So while the newly-minted comic artists were learning how to wrangle prompts in order to pan for usable specks of digital gold among the dross, I realized that the strengths of AI art generation – rapid, nonspecific art creation – was perfect for the type of story Star Maker is. In my estimation, when it comes to creating story-driven art involving human beings and action, is a modest improvement at best right now over traditional artists (and most of the time, turns pleasant creative work into a frustrating cycle of messing with prompts, cropping, creative editing, and overheated GPUs.) The mechanism that AI automation sped up was the raw generation of art. I didn’t have anything like that.īut then I realized that these artists were using the sudden ubiquity of art to create graphic novels specifically. Those were probably stories those writers had been sitting on for years, by people desperate to write something. In other words, they had a story to tell, and finally had the means to tell it. I saw a lot of writers learning and using Midjourney/Stable Diffusion as a means to write the original stories and comics they wanted to create, but didn’t have the artistic skills to do so. After all, there’s no point in doing something exactly like what everyone else is doing. When I learn a new tool, one of the first things I start doing is thinking of unique things I can do with it – things someone else hasn’t thought about doing, or at least most people haven’t thought of. You visualized “Star Maker” by Olaf Stapledon with AI. Kevin Hess’ graphic novel of Star Maker will be released on September 20 on Amazon and Google Play. I wouldn’t call myself an artist,” says Hess.

He doesn’t even consider himself an artist, as impressive as his work may be. Hess, therefore, does not see himself in competition with artists. From Hess’ standpoint, AI was the only solution to create this work. In this respect, there would never have been a budget for human artists whose work could have replaced the machine. Image: Midjourney prompted by Kevin HessĪgainst the backdrop of the current intense debates about the impact of AI on artists, Hess takes his graphic novel out of the firing line, saying that no publisher would ever have invested in this project. And even if he could, a graphic novel on this scale would be “a life’s work,” says Hess.

That’s partly because he himself “can’t draw at all,” he says. In any case, the work would not have been possible without AI image generators, says Hess. AI generators decouple the idea from the craft An insane speed that could only be achieved thanks to AI automation. The finished illustrated novella is 706 pages long and was created in about 100 hours, which is about 8.5 minutes per page.

Star maker novel