has used a Mark VIII Robot Comic Artist computer—is called into his manager’s office, and realizes that Martin is about to fire him. Martin says:
I’m going to have to let you go, Pachs. I’ve bought a Mark IX to cut expenses, and I already hired some kid to run it. . . You know I’m no bastard, Pachs, but business is business. And I’ll tell you what, this is only Tuesday, still I’m gonna pay you for the rest of the week. How’s that? And you can take off right now.
Pachs conceals his emotions, and leaves to get very drunk at a bar near the office.
(The bartender is an affable robot, with an Irish accent.)
I won’t spoil the tragic ending, but Harrison’s story concludes with Martin revealing his disrespect for Pachs as an artist, employee, and human being.
In Charles Platt’s interview book with science fiction icons (Dream Makers Volume II), subject Harry Harrison tells Platt that his book Make Room! Make Room! was debased into the film Soylent Green.
After Harry Harrison fought in WWII, he returned to New York to study fine art.
He soon realized that it would be impossible to support himself as a fine artist, so he pivoted to comic book illustration and writing.
That was a good choice until the Comics Code hit, and publishers cut production by two-thirds.
By that time, Harrison had married and started a family, so he pivoted once again, to become a full-time independent author.
He’s best known for The Stainless Steel Rat book series, the DeathWorld book series, and the novel Make Room! Make Room! (that MGM purchased for Soylent Green).
AI-generated scripts for sit-coms, AI-created background actors in films, and AI-produced illustrations in magazines have a lot in common.
The purpose of each is to save time and money, but each also result in impoverishing the very people who originated the raw material.
The present systems undervalue the artists, and overvalue the overseers, who want creatives to act as their tools.
(The word “overseers” brings back fond memories of one of my favorite TV shows, Alien Nation.*
This series was cancelled in 1990, after 22 episodes, because its’ theme of accepting diversity was too controversial, and TV executives didn’t understand the show’s value.)
Managers obsessed with control, and executives obsessed with saving money, aren’t the only issues involved in more use of AI.
Writers, actors, and designers are also worried about quality.
We already live in a world in which network execs dumb down scripts because they underestimate viewer intelligence.
Just imagine what TV shows would be like if executives had full control over scripts.
It's difficult for many retired production and design people to look at new books and magazines these days.
We see “widows” (incomplete, one, or two, word lines) at the tops of pages and columns—once a real no-no.
Indexes (if there are indexes at all) are software-generated; they list every term and name in the text, but not the substantive information.
Pixelated images—that should have been swapped out for high-resolution images—are everywhere.
Layouts that may have looked OK on a monitor, are unreadable on the printed page.
We’re living in an era of “good enough” color reproduction, and “good enough” printing.
I assume that the family of Anthony Bourdain gave permission for his voice to be voice cloned in 2021’s Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain.
I guess that the family of Wilt Chamberlain permitted Chamberlain’s voice to be voice cloned in the three-part 2023 TV series Goliath.
In the first run of 1982’s Conan the Barbarian, Arnold Schwarzenegger mispronounced “lamentations of the women” as “lamination of the women,” and either he (or someone else?) later re-looped Conan’s dialogue.
Today, Schwarzenegger’s lines would be voice cloned.
It should make a big difference to everyone, whether a person’s heirs consent to voice cloning, or the person consents.
The word “robot” comes from the Slavic word for “drudgery.”
(See my article on Rossum’s Universal Robots.)
It would be fine if all that AI did for humanity was end drudgery: coding text, checking that pages would print properly, or making it unnecessary for an actor to lose 60 pounds for a role.
However, the big problem is that people in charge (the overseers) are indifferent to quality standards, and oblivious to allowing artists human dignity.
The jokers in charge don’t have the ability to judge, or evaluate, the material that AI produces.
To use the writing style and word combinations of scriptwriters to write dribble is unethical.
To use the face, or voice, of an actor to make them play a scene they wouldn’t perform is immoral.
To use the color sense and gesture of an artist to forge a scene that they wouldn’t paint is wrong.
With performers, it’s worse, because their own personas are being misused.
*The premise of Alien Nation (1989-1997, the series through five TV movies) is that a slave ship of humanoid space aliens (the Newcomers) crashes in the Mojave Desert, and the Government attempts to integrate the 300,000 aliens into California society. The primary storyline is Police Detective Sikes overcoming his prejudices toward the Newcomers. The secondary storyline is the Newcomers being pursued by technologically-advanced “Overseers” who want to re-enslave the escapees, as well as enslave the entire earth population.
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