Robots making comics and other amazing stories

An edition about the humility-greatness of comic-books, the Inktober and unsolicited IAs nude pics

WELCOME TO A NEW EDITION OF MY NEWSLETTER

Hi again! This has been a strange return to the daily job. I took a late vacation, basically the first half of September, and while I am recovering my usual pace we have entered October! So it’s time to work hard again and do a lot of things at the same time, my usual multitask way of life.

Summarizing some of the things I have been doing lately, some of them you can buy now with a click:

UNTIL MY KNUCKLES BLEED paperback.

UNTIL MY KNUCKLES BLEED one shot, recently released.

My Panel Syndicate miniseries PARANOIA KILLER (digital comic, “pay what you want” mode)

MOON EATERS, the crowdfunding graphic novel I made with Spaceman Project is printed and backers are receiving their books. I signed all the plates are signed and right now I am working on the rewards like personalized covers and commissions. I have plans for this book because I kept the rights to publish the book in the USA through an American publisher, so give me some time to find it a good place. And I am also planning to develop this book in an audiovisual medium! But this is in a very very early stage now.

And in March of the next year, ELIXIR, my fantasy original graphic novel written by Frank Barbiere and Ricky Mammone will be released.

(And there are more things to come I can’t share yet)

THE INKTOBER BEGINS

My rules are the same: One (traditionally) inked drawing every day until the end of the month, not spending more than 30 minutes in a drawing on a 21x29,7 cm (8,3x11,7 inches) Bristol sheet.

In past years I have made tributes to creators (Kirby, Ditko), to characters like Batman, to multimedia franchises like Masters of the Universe… This year I feel like doing a cinema theme. You know I love action movies, and my initial title was something like Heros and Heroines of Action, but I wanted to be open to all kind of stories, like more arty stories, old revenge or exploitations films… not only the classic “Actioner films”. So my theme will be MASTERS OF VIOLENCE.
So I am drawing characters from movies I love or influenced me as a creator. This is not a selection of “the best characters of action”. It’s completely personal and subjective. Maybe you will discover movies you have never heard about. Maybe you will discover that you are not alone, and that movie you love and everybody hates is one of my favorites.

WELCOME TO THE #VIOLENTOBER!

In past editions people ask me if I have a list. Some artists publish the complete list in their social network and which character/whatever they are going to draw every day but I prefer not thinking about it until I begin to draw. I want to keep the fun and not transform the Inktober into an assignment. I hope you have fun watching the drawings. I will be uploading them in my facebook, twitter and Instagram accounts (links at the bottom) and selling them in my big cartel store:
https://victorsantos.bigcartel.com/

And if you want to see all my scanned drawings of this edition and the editions of previous years you can find them in my blog/site:
https://victorsantoscomics.blogspot.com/search/label/inktober

MAKE MY COMIC, DAMNED ROBOT!

The Artificial Intelligences drawing things, the damned AIs… This has been a theme of discussion and controversy in the artistic medium recently. And I agree about the fears of the artists, but I think the thing that upsets me more, it’s the fact (or perception) that some people of the cultural world are really trying badly to make this transition from artist to machine asap. I say, it feels like a hurry… I have received some Midjourney ap proofs from writers I know, or I have seen some tests in writers and directors profiles and it’s like… “Hey man, I never sent you an AI test for writing”… Because these writer AIs exist too (and watching some movies recently I have the strong conviction that some of them have been written by machines). But guys, it’s like a husband sending pics of his mistress to his wife: “Ok if you want to cheat me, but don’t send me pics with you guys having sex”.

Anyway, I also want to assume my part of responsibility as creator. First I think the AIs process could be useful to speed up some routine tasks of the artists, improving their own work and working over it. Because the trick of “I pick from here and there from the net and make my new drawing” sends us to a very muddy copyright swamp (besides the ethical considerations), and this is something I can’t talk about here because it would need a lot of research and explanation (but maybe I’ll write about it in a future newsletter).

I think the apparition of these AIs should motivate us to make our best works, our more personal work, and in my opinion, the more important: Our more daring and defiant work. Because we need to recognize that we can find a lot of generic art in the comics-books which look like they were drawn by machines. The same poses, the same boring storytelling, the same ultra-rendered 3D references… We need to make our individuality and personality our trademark. Because in this world of entertainment media mega companies, franchises and algorithms, the personal signature is more important than ever. Because at the end, comics can be something humble and simple, but its greatness is the intimacy of a story told by a person to a person, a message and a connection in the middle of a cacophony of product placement, an old joke told between close friends.

Maybe too much sugar for the end of this edition? Surely, but I think it stills true.

Thats all! See you soon with a new episode of Ginger revenges!
Victor

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