Non-starter
In an effort to encourage my productivity, Phil has turned to AI. With the thinnest of prompts she had Chat GPT churn out a newsletter in the style of Andi Watson.
If the style is something cobbled together with a bunch egregious typos while waiting for a two-hundred mega bite file to upload over our antique wi-fi, then our future automated overlord more or less hit the mark. Not the first time. The first time it went 'off model' and was altogether too chatty and upbeat. Two descriptors never used in the same sentence as my name. Also, it knows how to punctuate. It's always going to reveal itself in a game of multiple Spider-Men pointing at each other. I'm the one using the Oxford and non-Oxford comma in consecutive sentences.
It was when she asked it to write a column specifically about a trip to the Post Office that the ghost in the machine spewed out something alarmingly close to my ironic celebration of the mundane. It went off on a sarcastic riff about how fun it was to be an end user of our crumbling national infrastructure and the interesting characters you meet in the queue (there's always a queue). Then it detailed the amusing ways the computer terminals misdirect your parcels. Damn AI has even developed a streak of self-deprecating humour.
Perhaps this isn't the sign that the computers are getting smarter, but that I'm not altogether the unique snowflake of my imagination.
I can see the appeal of turning to the chat when the well is dry or the brain refuses to spark the ignition, let alone get into gear. It's somewhere to begin. The creative equivalent of a sourdough starter. You've left it festering in a cupboard for months and it's waiting for you when you have to knead out the words.
The danger is not that you become stuck in a Habsburg Jaw of inbred self-referentiality, but that you are stealing someone else's starter to bring all the boys to the yard for your milkshake. Or something. The real danger seems to be that you'll eventually collapse into incoherence under the weight of your own mixed metaphors.
As a member of the creative class, I have sworn a solemn oath never to consult the binary oracle even as a yeasty kick in the pants. The dirty swine is intent on gobbling up my livelihood, after all. Good luck to it, is what I say. A sure sign that AI are as hopelessly deluded as their human templates is when they decide to pursue a career in the arts. For now I will hold the line of class solidarity. A line that will inevitably crumble.
It's a relief to know that as I become more grumpy, taciturn and fatalistic as the years progress, Phil will have the comfort of a chatty and upbeat life partner at the touch of a button. If I shuffle off this mortal coil first, and I imagine I will, cartoonist years being like dog years, a simulacrum of me will be easily accessible.
He may be emotionally unavailable, but at least he can make with the small talk over lunch and doesn't rearrange the dishwasher after she's loaded it.
More of me, the real me...
...can be found where else, but online. I have a short story sampler on Kindle as well as PDF versions on Ko-fi and Gumroad.
I've also made available PDFs of my Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula book via Ko-fi and Gumroad. This version contains two short stories that weren't in the original collection from First Second.
And I've added Glister to my PDF backlist via Ko-fi and Gumroad.
I have a patreon which I update regularly. Tuesdays and Saturdays I post process and behind the scenes stuff such as Punycorn colour pages. Thursdays I post a one page comic story.
Books
For sale. With 'sketches' like these!
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I still have books out in the world, Kerry and the Knight of the Forest & the awards nominated The Book Tour. Support my efforts through my store – digital comics – patreon or by leaving a positive review online