Midjourney v6

Once more into the AI, breech, dear friends!

I stopped using Midjourney with v4, when the generative AI platform began to look commercially viable. 

Most of the images I rendered back in 2022 needed to be fixed up, edited by hand in ProCreate to remove glitches, fix hands, and other The Thing style horrors. 

The fixes were relatively minor, overall. But they needed the finishing touches. 

Now? 

Midjourney v6, from what I've seen, have solved glitches and hands. The software has vastly improved, and at an incredible pace. 

I've seen illustrations in online magazines rendered by AI. They're all over stock sites, even though they aren't supposed to be (or so I'd been led to understand... how do you sell something that can be shared freely?). 

The strange artificial 'plastic' feel is still there, although less extreme. Creative prompt crafting can diminish it further. 

I still have quite a stack of imagery rendered back in 2022, and I've fixed up a number in ProCreate. They look pretty cool. 

But I don't think I'll be posting any more (not that anyone is looking anyway). 

The impact of these AI renderers (and AI writers) is increasing. How the law will eventually deal with them, I have no idea. If they keep improving, companies focused on the bottom line will use them more and more. That will impact all the creative arts: why get into a field where you can be replaced by the click of a button?

Generative AI is amazing in so many ways, and it's a ton of fun to play around with. I can see why some people have become addicted to it. But the potential human cost, to arts and culture, is incalculable.

Day of the Zombie Franchise

Franchises weren't really a thing (well, baring ancient, medieval and religious myths) until the Penny Dreadfuls of Victorian London. Cheap, 1 cent pamphlets filled with lurid tales of mayhem, murder, adventure and lascivious escapades. Sherlock Holmes was born out of that swamp. and Solomon Kane came soon after. Edgar Rice Burrough burst onto the franchise scene with John Carter and Tarzan, who were soon followed by a flood of others, from Flash Gordon to Zorro. 

Film franchises started to take off in the late sixties, with James Bond and Planet of the Apes. Star Wars put the franchise phenomena into overdrive, and blockbuster sequel cinema arrived every summer. After the flick you could go to a fast food franchise, like McDonalds. 

Star Trek came back from the dead thanks to legions of die hard fans (coupled with the success of Star Wars, which had dollar signs floating before the eyes of studio execs). Batman and Superman brought us two long running franchises; more recently, we've been doused in MCU. 

Franchises are sucking up all the air, and then some. 

I'm so old now I've seen franchises rebooted not once, not twice, but three times. And still the suits in Hollywood will not stop. Not while there is a buck to be made! 

Inevitably franchises outlive their creator. Whatever message or meaning they imbued the property with is lost, and it lumbers on, soulless, consuming money like some kind of ravenous undead memetic monster. 

Zombie franchises exist for one purpose, and one purpose only: to make money. That's it. It IS a business. But most creative people don't get into it just for the money; they want something more. They want to say SOMETHING. Beyond 'Give me your money,' that is.

The Combine cares first and foremost about the bottom line. That's why we have been inundated with lame remakes and reboots composed of pureed narrative mush for decades. Thankfully, miraculously, there are gems of sheer brilliance to be found in the chaff, brought into existence by force of will, creative genius, and selfless cooperation. 

But the mush? They'll keep making that until we stop watching. 

It's the only way to really kill Jason, Freddy, Wayne or Parker.